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The 2024-2025 Football Thread

You know its a bad day when Timo Werner scores against you.

Pep choosing to focus on EPL, CL and FA Cup. His B team not enough to overcome Spurs.
 
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Massive weekend coming up for the Australian A-League with the first ever all-NZ clash.
New team Auckland FC (bankrolled by Bill Foley - current owner of Bournemouth) travel to Wellington to take on the long-time A-League club Wellington Phoenix.
Some people are trying to start a bit of a fake rivalry with faux-animosity, but it'll grow organically, in the same way that any NZ-based teams tend to do in sport.
I went to the first Auckland FC game a couple of weeks ago and the crowd was awesome.
I am looking forward to this one.

As for the Saints? Looking forward to some Championship football again next season. I really enjoyed that. I have largely lost interest in the PL already.
 
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NOV 2nd
 
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HandsomeDanNZ said:
Massive weekend coming up for the Australian A-League with the first ever all-NZ clash.
New team Auckland FC (bankrolled by Bill Foley - current owner of Bournemouth) travel to Wellington to take on the long-time A-League club Wellington Phoenix.
Some people are trying to start a bit of a fake rivalry with faux-animosity, but it'll grow organically, in the same way that any NZ-based teams tend to do in sport.
I went to the first Auckland FC game a couple of weeks ago and the crowd was awesome.
I am looking forward to this one.

As for the Saints? Looking forward to some Championship football again next season. I really enjoyed that. I have largely lost interest in the PL already.
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I miss the A-League. Went to a Melbourne City match when i was staying in Victoria for 3 months. Less scale than an EPL game but still fun and passionate fans.
 
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It has just been announced in the press that Man United have signed Ruben Amorim as their new manager. They have paid his release clause and an extra 1 million euros as compensation for not having to work his 30 day notice at Sporting.

The press release from United is comical because it is nearly exactly the same press release they gave when they signed ETH as the manager. Apparently he has a contract till 2027. No way is he going to get United back into winning ways by 2027. If he does then he be the best manager on the planet, being able to do what 6 managers have not been able to do. Mourinho is the only one that has come close.
 
laptech said:
It has just been announced in the press that Man United have signed Ruben Amorim as their new manager. They have paid his release clause and an extra 1 million euros as compensation for not having to work his 30 day notice at Sporting.

The press release from United is comical because it is nearly exactly the same press release they gave when they signed ETH as the manager. Apparently he has a contract till 2027. No way is he going to get United back into winning ways by 2027. If he does then he be the best manager on the planet, being able to do what 6 managers have not been able to do. Mourinho is the only one that has come close.
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I think it’s more that if they give him a shorter contract there is less to pay up if it doesn’t work out rather than thinking he will have got the job done by 2027.
 
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Now that Ruben Amorim is the new Man United manager and being of the same nationality as Jose Mourinho, what is the betting that one of the UK papers will have a headline of 'Amorim, the new 'special one?' because I we know what the UK press is like.
 
laptech said:
Now that Ruben Amorim is the new Man United manager and being of the same nationality as Jose Mourinho, what is the betting that one of the UK papers will have a headline of 'Amorim, the new 'special one?' because I we know what the UK press is like.
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Rather unlikely, to my mind.

This is because the term "The Special One" was something - a name, a moniker - that Jose Mourinho named himself, or described himself as, - and was a term that was subsequently used, both ironically, and otherwise, by the media - rather than the media actually bestowing this name on him.
 
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I don't know if it was ever translated but there are several interviews in Portuguese where he says that we was asked if he felt special, and he answered yes he did (as he had just won the CL) and as you may have noticed his English isn't that great, particularly at the time, and that special one thing came from that. And the press ran with it.
He probably then decided to embrace it. I have some friends from his home town that know him and he is a very friendly and easy going person. In particular a friend from my student days had him as PE teacher in Setúbal. He just has a totally different public personality. And of course nowadays is outdated as a manager.
 
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timber said:
I don't know if it was ever translated but there are several interviews in Portuguese where he says that we was asked if he felt special, and he answered yes he did (as he had just won the CL) and as you may have noticed his English isn't that great, particularly at the time, and that special one thing came from that.
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Hm.

I had thought that he - Jose Mourinho - had started out in football on his path to management as the translator, or interpreter (which would suggest that his English must have been more than perfectly adequate, as, in my experience, - and I have a lot of experience working in international environments - you can't work as a translator/interpreter otherwise) and fixer, or personal assistant, for Sir Bobby Robson, when the latter was manager of Sporting CP.
timber said:
And the press ran with it.
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Well, yes.

However, Mourinho did develop a monstrous ego; that, plus his temperament, (not to mention his outdated tactics) made his latter years in management an exercise in morose nihilism.
timber said:
He probably then decided to embrace it. I have some friends from his home town that know him and he is a very friendly and easy going person. In particular a friend from my student days had him as PE teacher in Setúbal.
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Interesting; I do know - because I recall reading about it - that he was considered very articulate, efficient, and intelligent, not to mention pretty approachable, in the days when he worked as Bobby Robson's assistant and interpreter.
timber said:
He just has a totally different public personality.
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Latterly, yes.
timber said:
And of course nowadays is outdated as a manager.
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Very true.
 
He was already working in football when he was chosen to help Sir Bobby Robson.
My guess would be that considering he completed a university degree (in PE) and had done manager courses in England someone thought he would be better suited than the typical former player type (at Sporting).
And he may understand English quite well and translate appropriately and efficiently but I always found his spoken English poor and even limited from a vocabulary pov.
I believe even the sentence that started the whole special one thing '"I think I'm a special one" shows that.
If you translate it directly and literally to Portuguese it sounds less self absorbed and narcissistic that the English version.
 
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The most ardent Sporting supporter at work yesterday was saying.
Amorim is gone but we still have Gyökeres.
Probably not for long.
 
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Apple fanboy said:
Sorry.
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Yes.
Apple fanboy said:
Liverpool now leading 2-1.
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Sigh.

Why does this come as no surprise?

Now, I really liked Klopp, - both as a man and as a manager - but must admit that Arne Slot seems to me to be doing exceptionally well following such an extraordinary act, something which can't be remotely easy.
Apple fanboy said:
So not going your way @Scepticalscribe
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I don't know why I laboured under the delusion - still less, actually thought - that this might be our season.

Moreover, it is clear - more than abundantly clear - that we are really missing Martin Odegaard.
 
Thats the title gone for me. Tbf its been coming since Leicester. We've not been great and today's easily been our worst performance of the season

Hopefully we get a cup, otherwise Arteta and the boys need to seriously do some soul searching

Personally i'm over Martinelli, Jesus, and Zinchenko. And Trossard needs to go back to the bench.

Should start Sterling and Nwaneri next game.
 
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Alphazoid said:
Thats the title gone for me. Tbf its been coming since Leicester. We've not been great and today's easily been our worst performance of the season

Hopefully we get a cup, otherwise Arteta and the boys need to seriously do some soul searching

Personally i'm over Martinelli, Jesus, and Zinchenko. And Trossard needs to go back to the bench.

Should start Sterling and Nwaneri next game.
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Yes, it has been our poorest start for a couple of seasons, and, to my mind, this is not one blip, an outlier of a poor performance, but a performance that is on a par with a number of other underwhelming performances this season.

In other words, it is the standard, the norm, not an unfortunate outlier, or off-day.

Unfortunately, I agree with you; at this stage, - yes, it is early in the season - but, I don't see us making a realistic challenge for the title.
 
Alphazoid said:
Thats the title gone for me. Tbf its been coming since Leicester. We've not been great and today's easily been our worst performance of the season

Hopefully we get a cup, otherwise Arteta and the boys need to seriously do some soul searching

Personally i'm over Martinelli, Jesus, and Zinchenko. And Trossard needs to go back to the bench.

Should start Sterling and Nwaneri next game.
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Are you kidding me!!! it's not even December yet and your saying the title is gone.
 
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laptech said:
Are you kidding me!!! it's not even December yet and your saying the title is gone.
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Not so much that the title is gone, but that it will be much harder to win it, as the margin for error (given how many points we have already dropped this season) has diminished considerably.

In other words, to achieve 90 points - the minimum we will need to be in a position to challenge for the title (and retain some of our destiny in our own hands, rather than hoping that other teams will also stumble) - we can only "afford" to drop a total of around 24 points over the course of the entire season.

Now, as it happens, we have already dropped twelve points, - considerably more than at a similar stage last season, or the season before, - and we are only at the beginning of November with six more months of the season to run.
 
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laptech said:
Are you kidding me!!! it's not even December yet and your saying the title is gone.
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We're 7 pts behind AND playing badly. We look unbalanced and disjointed.

We're scoring less and conceding more than in previous seasons. Nobody wins titles like that.

And there's no Dubai break this year to kickstart a run.

As it stands i'm not even sure we'll be able to beat Forrest at home.

Some will say i'm being negative...i think i'm just being realistic.
 
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Alphazoid said:
We're 7 pts behind AND playing badly. We look unbalanced and disjointed.

We're scoring less and conceding more than in previous seasons. Nobody wins titles like that.

And there's no Dubai break this year to kickstart a run.

As it stands i'm not even sure we'll be able to beat Forrest at home.

Some will say i'm being negative...i think i'm just being realistic.
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Unfortunately, I agree with you.
 
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