Soccer Thread 2015-16

[The Jackal]

Bleh. Sorry France.

[Critch]

I 40% watched the final, and 60% watched a webcam of bears fishing for salmon in Alaska. I dont feel like I made a bad decision with my split. If anything I watched too much of the football, the bears had more excitement, one of them fell in.

Bring on proper football again, back to the teams, this international guff is boring.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Critch

this international guff is boring.

There is that... though the Copa America was pretty exciting end to end stuff. However, I think there is somewhat a default to dull soccer in international play simply because the players haven't really played with each other that much and therefore offensive linkup play is a bit more difficult, as you don't really know where your teammate wants to go - which would be something you'd know if you played with him 30+ times a year. Easier just to play defensively.

[Critch]

The Copa America was pretty exciting when it thinned out the poor teams. A lot of the group games were pretty poor quality and riddled with diving/kicking. Or maybe that was just Panama.

Argentina and Chile did look like the class teams of the summer though, could make a fair claim that if this was a World Cup year that would have been the final.

[sovereignstar v2]

I think many players are knackered by the end of May and the international tourneys push their bodies to the limit. This can have an effect on the quality of play. Does any other sport have nearly the grueling schedule that some of these players are up against?

[bhlloy]

I think there's some truth to both of those statements (familiarity and fatigue), plus the fact that some of today's millionaire soccer players don't really give a shit about playing for their country and would much rather have a month in Marbella in June/July.

I think you only need to look at how some of the smaller teams sing the anthems and interact with their fans compared to some of the big names in the Euros to suggest that might be the case - England v Iceland being the obvious one.

[whomario]

They are 90% of the cause, for me, actually. It´s no coincidence that the big nations basically all suffered from heavy injury problems as they are the ones that have most of their players in the big clubs playing 50-60 matches a year (as opposed to 30-40). The whole calendar is just insanely bloated. I mean, the club teams are playing friendlies again already and the players involved in the Euro will get like 3 weeks off between seasons at the most.

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I think you only need to look at how some of the smaller teams sing the anthems and interact with their fans compared to some of the big names in the Euros to suggest that might be the case - England v Iceland being the obvious one.

Have you seen the Italians before a game ?

Nationalism and national pride is an extremely dividing subject in Europe and generally the way to express this differs vastly from country to country and person to person. Considering that the last few tournaments were won by Spain (who have a ton of players actually advocating their regional heritage over spanish one and draw heavy criticism for it, i.e. Catalonia) and Germany (where there is an ongoing debate over players not being "really german" and this whole not-singing the hymn thing is actually a thing) ...

The big teams (or some of their players) may care for different reasons, but care for the wins they do. This isn´t basketball where people skip tournaments, those are still considered as the crowning achievement of a career and held in higher esteem than a Champions League Title.

And the interaction with fans is obviously different because the whole "operation" is much bigger.

England lost because they had a ton of young players who are neither as good as people think nor as far along as they need to be and who were coached horribly, if at all. And because their more experienced players also crapped their pants (seriously, watch Rooney basically become catatonic as the game progressed). They also played in a tactical shape 90% of them never play in with quite a few key pieces being played out of position. There is also an incredibly poisonous and unhealthy media landscape in England building up insane amounts of pressure on the players who get raised less on "winning is great" but on "loosing is shameful".