2020/21 International Club Football Thread

[devo22]

the German coaching carousel is finally coming to a halt, with Oliver Glasner going to Frankfurt and Wolfsburg replacing him with Mark van Bommel.

and if you enjoyed that game of musical chairs, Italy is great too.

- Simone Inzaghi leaving Lazio to take over at Inter
- Max Allegri going back to Juventus to replace Pirlo
- Luciano Spalletti taking over Napoli

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

To be fair the biggest difference Henderson might have made was in taking the 22nd penalty. I think of the first 20 combined penalties there were maybe two or three that any goalie had a decent chance to save. It was one of the higher quality shootouts we'll see.

You kidding? There were quite a few within a couple of feet of the centre of the goal and another good few that were a few feet inside the post. I reckon 6-8 were savable.

I honestly couldn't have cared less once it went to penalties and was like pretty much any other United fan knowing that the only chance they stood of winning was for a Villareal player to miss the target. Me and my son were just focusing on Dave's half arsed attempts to try and save one. The first two in particular he was a complete joke.

Oli imo got it wrong last night deviating away from what had got him there all season with the McFred midfield and Pogba on the left. He seemed to have one plan with his starting 11 and nothing else.

His decision to take off Greenwood ahead of Rashford with Greenwood being the only player who was getting in behind and causing any sort of threat was a complete headscratcher. Rashford was having a complete mare. I honestly felt they lost any chance of winning the game the moment they took Greenwood off and kept Rashford on.

What I saw last night was a scared manager. Scared to take a risk and make a change. Or one that had zero faith in his bench. The obvious change to me was to get Fred on, Rashford off and move Pogba back out to the left. Basically back to what they were familiar with and got them results.

Far too safe and cautious.


Having said that, there's a silver lining to it as it exposes the lack of depth at the club. Lindelof .... outmuscled again.
Early wish list.

• Dave gone. Not based on just last night. He's just a coward.
• I'm probably in the minority here but not bothered whether Pogba returns or not. In fact, moving on would still like to see him gone after that pre Leipzig crap. Brilliant player when on but far too patchy and too much drama with that fat agent that he can't control. He comes across as more about himself than the club. Use the money to get Grealish.
• Lindelof needs replacing. Priority #1
• Greenwood >>>Rashford
• Sancho, I honestly don't know much about asides from reading the hype. We'll see how that plays out. Fact is he hasn't done anything in the PL yet.
• Rice.

Basically would love to see Dave, Lingard, Pogba and one of McFred moved on with the money used towards a CB, Sancho, Grealish and Rice.

Put Tony on a short leash or if a decent offer comes in get rid of too.

[devo22]

Originally Posted by Bagor

I honestly couldn't have cared less once it went to penalties and was like pretty much any other United fan knowing that the only chance they stood of winning was for a Villareal player to miss the target. Me and my son were just focusing on Dave's half arsed attempts to try and save one. The first two in particular he was a complete joke.

yup. I had zero confidence in Dave saving one.

Originally Posted by Bagor

Oli imo got it wrong last night deviating away from what had got him there all season with the McFred midfield and Pogba on the left. He seemed to have one plan with his starting 11 and nothing else.

apparently Fred had a knock and couldn't go for 90, so that led to that decision. But I agree, it wasn't a very smart move. Pogba was way too deep and wasn't nearly as effective as he is on the left.

it also meant starting both Greenwood and Rashford, leaving him without an attacker he trusts to bring on later. Him being "scared" is spot on I think. Zero risks taken.

Originally Posted by Bagor

I'm probably in the minority here but not bothered whether Pogba returns or not. In fact, moving on would still like to see him gone after that pre Leipzig crap. Brilliant player when on but far too patchy and too much drama with that fat agent that he can't control. He comes across as more about himself than the club. Use the money to get Grealish.

nah I'm with you. Problem is I can't really see a market for him, the Spanish clubs have no money.

Originally Posted by Bagor

Basically would love to see Dave, Lingard, Pogba and one of McFred moved on with the money used towards a CB, Sancho, Grealish and Rice.

Rice is a can't-miss transfer IMO. His addition would completely change the balance of this team for the better. Sancho's an absolute beast of a player. People fawn over Haaland, but you ask 100 Dortmund fans who their best and most important player is and 99 will go Sancho.

Think those two are realistic. Grealish would be great, but I can't see it.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by devo22

the German coaching carousel is finally coming to a halt, with Oliver Glasner going to Frankfurt and Wolfsburg replacing him with Mark van Bommel.

and if you enjoyed that game of musical chairs, Italy is great too.

- Simone Inzaghi leaving Lazio to take over at Inter
- Max Allegri going back to Juventus to replace Pirlo
- Luciano Spalletti taking over Napoli

Gattuso who was Napoli coach ends up at Fiorentina too.

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

To be fair the biggest difference Henderson might have made was in taking the 22nd penalty. I think of the first 20 combined penalties there were maybe two or three that any goalie had a decent chance to save. It was one of the higher quality shootouts we'll see.

Henderson is really good at penalties, I believe I saw he's 6 for 13 in the prem.

Meanwhile as I mentioned above de Gea hasn't saved any of his last 40

That is no penalties saved since before Brexit

[devo22]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

Henderson is really good at penalties, I believe I saw he's 6 for 13 in the prem.

Meanwhile as I mentioned above de Gea hasn't saved any of his last 40

That is no penalties saved since before Brexit

nah, he hasn't faced that many in the Prem. He's saved 8 out of 17 as a pro though for United, Sheffield, Shrewsbury and Englands U21. He's 5 out of 9 in the last three seasons. It's a small sample size obviously, but if you compare it to De Gea ...

[devo22]

lol

https://twitter.com/user/status/1397997415974715396

[cam_wmh]

Haaland, Rice, Varane for me.

Sancho can stay at BVB, leave Greenwood on the right.

[Slava]

I wasn’t sure which thread to put this in, but UEFA is close to eliminating the away goals rule. This is incredibly stupid, IMO, because it’s a great rule. It pushes teams to score and I think without out we’re just going to see matches for to penalties more frequently. Why can’t these people just leave the most popular game on the planet alone?

[devo22]

I have mixed feelings. On paper, it's a dumb rule that might have made sense 50 years ago, but shouldn't really have a place in the modern game. Then again, I also fear it might lead to more boring second legs.

[The Big Chill]

Penalties should be avoided at all costs.

[GirlySports]

Getting rid of away goals will create more offense. The home team, especially in the 1st leg, are really scared to give up a goal. Holding the away team to 0-0 is considering a good result which is not good.

I think it would still be rare that a tie goes to penalties after 210 minutes.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Getting rid of away goals will create more offense. The home team, especially in the 1st leg, are really scared to give up a goal. Holding the away team to 0-0 is considering a good result which is not good.

I think it would still be rare that a tie goes to penalties after 210 minutes.

There's almost no evidence to support that though. 0-0 isn't more common in the first leg. Instead what you're going to see is more games that go to extra time and then penalties to decide who moves on. The fact that the away goals matter so much is part of what adds to the drama; teams that are down aren't just getting to even, they can score and be in a winning position. That's a huge swing!

[devo22]

well, I'm sure UEFA could use their newest Mickey Mouse competition to test drive this for a year or two.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Slava

There's almost no evidence to support that though. 0-0 isn't more common in the first leg. Instead what you're going to see is more games that go to extra time and then penalties to decide who moves on. The fact that the away goals matter so much is part of what adds to the drama; teams that are down aren't just getting to even, they can score and be in a winning position. That's a huge swing!

That is true, I do love when a team is down by essentially half a goal.


But if you talk to any manager, they will say that the away goals rule coaxes the home team to think about a clean sheet first and goalscoring second. There is a counter-effect as teams play at home not to concede goals.


I would suggest that the away goals rule only counts after extra time. So for example Chelsea beats PSG 2-1 at home but then PSG wins 3-2 at home. By current rules, Chelsea would advance on away goals, but maybe give PSG an extra 30 minutes to win it. Only after extra time do away goals count. This way Slava's half a goal scenario plays out even longer. They do this in the Carabao Cup i think.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

That is true, I do love when a team is down by essentially half a goal.


But if you talk to any manager, they will say that the away goals rule coaxes the home team to think about a clean sheet first and goalscoring second. There is a counter-effect as teams play at home not to concede goals.


I would suggest that the away goals rule only counts after extra time. So for example Chelsea beats PSG 2-1 at home but then PSG wins 3-2 at home. By current rules, Chelsea would advance on away goals, but maybe give PSG an extra 30 minutes to win it. Only after extra time do away goals count. This way Slava's half a goal scenario plays out even longer. They do this in the Carabao Cup i think.

But the results show is something different. Managers might say it entices them to sit back, and that might sound like the outcome. Reality is something different though. There are no more 0-0 finishes there and the away team wants to score as much as the home team wants to sit back.

Anyway, they should just stop messing around with what’s working just fine as it is.

[The Familia]

Sorry, but footballs archaic rules need a major overhaul.

Allowing a referee to arbitrarily decide how much injury time should be allotted based on what he deems adequate is ridiculous. It’s 2021, there must be a better way to keep track of time instead of a Casio watch. Hmmm let me think. Oh I know, how about stopping the clock for injuries, what a novel idea! Maybe I’m still bitter Italy got screwed out of Euro 2000 because the ref wouldn’t blow the whistle in injury time.

Here is another one that infuriates me...red cards. So one bonehead on the team takes a bad penalty and now the entire team and fan base suffers because of it? It completely changes the flow and feel of a game. Imagine if The Flames had to play an entire game down a man because Sam Bennett took a ####ty penalty in the first 2 mins. No other sport are players and teams treated as harshly for a penalty.

Failure to adopt wide scale video replay, ####ty offside rules (how about drawing an offside line), away goal rules as mentioned, the list goes on. I really only watch the big international tournaments and Champions
League finals out of national pride. The sport itself is genuinely painful to watch unless the match has high stakes.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I would hardly argue that the away goals rule is "fine as is", it's really not fine that a team should lose because it scored fewer goals away, even though it scored the same amount of goals overall. It's been an antiquated and dumb rule for a while, it's just there's no perfect solution to it as long as you go with two legged ties. But I'd say it's clearly fairer to eliminate it, even if it may lead to more penalty endings (although there's also no guarantee it will). I think if nothing else it's worth seeing what happens, if it makes things more negative you can always change it back.

[GirlySports]

The final is on CBS! If you don't have DAZN.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

The final is on CBS! If you don't have DAZN.

The prospect of watching Man City vs Chelsea and that one of those clown clubs is going to hoist a trophy at the end is nauseating.

It would more palatable if they just dressed Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour in those sumo-suits and made them fight each other in a Scrooge-McDuckian vault of money.