The European Competitions Thread

[Vesper 30,187]

Chaos at Camp Nou: Inside Barcelona's Bubbling Crisis

The problems off the field at Barcelona are plentiful, and with no games to deflect and distract, it's more clear than ever that necessary change is coming.

 

https://www.si.com/soccer/2020/04/14/barcelona-crisis-bartomeu-board-messi-abidal

 

No club is enjoying a good spell during the coronavirus crisis, but then again, no club is having quite such a bad one as Barcelona. As the financial downturn begins to bite, the ongoing mismanagement of the club is being exposed, and there aren’t even in any matches in which Lionel Messi can do something brilliant to deflect attention from the chaos in the boardroom.

The presidency of Josep Maria Bartomeu had been under attack for several months before the crisis. Messi is not an obviously political animal, so the fact that he had taken to offering public criticism of the board on a regular basis is significant. But the events of last Thursday evening, when six directors resigned, have taken the crisis to a new level. Even worse for Bartomeu, one of those who resigned was Emili Rousaud, whom he had elevated to vice president only a month ago, effectively nominating him as the continuity candidate and his ideal successor, to stand in next year’s presidential elections.

Having resigned, Rousaud then suggested somebody at the club “had their hand in the till,” an explosive allegation of corruption. Barcelona responded with a vague threat of legal action, although it’s hard to believe it would want the scrutiny of a court case that would put the I3 Ventures scandal into a detailed, public spotlight. Simply put, payments of €900,000 were made to I3 Ventures, a company that the club says was contracted to monitor social media activity. Radio station Cadena Ser, though, reported allegations that I3 Ventures was running a coordinated attack campaign on social media against those opposed to the club and the president. At one point, it’s said, that included some of Barcelona’s own players–even Messi.

Bartomeu has dismissed the allegations as “completely false,” but Jaume Masferrer, his closest adviser, was suspended pending investigation. But there is something else odd about the I3 Ventures deal. Why was the fee so high? Some have suggested the work officially done was probably worth about a sixth of what was paid. And why were the payments made in a series of tranches, each of just under the €200,000 threshold that would have triggered an immediate internal audit?

Even without the I3 Ventures affair, this has been an extraordinarily turbulent few months for Barcelona. The chaos is so all-encompassing it’s hard to know where to begin, although the loss of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain three years ago and the subsequent panic signings of Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho for inflated fees is probably a decent place to start. 

PSG, it’s been suggested, deliberately shattered the world-record fee in order to inflate the market, knowing it had resources unmatched by the vast majority of clubs; whether that was a deliberate ploy or not, it has shattered Barcelona, not least because the signings, as well as wasting the $220 million windfall, also broke any semblance of a wage structure.

 

snip

[NikkiCFC 8,324]

I was not even born.

[Vesper 30,187]

8 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

I was not even born.

Nor was I, unless you count his horrid return in 1996–1997  (they finished 11th)

[NikkiCFC 8,324]

13 hours ago, Vesper said:

Nor was I, unless you count his horrid return in 1996–1997  (they finished 11th)

Yeah, pretty sure that team was not 20 years ahead of time 

[Vesper 30,187]

CIES Football Observatory

n°292 - 20/04/2020

Demography

Player export: Brazil leads the tablIssue number 292 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks countries worldwide according to the number of their representatives having played professional football abroad during the calendar year 2019. Brazil is at the top of the table (1,600 players, of which 74.6% active in top division leagues) ahead of France (1,027, 74.0%) and Argentina (972, 75.5%).

(my own add, the former Yugoslavia countries add up to 1492!)

In total, 186 national associations had at least one player expatriated in the 141 leagues from 93 countries included in the sample. However, altogether, Brazil, France and Argentina provided up to almost one quarter of the total foreign workforce in global football (22.5%). Nigeria is the main African exporting nation (399 players abroad), while Japan is the principal Asian one (161).

The CIES Football Observatory Atlas of Migration presents the main destinations for each origin. This exclusive tool notably reveals that Portugal is by far the main destination for Brazilians, ahead of Italy and Japan. The three main destinations for the French expatriates are England, Belgium and Luxembourg, while those of the Argentineans are Chile, Mexico and Spain.

Number of expatriates, by country of origin (2019)

Footballers having played abroad during the calendar year 2019. [Divisions 1]: Active in top division leagues.

[Jase 43,479]

Well...

 

[NikkiCFC 8,324]

Arsenal and Atletico Madrid would be the BIG winners if UEFA uses controversial coefficient system to decide next season's Champions League places, while it would be DISASTER for Chelsea and Inter Milan... so, what are the alternatives?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8244639/Arsenal-Man-United-Atletico-Madrid-Roma-big-winners-UEFA-coefficient-plan.html

UEFA would lost any credibility if this happens.

[Jase 43,479]

55 minutes ago, Mana said:

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11977062/uefa-champions-league-and-europa-league-qualification-must-be-on-sporting-merit

Basically what NikkiCFC has posted, No WAY in FECK that this should happen. I want Chelsea to sue the hell out of UEFA if they dare screw us out of the CL.

I can't believe that horrid 2015/16 season has come to haunt us again, playing a huge factor in our coefficients.

We are the defending Europa League winners FFS.

Meanwhile Arsenal, a team that we smashed in last year's final, a side has won no European trophy in decades and hasn't been in the CL for 3 years, gets a free pass.

EDIT: *breathes calmly* Hopefully UEFA doesn't go through with that idea.

 

[Vesper 30,187]

7 hours ago, Jason said:

 

that Arse UEFA coefficient is completely cherry-picked

it's the 5 year coefficient

we got fucked because of no points in 2016/17

if we had the average year then we would be 8th in the world with 104 points, 1 behind PSG who have 105

look at this seasons rankings

 

the previous set of 5 years before the current 5 we are 4th in the world

for the ten years we are 5th (AM passes us up)

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Jase 43,479]

13 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

 

[11Drogba 2,000]

 

[Jase 43,479]

Looks like the Dutch season has been declared null and void. No champions, promotion and relegation. 

[Fernando 6,585]

5 hours ago, Jason said:

Looks like the Dutch season has been declared null and void. No champions, promotion and relegation. 

What should be done in general. 

It's dumb to continue to plan for this season. 

Just do the same thing, null and void and focus on next season. 

Pre season in July. 

[NikkiCFC 8,324]

 

Put also sound of fans on and we are ready to go lol

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Jase 43,479]

Ligue 1 cancelled after the French government banned sports until September...

[Vesper 30,187]

Raphael Honigstein’s Bundesliga Team of the Year

https://theathletic.com/1768666/2020/04/27/bundesliga-team-of-the-year/

Nobody knows how, when and if the rest of the season will play out but few would disagree that the individual quality in the Bundesliga has rarely been higher in recent years.

Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Monchengladbach (who are unlucky not to represented in this Team of the Year) could have easily provided three or four different top XIs. These, in a 3-4-3 formation, are the men who won my vote…

---

Goalkeeper:  Peter Gulacsi (Leipzig)

The 29-year-old did have a couple of dodgy moments in the first half of the season but then quickly improved again to provide silent, stoic excellence between the posts. The Hungary international looks more and more like prime Petr Cech (2004-2008), and not just in terms of his receding hairline. Gulacsi specialises in the unspectacular, keeping goal in a calm, technical manner that isn’t always appreciated fully in a country that likes its No 1s big and brash.

The Hereford United, Tranmere Rovers and Hull City old boy has put up some impressive numbers. His shot save percentage* of 73 per cent is identical to Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich) and Yann Sommer (Borussia Monchengladbach) but he’s vastly over-performed compared with his Bayern counterpart, conceding 3.6 fewer goals than expected (Neuer’s metric was flat). Sommer has proved even more able (or luckier), conceding 6.1 fewer goals than expected, but the Switzerland No 1 is not as proficient as Gulasci when it comes to cutting out crosses or making interventions outside the box.

Other qualities are harder to quantify but no less important. Gulacsi is the oldest of Leipzig’s regulars, less than three years younger than coach Julian Nagelsmann; a beacon of experience. And crucially, he’s shown up when it matters. Thanks to him, Leipzig have drawn home and away with Bayern this season and advanced to the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

*includes shots blocked by defenders. All stats from fbref.com

Right centre-back: Edmond Tapsoba (Leverkusen)

Can you be in the Team of the Year having played a grand total of nine games in the league concerned? Yes, you can — when you’ve played them as well as the Burkina Faso centre-back has. Tapsoba, an €18 million (plus €2 million in add-ons) buy on January 31 from Portugal’s Vitoria Guimaraes, has astonished everyone at Leverkusen with the pace of his adaptation and the quality of performances.

It only took the 21-year-old four training sessions to find a starting berth in the 4-3 win against Borussia Dortmund, the start of nine-game unbeaten run in all competitions (eight of them wins) for Leverkusen. Peter Bosz’s side, so easy on the eye in possession, have suddenly learned how to defend. It’s not much of an exaggeration to call Tapsoba’s impact on their fortunes Virgil van Dijk-esque. “It’s extraordinary to see a player getting used to a new culture, a new country, a new language, a new playing philosophy and new team-mates this quickly,” says Bosz.

Leicester City were unlucky to miss out on him because of problems with a work permit. But the way things are going, he’ll turn up at a Premier League club before too long.

Centre-back: Dayot Upamecano (Leipzig)

Few people watch football to marvel at central defenders but Dayotchanculle Oswald Upamecano, born in Normandy three months after France won the 1998 World Cup, is one of these rare players who shift the focus of attention from those tasked with scoring to those tasked with denying them.

Upamecano is a mountain. No, a mountain range. Immovable. Unsurpassable. A truly magnificent sight. Unbelievably, he’s rather slender and not even that tall for defender but every one of his 186 centimetres (6ft 1in) seems to be in multiple places at the same time. Here. There. Everywhere it matters.

By his standards, there has been the odd less-than-amazing performance since the turn of the year, when the €10 million buy from Valenciennes’s academy (via Leipzig’s Austrian Mini-Me that is Red Bull Salzburg) came back from an ankle injury, but there simply isn’t a defender that’s more fun to watch in the league right now.

Left centre-back: Mats Hummels (Dortmund)

The former Germany international — as Joachim Low would no doubt introduce him — has been somewhat overshadowed by this season’s more illustrious additions at Dortmund: Erling Haaland, Thorgan Hazard, Julian Brandt. But few could deny Hummels’ second spell at Signal Iduna Park has been success so far.

The 31-year-old has had a few outstanding performances, especially in the Champions League. He’s helped a notoriously shaky back-line improve markedly when it comes to defending set-pieces and crosses and his passing out from the back remains delightfully insolent. On top of that, he’s struck up a fine partnership with Dan-Axel Zagadou, who makes up for Hummels’ vulnerabilities in defensive transition.

Time might be against him as far as changing Low’s mind for what is now Euro 2021 is concerned but there’s still no better, more gifted and cultured German defender out there.

Right midfield: Achraf Hakimi (Dortmund)

Decent full-backs are hard to come by. It’s harder, still, to find players who can do a fine job on either side of defence and even play as wingers if need be. That’s why the Morocco international, on loan from Real Madrid, has half a dozen of clubs queuing up to take him off the Spaniards’ hands in the summer — if they can’t offer him first time football next season and do want to sell.

They’d be crazy do so, however. The 21-year-old is ridiculously fast. He loves to join the attack on overlaps or underlaps, provides assist with thrilling regularity (10 in 37 games this season in all competitions) and scores himself, too. Seven goals speak of his ability in front of goal.

A perfectionist coach such as Dortmund’s Lucien Favre would have noted a few positional mistakes without the ball but more experience at this level will lead to better decision-making.

Central midfield: Kai Havertz (Leverkusen)

The crown prince of German football had a relatively undistinguished first half of the season. Leverkusen on the whole struggled to find balance — there was no Tapsoba then, remember — and Havertz looked short of inspiration without his best football buddy Brandt, gone to Dortmund, beside him.

But normal service has resumed since January. The 20-year-old floats through space, dragonfly-style, drifts past defenders with the shrug of a shoulder, sees the killer pass three seconds before anyone else and then plays it, deliciously soft and perfect like freshly-spun cotton candy.

Havertz is a dream of a player, capable of playing anywhere in midfield. COVID-19 might make it more complicated for Leverkusen to sell for the €100 million he’s surely worth, “But such a thing is not meant to last,” as Monica Bellucci’s character Persephone had it in The Matrix movies. Not at Leverkusen, at any case.

Central midfield: Thiago (Bayern)

Almost every Bayern player has bounced back to play at the upper limit of his abilities since Niko Kovac was replaced by Hansi Flick in early November. Thiago, however, warrants special recognition as the gold-plated heart of the champions’ game.

The Spain international, 29, plays midfield football at a different level to anyone else in the Bundesliga. Not everyone has clocked onto it yet but this is now his team; perhaps more so than ever before.

Left midfield: Alphonso Davies (Bayern)

Goalimpact, devised by German engineer Jorg Seidel, is an algorithm for scouting players. In early 2018, Goalimpact predicted that Davies, a 17-year-old then playing for Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps, would be a world-beater. It’s unclear whether Bayern were convinced by that verdict when they bought the Ghanaian-born son of Liberian refugees for $22 million that summer, but Davies has certainly exceeded all expectations.

In the space of five months, he has gone from fringe player with a habit of overhitting his crosses to the first-choice left-back, deputising so well for David Alaba that the Austrian might never return to his usual berth. “His development has been great,” coach Flick said.

Davies, the fastest player in Bayern’s squad, has grown so quickly he must be considered not just the best left-back in the Bundesliga but a one of the most effective players in his position world-wide. It’s a bit of a football fairytale, and it’s only the beginning — he recently signed a contract extension keeping him in Munich until 2025.

Right forward: Jadon Sancho (Dortmund)

You might have heard of this kid: he’s the youngest player in Bundesliga history to get to 25 goals. Look a little deeper into his numbers, however, and his impact looks even more phenomenal this season. Whenever Sancho touches the ball, things tend to happen, whether that’s his 17 all-competition goals for Dortmund this season, the 19 assists or chances for team-mates.

Sancho creates nearly five shots on goal per match for his team, and his combined expected goals and expected assists are 0.71 per league game, according to fbref.com. He is his club’s biggest difference maker, the man who may even win them the championship this season. No wonder Favre can’t afford to leave him out of the starting line-up — unless minor indiscretions like late arrival for training warrant a symbolic slap on the wrist.

Opposition defenders have figured out his “tell”: Sancho always raises his right arm before dribbling. Unfortunately, there’s not much they can do about it. The England international is too tricky, too fast. One of the league’s biggest attractions in years.

Striker: Roberto Lewandowski (Bayern)

Thirty-nine goals in 33 club games in all competitions. Do I need to say more? Even by his own standards, the Polish centre-forward has gone to a different level this season, scoring relentlessly.

There is no doubt that he’s vastly benefited from the return of Bayern’s positional game under Flick, especially its steady supply of passes and supporting players into the box. Anyone who saw him toil fruitlessly 50 metres ahead of his team-mates in the depressing Champions League round of 16 exit against Liverpool last season appreciates the importance of a joined-up game plan for any poacher.

But you still need to be in the right place, as often as he is. Having missed the last three games because of a knee injury, the Bundesliga’s COVID-19-enforced break may see him wrestle with an immortal soon. Gerd Muller holds the Bundesliga record with 40 goals in a season from 1971-72. Lewandowski has 25 with nine games to go…

Left forward: Timo Werner (Leipzig)

As an RB player and a forward who likes to, ahem, exaggerate the odd contact by a defender, Werner hasn’t exactly been the most popular player in the German top flight. A few inconsistent spells over the years have only encouraged his detractors. In this campaign, however, the 24-year-old has performed beyond reproach. There’s the superlative end-product (21 goals and seven assists in the Bundesliga) and there’s also the underlying effectiveness. Fbref.com have calculated a value of 0.99 for xG plus xA per match for him. In English: he’s basically worth one goal per game to his side. An elite forward.

Some of the credit for Werner’s form must go to coach Nagelsmann, who has come up with lop-sided 4-4-2 or 3-5-2/3-4-3 systems that leaves room for the former Stuttgart prodigy as a number nine-and-a-half/second-striker in the left half-space. That deployment has brought out the best in him. A bit of anger in his belly could have played a role as well: Werner was upset that Bayern never followed through their approach last summer to find an agreement with RB. The champions’ loss is Leipzig’s gain. Soon, it could be someone else’s.

[NikkiCFC 8,324]

HAHAHAHAHA! What is the point of sport then?

[NikkiCFC 8,324]

BATE is playing now. Where is @Vesper with her streams?