2006-07 Soccer Thread

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by moriarty

Good grief. What is the possible justification for needing a flare at a soccer/football game?

Well, I guess if you're moped breaks down/gets tossed over the banister at the game you can use the flare to attract assistance.

"Atmosphere". I know Section 8, the Chicago Fire supporters do bring in smoke bombs and flares of their own...

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Understandable... it must be nice to play in a stadium where the crowd makes noise.

Zing! Good one.

I've read from various BS Arse fans of how lacking in noise Ashburton Grove (having a tough time calling it The Em) has been so far. Hopefully, it picks up as the club as well as the fan base gets more familiar with and comfortable with the new ground.

Otherwise, it'd be damn disappointing.

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by Critch

Not the equivalent of the Jets, Tottenham are lovable losers.

So the Cubs, then.

[flere-imsaho]

Leeds United have gone into liquidation and thus incurred an automatic 10-point penalty, which confirms their relegation from the Championship to League One. A pretty far drop from competing for European trophies just a few years prior.

[Critch]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Leeds United have gone into liquidation and thus incurred an automatic 10-point penalty, which confirms their relegation from the Championship to League One. A pretty far drop from competing for European trophies just a few years prior.

Going into liquidation today seems like a smart move for them. They were almost certainly relegated anyway (would have had to score a buttload v Derby County and pray a few other results went their way) but going into liquidation today means the 10 point penalty is applied this season rather than them starting next season in League One on -10 points.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by moriarty

Good grief. What is the possible justification for needing a flere at a soccer/football game?

You never know when you might need a play diagrammed.

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

You never know when you might need a play diagrammed.

Nice. I had to read it twice ... but nice.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Ryan S

I don't think the flares are sneaked into the grounds. It may have changed now, but until recently flares were allowed into stadiums in many European countries.

At least in Spain, when you see a flare in a field, it has for sure been sneaked as it's totally forbidden and you can even end in jail.

We had a huge issue some years ago when a stupid brought in a huge flare, fired it up, it escaped from his hands and crossed the whole field to ended killing a kid that was sitting with his father at the other side of the field. The TV images of the kid with the flare burning inside his chest while the father was trying to get it out of him is something that i won't forget easily.

Since then, if a flare is used in any Spanish soccer field, the guy would end in jail and the stadium closed for a few games for allowing the guy to sneak it inside.

[Icy]

Oops, double post.

[tanglewood]

Originally Posted by daedalus

Zing! Good one.

I've read from various BS Arse fans of how lacking in noise Ashburton Grove (having a tough time calling it The Em) has been so far. Hopefully, it picks up as the club as well as the fan base gets more familiar with and comfortable with the new ground.

Otherwise, it'd be damn disappointing.

Highbury was never exactly rocking either. Arsenal crowds just don't make a lot of noise.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by Icy

We had a huge issue some years ago when a stupid brought in a huge flare, fired it up, it escaped from his hands and crossed the whole field to ended killing a kid that was sitting with his father at the other side of the field. The TV images of the kid with the flare burning inside his chest while the father was trying to get it out of him is something that i won't forget easily.

The same thing happened at the old Arms Park during a Wales game about 10 years ago if I recall correctly. I was nowhere near, but you could still see from the commotion that something really fucked up had happened. The flare went right across the pitch and hit a guy in the neck with his daughter sitting next to him.

One of only two times I have felt physically sick during a sporting event... the other was watching scumbag Swansea City "fans" throw seats, coins and whatever they could get their hands on onto the family section at Ninian Park during a meaningless Auto Windscreens trophy game.

[SirFozzie]

What a huge Goal from Clint Dempsey, Fulham look to be in the EPL for a nother year.

[Critch]

Man City's latest thuggery, missed by the referee:

hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj0Msw2Fttk

Seems like most of the worst stuff this season has had City in there somewhere, Thatcher on Mendes, Barton on Mendes, Barton knocking out team-mates in training, Ball today.

[Katon]

When Joey Barton only barely makes your team's top three moments of thuggery, you know you've had an ugly season. After seeing that I'm glad Ball wound up giving away the winning penalty, even if it did essentially kill any lingering hope Chelsea had of the title.

[bulletsponge]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

What a huge Goal from Clint Dempsey, Fulham look to be in the EPL for a nother year.

\o/ Clint

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Katon

When Joey Barton only barely makes your team's top three moments of thuggery, you know you've had an ugly season. After seeing that I'm glad Ball wound up giving away the winning penalty, even if it did essentially kill any lingering hope Chelsea had of the title.

At least with Barton he has talent, he's just very immature and easily wound up (having a brother in prison for murder probably doesn't help his mellow nature much as it makes him a very easy target - although that doesn't excuse his actions).

I think if Barton had a coach with a firm hand to steer him he could become a very good player indeed personally - but then again I always sign the trouble makers in FM and attempt to 'turn them around' .... I'm just a sucker for punishment me

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by moriarty

Nice. I had to read it twice ... but nice.

Agreed! Brilliant!

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by tanglewood

Highbury was never exactly rocking either. Arsenal crowds just don't make a lot of noise.

A group of people being whiny do not tend to "rock" stadiums.

What? I'm an Arsenal fan and I read Arsenal boards. I know.

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

At least with Barton he has talent, he's just very immature and easily wound up (having a brother in prison for murder probably doesn't help his mellow nature much as it makes him a very easy target - although that doesn't excuse his actions).

He should simply join Liverpool. I mean with Bellamy there, what could ever go wrong?

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I think if Barton had a coach with a firm hand to steer him he could become a very good player indeed personally - but then again I always sign the trouble makers in FM and attempt to 'turn them around' .... I'm just a sucker for punishment me

Arsenal! Arsenal, I say!

Unfortunately, we're pretty well stocked in the middle of the pitch. Still, given his talent, I agree that he'd be a worthwhile signing for most teams.

[Critch]

Quiet day today, nothing much happened.

Newcastle are reported to be firing Roeder. Championship playoffs set, WBA v Wolves for one local derby, and Southampton v Derby (George Burley's team v his old team).

Oh, and the Arsenal v Chelsea game too Did it look to anybody else that Mourinho was saying goodbye before leaving at the end of the season?

[MJ4H]

Go Wolves

[Mac Howard]

Originally Posted by Critch

Seems like most of the worst stuff this season has had City in there somewhere, Thatcher on Mendes, Barton on Mendes, Barton knocking out team-mates in training, Ball today.

Stuart Pearce wasn't nicknamed "psycho" for no reason

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Mac Howard

Stuart Pearce wasn't nicknamed "psycho" for no reason

As the old joke goes Psycho wasn't just his nickname, it was his position

Not sure what the FA see in him that they think he should be coach of the Under-21s. Must be cheap, I guess.

[cthomer5000]

Just got caught up on all the action, i was running a bit behind... wow, tense ass final 20 minutes in Chelsea-Arsenal. I'm happy their finally dead. Congrats to Man U.

[cthomer5000]

Just caught the highlights show... great play by Dempsey on his goal. The setup was all him, so he thoroughly earned that first goal. Must be pretty sweet to do it at home and likely have it be the goal that will make the difference in keeping them up. Congrats to him.

[MylesKnight]

Originally Posted by Critch

Going into liquidation today seems like a smart move for them. They were almost certainly relegated anyway (would have had to score a buttload v Derby County and pray a few other results went their way) but going into liquidation today means the 10 point penalty is applied this season rather than them starting next season in League One on -10 points.

Does anyone have a decent explanation of how the liquidation process works? Thanks!!

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

Does anyone have a decent explanation of how the liquidation process works? Thanks!!

I believe it works like declaring bankruptcy in the US. If so, the company (or team) basically is saying their debts are more than they can pay. They work with someone to come up with a plan to get themselves out of bankruptcy (and the creditors in general agree, since it's better than a complete default). The minor creditors essentially get screwed out of any chance of getting their money back.

For a football club, I would suspect they might be forced to sell some players and potentially have tight wage/salary restrictions for the forseeable future. It could also mean the dismisal of one or more directors.

I'm not familiar with English bankruptcy laws though, so someone from that side of the pond would have to confirm.

edit: I should add there is always the possibilty that the bankruptcy courts could decide it is worth more to sell off all the assets than keep it as a going concern (true liquidation), but that is unlikely to occur here as the potential for revenue generation still exists.

[Katon]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Just got caught up on all the action, i was running a bit behind... wow, tense ass final 20 minutes in Chelsea-Arsenal. I'm happy their finally dead. Congrats to Man U.

Can't say I'm that upset at the result, honestly If we're going to lose the title, dominating Arsenal for half a game on their pitch while a man down is the way to do it.

Congratulations to Man U; they've played better in the Premiership than we did, they deserve to be champions. Fully earned.

[cthomer5000]

Charlton - Tottenham Spoliers

Spoiler

Charlton are relegated and Fulham are now officially safe. Spurs scored really early and then the game was very tense for the 2nd half. While it became obvious around the 80th minute that Charlton wouldnt win they still had a lot of opportunities to draw, and Spurs needed the full 3 points a lot. The win wasn't secure until Defoe's late 2nd goal. I was stressed as hell for the 20 minutes preceding that, because Spurs never ever keep a clean sheet. I like Alan Pardew and I like Charlton, so I hope them they bounce right back up.

As for Tottenham this puts them in amazingly good position to qualify for UEFA. They've now bounced up to 6th place with a game in hand over the rest of the UEFA competitors. 2 points out of their last 2 games will officially clinch a top 7 finish. I hope they can take out Blackburn on Thursday and make it officall heading into the weekend.

[daedalus]

Just saw on Sky Sports about Michael Ball possibly stamping on Cristiano Ronaldo.

If it really happened, I'm impressed as Hell with the kid -- even beyond his amazing performance this year.

1) Apparently, he just got up and kept running at dude until he drew a penalty. Some, for example, JAR folded like a cheap accordian when he was kicked around by the Nevilles. Nice.

2) It takes a LOT to hold your temper in check -- and he has a temper -- and keep yourself in the game. Yeah, yeah, I know. Somebody will invariably say, "he's a professional, he should." Bullshit and you (whoever you may be) fucking know it. He's HUMAN, just like the rest of us. Most of us would have reacted badly (I am damn certain I would have). To have the composure to do what he apparently did (with United's title not completely assured) is nothing short of AMAZING.

With C.Ronaldo apparently growing up and Rooney still being an amazing talent, the future seems amazing for United.

[cthomer5000]

Video of the Ball-stomping-Ronaldo incident.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=56GVkhE6C...page=1&t=t&f=b

[flere-imsaho]

I continue to be amazed that these guys think they can get away with this in televised matches. Yeah, sure, the ref might not catch it, but the FA surely will.

[3ric]

Check out this outrageous goal from a Swedish league game yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltEaUSTiIZQ

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by 3ric

Check out this outrageous goal from a Swedish league game yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltEaUSTiIZQ

To be honest, I can't figure out why he did that. Unless his right foot is completely worthless, he had plenty of time to tee up a high percentage shot.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by moriarty

To be honest, I can't figure out why he did that.

Maybe just for fun. Hell, it's a game and it appears they were already winning easily if the final score was 4-0. I say break out the tricks!

[Dunleavy]

the Arsenal-Chelsea match was very good, Arsenal again failed to kill off a team and allowed Chelsea to come into the game and get a desreved goal. a draw was fair but i'd much rather seen a winner for either team, now the Chelsea ManU match is meaningless

looks like Wigan will be joining Charlton and Watford, fine by me thats a Rugby city anway

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by 3ric

Check out this outrageous goal from a Swedish league game yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltEaUSTiIZQ

That's good, but this is unreal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk1B2...related&search

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by Dunleavy

the Arsenal-Chelsea match was very good, Arsenal again failed to kill off a team and allowed Chelsea to come into the game and get a desreved goal. a draw was fair but i'd much rather seen a winner for either team, now the Chelsea ManU match is meaningless

looks like Wigan will be joining Charlton and Watford, fine by me thats a Rugby city anway

Wigan is AT Sheffield Sunday in the match of the day. A win and they're safe. Both teams were beyond crap last weekend so this will be interesting. A Wigan win and West Ham loss sees the Hammers go down instead.

[cthomer5000]

I want West Ham to go down. They broke the rules, lied about it, then came clean months later. The FA showed no balls in their handling of it. I hope they end up going down, because they deserve to.

[bhlloy]

Absolutely. It will be very interesting to see how the Charlton/Wigan lawsuit against the FA goes (if Wigan do end up being the final club relegated) because I don't think the FA have a leg to stand on. There is a clear precedent of having 10 points deducted for financial irregularities and the FA decided to go away from it because they didn't want to decide a relegation battle.

[Crapshoot]

I don't know - every time the Wigan chairman opens his mouth, I'm thrilled that its his club that look the most likely to go.

[Mr. Wednesday]

The exact scope of the irregularities hasn't been presented in the coverage that I've seen. What I know is that there was some sort of problem with the ownership of the Tevez and Mascherano contracts, where a third party was involved. What isn't as clear to me is, exactly what were the financial implications? Did West Ham wind up spending less money on them? Would a normal deal have been impossible? What cost, if any, have they experienced in normalizing Tevez's deal (one of the conditions of the current punishment)?

In addition, what precedents are there involving deduction of points? The club obviously hasn't gone into receivership (trigger of an automatic 10 pt deduction).

[bhlloy]

Chesterfield docked 9 points in 2001 for financial irregularities is the biggest one. Derby were banned from Europe in the 70's and I think there may have been a few more over the years. Way too many examples in European football to mention.

Interestingly, Spurs were docked 12 points in 1994 but had it overturned on appeal. The message certainly appears to be that if you are a big club (being in London and having very passionate and outspoken fans seems to help as well) you can get away with it. I guess that is the way of the world though.

To show how ludicrous no points deducted really is, AFC Wimbledon had three points deducted last season for playing an 18 year old in one game who hadn't told them he had played in the Welsh leagues earlier in the season and was ineligible, and a few years back Middlesborough had 3 points deducted because they had a virus outbreak and couldn't fulfill a fixture, and were relegated as a result.

I am also told that the Premier League rules are very clear as to what should merit points deductions, but I am way too lazy to actually check that out

As for what West Ham got out of the deal, they got two world class players who normally would never have even considered going to West Ham. Tevez at the time was the best player in the world looking for a new team and they went to a team at the bottom of the Premiership.

[Critch]

Anybody who has access to GolTV should keep their eye out (or set the DVR) for a program called Sacachispas that will be repeated on Thursday afternoon. It's a documentary following the players and fans of the Sacachispas, a 4th division Argentinian team from one of the roughest areas of Buenos Aires.

Very well done, the only problem is that it's subtitled and some of the talking is so fast it can sometimes be difficult to keep up. Or maybe I just read slow.

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

The exact scope of the irregularities hasn't been presented in the coverage that I've seen. What I know is that there was some sort of problem with the ownership of the Tevez and Mascherano contracts, where a third party was involved. What isn't as clear to me is, exactly what were the financial implications?

From what I've read it's not the financial implications that cause problems, it's that the EPL has specific rules against third parties owning players as it could allow the third party influence over a game for gambling purposes.

It appears that the FA bottled it big time. They thought West Ham would go down anyway so they hoped they could avoid their responsibility and get away with doing nothing. Now it looks like being a big mess, unless Man Utd and Wigan do us all a favor and send West Ham down this weekend.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

As for what West Ham got out of the deal, they got two world class players who normally would never have even considered going to West Ham. Tevez at the time was the best player in the world looking for a new team and they went to a team at the bottom of the Premiership.

West Ham wasn't at the bottom at the time they made the purchases, though... they were coming off a relatively good season. And if the players themselves wouldn't have considered the move, then why did the third parties consent to it?

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by Critch

From what I've read it's not the financial implications that cause problems, it's that the EPL has specific rules against third parties owning players as it could allow the third party influence over a game for gambling purposes.

I know that they have the rules. The first question is, what do those rules state about punishment? The second question is, assuming that punishment is somewhat discretionary, what are the precedents? The third question is, what are the mitigating and aggravating factors?

The extent to which West Ham benefited from the arrangement is certainly germaine to any question of discretionary punishment.

[cthomer5000]

1) It cost them MUCH less to acquire the players since they were not full owned by West Ham (not allowed).

2) They knowingly covered up the illegal contract situation.

3) Once Liverpool brought the issue to the league's attention (when acquiring Maschirano), West Ham then pled guilty.

So they broke an explicit league rule, covered it up (new ownership included) and only came clean once they were caught. On top of that, they had to put together an entirely new contract to play Tevez in the game last weekend, and every other club has pointed out that they did so outside the transfer window.

They knowinlgy deceived the league. There is assloads of precedent for point dedecutions or expulsion from competions such as the FA Cup for fielding ineligible players. It's pretty obvious by any measure that Tevez and Maschirano (while with West Ham) were ineligible by FA rules.

What's worse is this opens up a HUGE can of worms for the future. What if Wigan magically shows up with an all-star team from around the world on Sunday, plays them all and wins the game? THe FA has now established that's only worth a fine - so you have absolute incentive to take a 10 million dollar fine and break the rules when the difference between being relegated and keeping yourself is over 100 million dollars for that year.

[Mr. Wednesday]

The complicating factor is that the FA signed off on the transfers originally, so outside of the broken rule about third-party involvement (and I realize this is a big issue) both players were legitimately registered to play in England. That's why West Ham was allowed to sign a new contract with Tevez, it's similar to Everton signing the transfer of Tim Howard in the spring, as long as the player isn't changing teams alterations in contract terms seem to be kosher outside the transfer window.

If Wigan magically show up with this all-star team, then there are more issues than just the question of contract ownership, and the authority for docking them points would be much more clearly established.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

and a few years back Middlesborough had 3 points deducted because they had a virus outbreak and couldn't fulfill a fixture, and were relegated as a result.

I agreed with this one, to be honest. If I recall correctly, the fixture in question was one with Blackburn and Middlesborough, due to injuries, illness, and also (not insignificantly) some really bad personnel management, couldn't field a full team. However, and here's the kicker, they neglected to tell Blackburn that they wouldn't be showing up for the game. I think that's worth a 3-point deduction (essentially a forfeit).

But yeah, the whole thing's a bit arbitrary. But that's the FA for you.