el clasico crazy

one thing is for sure

Catalunya decideix.

the great portuguese manager will know nothing more than a victory would suffice to sate the hungry madrid fans, however barcelona's pep guardiola has pedigree at this level and a will to win which may yet prove decisive.

I just have this feeling that Real are just going to fucking destroy Barca. That feeling is wrong and stupid but I can't shake it.

the impressive thing about this fixture nowadays is that it's possibly the only one ever that actually kinda does live up to the most basic good/evil cynical/noble corporate/homegrown hypeman caricatures, on a cartoon level it's just irresistibly corny

^^^this. that said, if utd become less pungent, manchester derby could be similar soon.

I just have this feeling that Real are just going to fucking destroy Barca

Not destroy, but yeah this. I can imagine Mourinho spending every day since the 0-5 plotting letting Barca pass their way to four 0-1 defeats. (what's the fourth game btw? Copa del Rey?)

i'd assumed the real project would really unstoppably kick in 2nd season like it did with inter, it's just too much too soon now. (and jose walking away this summer is just brinksmanship, there's no way he would ruin the epic mythmaking narrative he's planned out: win champs league and title with real next year, come back to england and win league, manage portugal to world cup.)

if he did pull it off this year it would be his greatest masterpiece imo.

Is he the patriotic sort? I kind of fancy him for the England job after Harry crashes & burns and the FA 180 again. In theory England's chances are better than Portugal's too.

Wha wha wha? Portugal have Ronaldo and Nani and Pepe and low expectations he can exceed etc. - England have Wilshere and cuntish press.

barcelona will fuckin kill them

England is a much bigger country I mean xp, you've got to fancy them* over Portugal* in any future world cup* where whatever characteristics are exhibited by the current lot/recent lots may not be present*. Half the time Portugal don't even have the playing resources to qualify, England are at least always capable* of putting out a competitive XI*.

* in theory

yeah but that's p much obviously shite, portugal have had a good team for the past dozen years at least, and still have coentrao, moutinho, nani etc coming through

they have played england three times at ec/wc in that time and won once in normal time and twice on penalties

Plus if I have learnt anything from FM11, they are having a centre midfielder called Antonio Cruz who is good enough to take Cesc's reins coming through. England don't.

and they reached two semifinals....

i.e. something for Mourinho to fix, and something he'd be pretty confident he can fix. It's not going to come up for six years at least, who knows how it'll look by then.

Obviously I'm not saying England ARE better than Portugal, I'm saying they could be.

lol you should write for the sun. england could also be better than brazil and the harlem globetrotters.

jose gonna get fired and pip 'arry to the 2012 post.

^^^^

sam dropping insane payloads of t

Half the time Portugal don't even have the playing resources to qualify, England are at least always capable* of putting out a competitive XI*.

number of times in last decade portugal have failed to qualify 0
number of times in last decade england have failed to qualify 1

the lusitanian men will have been disappointed to have lost that one on home turf

Come on, you know my point. At pretty much any time except 2000 England have potentially been stronger than Portugal. It's a basic consequence of being a larger country that still plays football to similar extent. England's natural level isn't, or shouldn't be at least, on a par with them or Sweden every single time. England should on occasion do far better and actually win something, like Argentina, France, Italy or now Spain have all managed. There's the challenge. It'd take a miracle to do that with Portugal, it ought to be possible for England.

Basically, the scope for improving England is far greater.

in theory

nah because you're basing that argument purely on population size, and ignoring the respective infrastructures - like China by these lights ought to be the number 1 football nation in the world but y'know you have to have a system capable of producing world class footballers and by those lights Portugal appears to be a good way in front of England.

Jose is never gonna be that guy Ismael. He'll stay at a job for 3 years and work the best with what is there and not give a toss about how the u13s may come through to change things in 15 years time.

At pretty much any time except 2000 England have potentially been stronger than Portugal. It's a basic consequence of being a larger country that still plays football to similar extent

this is just addled, have you slid into some future perfect parallel dimension nultworld where they never had ronaldo, figo, deco, rui costa (all better than any english player of that time), never had a tradition of producing technical players in every position and england weren't a load of fucking cack?

That's true but it's not like England has a dreadful system - there's pretty much always half-a-dozen really top players, which is only sometimes true of Sweden or Portugal. In any single tourney England's chances should be better than those countries, luck permitting and golden generations apart. I'm saying the prospect of being the factor that turns that into victory might be an attractive one for Mou, more so than with Portugal.

xp to nv, aplogies for slow typing

Portugal not really producing great strikers iirc

"top players" in England maybe, the number of English "top players" to really prove themselves at international level in the last however many years is laughably small compared even to Portugal tho? Also compare numbers of English players who enjoy successful careers outside of England with any other top 20 nation.

I mean, I agree that with our resources and football's total dominance as national game we ought to be a couple of orders of magnitude better than we are, but we never have been and it will still take something a lot deeper than a new national team manager to really change that I think.

also, we shd be doing this on the England thread really.

also, Fuck Madrid

That's my basic position really (to nv). I'm not taking it forward much more than by saying that with good organisation, luck and a tailwind England could still win a world cup, which probably isn't true of Portugal. So I could see Jose taking a punt on England.

France and Spain have turned themselves into countries that don't need those things, but yeah that isn't happening here any time soon.

yr talking terrible self-deceiving syllogistic drivel and yr not even english iirc?

Not sure being English is a prerequisite for syllogistic, whatever that is?

idk man, i just find the blithe dismissal of verifiable fact in favour of 'what will have been' rather deranged

holland's 40 yr ability to compete with and often defeat far larger nations further undermines yr population argument

Well not sure that's what I was doing, but whatever you like.

Fwiw I'm pretty sure Capello was taking exactly that punt. Jose's greater experience here might warn him off I guess, or make him more confident of the cure.

there are explicable structural reasons for england's failure, both in general terms and specifically wrt the 'golden generation' (a lilgloss on that subject)

i think capello, anticipating retirement, could care less about failure and the inevitable damage to his reputation when he gets paid more than at madrid or juventus for a part time job

Not destroy, but yeah this. I can imagine Mourinho spending every day since the 0-5 plotting letting Barca pass their way to four 0-1 defeats. (what's the fourth game btw? Copa del Rey?)

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 10 April 2011 14:24 (3 hours ago)

didn't u just predict shakhtar to knock them out of the cl?

fwiw i think the 5-0 is a bit misleading wrt the difference between the teams because mourinho chose an uncharacteristically attacking midfield

some crazy talk itt.

the way i see it: mourinho is going to not give a shit about the copa del rey final and the league game. the league is lost, the cup on its own will not keep him in a job. if he wins the champs league he wins mandril their 10th, iirc, wins it himself back to back, and has a chance to beat barca and win it and la liga next season, after which he can go to another great club - manure maybes - and continue his amazingly succesful run. he's years away from heading out to the pasture of international management if he can win the champs league this season.

otoh guardiola's motivations and expectations are a bit harder to fathom. of course my reading of mourinho and his possible trajectory is pure pish conjecture but whatevs, pep defo more enigmatic. seems a bit languid and fatalistic - had "a bad feeling" about the tie against shakhtar when shakhtar had injuries and farca were playing at home. also has made comments to the effect that he can see himself leaving. vague comments which are positing a departure in seasons to come but still not really the kind of thing you expect when his side is being labelled the best ever, he's on track to win the league, again, and in the running for the champs league. i feel he might be cautious in these games. draw in the league would be enough to end any semblance of a challenge from madrid, he won't want to concede away goals in europe and will be wary of the counter-attacking threat.

so, i predict lacklustre encounters in both league and cup. cagey as fuck encounters in europe, with mourinho going for a victory by a goal or on away goals. barcelona are the better team, but won't win all the games, the gulf is not as wide as 5-0 suggested. i would say, however, that if puyol is back and in form for the champs league ties i'd expect barca to get to the final and for mourinho to get his jotters. this is of course wishful thinking, madrid being a horrible club, and mourinho's style of football being one i've never enjoyed.

Mourinho has said that he wants to manage Portugal, wants to come back to England and doesn't expect to do anything with Madrid until next season at least (which is pretty reigned him for him). If he is a success at Real (which he will be, if they give him time), I wonder if he has plans as well to manage Bayern Munich and try to win the league in five different countries which would surely be unprecedented.

In more immediate matters, I hope Real spank Barca all over the shop in the CL, but can't see it happening.

It's time to choose - this thread or the La Liga one?

I SAY HERE.

Are Real playing five defenders?

yeah pepe in midfield i think? and no özil :(

is there one of those nice HD streams on the go? My craving for more pixels is swelling.

streamhub.tv, if you don't mind US commentary

Who the hell is this Geordie twat on my stream?

Real on the counter are amazingly swift, and this is without Özil

I love that Mourinho looks exactly like me atm: both on the 'bench', tired, strung out, not caring and enjoying it all the same

I would totally watch a league with just Barca and Madrid, playing each other 36 times a season.

(which brings us back to chess again - just the best two, playing each other again and again and again)

I'm so happy there are two more games with these two.

Meh...

;-)

dont follow spanish football v.closely. is pep actually legit or just fortunate to have inherited one of the great organic club sides just as they come into full bloom?

Incredible build up for the two CL matches, this

Real Madrid got away with a hell of a lot of timewasting there

guardiola is excellent, tho not a mourinho (for good and ill)

@Cozen, who will tell? With clubs like Barca it's hard to tell. Rijkaard did really well with Barca too, but not with any of the other teams before or after Barca. I do think Pep has a great hand in how Barca plays, tweaking tiki taka to perfection. Plus being highly, highly regarded by the players. But if he's the only one that can get these results and this football with Barca? I don't underestimate him, not at all actually, but I doubt it all the same.

Lol maureen on a bad night for tippy happy.

I don't know what that means

feel very certain pepe is a gourmet rijkaard who would be just as unable to recreate any of what he's achieved as barca custodian elsewhere. that's not to denigrate what he's done, only to say that it's a different kind of role to what a "normal" manager does

pepe? pep.

dont follow spanish football v.closely. is pep actually legit or just fortunate to have inherited one of the great organic club sides just as they come into full bloom?

― thetan is cheatin (cozen), Wednesday, 20 April 2011 23:01 (14 minutes ago)

I don't think we'll figure this out until Xavi retires.

shakira shakira in the directors box.

Pep himself says he just does the press conferences. We'll see when he goes elsewhere.

Sergio Ramos, you klutz!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSvmAtOnrkA&feature=player_embedded

saw that earlier...brilliant.

ahahahahahahaha

also why are they having a parade for the copa del rey

Haven't won a trophy in a while iirc

Last trophy is La Liga in 2008, so it's not like it's been that long. But yeah it feels kind of weird. I mean it's Madrid! If it were Hercules or Gijon or whoever I'd understand the parade.

I've always felt like we're missing out by not being able to have parades when we win stuff. Stupid Glasgow.

I was in Barcelona the night of the 2009 Champions League final. They called the riot police in cos the fans were going so mental. And that was for a victory.

Does that not happen in Amsterdam, Milan, London, München, everywhere where a big club wins a title? Having the riot police at hand? Football fans in being stupid etc

Actually got charged by them though. As i was drunkenly minding my own business.

so

Taking advantage of Young Boys: Champions League & Europa League 2010/11

I have both my laptops primed & ready to go

there is a football contest on tonight

Eamon Dunphy just called Ronaldo's goal in the Copa Del Rey the best header he's ever seen.

It was good, yeah. I might post here for a bit.

His header for Utd against Roma was better

I love how Real are pressing here. It's like they're putting 80% into it most of the time, letting Barca paint themselves into a corner, then snapping into the tackle when it counts.

Get it to Villa more. What's he going to do except cut inside though?

Last one for a few months then. Sky reporting that Jose won't be in attendance.

I'm glad we've got six more days to decide who's going to come off best here

I think it's great that this thread hasn't been filled with all the lame shenanigans between Wednesday and now. Let's play ball!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

couldn't find la liga thread but yikes the end of this clasico has been nuts

that said, i am reminded of just how irritating ray hudson is

fuckin sergio ramos

El clasico has became a bit of a non event with this current mandril mob.

Shug Ramos is fitba's greatest villain

vinicius jr looked kind of amazing in those matches & rly should've scored like 2-3 goals

zizou back in? which seems like a bit of loss of face for perez considering zidane left in the first place cos he knew the team was dying and they didn't have the cash to fix it. not sure I can see bale at any of the current epl top 6.

I thought Zidane was going to Juve, but apparently not. Perez has lost so much face since selling Ornlado and not getting something half decent back he hasn't any face left.

No idea why Zizou would want to go back. The food's nice *shrugs*

They probably promised him Neymar or something, which wouldn't make a big difference.

fifou if he goes back tbh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1aFP5lWsAAfCTk.jpg

to say I'm struggling with this is an understatement can someone from the continent explain please

second worst decision made today