13 hours ago, Valpo said:

I do like the European system of best record wins essentially although it helps to have 3 possible results as opposed to 2.  (Less ties that way)

While the regular season can end up having some meaningfulness games at the end, one has to remember that the vast majority of the regular is meaningful in terms of playoff positioning.  And you have to do well enough in the beginning of the season to get there in the first place.

I would be cool with regular season winners being the champs.  I just am not fond of only the 5 or 6 richest clubs ever having any chance.

Like I see some advantages of the European system don't get me wrong.  I just feel like it is worse that in the EPL you can rule out 15 of 20 teams for the championship before the first match.

On the other hand if we have an NFL season probably at least half the teams have a legit shot to win... Some more than others of course.  And it's not always going to be the same team.

Like 5 years ago the Chiefs were a terrible team at the bottom of the NFL.

Look at the EPL table from 5 years ago and I will bet the top 5 teams are all top 10 this year.  Odds are 4 of them are in the top 5 this year as well.

I haven't even looked but you know it's likely the case or close to it.

How much does the Champions league slate change from year to year?  

I agree. I follow the NHL and the system is very good. Actually in Europe you can't even call it a system. There is none. Rich clubs do anything they want. There are some makeshift rules like FFP. If a system was in place you wouldn't need these weird rules. Don't get me wrong FFP is very good but rich clubs work around it. In the NHL teams work around rules as well but it is not wild west like European football is. 

Salary caps and the player drafting system is a brilliant way of even the playing field so to say. 

I think European football will go to that direction. All these makeshift rules will make someone realize some day it should be more controlled. It will push people like Abramovich away from football but in general that should be a good thing. 

15 hours ago, Phillip said:

Valpo, you are forgetting an important difference , that being in the US, the regular season means jack squat (is that a phrase you Brits know?)

I’d have gone with either jack sh*t or diddly squat but I only speak for people from the civilised parts of the UK...

Oh yeah, Pulisic is doing alright. 

Yes, Munkworth, those are very close synonyms.

Personally I feel that the league system in the MLS and LigaMX is pretty exciting too, specially the Mexican league since they get to have 2 playoffs.

2 hours ago, evissy said:

I agree. I follow the NHL and the system is very good. Actually in Europe you can't even call it a system. There is none. Rich clubs do anything they want. There are some makeshift rules like FFP. If a system was in place you wouldn't need these weird rules. Don't get me wrong FFP is very good but rich clubs work around it. In the NHL teams work around rules as well but it is not wild west like European football is. 

Salary caps and the player drafting system is a brilliant way of even the playing field so to say. 

I think European football will go to that direction. All these makeshift rules will make someone realize some day it should be more controlled. It will push people like Abramovich away from football but in general that should be a good thing. 

 

The sports system in America forces the coaches, managers, directors, etc. to earned their salaries. 

They can't get away with poor performances. Their incompetents will be exposed.

An average/mediocre coach in Europe is still able to win trophies easily if they manage a PSG, Bayern, or Madrid.

An average sporting director/manager can still buy incredible players if they have $500M checkbook every year to spend. Who needs to do any scouting or recruiting? 

Juve won the league titles the past 9 or 10 years, PSG and Bayern are similar? Can you honestly say the competition in those leagues are good? Hardly, you already know the league winner before a ball is kick.

 

1 hour ago, haviet1 said:

 

The sports system in America forces the coaches, managers, directors, etc. to earned their salaries. 

They can't get away with poor performances. Their incompetents will be exposed.

An average/mediocre coach in Europe is still able to win trophies easily if they manage a PSG, Bayern, or Madrid.

An average sporting director/manager can still buy incredible players if they have $500M checkbook every year to spend. Who needs to do any scouting or recruiting? 

Juve won the league titles the past 9 or 10 years, PSG and Bayern are similar? Can you honestly say the competition in those leagues are good? Hardly, you already know the league winner before a ball is kick.

 

I wonder honesty if there is some way of combining a promotion/relegation system with having a salary/spending cap.

That would be ideal but I don't see how it could be done because everyone would have to spend down to level of the poorest team in the division who would often be a newly promoted club.

I like a lot of aspects of the European system but it's flaw in which the rich clubs dominate is so massive that it's fatal.

Sport Trac says that Manchester City is spending 145.7 million pounds in player wages this year.  Sheffield U is spending 12.2 million.  Wage spending isn't everything of course but when the numbers are that far out of wack it's just flat out impossible for the lower spending teams to compete.

Some other stats to chew on.  La Liga has been around for 91 years.  Only 9 teams have ever won it.  More than half of those times by Real or Barcelona.

The Bundesliga is actually one of the more competitive leagues in Europe with 12 champs in 57 seasons.  But Munich still has half of all the championships.

By comparison the NFL in its current format has had 20 different teams crowned champs in 53 years with 2 different teams with 6 championships a piece.  13 teams have won more than once.

Edited July 9, 20206 yr by Valpo

 

https://twitter.com/johnspacemuller/status/1280518824723386369?s=20

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, haviet1 said:

 

https://twitter.com/johnspacemuller/status/1280518824723386369?s=20

 

Reverting back to the topic of the thread, this might explain to me what Lampard ment about scoring inside the 6 yard box being a big deal.  Maybe he is essentially talking about off the ball movement and finding a way to lose the guy marking him . .. or at least give himself some space.

4 hours ago, Valpo said:

Reverting back to the topic of the thread, this might explain to me what Lampard ment about scoring inside the 6 yard box being a big deal.  Maybe he is essentially talking about off the ball movement and finding a way to lose the guy marking him . .. or at least give himself some space.

Just look at how Muller plays. The guy is the embodiment of being at the right place at the right time.

I'm impressed by how humble and hardworking he is.

7 minutes ago, Deino said:

I'm impressed by how humble and hardworking he is.

 

He has always been that way. These characters will carry him a long way. If you like McBride in the EPL, you will love this guy. 

McBride might have lack talents, but he was supreme in having hearts and work ethics.

 

 

5 minutes ago, robdog said:

 

Good job he blew his nose before deciding on that camera angle

 

22 hours ago, haviet1 said:

 

https://twitter.com/johnspacemuller/status/1280518824723386369?s=20

 

Who on earth do we even have at the club who’s qualified to know anything about arriving in the box at the perfect moment? 

Just now, Munkworth said:

Who on earth do we even have at the club who’s qualified to know anything about arriving in the box at the perfect moment? 

Jody Morris, then trumpet....

The game is on national TV in midday here in the states with nothing else happening sports wise.  Seems like NBC should have sold this game more.  I would be interested in the ratings.  I think they could sell a lot of merch if CP shines today.

Not necessarily going to be his type of game but made it happen last time with what I thought was mostly a sub par performance.

On 08/07/2020 at 17:37, Valpo said:

I will probably get attacked for this but I prefer the American system.

Let's be honest, the top teams Europe stay on top because they have more money than everyone else and pay for better players.

Most US sports have salary caps so everyone has the same resources.  So it's not always the same teams on top.  The Patriots won the Superbowl 6 times in the last 20 years which is huge.  The 90's bulls also won I think like 6 times.

EPL has been around 28 years and Man U is only one title shy of winning half of them. 

Trust me I get the things that relegation adds to it, it makes all the games more interesting.  But going over the last 28 years of the NFL or the NBA or even probably MLB I can guarantee that the title has been won by more than 7 clubs.

I admit there are some teams in the US that are very poorly managed.  But most teams are not that incompetent.  On the other hand, half the EPL teams know they have no chance of pulling in the kind of cash necessary to bring in the players to win.

 

Me too. I have to admit to being totally shocked that it's tolerated. The Patriots dynasty was a radical aberration in a lot of ways. There have always been dynasties in pro football, but there has never been one like the Patriots, especially since Free Agency began 25 years ago or so. Nobody probably wants a tour through the decades beyond diehards, but I can simply reference that across the decades there have been innumerable successful teams rising and falling over time, mostly due to good fortune with ownership/General Management/and some key signings/draftings over the years (considering it's a sport where one position has historically been so critical) but it's telling that in a league like the NFL, there's essentially virtually no teams without a history of success, If I think about all the teams, even teams that have been bad for decades like the Cardinals, Lions, Bengals, or have just been notoriously snakebite like the Browns or Jets have all had their moments (the Cardinals lost a classic Super Bowl and made title games in the thirties and forties if memory serves, the Lions were great in the fifties and made a title game in '91, the Bengals made two Super Bowls in the eighties, the browns were the dynasty of the fifties in the AFL, the Jets had '69 and moments in the early eighties and late aughts. No fanbase has loved a franchise that was never any good at all, all of them have been good and most have either won titles or played for them in the past 30+years with only a half dozen or so teams outside that realm. I cannot imagine the loyalty of a fanbase of teams that literally have no chance EVER to win period and it's basically built into the game that it's that way. Baseball and Basketball have somewhat similar issues due to revenue sharing issues in the case of the former, and due to the nature of the sport and player power w/regards to basketball but there's still hope if you have quality management best summarized by multiple curses falling in the past 15 years (Red Sox curse didn't make it to 90 years, White Sox curse ended a year later, and the Cubs curse was demolished by continuing the Indians curse back in '16, which is now the longest of the curses after the Nationals won last year to break the DC Baseball curse which extended to the 1920's). It's just amazing to me that European fan bases tolerate situations in which only a handful of teams really ever have anything like a chance. It's kind of insane to me, but the relegation system is super fascinating, but not possible in our country because of how sports ownership evolved over the decades, our leagues developed differently than yours, and I guess that's why it was never even exactly considered. 

Fascinating to think about and I wish it was possible over here but I think it would only be possible w/a brand new sport being built from scratch, I can't see it any other way which is unfortunate because it's a spectacular way to reward quality Front Offices and punish incompetent management. Fans of the Knicks, or fans of my redskins are basically punished for the life of the owners. We know with owners like Dolan and Snyder there is literally no hope whatsoever. Relegation might make that different, maybe these clowns would sell if they knew ownership carried such risks, alas, ownership of those teams is a license to print money for the rest of your lives and that of your heirs, and so we're stuck with fools like Dan Snyder and James Dolan. 

 

 

Wasn't excellent, but did well enough to help win the game today.

 

Noticing that he is top level attacking yet once he decides to stop going forward and turn backwards he has a tendency to lose the ball setting up the opposition for the counter attack, seen it 3 or four times since the restart.

Lets hope Frank sees this too. 

This article is a good read.  Sure its ESPN, but there is a reasonable level of objectivity included throughout.  Interesting company/comparisons, and if he can stay fit, think we have quite a productive player on our hands.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/chelsea/story/4137168/christian-pulisics-first-premier-league-season-compares-to-stars-like-sadio-mane-and-raheem-sterling

He should be among the players shortlisted for the Young Player Of The Year award. Him and Mount that is.

I don't think that Rashford and Foden were better than him at all.

8 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I don't think that Rashford and Foden were better than him at all.

There is absolutely no way any player other than Rashford is winning that, regardless of how good they've been this season.

Rapinoe winning the top award despite playing a tiny number of games has soured me on all these awards.

I agreed. It almost certainly Rashford.

Did Hazard ever won this award?

9 hours ago, haviet1 said:

I agreed. It almost certainly Rashford.

Did Hazard ever won this award?

Yeah he did, won it in his first or second season here, I think his second.