The Soccer Thread (IV)

Gunners get second.

 

Eduardo flopped. Even Arsenal fans should be embarrassed.

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If you didn't like Dan Loney's Europoseur column, you'll hate this one, too.
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=6443

 

So how badly did yesterday's violence damage the UK's 2018 World Cup campaign?

 

It's nothing some "donations" and a few carefully located away friendlies can't fix.

 

deskslave is ... happier than he was at this time yesterday. Still not sure Pompey can escape the drop this year, but this should at least prevent a Leeds-style freefall.

As far as the violence is concerned, some of it was pretty much unavoidable. There's only so many police you can deploy, and if it's gonna go off, it's gonna go off. The priority for police is, and has been, making sure they don't hurt anyone else, first and foremost, and then making sure they at least don't kill each other.

No doubt they also made an effort to protect supporters who weren't involved, especially children, but as I said last night, if you're a Millwall fan and you take your kids to a game at West Ham ... well, you damn sure know what you're getting yourself into.

Much of this has been drummed out because of the money factor. You simply cannot be a big-name club and have this sort of crap associated with you, because it will affect people's willingness to buy tickets and merchandise. There's no way Chelsea could do what they do now and have a Millwall-style level of support. It just wouldn't work. (Which is why I snicker sometimes at Chelsea fans in the States, because they clearly have no idea of what the club was and represented even 20 years ago.)

And in any event, much of the violence outside was between fans without tickets, and probably between fans who don't actually go to that many games. They saw an opportunity for a fight, and they jumped at it. That they can attach their names to West Ham and Millwall is almost incidental. If the clubs didn't exist, they'd find some other reason to have a fight.

As far as the World Cup is concerned, it won't have helped, but it won't really hurt either. Far worse happens in South America all the time, and FIFA all but fell over itself to give the World Cup to Brazil. People know there's still an element of this in the domestic game, but it's been largely drummed out at the international level. A lot of that is down to travel restrictions, which obviously wouldn't be in place for a World Cup in England, but the sale of tickets for England games is heavily monitored, and the sale of World Cup tickets would be the same. The events in Charleroi during Euro 2000 were pretty much the last straw as far as England-related violence is concerned.

 

Millwall and Hammers slam racism

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/8223379.stm

 

What a bold stance that is.

 

Man, no joke. That guy gives me a headache.

He comes across as a ranting fanboy who hasn't really thought about the topic before he just starts typing.

 

That's because Dan Loney is exactly that: a ranting fanboy who just types diarrhea, and the mouth breathers at Big Soccer fawn over his inanity.

 

He's too verbose in blog form. I didn't really mind him on Four at the Back. He chucked the fan boy stuff and just stuck to simple analysis which he was rather good at. Too bad the show has gone away.

 

How difficult would it be to do such a podcast? I imagine any recording equipment would be the most cost-prohibitive.

Other than that -- a Skype connection? Witty analysis? An armada of sycophants ready to wage e-mail jihad on a moment's notice?

 

I doubt a podcast is all that expensive. Just use a PC to record the conversation. Eventually, you can get advertisers. From there you try to connect up a phone to get the whole interactive thing going.