right-- he said he was great enough to build a team around him

here's his injury "schedule"

http://www.transfermarkt.com/thiago/.../spieler/60444

pretty full as you can see

good summary of yesterday's game

http://www.espnfc.us/german-super-cu...-munich/report

Half time Chelsea 0-1 Arsenal

Arsenal look the better team all round.

oh shit already started so early? i must tune in... thanks for the heads up

...aaaaand my 2nd hand car "theory" (lol) was just illustrated by petr chech

not that i know how much money arsenal have or how much they paid for him ha ha ha

Deserved win for Arsenal. Chelsea looked unusually sloppy: Hazard was quiet; nothing from Falcao when he came on; silly mistakes from their defence.

Yeah, it proves your point but it made headlines here because of how unusual such a move is. Many people are amazed Chelsea let him go to a rival club. They certainly didn't have to.

i heard the commentators saying that mourinho didn't want him going to chelsea but couldn't stop it for some reason

and just saw mourinho shaking hands with the arsenal players and then right before wenger comes down he fucks off ha ha haha

then people yell and throw trash at him and he throws something back-- what was it?

His runners-up medal.

The Cech move was sanctioned by Abramovich, apparently as a show of respect to Cech (who wanted the move) but you're right, Mourinho was dead against it. There was nothing in Cech's contract that forced Abramovich to accept Arsenal's bid.

triple hilarity

Funnily enough listening to a debate on the radio right now about the Cech move. Verdict = Mourinho was right to try and block it. Words like "crazy" are being used with abandon.

And yeah, love the medal thing. And predictably he saw the game differently to everyone else who watched it.

i kinda saw what he's saying-- i only saw teh 2nd half-- arsenal parked the bus and defended well, and chelsea attacked more and had more possession, etc. so all that he said is more of less true-- except that thing about "scoring for no reason" ha ha ha ha.

on top of that, he often does that which he criticized today, right?

he's a really funny guy. not in a voluntary/comedian way. he's got his own reality distortion field. which is probably very good in a coach who wants his players to "believe".

Arsenal defended a lead which isn't the same as parking the bus, which is when you're playing solely to stop the other team from scoring and happy for a draw. In the first half Arsenal were far more attacking, and in the past, once they'd got their lead, they'd keep on playing for more goals. That's good on the eye but often proved fatal. Now they seem to have accepted that really successful teams know how to close out a game. Yesterday was only really a friendly and we'll see if they can carry that new-found wisdom through into the proper season but they're definitely showing signs now of being a much more rounded side.

right right-- i missed the first half as you know (and thanks for the notice)

i love flexible teams-- that can attack, can defend, can counter, can adapt to an opponent. if arsenal can be that i'd like to watch them. then again i probably won't because foxsoccer2go has rendered my need for cable moot.

this is what i miss in pep's bayern-- yes, fantastic pyrotechnics--when they fire--or nothing.

Talk again in the press about whether Pep will come to the Prem next season. I'm sure his next appointment (I don't think he'll renew at Bayern) will be in England, most likely to MU, although MC also seem desperate to get him. I get the feeling (to put it mildly) that most Bayern fans won't be too sad to see him go. Any idea who you'd like to see them bring in as his replacement?

i don't know who will come in at bayern, but as pep is remaking the team in his own image (schweinsteiger gone, many small spaniards in) they're going to have to deal with his legacy one way or another. so i'd like to get someone who can manage those players. who that is i don't know.

i don't think i'd want klopp. klopp can be brilliant, but he proved very inflexible once his scheme was broken. he had no tactical alternatives. just like pep. so maybe i'd say "draft heynckes!" ha ha ha. but no, he's retired. someone like him. please not bielsa ha ha ha ha. hey, maybe bielsa! he'd know what to do with a pep team. plus he knows vidal. i don't know... mourinho maybe? like him or not, he seems capable...

as for the english press-- it's very navel-gazing. i.e., they make it like everything revolves around the prem. i hear it in the commentators whenever they narrate a game-- eeeeeeverything refers back to the prem. and of course it doesn't-- the world is big and maybe pep will end up at PSG or something. not that some english clubs won't want him; it's just that there are so many other great places to live and work, and there are so many options. paris or manchester? hmmmm....

maybe he'll end up going back to barcelona! (or move to china)

Most likely they'll poach whoever seems like a real prospect in the bundesliga, or even promote someone internally. It's frustrating when these big name coaches come in and revolutionise everything at a club, only to move on after a few seasons. A big part of Barcelona's success has come from them favouring continuity over marquee appointments.

As for the prem. Yeah it does think too highly of itself. Pep's said he wants to coach in England before he retires but he's a young man with plenty of options before that. But he needs to be careful. Certainly his time at Bayern has proved he's not some gift from the football Gods and he'll need to improve at wherever he goes next if he wants to remain at the top of all the richest owners' must-have lists.

yes. but i think there's a deeper side to that. let me see if this makes sense:

germany had to adapt some decades ago when they realized they were falling behind in football. klinsmann, actually, is the one who started it, and his buddy jogi loew is the one who finished it. here's an extensive article:

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/0...ning-goal-gif/

( eta: here's a long article on the academy revolution that started BEFORE klinsmann and the above article refers to: http://www.theguardian.com/football/...st-boom-talent or this one even better: http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/...work-elsewhere <-- explains the tactical revolution at the academies)

now to me the pep hire is a kind of continuity on that. germans want to be at the cutting edge of football. and bayern as the most important team of the bundesliga and the core of the german national team wants to be in on the evolution of the game. they don't want to be left behind again.

notice for example how loew at the start of the world cup put lahm in the midfield, as pep had done to the great surprise of all. when that didn't work and he was returned to his position as a right fullback, many germans were relieved (and the team worked better). but that shows you the way loew is willing to take his cues from the high prophets of the game.

at the same time though, because of bayern's role at the center of things, they want to remain a german team--which is why they hired gotze (i understand guardiola didn't want him?) and why selling schweinsteiger was such a big deal.

so i can see why the pep experiment is the way they will want to keep going-- wherever there's innovation, or something... they'll want in. it's not just about winning games today but about staying ahead of everyone else in the long run.

so maybe klopp ha ha ha ha. he did do something "new". and he's german. and he'd reunite with gotze and lewandowski, but with bayern's resources this time... i personally wouldn't want him there because i think he's a kind of one-trick pony but i can see why he might be a strong candidate.

Great articles. Thanks.

I agree with the cutting edge argument and supported the signing of Pep at the time for that reason, but the difference between what he's doing at club level and what Klinsmann et al did nationally is that Pep's not in it for the long term. If his revolution is going to work Bayern will need to find a replacement with a similar vision who can bring his experiment to some kind of completion, because as it stands they feel like a team that's neither one thing or the other. The bigger problem there is if they even really want the kind of football that Pep's identified with to be their ultimate goal. For Klinsmann it made more sense, who doesn't like the kind of fast attack-minded football he promoted? Whereas what Pep represents (from a stylistic pov) is a bit more marmite, I think.

ha ha marmite- i love that stuff. bitter umami ftw.

fans may be frustrated, but the club directors appear to want him more than the fans for the long-term reasons just discussed. "not completely convinced..." might just be a power play, like his complaint about the medical staff. who knows, maybe he signs again for another 3 years if they let him bring more players of his choosing. but then again, maybe his heart belongs to barcelona and that's what he really wants deep down.

my wife and i were joking during the last champion's league that when he went to hug luis enrique after barca beat bayern he whispered in his ear "we did it!" ha ha ha ha.