Kenny Dalglish Won't Be Delivering the Module: English Premiership 2011-12

I thought 88 was the racist number, but I guess that's not really a number you can wear on a football shirt.

Don't tell Gary Hooper that!

Celtic have an 88, can't remember his name but it's six letters, begins with H and ends -er.

gah!

You can get away with anything these days
http://45.img.v4.skyrock.net/453/m0h4-martil/pics/2585362073_1.jpg

http://45.img.v4.skyrock.net/453/m0h4-martil/pics/2585362073_1.jpg

Fuck it, it's Ronaldinho wearing his number 80 shirt at Milan

lol ismael
i honestly thought numbers on footbal jerseys weren't allowed to go higher than like 30 or something!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squad_number_(association_football)#Unusual_or_notable_numbers

ronnie showed up twice

find anything over 30 (bar giving a youth team player #48 or whatever) unseemly and too american.

Buffon had 88 as his shirt number but had to change it. He claimed no knowledge of any dubious associations and said he liked it because it reminded him of four balls.

i just realized i turned images off to look at the Timbaland poll thread earlier. D'oh

Chicago has had 77, 88, 89, and 99 this year.

(only one of those players is american btw)

http://theexecutionersbong.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/mikel-arteta-statistical-analysis/

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/romario_g6.jpg

boss

yah i don't think liverpool are white nationalists ~as such~ but there is some chauvinism in this BEST OF BRITISH shit from the lad bellers and others

there is an assumption that british is in itself a good thing...premier league ready sure, but that applies to lots of non-british players....even aside from such practical considerations there a residual belief that BRITISHNESS confers some special qualities

can be traced back to source, you don't know wotchure gettin when you buy from yoorup full of chemicals i bet

every sunderland academy product is artisanally branded on the thigh with an imprint of lord kitchener

Also Downing, Bellamy, Henderson probably count as 'home grown' if we ever get back into Europe. Although why we would wanna go all the way over there when there are plenty of good games right here I don't know.

^ gets it

haw

Interesting that the buy-British policy at Spurs and Liverpool was driven by Comolli more than anyone else.

self loathing frog

Isn't there a quota this year?

self loathing british ilxors xpost

there a residual belief that BRITISHNESS confers some special qualities

maybe it does? it wouldn't be sniffed at around here if someone said those were shit qualities so why sniff at it when they're saying the opposite. isn't the reality that there's a better discussion to be had about potential differences between uk players and foreign ones than lambasting some sky sports/john terry strawman at every juncture, like we always do.

some stereotypes or national tropes are based on reality...to an extent. less so in football than in real life but at the least i think you can say people/players are highly likely to have different characteristics based on the country/league that produced them.

uhm....it doesn't

any nationality confers "special qualities"

sometimes it's difficult to appreciate dimitar berbatov's intrinsic footballing qualities because he just screams bulgarianness, you just can't get over how bulgarianly he behaves

Bulgarity, ffs

What are the special qualities of Irish footballers?

determinism via nationality is lazy shorthand at best, like every brazilian player getting defined wrt some 40 yr old notion of MAD SAMBA SKILLZ even though half of them are fullbacks or defensive midfielders

irish footballers are all game lads except john giles who was never a game lad even though he once was a lad, and game

determinism via nationality is lazy shorthand at best But exposure to 'national style' and hence national expectations does affect the way a majority of ppl raised there (and groomed for professionalism) play.

putting aside the fact that every country has its own system of coaches and training and its own league structure, and the fact that a player eventually transcending that after years abroad doesn't prove a lot, i think the fact you have to pick bulgaria to make that retort kind of says it all here. nobody here has a notion of bulgarianness yes, does that mean it doesn't exist? bulgarians prob criticising each other for dumb positive and dumb negative national stereotypes too. just like every other country in the world.

xpost it's not determinism via nationality at all.

What are the special qualities of Irish footballers?

i don't know because it's too complex, but it's totally logical to assume that people trained in one country vs another would have different qualities.

Aw, i was just hoping for joke answers

If there is an inherent British football identity, i'm not sure whether it would apply in the same way to, for example, David Bentley and Andy Carroll or Aaron Lennon and Jonjo Shelvey. Comolli's attraction doesn't seem to be to any particular facet of their game (speed, mental toughness, control, passing, etc). There doesn't seem to be a lot to bind them together other than nationality.

I guess the idea of the 'British spine' at Chelsea and United could have been influential. It's not just a case of EPL readiness, there'd be considerations like the general reluctance for British players to move away from the club to take up opportunities abroad. Gerrard, Terry, Rooney, Lampard etc, would probably have had offers from major clubs in Spain and Italy at one point or another. Perhaps it helps stability.

true, could be an idea that they're better investments in that sense

i only wish there was some way of proving that all countries don't produce the same type of footballer, some sort of global urn

x-post to shari, agree with most of that. esp the first par...i'm not even saying anything positive/negative about uk players, just think if we discuss why england do shit at a world cup then it's hardly wild to discuss what diff qualities, better or worse, english footballers might bring to a prem side.

But exposure to 'national style' and hence national expectations does affect the way a majority of ppl raised there (and groomed for professionalism) play.

― get even girls blue the cows (Michael White), Thursday, 1 September 2011 23:58 (1 minute ago)

yah u are arguing something else

BRITISH, as with BRAZILIAN is invoked as a numinous intensifying factor that somehow enhances the sum of a player's demonstrable techincal/athletic/mental qualities

this is altogether different to the way, rather predictably, trends in coaching affect the types of players produced in different places

That's an interesting point, I hadn't thought of. You're narrowing the pool of clubs that are likely to be interested in enticing your player away from you. Also narrowing the pool of clubs you are likely to sell to if you want rid as well, although EPL wages in relation to most of Europe does that anyway.
xxxp

But it hasn't been a 'buy British' policy? It's players who know the Premier League, can hit the ground running, and get us into the top 4. Or am I being really naive?

BRITISH, as with BRAZILIAN is invoked as a numinous intensifying factor that somehow enhances the sum of a player's demonstrable techincal/athletic/mental qualities

no way is british even close to brazilian here...find some actual examples of someone clearly using british to say that rather than just a vague "he gets stuck in" sense.

that's true, but it does mean you end buy with a lot of british xp

a vague "he gets stuck in" sense counts for a lot if getting stuck in is yr thing

ah look i guarantee you if we were in other euro countries people could argue the same about "italian", "spanish", "german" etc...and find strawmen to back themselves up. it's a global trait to big up your own country, and it's EVEN MORE typical to act like that's not the case and your own is the only country where people have this.

"the irish are terrible begrudgers etc"...it's self aggrandising via self hatred.

dowie and lol bassett were all over this britishness trip last night on ssn

yeah i don't the british predilection for this sort of venal nonsense is much worse than in other comparably sized post-imperial countries