Let's have some fun this week
Every so often football twitter gives us a nice little gem. So let's take a break from all the toxicity and have some fun during an international break
I think we can all agree that right now football twitter fucking sucks. It’s a world full of toxicity where everything is lived on the extremes. It’s made all the worse now by the fan cams who have managed to monetize negativity which just adds more toxicity and division amongst what can be a very fun online community.
It’s always been bad, but it’s gotten so much worse. I’ve lost count of how many conversations I’ve had this year with people who run big accounts, professional writers, and fan writers like myself where we all echo the same sentiment of: “I’m just not as motivated to write anymore. The backlash to whatever I say is just ridiculous.”
There are people out there who when United score their first reaction isn’t to celebrate but to pull out their phone and fire off tweets aimed at people who have dared criticize that player in the past. The morning after Manchester United beat Tottenham I woke up to a string of tweets from someone quoting a tweet of mine from months ago to try to own me because Harry Maguire scored an own goal. His multiple tweet thread then devolved into name calling and harassing me about takes that I never actually said.
People like Goldbridge, who use burner accounts to find tweets of people who dare criticize them, then either take screenshots or retweet them to set their minions on them for having the audacity to criticize them are a massive part of the problem1.
As bad as it is, we’re still here. We’re still here because a lot of times the community can be really great and enjoyable. And we’re still here because every so often football twitter gives us gems like this thread that I came across last week.
Is this just playing on millennials ever lasting desire for nostalgia?
Absolutely! But who cares!
As soon as I saw this I said, ‘wow this looks like fun,’ but also, I’m very wordy and I have more to say about some of these things then you can fit in a tweet. So rather than put out a bunch of threads where things can be taken out of context, I’ll just do a post, because I can!
It’s the international break, why not? Let’s have some fun answering some of these.
Summer of 2007 I bought two kits. Cristiano Ronaldo 2006-07 home shirt and a Wayne Rooney 2007-08 away shirt (the black one). It was around the same time but I think Ronaldo’s came first.
The reason I fell in love with the game. 17-19 year old Cristiano Ronaldo. Before he was the ruthless goalscorer. When he was just the pacy winger with all those tricks (too many tricks if you ask the old school British folks). He’d dance around players then bring the ball back to dance around them again. Couldn’t finish for shit back then but that didn’t matter. He was so so much fun to watch.
2007-08 Manchester United. Easily the best Sir Alex Ferguson team ever and yes that includes the team that won the treble. They were nine points better, same number of goals but conceded 15 fewer. That 2008 team should have won the treble themselves. They simply got football’d in that FA Cup match against Portsmouth when they flat out dominated the match only to have David James stand on his head, Edwin van der Sar come off at halftime injured, and backup goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak getting sent off. It happens.
That bunch was by far the most exciting team I’ve ever watched. They were just so good in every area. Just a shame that it only lasted one season.
A year later Ronaldo already had one eye and one foot in Madrid. He came back to win back-to-back Champions League titles and you can tell that was his motivation as he practically slept walked through the league campaign2. Knowing that Ronaldo was leaving and Tevez was probably gone too, Fergie signed Dimitar Berbatov to start moving the team in a new direction. Berbatov was a good and fun player in his own way, but the dynamic of the team was never the same.
Not gonna lie I don’t really get this one. Do Conte and Tuchel play the same style? Are Arteta and Ten Hag similar?
If you’ve paid attention me, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t said much about Erik Ten Hag. That’s because I’m not one of those United fans who pretends that they’ve watched Ajax matches and knows everything about him. I’ve seen a few Ajax matches in the Champions League but certainly not enough to have an informed opinion.
Anyway I think the answer is neither? I find Arteta’s Arsenal very boring. I find Tuchel’s Chelsea very boring. Hell, Pep’s City is often quite boring!
I’m a fan of tactical football but I’m also a fan of take your shot football. I like watching Bruno Fernandes play but at the same time I’d also like Bruno Fernandes to be a little less wasteful. Balance.
You need to have a tactical structure, especially out of possession. In possession you need to have a plan and your players need to know what to do, but when you see an opportunity I like when they have the freedom to take it.
Sometimes that means things go wrong and guess what, that’s what makes it fun! A couple weeks ago in one my weekly chats with Suwaid we were talking about how Pep Guardiola is a madman trying to create a team that plays the perfect game of football. One where his team does everything right while guarding against any potential vulnerability, essentially making it virtually impossible to lose. I got no interest in that. Sure I want to win, but football is entertainment. There have to be some stakes on the line otherwise, what’s the point?
No no no no no. In a team sport, absolutely not. There’s only so much one man can do.
Great players play in bad teams all the time and occasionally will carry them farther than they should go, but it ain’t their fault when they don’t win it all.
Harry Kane is the poster boy in this tweet for obvious reasons. None of his teams have ever won a trophy. On the other side of things is Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez, a man with a decently decorated trophy cabinet. But on no planet is Chicharito a better striker - and certainly not a better footballer - than Kane.
This always comes up with the dumb Gerrard vs Scholes debate. Put it this way, if you swapped Gerrard and Scholes, Liverpool would still never win the league3 while United would probably have won it just as many times as they did. Both are great players. Scholes played in a much better team so he has more trophies.
I think this is where a lot of people will disagree with me here but my answer is 100 percent no*. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super competitive and I want nothing more than to win. But there’s a difference between playing and being a fan.
When I’m playing football, I don’t care how we do it so long as we’re giving ourselves the best chance to win. Since I’m not a flair player, when I’m playing I tend to promote a more boring ‘make sure we don’t concede, let’s win this 1-0 rather than 5-4’ type of style. I’m just not good enough to win the other way and I want to win.
But as a fan? I want to be entertained because otherwise, what’s the point? So you can go into work on Monday and laugh at your mates because some arbitrary men wearing the same color shirt as you beat a different group of arbitrary men wearing the same color shirt as your mates? And if your mates are ribbing you? Who cares? It’s just words.
If I’m gonna get my ass up in the morning, head down to the bar to watch the match with the lads, spend money to make sure I can see all the matches, and spend money on the club itself, I damn well should be entertained for 90 minutes once or twice a week4.
That doesn’t mean I don’t care. I still get bummed out over losses. I’ve faced massive depression battles on Monday mornings for no other reason than the football team I choose to support lost over the weekend. It’s not at all healthy.
Let me put it this way. If your team loses, you’re going to be upset. It doesn’t matter if it’s a match where they played like crap or a match where they played great but conceded a goal against the run of play. If they lose, you won’t be happy.
On the other side we’ve all seen matches where your team plays like crap and comes away with the win. Everyone justifies it, “poor performance but three points is three points,” or “but we’re on to the next round of the cup.” You don’t walk out mad or upset but you don’t really walk out happy. Just merely content with a “job done” attitude.
But we’ve also had those matches where the team plays brilliant football. The whole 90 minutes are a joy to watch and everyones signing and enjoying themselves. You walk into work on Monday with a literal spring in your step and you can’t wait until the next matchday so you can watch your team play again.
Give me that feeling. That’s the feeling I want. That’s the feeling I’ll chase. That’s what this is all about.
*This does not apply to cup finals. In a cup final play as boring as you want, just win the damn thing.
Just read The Fix by Declan Hill and you’ll know that match fixing is not only extremely prevalent in football but it’s not just in the smaller leagues and countries but at the top levels like the Champions League as well.
I don’t have a specific example but matches get fixed all the time. It’s just not in the way you’re thinking.
When you hear the term match fixing the automatic assumption one tends to make is ‘favorite intentionally throws the game so the underdog wins.’ It rarely happens like that because… well that’s just way too damn obvious.
The way these guys work is they’ll find a heavy underdog and pay off 4-5 guys to ensure they lose the match by a certain amount, then they’ll go and bet on the goal spread. If Chelsea beat Bursaspoor5 5-0 in the Champions League, no one bats an eye.
Betting on Chelsea to win by more than four goals would return you a decent but not massive amount of money. Even if you’re only getting three to one odds, that’s a really good return when you’re betting a lot of money - especially when you’re guaranteeing that you’ll get that three to one return.
This is a tricky one. Here’s the quick answer: Attackers - sort of. Midfielders - definitely not.
In a sport where the typical match has less than three goals, being someone who is proficient at scoring is an incredibly important trait. So for attackers goals are very important. But that should also be contextualized. Are you someone who creates his own shots or are you just a penalty box poacher who needs service from his teammates to score? How are your holdup and passing skills?
If you’re just someone who poaches in the penalty box but can’t contribute in other areas then you need 10 players who can do those things supporting you for you and your team to be successful. If your team doesn’t have that and you add in that poaching attacker, it’s not going to work out so well.
Assists are good but less so. Mainly because they require your teammates to actually finish the chance. You can make a six yard square pass and get an assist when your teammate scores from a 25 yard screamer. Or sometimes you can do the hard part and get nothing when your teammate misses a sitter.
For midfielders though, it’s a totally different story.
They’re deployed much deeper on the pitch. Their job isn’t to score goals and more often than not their job isn’t even to primary assist goals either. In most cases, a midfielders job is to facilitate. Get the ball to your attacking players who’s job it is to create chances, in areas where they can be most effective at their job.
For midfielders you really have to look at the team around them. On/off stats have their (long list of) flaws, but midfielders are the best position to use them. If your team concedes a lot more goals when you’re on the pitch, you’re probably doing something wrong and hurting your team. If your attackers who typically put up great numbers consistently see their numbers drop when you’re not in the team, it’s a usually a sign that you’re doing things that makes your team better.
Yes.
We probably overstate how much the mind games that managers play in the media work, but goalkeepers psych out players all the time on penalties. In a situation like that where it’s so mental, they can definitely be effective.
A combination of everything, but ultimately it’s really just father time. It comes for everyone eventually.
It’s real. It’s also overrated.
The English media overhypes their players. That’s true.
That doesn’t mean that they’re not good though. Fans now are just so quick to throw around the “English hype” whenever a young talent is breaking through, especially if that player isn’t playing for one of the top clubs. They act like if you’re not playing for one of the top clubs you can’t actually be good and the media is just needlessly hyping you? Jack Grealish came on the scene and immediately the “oh it’s just the English hype” nonsense started coming along. In reality, Jack Grealish is a really good player.
The other thing that feeds into it is these guys end up moving for enormous transfer sums. Fans blame those large sums on the English hype when it’s really just simple economics:
- These guys all play for English clubs. TV deals have made all Premier League clubs financially solvent. They no longer are in situations where they have to sell a top player to keep the lights on for another year. If they want to sell they can do it on their terms, thus they can hold out for massive sums of money.
- Premier League clubs need to have a certain number of English players in their squad. That puts a premium on them and raises prices. Supply and demand.
Arsenal 1-3 Manchester United (2017-18)
Just looking over the numbers of that match are hilarious. Arsenal with 75 percent possession, outshooting United 33-8. The xG was 3.8-2.4. Five of United’s eight shots were inside the first 20 minutes.
United went up 2-0 on two counter attacks inside the first 11 minutes and then Jose Mourinho basically said “ok guys that’s good, let’s just sit back now.” Eight minutes after the second goal Ashley Young took a bad shot that was blocked and Nemanja Matic fired a shot off the rebound which was also blocked and that was it.
After that it was the David de Gea show.
It’s one of the two best performances I’ve ever seen from a goalkeeper in my life6. The crazy part about this match was, United didn’t play poorly! They weren’t bad and yet Arsenal still played them off the park. It was actually a very enjoyable back and forth match. Nevertheless, United had no business winning it.
I mean, technically Manchester United bought a 17 year old from Portugal followed by an 18 year old from Everton, won three straight titles and the Champions League a few years later and then sold one of them for a world record fee so.. seems like a pretty big yes?
But actually. Define success?
Is it a matter of winning the Champions League? Winning your domestic league? Just winning trophies? Simply qualifying for the Champions League? Or is it a case of simply existing.
Different clubs are going to have different objectives and that’s going to influence what the answer is here.
If the goal is to win the Champions League or your domestic league the answer is no. It does depend on which league you play in, but most likely the answer is no.
Borussia Dortmund are obviously the poster boys for this strategy because they’re the “biggest” club that employs the strategy. They did famously win the league with a bunch of young/cheap players that they later sold for big money7 at the start of the last decade but it’s hard to see that feat being repeated. They caught a wave of good fortune including landing the third best forward/goal scorer in the world. Those teams perfectly coincided with Bayern Munich going through a transitional down period.
Take a look at the average age of each team that won the last four league titles in each of Europe’s top five leagues.
The majority of these teams are winning with an average age between 26 and 27, when most of their players are right in the prime of their careers. Italy has shown to be much much much friendlier to older players, while Bayern Munich can get away with being a bit older because they’re snatching up all the players from their main competition.
The buying youngsters and selling them for big prices strategy dictates that you’re buying players around the age of 18-19 and selling them off when they’re somewhere between 22 and 24 years old, right as they’re entering the prime of their career. If you’re best players are leaving when they hit their prime8 it’s very hard to compete with teams where the core of their squad are right in the prime of their careers.
The thing is, not selling your star youngster doesn’t actually mean you’ll get any more success. Quite the opposite actually. Studies have shown that since most transfer money is wasted anyway, selling your big star usually doesn’t have an impact on where the selling club finishes. They often do just as well anyway9. In 2019-20 Borussia Dortmund finished as runners up in the Bundesliga, 13 points behind Bayern Munich. Instead of doing what they normally do and selling off one of their top players that summer, they held on to Jadon Sancho with eyes towards challenging Bayern for the title. They dropped to third, 14 points behind Bayern. They subsequently sold Sancho in the summer and this season they’re currently second, just six points back10.
That’s not to say BVB haven’t been successful. They qualify for the Champions League every year. They won the DFB Cup twice in the past five years. They’re simply not the same size as Bayern and no one in that club will tell you otherwise. Their model is to keep finishing in the Champions League and keep developing players. Every so often things will come together for you and you hope that that happens at the same time Bayern has a down year.11
Success is relative.
Southampton operate a very similar model. They spent a few years constantly having their best players poached away by the bigger clubs yet still kept finishing in the European places. This was very successful because to them, just being in the Premier League is successful. Finishing in Europe is a bonus.
Southampton also represent the risk of this strategy. If you’re going to sell off your top players every year, you need to make sure that you keep developing players to replace them. Your academy has to keep producing Premier League quality players and make sure you don’t swing and miss on the players you sign.
The Saint’s can’t expect to develop many Theo Walcott’s or Gareth Bale’s but they haven’t developed many Adam Lallana types recently either. As a result they haven’t been a top of the table side in a few years. They’re still successful as they’re still comfortably a Premier League side, but more and more their finding the shadows of a relegation fight creep over them should they have any poor run of form.
The other day someone I know tweeted some criticism about Goldbridge. Goldbridge called him out and sent his followers out attacking him all day until he deleted his account. I’m not here to say fuck you to Goldbridge because I can’t even drive up the energy to be mad about this. I think it’s sad. It’s sad that his ego is this fragile. It’s sad that he’s this pathetic.
Once Ronaldo made The Leap to big time goalscorer (2007-08 season), the 2008-09 campaign was the worst one of his career. Until of course, this one.
*whispers* and they may have won even fewer cups
This is the ethos of Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy
I’d like to make it clear that I’m picking two teams completely at random
The other being Tim Howard vs Belgium at the 2014 World Cup
And lost the biggest one on a free
Often going to your biggest competition
This is talked about extensively in The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson and David Sally as well as Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski
Amazing how little we’re hearing about a potential title race in the Bundesliga. Bayern and BVB have done this so many times that heading into April we’re all pretty confident Borussia Dortmund will finish around 10 points back
Such as 2019 when they finished two points behind Bayern and the title race went down to the final day