oh, what happened? who did what to whom?

anyway i was coming in to say dortmund just beat the red bull team by a thin 1-0 in an exciting game. dortmund has now leaped to 3rd place, which is more fitting than their previous 7th.

i say a thin 1-0 because dortmund missed a bunch of chances to score and at the last-last minute the red bullshits had their tying goal annulled do to offside.

it was all very entertaining overall. plus i ate fried spam & washed it down with beer.

little pulisic is turning out to be really great. bruce arena should be very happy with this.

Today was fantastic: West Ham won AND I captained Lukaku in my Fantasy Football team!!!

The Prem's fascinating top and bottom. It looks like Chelsea have won it but I've no idea who'll get the remaining CL spots. And yeah, all bets are off now in the relegation battle.

Liverpool have just completely collapsed! Are the pundits right? Have they just totally burnt out? Is Klopp gonna get sacked? Seemed unthinkable a month ago but ...

Klopp gets too easy a ride. If this was Rodgers he'd be getting calls for the sack now. Now if they could keep it up for a bit longer, whilst everton keep the winning streak up then I'd be happy.

So what are your predictions for the top 4 and bottom 4?

As for the Bundesliga, I get the games on BT Sport never get round to watching it. Should do especially given how open this season is.

gonna go read about kloppo

btw if you get a dortmund match be sure not to miss it. such a fun team to watch! their counterattacks today were awesome. their winning goal was so pretty--dembélé faster than light a cross to aubameyangs header ooooou mann
nnnn

Top 4: 1. Chelsea, then ... fuck knows. All the other contenders seem to have gone off the boil. Although I can see MU sneaking in behind everyone's back. Not that they're that impressive either.

Bottom 4: Can't do 4 but I'd say Sunderland are Hull are doomed, and would LOVE to see Palace go down

I dunno, man, Hull seem to be sorting themselves out and still with enough time to get some points in. Same with the Everton B team/Sunderland too.

If Leicester lose today they could easily could sucked in.

I think everyone up to and including Middlesborough is at risk. Palace are really in it, and have you seen their run in from April? Horrible!

Hull and Sunderland have much better run ins but I still think they'll struggle. I can see Leicester just avoiding it, but only just.

It really is wide open down there

That's what she said

Agreed though. And now if the rest of the teams above Everton can carry on buggering things up it'd make getting into Europe a decent prospect.

Jesus fucking Gabriel Jesus buggering up my plans already.

Do you really want it, though? Unless you actually win the thing it's a curse!

And yeah, Jesus! He's got to be Pep's 1st choice now. And Chelsea are after Aguero - obviously thinking Costa will be gone in the summer.

Good news for you if that's true, given it'll probably mean Lukaku stays put.

Honestly, yes. Firstly, it'd make holding onto Lukaku a lil bit easier. Secondly, if Everton do get in they should put everything into winning it. I think after summer there'd be more depth to Everton's squad to be able to try and win it. Too many Premier League teams see it as a curse and a hindrance even though they'll never win the league anyway. Tottenham being my main example.

Push to win it and I think it'd help Everton build on it.

The one thing in favour of Everton is you're never really in a relegation battle, so can afford to emphasise the EL without seriously risking your Prem status. At the same time you're not serious title contenders so don't have to fear compromising that either. You're pretty much unique in the league in terms of that.

the tv heads didn't say a word about hooliganism last weekend, but here is the story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38802113

Yeah, there was a pretty interesting piece about it in The Guardian. Football's changing more and more and no amount of protesting by them will change anything.

i don't know... the germans are pretty good at this shit

almighty walmart tried opening there... and failed

i imagine if they start a national boycott of the beverage the company might relent and open up the membership. i'm sure many citizens of leipzing and environs would like to join.

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eta: good writeup from the economist. obviously they're pro-market:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe...es-you-wingers

That would be the best solution to all this. Personally I think 'fan ownership' is a bit of a brand, that sounds good but I doubt really means much in the actual, practical running of clubs. But if it helps legitimise Leipzig then they should adopt it, just to keep the peace. From a purely sporting point, Leipzig have been the most exciting thing to happen to that league in years, posing a genuine threat to its elite - not just in terms of performance but by being in a financial position where their best players won't be so easily hoovered up by the likes of Bayern.

holy shit bottom of the table darmstadt just punked dortmund, 2-1, o man!

--

bayern struggled vs ingolstadt for 89 minutes and them blam, put 2 goals in.

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so, demonyo, i disagree w/ leipzig being "the most excting thing in years"

in that scale ("years"), dortmund's rise to glory was truly awesome cuz it wasn't a flash in the pan. they had at least 3 good years where they were dominant. and yes then they somehow ended up at the bottom of the table but then came back. now they're doing just okay, but i could see them going up again. it's a good team.

after dortmund's klopp era, wolfsburg was really great till they got pilfered (from the outside, no the inside). debruyne went to man city, bas dost to sevilla<-- no, to sporting, draxler to psg, and blam, adios. ok, schurrle to dortmund too but just another stripe on the tiger.

today leipzig just got knocked 3-0 by hamburg btw. though they're still in a good place on the table.

By exciting I meant that Leipzig seem to have the financial resources (potentially at least) to build long-term - not just offering wages that'll make it harder for the likes of Bayern, et al, to pinch their best players but they may eventually even be in a position to out bid them for new players. It'll all depend on how much Red Bull wants to invest but I'm sure they have the money to really shake that league up more than Dortmund could.

my naivete confuses this thread with the American football thread. erased a long stupid paragraph on the Super Bowl and realized Suchfriends doesn't post here nomore and it's out of my no pun intended.... league.

Soccer. nope never watch it unless im eating Mexican. it's exciting in a cultural setting with fans but, clueless about it.

that's i think a separate issue from the membership, and has more to do with uefa rules, which i really don't understand.

all german clubs have sponsors ranging from gazprom to tmobile to volkswagen, and there's plenty of money to thow around. funny enough wolfsburg started to decline after the diesel emissions scandal, not sure if that was related.

here's a list of the sponsors and money they pay and red bull isnt anyhwere near the top

http://www.ispo.com/en/companies/id_...-revenues.html

now i know the club has a lot more money than that but i dont understand how it gets funneled to it and how it works with uefa rules (i dont know those rules)

anyway, the complaints as i understand are not about the money per se but have more to do with how the club is run as a subsidiary of a beverage company for marketing purposes rather than a club proper with member-owners at its core.

Well on that level there's really no significant differences between them and Bayer Leverkusen, so why the focus of hatred towards RB Leipzig? I'd say rival fans' real concern is that Red Bull have shown before (in Formula 1) that they're not just able to spend the kinds of money it takes to really upset the status quo, but willing. The same happened in the Prem when Abramovich took over Chelsea. They were the most hated club in the country but ultimately more because of the threat that take-over posed to the traditional order of things (and Mourinho). If Leipzig get into the CL and really start to make waves I think it's only a matter of time before rival fans start to question their own set-up to ensure their club remains competitive. The only club in Germany that seems able to keep the system as-is and continue to thrive long term is Bayern.