The Soccer Thread (Version 10)

Have English pundits always been so blatantly xenophobic? An English player goes down in the box, and it's "brilliant way to get 3 points for the team" and "he was contacted and had every right to go down." I've never heard any even remote criticism of Harry Kane or Raheem Sterling, two of the biggest divers in the game.

But a foreign player goes down? It's the end of the fucking world and a pox on football.

 

Pretty much. The caricature of "fragile Johnny Foreigner" being unable to handle a Proper Tackle (TM) was around before the Magnificent Magyars used England as a chew toy at Wembley and, somehow, survives to this day despite said Johnny Foreigners and foreign money being what keeps English football relevant. Klinsmann came to Tottenham with two strikes against him -- being German and having a reputation as a diver -- but short-circuited the narrative by showing he was in on the joke. As long as the notion of England being some safe haven of fair play and Corinthian values amidst a sea of avarice and villainy persists, I don't see that behavior changing.

 

I’d be shocked if Ole survives the next 24 hours.

 

Bring back Mourinho!

 

I wonder if Mou has a next big club move. It ends so badly for him everywhere. I think that he has one more swing at RM.

 

Someone is bound to take a chance on him -- 56 is an early age to walk away from the club game. Plus, Mourinho hasn't spent more than a year out of a job since he got into coaching. What's interesting to me is the similarities between him and Guardiola. Both seem to follow the pattern of walking in, burning brightly, then burning out and/or moving on after three years. Not sure if it's their intensity or the all-encompassing nature of their approach that makes them more susceptible to burnout, or perhaps it's their being at big-money, high-profile clubs that count anything less than a domestic treble and a Champions League final appearance as a failure of a season.

Mourinho
2000 Benfica
2001–2002 União de Leiria
2002–2004 Porto
2004–2007 Chelsea
2008–2010 Inter Milan
2010–2013 Real Madrid
2013–2015 Chelsea
2016–2018 Manchester United

Guardiola
2007–2008 Barcelona B
2008–2012 Barcelona
2013–2016 Bayern Munich
2016– Manchester City

 

Schweinsteiger retires. He never did win that World Cup with the Fire.

Bastian Schweinsteiger announces retirement from football at age of 35

 

A perfect England WAG scandal.

Coleen Rooney accuses Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories to Sun

 

That was pure genius by Rooney to block everybody but Vardy.

 

Wayne himself must love his family's personal shit being aired in The S*n, of all places.

 

Chat shit get banged.