Uli Hoeneß of Bayern Munich said the Dortmund model has failed, because players who are only hired as sales objects can never fully identify with the club if they are just hired to be sold, they can never suck up the club DNA that way. Guess what. Sales object Sancho stays, DNA carrier Alaba leaves, Uli Hoeneß is a complete and utter failure once again and deserves to be buried in the sands of time.

The advertisement project of a softdrink company can now defeat Atletico Madrid. RIP football.

So, what team are you guys rooting for to win the Champions League? I am personally rooting for Man City. I don't like Bayern because I am a BVB fan, I don't want Barcelona to win it because I don't like Messi, and I don't care for french football. I also don't like Leipzig all that much either.

How has the model not failed in comparison when Bayern Munich won the league 13 points ahead of Dortmund? Also I doubt Alaba was brought in to be sold. Selling someone or having them leave for free doesn't mean there was a plan on selling them.


The two quarter-finals already played ended terrible, since two super plastic clubs won against two very respectable and interesting clubs.

Anyway, my preference for the remaining teams are in this order:
1. Lyon
2. Bayern Munich
3. Barcelona
4. Manchester C
5. Paris Saint-Germain
6. The energy drink

Really, only clubs 1-3 are somewhat acceptable from a sound football perspective.

If you see it as a failure to go from being a club with pretty much a bunch of nobodies to having a roster full of internationally coveted superstars in the space of a decade I don't know what to tell you. Sure the bunch of nobodies won their last two titles under Jürgen Klopp but financially it has been an incredible success story that made giant leaps in closing the financial gap between them and more-money-than-god Bayern. All of that legally and legitimately without the Wolf of Wall Street style criminal activity that made Bayern big.

I believe the failure part was in comparison to Bayern Munich, who clearly don't get players with the plan to sell them. Dortmund have made great achievements though, and I certainly prefer them over Bayern Munich. In fact I prefer all German clubs over Bayern Munich except the strongly corporation-connected ones like RB Leipzig, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim, and also except Hannover and Union Berlin, both for reasons connected to Sweden. Maybe I'll throw Hamburg in there too... But other than those, all German clubs would be ahead of Bayern Munich according to my preference any given season.

Add Hertha BSC Berlin, since that big investor joined last year they're almost like Hoffenheim on steroids. Instantly jumped from having a b-list team to having one of the most expensive rosters in Germany, too.

i saw most of barca - bayern... what a game

Watched the highlights of city - lyon

Both games show the effects of this being an unusual season. Barca and city just lack the real focus thats needed to win the CL in a normal season. Bayern actually played like this was a normal year. Lyon were clearly extra motivated and just punished the unfocusedness of city.

Welcome to the Canadian Premier League, Atletico Ottawa My hometown’s newest team played to a spirited 2-2 draw against York 9, despite spending much of the second half down a man. When we’re allowed to attend matches again, I expect to be at Lansdowne even more regularly!

Maybe you'll see a lot of people around you getting into football now that your country is starting to have one of the most famous players on the planet.

Btw Bayern won every game in every competition in the second half of the season, except one. A narrow draw against RB Leipzig that Red Bull nearly one.

I hope so! We are co-hosting the 2026 World Cup, but it would feel much more honourable if we qualified the hard way for 2022 and got that real experience first. Can one superstar get us in?
I’d be interested to see if Canada becomes an outpost of Bayern fandom now. Folks over here generally don’t like dynasty teams much - unless it was already your team of course.

Fuck Bayern Munich but Alphonzo Davies is one fucking awesome football player. One of the top ten in the world right now.

I know RBL got the worst reputation of any football club but really i find them a lot more appealing than the oil money clubs. PSG is a pretty lame club to watch even if they are technically better than RBL.

Bayerns first half today vs Lyon was just as good as any club has played this year. I do not see PSG being able to keep up if Bayern plays like that in the final.

Spain just won another European trophy, by Sevilla winning the Europa League.

So now we have the CL final of FC Qatar Doha vs Doha Saint-Germain. Farce of the century. Only way to ever top that would be RB Leipzig vs RB Salzburg.

Apparently Messi might be going to Man City.

Amateur German team Ripdorf, worried their opponents were exposed to COVID19, attempt to play “socially distant” match against Holdenstedt, lose 37-0:
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/ger ... 55wss.html
With his teammates practically standing there immobile on the field, I am amazed at Ripdorf’s goalie keeping the score down to 37

First Bayern Munich defeated Barcelona with 8-2 in the CL some month ago. Now they started the Bundesliga season by defeating Schalke with 8-0.

They're on the level you reach when playing Football Manager for a long time and your team becomes a self-playing piano, and the game is essentially over since it gets boring being so dominant.

As much as I have always disliked Bayern Munich for its arrogance and especially Uli Hoeness for his mean antics, I must say that they have deserved to win all three titles last season and the fact that they start this new season with a whopping 8-0 win against another veteran team is absolutely impressive. However, Schalke must quickly change things. I have no problem with Wagner but the coaching staff should be fired after such an under-performance and some weak veteran players should immediately be replaced by younger talents. Schalke had sixteen winless games in a row last season. This year, they might be serious candidates for relegation. The only weaker team on paper this season might be Arminia Bielefeld.

American former "super talent" Freddy Adu, who is now 31, has signed with Swedish fourth tier division club Österlen.

VAR reaches farcical levels in the EPL last night. Everton's keeper should have been sent off in the first few minutes. And apparently VAR is now giving offsides for players clearly onside. I'm actually growing to detest the game I've loved for 30 years.

The TMO in rugby is similarly boring - introduced to mollify babies / (and in football, shareholders) - all it does is introduce several ten minute periods of standing around watching screens into every game. Even lower-level games can turn into this, if someone is recording. Truly ridiculous stuff.

I get the arguments in favour of it - but if the solution is video analysis, perhaps the question should be 'are the current rules clear', rather than 'how much does the kit cost' ?

Ajax broke a record for the Dutch league when beating Venlo away with 13-0. Even though I have no relation to Venlo, it kind of pisses me off that a team would concede thirteen goals at home in a league match. They should abstain from salary or something.

I feel like Ajax might have been pissed off after that undeserved loss to Liverpool. 3-1 would have been more deserved than the 0-1 but sometimes it just doesnt happen.

Shakhtar Donetsk, who recently beat Real Madrid away, now lost at home to Mönchengladbach with 0-6...

Wow Sevilla sure turned the game round today, behind 0-2 only to win 3-2 with a man down.

Diego Armando Maradona is dead.

As an Argentinean born after his playing days, I was never a fan of him, for all for what I've known him throughout my life was controversies regarding his drug addiction, misogyny and unrecognized children, but today a little part of me died with Diego. He was so embedded into our culture that we just never thought he could ever be gone. I think I've never seen so many journalists cry in live TV in my life, everyone broke down crying when the news of Maradona's death broke out.

I feel specially sad for those people in Napoli, they loved Maradona just as much as we did, but for them, he meant the entire world, Maradona drove them to win two Scudettos and a UEFA cup, and cemented Napoli as a very decent club in Italy and Europe.

RIP Diego.

died on the same day as his buddy Fidel too

R.I.P. to the legend. Like him or not he was one of the best football players of all time. Despite his controversial post- athlete life he was truly a symbol like Ayrton Senna, Pele or Jordan.

Fun fact here is a video of him talking about how incredible is the atmosphere in Greek stadiums : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-pdqYBO_4o&ab_channel=chabos4

PAOK was defeated 1-0 in Napoli and the 1-1 result in Toumba led the Italian team into the next round of the UEFA cup in 1988.

Six teams advance, four as group leaders, the Bundesliga slightly beats La Liga to the best European haul.

Dortmund coach Lucien Favre has been sacked. Not surprising, since BVB went from second in the league to fifth place right now.

The draws for the first play-off rounds in the CL and EL are done:

CL:
Mönchengladbach - Manchester C
Lazio - Bayern Munich
Atletico Madrid - Chelsea
Leipzig - Liverpool
Porto - Juventus
Barcelona - Paris Saint-Germain
Sevilla - Dortmund
Atalanta - Real Madrid

EL:
Wolfsberger - Tottenham
Dynamo Kyiv - Club Brugge
Sociedad - Manchester U
Benfica - Arsenal
Red Star - Milan
Antwerp - Rangers
Slavia Prague - Leicester
Salzburg - Villareal
Braga - Roma
Krasnodar - Dinamo Zagreb
Young Boys - Leverkusen
Molde - Hoffenheim
Granada - Napoli
Maccabi Tel Aviv - Shakhtar Donetsk
Lille - Ajax
Olympiacos - PSV Eindhoven

Can’t believe I forgot to post about this at the time, but Celtic’s ownership of every Scottish trophy since 2017 has been interrupted! Ross County (my ancestral home team) bumped Celtic out of the League Cup This is Celtic’s first loss in that tournament since 2016, when they were also beaten by Ross County.

It also looks like they won't defend the championship. After 17 games, Rangers have 15 wins, 2 draws and no losses, and the amazing goal difference of 47-4... Even if Celtic win the two games they have before having played the same number of games as Rangers, they're still seven points behind. Sure, it's a long way to go, but that goal difference says something about the stability of Rangers. Compare to Celtic's 37-14.

If Rangers win the league, it will once again stop a club from winning ten in a row. The current streak by Celtic is the third time a club has won nine in a row:
Celtic 1966-74
Rangers 1989-97
Celtic 2012-2020

And of course, each time the other of these two clubs have been the one to hinder a tenth in a row. So it'll be interesting to see whether history repeats itself at the end of this season or if Celtic can manage to become the first one to win ten in a row.

I'm a bit envious of that kind of "real" competition for the championship, even if it's only two teams. the bundesliga is sooo boring with bayern munich dominating it the way they have been for...almost 10 years as well, I guess? I don't see dortmund seriously endangering bayern hegemony for years to come, let alone any other club.

speaking of the bundesliga: lewandowski has been elected fifa world footballer of the year 2020, and neuer has been elected fifa world goalkeeper. klopp is the new fifa world football coach.
in other bundesliga news, schalke 04, who are currently at the very bottom of the league on the worst downward trajectory I've ever seen, have sacked their coach manuel baum after less than three months, just to replace him with huub stevens. stevens, who has now retired from retirement, is now coaching schalke for the third or fourth time and has been announced the "interim coach" for "at least" the next two league games. with no prospect beyond that whatsoever. seriously, this club never ceases to wtf me.

LOL you should see the "competition" that exists in Greek football. Olympiakos has won all the championships the last 16 times the last 20 years. Only in 2004, 2010, 2018 and 2019 another team secured the title. Out of 16 championships 9 of hem were doubles.

Olympiakos has, currently, 45 titles. More than the sum of all the other teams' titles. There is no competition amongst Greek clubs. My team PAOK in 2014 had a new investor who put nearly 100.000.000 euros in the club. After 5 years of trying it needed a perfect year to clinch the title from Olympiakos. Olympiakos just… wins. Every. Time.

The sad part is that despite it absolute dominance in Greece he does poorly in European tournaments.

Gotta lift your hat to Norwegian champions Bodø/Glimt, becoming champions for the first time ever and doing so in a stunning way. They took 81 points in 30 games, which is 19 more than the runner-up. They only lost one game and drew in three, which means 26 wins out of 30 possible. Their goal difference was +71, which is 30 higher than the second best. And they did so by scoring the insane amount of 103 goals and conceding 32... 103 goals in 30 games! And from what I've heard they have a fairly young squad too that doesn't intimidate anyone on paper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Elit ... ague_table

Last night Sporting CP won the Portuguese League Cup for the third time by beating Braga 1-0.

Jurgen Klopp now the bookies favourite for the next manager to leave in the Premier League.