Futebol

Could anyone either or post or suggest a good long read of Bielsa's coaching career. I know that he is a really influential tactician who is cited as an influence by Pep, Klopp, etc. but I only have the vaguest idea of his own managerial career.

chrondog wrote:Soma, are you from Leeds and the moved to Brighton?

I am eternally damned because when I tracked my family lineage back from Liverpool to Ellis Island in 1920, I found that my great grandparents were indentured servants from Netherfield near Nottingham and I decided I was a Forest fan *FACEPALM*

I spent the first five years of my life in Leeds and then mostly grew up in Bath/Wiltshire, which is every bit as exciting as it sounds.

We're top of league!

WP64 wrote:Could anyone either or post or suggest a good long read of Bielsa's coaching career. I know that he is a really influential tactician who is cited as an influence by Pep, Klopp, etc. but I only have the vaguest idea of his own managerial career.

i haven't read this myself, but hard to go wrong with Jonathan Wilson on Argentinean football: http://8by8mag.com/el-loco/

Soma wrote:

chrondog wrote:Soma, are you from Leeds and the moved to Brighton?

I am eternally damned because when I tracked my family lineage back from Liverpool to Ellis Island in 1920, I found that my great grandparents were indentured servants from Netherfield near Nottingham and I decided I was a Forest fan *FACEPALM*

I spent the first five years of my life in Leeds and then mostly grew up in Bath/Wiltshire, which is every bit as exciting as it sounds.

We're top of league!

my dad is obsessed with collecting these little model cars called Brooklin Models, handmade in Bath

Liverpool have an absolutely brutal schedule the next month.

I am "sick" from work today so that I can stress watch Inter - Tottenham. I have been waiting for this day for such a long time.

I am pretty excited to see how PSG and Liverpool match up after as well.

Arsenal are fun again

chrondog wrote:Arsenal are fun again

I don’t think they have a very good team but yes their win against Everton was entertaining.

Good thing I agree they aren't a "very good" team! We'll hopefully go deep in Europa League and finish 6th in the league again. My absolute highest ambition this year is a shock finish above Man United, which I don't think will happen, and would be based on their collapse rather than our success.

We have no top quality center backs, functional but not amazing full backs, an engine room full of spare parts that don't fit, and a talented attacking force that lacks a true focus. Auba on the left and Laca through the middle is a combination that I think we will stick with and will continue to improve. A front six that involves 6/7 of Auba, Laca, Iwobi, Ramsey, Xhaka, Torreira, and Guendouzi is much more athletic and powerful than we've had in several years. Ozil is the odd man out here, but that's a decent luxury problem to have (despite his ludicrous wages).

I hope City wins the treble this year and blanks 'Pool.

I love Jose Mourinho.

Fuck my life!

If any of you have not read the article in The Athletic about Mike Piazza & his crazy wife bankrupting Italian club Reggiano I highly recommend it.

Just sign up for the free trial and then cancel it is worth the trouble for this article alone.

I was reading this interview with him recently, where he basically blames everyone but himself. It's a pretty common thing for lower league (and even Serie A teams like Fiorentina and Napoli) to end up filing for bankruptcy. The team he owned is pretty close to where my family lives actually.

Nick, anyway you could just copy/paste the article? I don't want to go through the process of subscribing and canceling...

Just wanna say to all my futbol bros, really loving this season. So much drama and Arsenal are competent and fun! Mourinho, the enemy of football, is gone.

I love Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, and football!

chrondog wrote:My absolute highest ambition this year is a shock finish above Man United, which I don't think will happen, and would be based on their collapse rather than our success.

It's been an interesting season so far. The Premier League is even more top-heavy than usual. Torreira has quickly become my favorite player.

Nick wrote:Just sign up for the free trial and then cancel it is worth the trouble for this article alone.

Is The Athletic really worth it? They have a couple of writers who stuff I would like to read and $45 for the first year really isn't bad. But there is already so much free media and content to consume (and I should probably spend more time doing other shit with my life than reading about sports). Care to weigh in on this Nick?

It’s definitely not worth it.

go bears

Nick wrote:It’s definitely not worth it.

Bummer

It's really difficult to place a value of sports journalism in a world where so much of it is free.

The Athletic has a narrow appeal to superfans of sports journalism. I think that's a decent business model, especially because they have strong VC backing to figure out some of the nuances of that model.

They have great writers, but in the end sportswriting is not an essential service. It's easy to skip.

Bielsa delivering a PowerPoint presentation showing how he prepares for a match is incredible.

It's amazing that Liverpool have already won the league and that Arsenal are sitting in fourth place right now.

Here are extended highlights for anyone who wants them: https://hdmatches.com/2019/02/23/video-sevilla-vs-barcelona-highlights-full-match-23-february-2019/

Dunno why I felt the need to delete that post before anyone responded to it. Maybe just one of those ones where I said something so mundane I couldn't figure out why I felt the need to type it. But yeah, cracking game, cracking performance, his first goal in particular