This is the time of year where I smile politely while y'all talk EPL meanwhile getting ready to troll this thread with American football posts when our season starts next week ;)

it's not just the EPL though, it's the whole european scene--serie a, ligue 1, la liga, eredivisie, bundesliga, super lig, etc-- and of course the champions + europa leagues. it's *massive*. and of course you know there are many americans playing there all over.

i know you'll be ultrabusy & po' but maybe "fuck sucker" lets you catch games on your own schedule: http://www.foxsoccer2go.com (CL games being the main attraction here).

Surprisingly I have Dish where I am staying currently and so I have NBCSports and some other channels with games BUT even after watching a few I just can't get into it.. I don't know why, I mean I get it, EPL is truly elite futbol but I just don't know the narratives, the stories, the shit that is important to Demonrail so I just can't get into it. With national teams I am more familiar with tournament history and the history of those rosters together, but all that talent is almost meaningless to me without knowing the context. Perhaps its because I'm a nerdy history teacher and so I love the history almost as much as the game itself!

My brain is filled with needless trivia history and stats from the NFL and NBA so there isn't really room in there for Eurofutbol.. I mean, I can tell you about what the fucking Milwaukee Bucks were doing in 1971 or when the last time the Detroit Lions won a playoff game and I can also tell you the last time Mexico lost an international game in Mexico City or explain the rivalry between Panama and Costa Rica on top of basically the entirety of World Civilization from pre-human hominid evolution in the Great Rift Valley up until a geopolitical analysis of what is happening in Syria currently and how it relates to WWI so really, I just don't have the brain power to learn a new sport because I just can't get half assed into anything, its all or nothing :(

oh yeah i hear you. i have a much more limited sports bandwidth than you. so for me it's either fútbol or nothing, and then it has to be good or i space out on account of my adhd--hence it's hard for me to watch MLS on tv.

Hence why all I can do is troll.. Here is everybody's favorite substitute science teacher, Hotlanta Falcon's Quarterback Matt Ryan ;)




By the way, in case y'all are interested in the comparison, here is a brief analysis ranking the
FIBA world cup B-Ball teams and interestingly the top 5 are all elite futbol nations as I've mentioned before..

http://espn.go.com/blog/marc-stein/p...ld-cup-edition


(1) USA
(2) Spain
(3) Brazil
(4) France
(5) Greece (but I'm not buying Greece at #5 at ANYTHING yo ;) )

ha ha ha

FUCKER!

You must spread some Deal With It Meme Shades around before giving it to !@#$%! again.

Well Man Utd getting a crucial point against Burnley there. *snigger*

How can that shit bag Young still be playing for Utd?

i can't find a negative either now that i found they also got benatia from roma as a new centerback. at last, a defender!!!

all is well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUXev_FrclM

sweet sweet football gods

i found a stream and it is blurry but watchable. and in english! though the guy talks pure crap.

bayern 1 schalke 0 at halftime

beautiful goal by lewandowski with an assist by sebastian rode (i had not seen this guy before)

xabi alonso is having a GREAT game and i am so glad i was wrong

this is working because pep is now fielding a 3-4-3

lahm as a wingback on the right (yesss), alonso in the middle where lahm used to be

neuer
boateng-badstuber-alaba
lahm-rode-alonso-shaquiri
muller-lewandowski-gotze

anyway here we go again

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eta: bayern's tikitaka lasted only half a game. 2nd half was slow, at 60+ bernat came for gotze, dante came for boateng, and schalke scored (great elbow by howedes lol). then some dude came in for alonso. i couldn't read his name in the blurry video ha ha ha.

ps- british commercials have better music than american ones.

It does seem as though, if nothing else, Alonso represents a kind of return to a 'conventional' Bayern set up. We'll see if it continues once Martinez is back.

Meanwhile Chelsea's 6-3 win over Everton was funny for Mourinho's face on the touchline, watching his usually hyper controlled tactics descend into pure pinball.

And still no win for Man U. Happy days.

We don't talk about that.

re: bayern, i posted "not fielding" but it should have actually been "NOW fielding" a 3-4-3 (i edited)

and 3 defenders, while more popular this year, isn't quite standard yet. we had a lot of 3-5-2s in the WC (holland, mexico, italy, argentina at some point) but not a 3-4-3 that i can remember.

as the WC proved, lahm is better on his right side than in the middle (he's good everywhere, but the team works better with him on the right channel), so i am glad for his return there, but there's still a superabundance of tikitaka (they got exhausted on the first half) and a lack of directness up front that are keeping bayern too weird.

xabi made some great passes! he was pirlified. but the final third players were meh. imagine having müller, lewandowski and gotze upfront and scoring only 1 goal. how can that be? i blame pep. i will always blame him, ha ha ha ha.

--

sorry h8kurdt for that which you don't talk about, but martinez did speak of a "soft defense" and i'm looking for a replay. i've only caught highlights but i want the complete thing.

I really should get round to watching more Bundesliga this season.

Yeah Everton's defence has been shocking this season. 10 goals conceded in three games says it all. It's all well and good getting Eto'o, Lukaku and Atsu in up front, but it don't mean shit when your two centre backs (Jagielka and Distin) are shockingly bad.

Distin is 36 now and when you've got a player who's 6ft 4 losing headers and making stupid mistakes, you've got a problem. Jagielka has been terrible since the world cup and I've no idea what needs to be done to sort him out. So fingers crossed Martinez tries to get someone in before tomorrow's transfer deadline.

Put simply, your team is only as strong as it's weakest link and that goes for every team out there. I'm DREADING the derby game in 2 weeks.

i saw the bayern game in… BT something (stream) which i assume is a british tv channel? they showed the roma-fiorentina game afterwards. in 2 weeks they said they'll show stuttgart vs… i forget.

i think the bundesliga top teams are nice-- dortmund, bayer (that's bayer leverkusen not bayerN), schalke, etc… they have some great players. and even the rest of the league plays a fun fast-paced game that you might like.

the problem is to find them narrated in english (i caught a bit of mainz vs. hannover today but it was difficult to follow in german).

liverpool played well today, so i hope you get some new defenders-- best wishes!

I.agree with the 5-3-2 comments but.it also seemed like.a lot.of WC teams used hybrid formations where the sometimes moved in.between 5-3-2 and 4-2-4 and 4-4-2 formations interchangeably depending on the onpitch matchups.. this is comparible.to the.nba shift towards "positionless" rotations where players on the court shift in and out of their "traditional" positions based on whatever matchups develop in fluid during the game

pep's formations are very fluid, in the tradition of total football, much more so than just having the wingbacks go up and down the flanks on a 3-5-2<-->5-3-2. for example yesterday i saw alaba, a central defender in this scheme, so high up the pitch as to be where gotze should have been, and i thought, who the fuck is covering his pocket? i mean i'd get shaqiri moving all the way to the corner but alaba? (that was his role as fullback before but he'd leave 2 CBs behind, where now he's supposed to be the last line). so alonso would cover behind and if i'm not mistaken boateng would cross sides and cover while lahm folded back where boateng was. so it's like they would rotate the whole thing 45 to 90 degrees clockwise if you can visualize it. then shaqiri kept appearing all over the place, etc. but all that running about just exhausted them quickly.

this article i just found is pretty good. i blame pep! ha ha ha.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/spor...t-Schalke.html

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ps- just found out the traitor kagawa is returning to dortmund from his benchwarming spell at man u!! wooohoooo!!! fucking traitor! good acquisition though.

it was such a delightful watch yesterday to see Real Madrid lose 2-4 to Real Sociedad. after winning 2-0 some 11 minutes into the game, Real completely fucked up the match for themselves.
such a delightful Sunday evening.

hey slavo, since you follow la liga-- how come madrid sold di maria? wasn't he cronaldo's perfect partner?

and james played yet?

!@#$! I agree playing a "positionless" line up combos can be very tiring, indeed in basketball teams experiment but those commit to it full season tend to wear down quicker than those more traditional rotations. The Miami Heat won 2championships playing with completely unconventional rotations but they couldnt continue it this past season. ALL their stats, particularly defensively, dropped off. With all the added running and fewer breaks im not surprised this effect is amplified in futbol.