The European Leagues & Competitions Thread V2

[Laylabelle 9,406]

In a few weeks we wont have mid week games either. No excuses. It's in our hands. Cant rely on others to drop points we need to win our games. Cant do that then wont get top 4..or deserve top 4.

[Jase 43,479]

3 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

At the start of the season with likes of Pogba, Martial, Lindelof, de Gea and Rashford people would of probably expected them to finish above us because under the right manager that is potentially a very good spine. Sure they lack in other areas and sold Lukaku but I dont think people would of necessarily disagreed. 

Other than in MF (Pogba and Fernandes excluded) wouldn't say we are miles ahead of them anywhere else when you compare us player for player, even more so considering the fact we had 4 young players unproven in the league as well as the likes of Willian, Barkley, Alonso, Emerson etc in the squad. Dont get me wrong they also have weakpoints and collection of average players but I mean if you really think the likes of De Gea, Lindelof, Maguire (still overrated based on price tag I mean hes good but not 80m good), Shaw, Pogba, Fred (big improvement reasonably consistent and very very solid player now as well), McTominay (hate to say it but again a massive improvement and one of their most vital MFers due to his energy and physicality), Bruno Fernandes, Rashford and Martial (was crazy how many people wanted him here under Sarri...) are inferior players to guys like Kepa, Christensen, Emerson, Alonso Willian, Pedro, Mason, Barkley and Tammy among others then I dont know. Some still have scope to grow on our end yes but right now, its hardly as if I would be severely underrating our players or undertaking overrating their players.

Other than Pogba and Fernandes (better than our more advanced midfield players) yes we beat them in terms of MF quality because we have Kante, Ruben (will he play as an 8?), Kovacic and Jorginho in deeper positions who would still play ahead of Fred, McTominay, Matic, Pereira and that horrible bastard Lingard who is a championship footballer if hes lucky.

Both defences are probably as bad as each other although would rather Shaw than Emerson or Alonso (when he had 1 year left on his deal before he came up a notch under Mourinho, was gutted we didnt go for him, finally seems as if his fitness issues aside now the last 18 months hes been pretty decent and consistent) and think Lindelof now looks a much better CB after a tough time when he first arrived and would probably be able to displace a few of ours. 

I am curious to see which other positions you think we have better players than them in? Other than central midfield but again throw in Pogba and Fernandes, they are more creative than our midfielders. Both defences have struggled so you cant expect me to believe you think ours is better than theirs either by a country mile. Attack is about evens, they have inconsistent players such as James and Martial but again these guys have done more this season than Willian, Pedro and Barkley and are considerably younger so they still have the scope to grow that people have argued for Tomori, Mount, Tammy, James etc. Rashford may not be everyones cup of tea but hes always been a player I have thought will end up a very very good player and to have really been carrying the goalscoring burden for United at his age is pretty impressive, even more so as I dont feel he is a number 9, he is more a wide forward.

A better manager and theyd probably be better off, OGS is out of his depth similarly to what Frank has maybe found himself in although I think hes in a worse position because he went and sold their only real 20 goals a season man. Say they sign 3 or 4 players of a good quality in the summer, even with Ole, they have a chance of progresssing. We also have the same chance but it remains to be seen what or who will come in.

Spurs at the start of the season were also tipped to finish above us for sure due to the players they have in positions we are perhaps not as strong in (CF, #10, outwide and in defence). 

The top 4 race is going to be very interesting, theres still a huge chance we miss out if this bad run continues and even Arsenal have got 2 guys in Lacazette and Aubamayang who are guaranteed to score goals regularly, a manager who has gotten a clear visible improvement out of others such as Pepe, Ozil in attack as well as youngsters who have got good potential such as Saka, Martinielli (will be a top player looks very very good) and Nketiah. Even defensively bar Olympiakos and the Everton games they have looked more cohesive and organised. We did beat them but again I think come the start of next season with them and Spurs getting full pre seasons with their managers they will be completely different outfits to now which doesnt bode well if they can get top 4 at our expense this season.

 

I asked a simple question and I got an essay-like reply! 

[Jase 43,479]

4 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

At the start of the season with likes of Pogba, Martial, Lindelof, de Gea and Rashford people would of probably expected them to finish above us because under the right manager that is potentially a very good spine. Sure they lack in other areas and sold Lukaku but I dont think people would of necessarily disagreed. 

Other than in MF (Pogba and Fernandes excluded) wouldn't say we are miles ahead of them anywhere else when you compare us player for player, even more so considering the fact we had 4 young players unproven in the league as well as the likes of Willian, Barkley, Alonso, Emerson etc in the squad. Dont get me wrong they also have weakpoints and collection of average players but I mean if you really think the likes of De Gea, Lindelof, Maguire (still overrated based on price tag I mean hes good but not 80m good), Shaw, Pogba, Fred (big improvement reasonably consistent and very very solid player now as well), McTominay (hate to say it but again a massive improvement and one of their most vital MFers due to his energy and physicality), Bruno Fernandes, Rashford and Martial (was crazy how many people wanted him here under Sarri...) are inferior players to guys like Kepa, Christensen, Emerson, Alonso Willian, Pedro, Mason, Barkley and Tammy among others then I dont know. Some still have scope to grow on our end yes but right now, its hardly as if I would be severely underrating our players or undertaking overrating their players.

Other than Pogba and Fernandes (better than our more advanced midfield players) yes we beat them in terms of MF quality because we have Kante, Ruben (will he play as an 8?), Kovacic and Jorginho in deeper positions who would still play ahead of Fred, McTominay, Matic, Pereira and that horrible bastard Lingard who is a championship footballer if hes lucky.

Both defences are probably as bad as each other although would rather Shaw than Emerson or Alonso (when he had 1 year left on his deal before he came up a notch under Mourinho, was gutted we didnt go for him, finally seems as if his fitness issues aside now the last 18 months hes been pretty decent and consistent) and think Lindelof now looks a much better CB after a tough time when he first arrived and would probably be able to displace a few of ours. 

I am curious to see which other positions you think we have better players than them in? Other than central midfield but again throw in Pogba and Fernandes, they are more creative than our midfielders. Both defences have struggled so you cant expect me to believe you think ours is better than theirs either by a country mile. Attack is about evens, they have inconsistent players such as James and Martial but again these guys have done more this season than Willian, Pedro and Barkley and are considerably younger so they still have the scope to grow that people have argued for Tomori, Mount, Tammy, James etc. Rashford may not be everyones cup of tea but hes always been a player I have thought will end up a very very good player and to have really been carrying the goalscoring burden for United at his age is pretty impressive, even more so as I dont feel he is a number 9, he is more a wide forward.

Goalkeeper - As much as De Gea's form has dipped in recent times, I guess he's still better than our two keepers right now. Don't think I need to go deeper than that.

Defence - One would take Shaw at LB, if only because our options are Alonso and Emerson. Otherwise, nobody would even bother with those 3 for LB. Don't think they are that great either in the CB area. They only look better at this point in time than ours because they are better coached and left less exposed. If you were to go a few years back, I'd take the Rudiger under Conte over Maguire or Lindelof and we still have Tomori, who should be a mainstay in our defence in the long run. At RB, we are equal but James is good going forward but not so much when having to defend while AWB is good at defending but not so good at attacking.

Midfield - We have Kante, Loftus-Cheek, Kovacic and at a push, Jorginho. They have Fernandes (still to be seen whether he is actually good in the long run) and again, at a push, Pogba. McTominay is okay but he's like their Kante but not quite like Kante. Fred is still average despite whatever recent improvement because the bar was set so low for him. Just going back to Pogba, I feel like his hype is making him to be a better player than he is. Ever since leaving Juventus, he hasn't done anything of real note or performed consistently to justify why people say he's one of the best midfielders in the world. He turns 27 in a few weeks time, he's supposed to be at his peak and yet, he has gone AWOL this season with a "mysterious" injury and it looks like he'll be leaving United at the end of the season. If it wasn't for what he did at Juventus, he would probably have gone down the Lingard route and be seen as a meme footballer. 

Forward - The only one player I would say is good is Rashford. The rest is meh. Martial has blown hot and cold for someone touted as the next best thing years ago. Dan James looks just like your average hardworking winger and nothing more (some might say he's like Mount in that sense). Mata turns 32 this year and hasn't done anything really ever since leaving us. Haven't seen much of Greenwood but he looks like a good finisher. On our side, I'm not convinced by Abraham for the long term but we still have Pulisic, CHO and Ziyech to come. They arguably have better striking options but would still take our lot over theirs. 

[NikkiCFC 8,081]

Great draw for United. 

SEVILLA:ROMA

GETAFE:INTER

UTD:LASK

[Atomiswave 6,072]

13 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Great draw for United. 

SEVILLA:ROMA

GETAFE:INTER

UTD:LASK

It feels like these fuckers always get favourable teams. I still hope they get Inter down the road, Conte will fuck them up.

[Jase 43,479]

Juventus v Inter - one of 5 Serie A fixtures this weekend - has been postponed to May 13 because of the coronavirus... *sigh* 

[Vesper 29,202]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

Juventus v Inter - one of 5 Serie A fixtures this weekend - has been postponed to May 13 because of the coronavirus... *sigh* 

but is is a hoax

Trump told me so!

Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax’

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/28/trump-south-carolina-rally-coronavirus-118269

[Jase 43,479]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

Juventus v Inter - one of 5 Serie A fixtures this weekend - has been postponed to May 13 because of the coronavirus... *sigh* 

Inter's last 3 league games now reads:

Juventus (a)

Napoli (h)

Atalanta (a)

 

[NikkiCFC 8,081]

4 hours ago, Jason said:

Juventus v Inter - one of 5 Serie A fixtures this weekend - has been postponed to May 13 because of the coronavirus... *sigh* 

Good. I didn't like Real Madrid:Barcelona and Juve:Inter at the same time on Sunday. 

[11Drogba 2,000]

 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

I'm waiting for El Clasico, the diving event of the year for sure.

[ZaynChelsea 423]

Spurs don‘t impress me at all but you gotta admit that Jose really got it right with Bergwijn. A player made for the PL.

[Miki-Liki 405]

On 2/29/2020 at 1:47 PM, Vesper said:

but is is a hoax

Trump told me so!

Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax’

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/28/trump-south-carolina-rally-coronavirus-118269

 

[Vesper 29,202]

1 hour ago, Miki-Liki said:

 

Tim Poll is an alt-lite faux leftie who is a pure troll who isa darling of the alt-right and white nationalists

much like many people who use your Pepe the Frog profile pic

btw, they are often Incels

are you an Incel?

Pool also is a Trump defender on enough occasions to the point he was invited to the White House

Trump Invites Fringe Social Media Company Popular With Nazis to the White House

Minds.com was invited to a social media summit (featuring several far-right figures), but not Facebook and Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/qv7q87/trump-invites-fringe-social-media-company-popular-with-nazis-to-the-white-house

Tomorrow, President Donald Trump is meeting with a series of right wing figures at the White House to discuss social media issues. But Facebook and Twitter won't be there. In fact, the only social media network that has publicly said it's attending is Minds—billed as the crypto “anti-Facebook” and once home to several neo-Nazi extremist groups.

Pulp, a public relations firm that counts Minds among its client list, sent Motherboard a photo of the invitation the fringe social media site received to the White House for the summit.

“Minds.com is the only social media network invited to the White House's social media summit!” wrote the Pulp representative in an email to Motherboard. Facebook and Twitter, social media companies with an astronomically larger number of users than Minds, were excluded from the summit.

A previous Motherboard investigation found that miliant neo-Nazi groups connected to Atomwaffen Division—a violent American hate group connected to several murders—was using Minds as a platform for recruiting and spreading propaganda. Minds eventually banned the accounts when Motherboard showed them to the platform, but the company's lax content moderation allowed them to proliferate unchecked for months.

The White House declined to comment on the guest list of the summit, but Trump has made the perceived "bias" against conservatives by social media companies one of his core talking points in recent months. Earlier this year, Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and reportedly discussed such pressing issues as why his follower count declined.

Media Matters is reporting the summit will be attended by an assortment of individuals connected to nationalist movements, QAnon and anti-Semitic conspiracies surrounding George Soros.

Tim Pool—a right-wing media figure who once worked at VICE News—tweeted an identical invitation to the same White House summit that Minds received.

Also in attendance, among others, will be far-right radio host Bill Mitchell known for his meme-making under the name ‘Carpe Donktum’ and his support for the QAnon movement, as well as right wing activist “Ali Akbar”(also known as ‘Ali Alexander’) who recently tweeted that Senator and 2020 Presidential contender Kamala Harris, herself a woman of colour, wasn’t black enough to discuss racial politics in America.

snip

 

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tim_Pool

Tim Pool (1986–) is a Eurasian American YouTube commentator and former Vice News reporter who describes himself as a "social liberal" and "left-libertarian" who "support(ed) Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, and Tulsi Gabbard".^[3] Despite this, his content is composed almost exclusively of rebuttal-free alt-right talking points. Pool first gained notoriety reporting from the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Clickbait content

"Feminists Outraged That The Line To The Mens Bathroom Is Shorter"[8]
"Regulation Will END Censorship Online And Of Course Leftists Complain"[9]
"Brett Kavanaugh Has Proven Himself Against The Leftist Outage Mob"[10]
"Democrats And Far Leftists Are Tearing Each Other Apart, But Its Really Weird"[11]
"Fake News Leftist Just Slipped Up Exposing Smear Campaign"[12]
"Hacker Conference Has Bent The Knee To Leftist Outrage Mob"[13]

Some clickbait June 2019 headlines of Tim Pool's "socially liberal" content:

For 3 months prior, Pool did not release a video critical of any Republican, whose activities included supporting a ban on flag burning and supporting a war with Iran.

Methods

Pool has a tendency to agree at length with a right-wing talking point, then pivot to a softball question about "concerns". Examples:

"So, I was here just over a month ago, and I was here in France for about one week, and in that week, there were six different terror attacks, two of which were anti-capitalist, but four of which were Islamic terror. … We're seeing more instances where people come out, they yell, and they'll stab somebody, commit these crimes. So, I guess, is it, is immigration really the problem, or are you more concerned with this specific culture?"[16]
"Look, as far as I'm concerned, if someone who is white feels like people are saying things that are anti-white, sure, you're allowed to feel however you want, and I really don't see the problem with that. However, calling you a white supremacist discredits you beyond just your concerns about what people are saying about white people. [No question asked][16]

Views

In a softball interview with Brittany Pettibone, Pool repeated numerous right-wing talking points. For example, he waffled on supporting the wall: "it's fair to say that Trump, it's one of the issues he has called out, building the wall specifically will start to address, as many people believe, uh, on the right, it will address a lot of these issues". However, because he suggested that Islam is not inherently violent, the video has a 3:1 like:dislike ratio and numerous far-right comments from his audience.^[16]

Pool claims that "If you believe in white privilege you are by definition a racist".^[17] To defend this truly intellectual take, Pool clarified that "Racism is defined as thinking one race is superior[.] Superior means higher in status or rank. White privilege assumes white people hold a higher status in the world[.]"^[18] As should be obvious, "racism" is the belief that "X race innately holds, or should hold, a higher status in the world," rather than the recognition that whatever status they currently hold is due to social or economic conditions, which is what white privilege describes. To close his take, Pool stated that "Shoes tell you more about privilege than race does."^[19]

In an interview with Steven Crowder on The Blaze, Pool claimed social media has a liberal bias.^[20] Pool believes that Wikipedia maliciously mislabeled Brittany Pettibone as a white nationalist.^[16]

Pool claimed that the media "took the bait" on the 4chan fashtag hoax. They didn't.[21]
Pool jumped to support Jacob Wohl's allegation that Robert Mueller had raped Carolyne Cass.[22] Said allegation was a spectacular hoax.[23]
On 5 November 2018, Pool claimed Republicans would retain a House majority, because the "polls are wrong".[24] He was wrong.
Discussing the NPVIC,Wikipedia's W.svg Tim "liberal btw" Pool stated that "one of the problems with the Democrats and many people on the left, and it's true for everybody, but something I've seen repeatedly among left-wing activists and the far-left, is that they don't think about what the result will actually be". Pool also claims that, because (thus far) all NPVIC signatories are blue states, "this opens the door for California to give 55 electoral votes to a Republican should they win the popular vote. This plan will not help Democrats, it will only help Republicans."[25] In reality, the NPVIC only goes into effect once member states have 270 votes (an absolute majority) to avoid this exact scenario, because its designers weren't fucking idiots.
In response to a joke tweet by a joke Twitter account,[26] Pool created a video titled "Socialist OUTRAGED Says Capitalism Is BAD Because We Don't All Own Factories"[27]
Despite interviewing far-right personalities for two years, Pool doesn't know what the Great Replacement conspiracy theory is[28]
Pool got owned by the /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM subreddit.[29]
Pool openly praised Adolf Hitler as "a certain World War Two-era hero".[30] He later edited this comment out of his video.[31]
Pool admits that Alex Jones fans and the mentally ill have a lot in common[32]
Pool can't decide if social justice is good or not[33]
Pool touts his support of public healthcare in an attempt to garner himself some lefty street cred and duck charges of being a right-winger. Then, attacks AOC's green new deal because it includes public health care.[34]
Pool can't decide if Amazon pays taxes[35]
Tim Pool doesn't understand how box plots or percentiles work, and fails to understand what graphs are telling him.[36]
He can't even quote his "sources" on President Trump's aggregate poll ratings for impeachment and then fails to bring up the correct favorability rating when debating Sam Seder.[37]
After Steven Crowder was demonetized following repeated racist and homophobic statements towards Vox's Carlos Maza, Pool white-knighted for Crowder on his channel by describing the problem as Crowder saying "mean things" and exaggerating Maza's response.[38]

snip

 

 

Trump fends off criticism of 'hoax' remark after first US coronavirus death

Man dies in Washington state as president says he used word hoax ‘with regard to Democrats and what they were saying’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/joe-biden-trump-coronavirus-hoax-claim

Shortly after confirmation of the first coronavirus death in the US, Donald Trump rebuffed criticism for using the word “hoax” in describing the outbreak. The president also touted his administration’s coronavirus response as “the most aggressive action in modern history”.

Trump made his startling “hoax” claim at a rally on Friday in North Charleston, South Carolina, the state which held a Democratic primary on Saturday.

“The Democrats are politicising the coronavirus,” Trump said. “They’re politicising it. One of my people came up to me and said: ‘Mr President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax.

“This is their new hoax.”

On Saturday, Washington state officials confirmed that a Seattle-area man in his 50s had died. Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency.

The patient, who was chronically ill, went to a Kirkland hospital with “serious respiratory issues”, officials said at a press conference, adding that the man was tested for the virus on Thursday night.

Officials also announced two additional presumptive positive cases, both associated with a nursing home in the same city. A woman in her 40s who worked at the home was in satisfactory condition, while a woman in her 70s who was a resident was in serious condition.

The announcement came a day after state officials confirmed two other cases, including a high-school student in the town of Mill Creek with no history of international travel and no known interactions with people infected. The other was a woman in the Seattle area in her 50s who recently returned from South Korea.

According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) report, 83,652 cases of coronavirus and nearly 2,800 deaths have been reported worldwide. The vast majority of cases are in China but the virus has caused havoc with stock markets and international travel, sports and business.

Before news of the Washington death, US authorities reported three new cases in the Pacific north-west, bringing the national total to around 65.

At the White House, confirmation of the Seattle death met with confusion. During a press conference, Trump called the person who died “a wonderful woman, a medically high-risk patient in her late 50s”.

Trump was asked if he regretted using “hoax” now someone had died. His use of the word referred to “the action [Democrats] tried to take to try to pin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job”, he said.

“The hoax is on them. I’m not talking about what’s happening here,” Trump added, also saying “I don’t like it when they are criticising [federal health officials], and that’s the hoax.”

Trump was also asked if his use of “hoax” could deter people from taking cautionary steps against the coronavirus. He said it would not.

[Vesper 29,202]

CIES Football Observatory

n°285 - 02/03/2020

Performance

 

Big chances created: a fabulous four headed by Messi

Issue number 285 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post highlights the players who created the most big chances for their teammates in big-5 league matches over three different periods: last year, last three years and last five years. Lionel Messi is clearly at the head of the tables for the last five and three years, while Ángel Di María tops the last-year rankings.

According to the data from OptaPro, over the five past years, Lionel Messi created a big chance every 90 minutes. The frequency of big chances created by the Argentinean went even up during the last year (87 minutes). This clearly indicates that the Barcelona prodigy is far from being on the downhill slope of his career.

At the second and third positions for the different periods analysed are Ángel Di María and Kevin de Bruyne for the last five years, Thomas Müller and Kevin de Bruyne for the past three, as well as Thomas Müller and Lionel Messi for the last one. During last year, besides Lionel Messi, three other players have created at least one big chance every 90 minutes: Thomas Müller (every 72 minutes), Ángel Di María (82 minutes) and Kevin de Bruyne (every 87 minutes). This is the fab four for chance creation!

Cumulated number of big chances created for teammates

Domestic league matches until 18/02/2020. Data: OptaPro.

LAST 5 YEARS

 

LAST YEAR ALONE (top 2 pages, more at the link)

 

 

[Vesper 29,202]

2019-20 French Coupe de France, Semifinals

Lyon  v Paris Saint-Germain  HD Streams

http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/coupe-de-france-olympique-lyonnais-vs-psg-s5/

https://www.totalsportek.com/psg-games/

https://www.ronaldo7.net/video/barcelona-live/barcelona-live-streaming.html

[Vesper 29,202]

good chance to scout

 8 Houssem Aouar
 39 Bruno Guimarães
 9 Moussa Dembélé

[Vesper 29,202]

1 nil

Terrier

domestic quadruple in trouble for PSG