Monthly Archives: November 2015

Ratings: Arsenal 1-1 Spurs: Pochettino’s men go close but landmark win slips away

“Another dramatic North London derby, another opportunity missed and some face saved for the visitors and hosts, respectively as a late Arsenal comeback forced the final honours to remain even as Tottenham Hotspur let a landmark win slip by. It’s been five years since the visitors came away from the Emirates with a victory in the league, and Mauricio Pochettino’s men will be disappointed they weren’t able to take all three points after containing their rivals for the majority of the game.” Squaswka

Labor City, Qatar’s creepy new city for migrant workers, is open for business

“Do you want to build 2022 World Cup infrastructure in steaming hot Qatar? If so, you may want to look into accommodations in Labor City, the Gulf state’s newest city built specifically for migrant laborers moving to Qatar to work on long-term construction projects. As of November 1, Labor City is open for business. Before continuing, please take a moment to appreciate that Qatar, a country with a scandalous labor record, named an actual city ‘Labor City.’” Fusion (Video)

Barcelona: More than a club, more than a nation?

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“Stern words from Spain’s LFP president Javier Tebas, of course referring to Catalonia’s desire to move towards independence. In recent weeks we have witnessed the success of pro-independence parties in regional elections, showering optimism over Catalonia and causing just a little concern in Madrid. Catalonia’s biggest football club just happens to be one of the biggest clubs in the world and as a result, FC Barcelona has at times been at the very heart of the debate. The strained relationship between politics and football has been tested and will almost certainly continue to be.” Football Pink

Tactical Analysis: Inter 1-0 Roma | Inter stay compact in central areas to nullify Giallarossi

“The league’s best attack squared up against the league’s best defence at the San Siro in what was sure to be an intriguing encounter from a tactical perspective. Rudi Garcia’s men came into this clash in fine fettle and were many people’s favourites to win the game having been top of the table, scoring 25 goals in the process. However, it was Roberto Mancini’s Inter who came out victorious after a defensive masterclass; Roma were kept at arm’s length throughout the contest with Inter suffocating the centre and Roma being inept in the final third for much of the game. They struggled to create chances due to poor decision making and an abject performance from frontman Edin Dzeko, who in my mind was largely responsible for Roma’s ineffectiveness in the final third as they had to attack in a way that suited his skill set. Their misery was compounded in the 73rd minute when playmaker Miralem Pjanic received his marching orders after a second yellow card, dashing any hopes they had of staging a late comeback.” Outside of the Boot

Dynamo’s Tifo Record, Otherwise Known as the Biggest Sewing Project I’ll ever See

“I’ll make a safe assumption. You are not a cave-dweller living by the fire’s shadows dancing on the rock walls. No, you’re online and on social media. Which means that you probably already know what happened in Dresden this past weekend. An instantly viral event. Oh, and Dynamo won the match, too. But we won’t remember the result. Instead, it’s the sewing we’ll remember. ‘Dude, remember that one time Dynamo covered itself in a big freaking scarf?’ ‘Yeah, man. Football. Bloody hell.’” Bundesliga Fanatic

Façadism and the state of Dutch football

“Much like the Dutch national football team, Amsterdam is under significant re-construction. Tram lines are being updated, bike paths are being widened, new metro stations built and a number of buildings are still recovering from the reverberations of tunnelling the new metro line. In the case of Amsterdamse canal houses – picturesque, quintessentially Dutch and five hundred-years-old – preservation is paramount.” Football Pink

Champions League team of the week: Bayern and Barcelona impress

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“It is no surprise that Bayern Munich have three players in the Champions League team of the week after their superb display in the 5-1 win at home to Arsenal. Germany forward Thomas Muller weighed in with two goals, and Barcelona duo Neymar and Luis Suarez join him in attack after scoring in their win over BATE Borisov. For the second matchweek running there is just one Premier League player in the XI, with Manchester City midfielder Fernandinho celebrating his part in the win in Seville which saw City into the last 16.” BBC

Are League of Ireland clubs finally leaving the quick-fix mentalities behind?

“This coming Sunday, November 8th, will see the curtain come down on yet another League of Ireland season as league Champions Dundalk battle back to back league runners up Cork City in the 2015 FAI Cup final. Despite the fact the domestic league here in Ireland has one of the longest off-seasons in Europe you will already find businesses being done by the majority of the twenty league clubs in preparation for 2016.” backpagefootball

Fieldoo: The Scouting Revolution

“As the leading sports industry, every dimension of soccer demands that talent be found for premier club opportunities. Globalisation of the sport leads to the globalisation of the market and the only way to act in this context is through a network of players, clubs and market opportunities. When we look at the fact that every move is a calculated manoeuvre to drive club ranks, we see that the foundation to this success lies in finding elite talent. Considering the interconnectivity of all things modern, clubs must consider their online possibilities as they drive business forward.” Outside of the Boot

Klopp – Reversing the Laws of Gravity

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“To have success you need to attract ‘big names’. To attract ‘big names’ you need big money. To attract ‘big names’ you need to keep your ‘big names’. To attract ‘big names’ you need to be offering regular Champions League football. To attract ‘big names’ in England you need to be a London or Manchester-based club. Everybody knows that in modern football these are the laws of gravity. They lead to an upward spiral of success breeding more success. The bad news is that in 2015 Liverpool fail on all five laws. This puts them into a downward spiral of disappointment breeding further disappointment. For Liverpool to succeed they would have to defy the laws of football gravity.” Tomkins Times

Talent Radar Young Defender Rankings: Bellerin climbs, and Gimenez makes the cut

“Judging the calibre of a young player is often a tricky task. Perceived potential has an important bearing in any consideration and is just one of the many parameters to consider when trying to quantify the ability of football’s young stars. To add a basis to what may be a leap of faith, it is useful to look back and trace the growth, or indeed lack thereof, in young players.” Outside of the Boot

Chewing on the Champions League

“The Champions League is the pinnacle of global soccer. It’s the only time we are sure to see teams from disparate leagues matching up at full strength with the same incentives. It’s also the only time we get to see teams from leagues off beaten path match up against the big boys and get their day in the wider public eye. So it’s kind of strange how it can sometimes be treated a bit like an afterthought in English writing and specifically among stats writers. I get why: it’s much harder to draw conclusions over a smaller sample and the wild differences in opponents make it hard to compare teams that the satisfyingly balanced league schedules absolve make easier.” Stats Bomb

Hump Day Dumpster Dive: European club vows to fight racism with racism

“There is so much bloody soccer happening. Arsenal is ~~awesome terrible awesome~~ terrible. Bayern Munich just served up another reminder that we shouldn’t even bother watching any of its games until the Champions League semi-finals. José Mourinho is living out a terrible nightmare that will probably end in an eight-figure payout deal. Manchester United is…zzzzz. Let’s get to dumpster diving.” Fusion

Tactical Analysis: Chelsea 1-3 Liverpool | Mourinho’s implosion sees disjointed Chelsea’s suffer defeat

“Chelsea’s horrendous start to the season has been matched to a lesser degree by Liverpool’s underwhelming performances. But when the due clashed at the Bridge on Saturday, it clearly felt like a team on the wane was taking on one on the up. Klopp’s energy was rubbing off on the Kop, and Mourinho’s brooding intensity seemed to be grinding Chelsea down. Daniel Wong analyses the result.” Outside of the Boot

The first World Indigenous Games reveals tensions between celebration and objectification

“Although indigenous people are the original inhabitants of the Americas, they are minorities throughout practically all of its modern countries. The exact numbers change depending on your data source, but only Bolivia and Guatemala could legitimately claim that their populations consist mostly of indigenous people. In some countries, the percentage of indigenous people is negligible. Puerto Rico, for example, counts indigenous people as being somewhere between 0 and 0.2 percent of its population. In Brazil, the biggest and most populated country in Latin America, the indigenous population is about 900,000, or a mere 0.4 percent of its total inhabitants.” Fusion

The Academy Series | 10 best Ajax Amsterdam products: Bergkamp, Sneijder & Vertonghen feature

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“It’s no surprise that the greatest Dutch club in history, and one of the most successful clubs in European competition, has arguably the best youth academy on the planet. No other club has produced more players to play in Europe’s top five leagues than Ajax Amsterdam. With a list both long and distinguished containing a ludicrous amount of incredibly gifted players (most notable of all, Johan Cruyff), the inventors of ‘Total Football’, its famed 4-3-3 system and it’s emphasis on ‘TIPS’ (Technique, Insight, Personality, Speed) will forever remain at or near the top of the youth pipeline discussion.” Outside of the Boot

No Messi, No Problem: Neymar Becomes a Superstar

“… Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you if you went down the Neymar highlight rabbit hole and never came back. Of course, soccer matches aren’t highlight reels, and if there’s been one criticism of Neymar, it’s that you wouldn’t be missing much just by watching his YouTube clips. He’s the latest member of a long line of (mostly Brazilian) players — stretching from Garrincha to Robinho — whose sizzling ability was (rightly or wrongly) said to not translate into wins on the field.” Grantland (Video)

Ratings: Chelsea 1-3 Liverpool: Coutinho piles on the pressure for Mourinho

“It was hyped as a match that Jose Mourinho couldn’t lose but even after taking an early lead through a Ramires header, Chelsea sunk to defeat as Coutinho scored twice to hand Jurgen Klopp his first win in the Premier League. Although the hosts took an early lead, they lacked resolve and crumbled as the Reds grew into the game, with an equaliser before the break giving the visitors the platform they needed to push on in the second half, with Christian Benteke later coming on to create a second goal and then score the visitor’s third and final strike to win the game.” Squawka

Mourinho out, Slutsky in for Chel-sky?

“One of the better stories to emerge in the Russian sports media after Chelsea’s exit from the League Cup was a pure floater (in every sense of the word). Poor old Jose Mourinho will be replaced by Leonid Slutsky. Given the vile abuse meted out weekly from English terraces, what they’ll do with a person whose family name is ‘Slutsky’ does not need thinking about on a chilly Moscow morning.” backpagefootball

High hopes of Italian glory for Napoli

Napoli's Jose Maria Callejon looks at the ball as he runs during their Italian Serie A soccer match against Fiorentina at the Artemio Franchi stadium in Florence October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito (ITALY - Tags: SPORT SOCCER) Picture Supplied by Action Images
“So far this season in the Serie A, there has been several highly impressive team performances coming from the highly renowned Italian footballing giants, alongside a few surprise starts to the campaign from teams such as Sassuolo who find themselves in fifth place, and Fiorentina who have been very good so far this season, currently in third place place behind Napoli and league leaders Roma. However, if there is one team that has been showing just how good they are this season; it’s Napoli. Maurizio Sarri’s men have been in fine form, both in their domestic campaign and in the Europa League, winning every single European game they have been faced with.” backpagefootball

Goal Analysis: How Yannick Ferreira Carrasco’s goal announced himself at Atletico Madrid

“Atletico Madrid vs Valencia. Without a spare seat in the house, we were in for a real battle in what promised to be a mouthwatering clash between two historic Spanish giants that both came into this one having boasted wins in the Champions League days earlier. True to their trademark, the hosts were out of the blocks like greyhounds and within minutes Valencia goalkeeper Jaume Domenech was forced into several top drawer saves to keep Simeone’s men at bay. The heat was turned up further and Atletico’s Rojiblanco fans greeted every one of their player’s challenges with deafening cheers of encouragement which made for a ‘hairs on the back of the neck’ atmosphere in the famous Vicente Calderon stadium that lays beside the Manzanares river in the working class district of Arganzuela, south Madrid.” Outside of the Boot

Should CONCACAF Champions League change its schedule?

“With the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL) group stage coming to an end last week, it’s a good time to address whether or not the North American governing body should change the schedule of their premier club competition, something which has been discussed for a while now. The suggestion is to alter the competition to run spring to autumn, rather than autumn to spring.” Outside of the Boot

Jose Mourinho: Is this the end of the road for Chelsea manager?

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“Chelsea’s meeting with Liverpool at Stamford Bridge was billed as the game manager Jose Mourinho must not lose if he wanted to keep his job. Now, after a 3-1 defeat that sent Chelsea towards the bottom of the Premier League after their sixth loss in 11 games and left Liverpool fans singing ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’, the grim statistics and questions are piling up around Mourinho.” BBC

Wolfsburg Take Care of Business Saturday

“The highlight contest of MatchDay 11 was Saturday’s clash between Champions League clubs VfL Wolfsburg and Bayer 04 Leverkusen. With Bayern Munich dropping their first points of the Bundesliga season Friday in their 0-0 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt, there became the rare opportunity for Bundesliga title contenders/pretenders to make some ground on the record title-holders in Saturday’s matches, adding more importance to the clash of the Wolves and Die Werkself. It was VfL Wolfsburg, though, rebounding from a midweek Pokal loss from Bayern to down Bayer Leverkusen, taking care of business in garnering all three points in a 2-1 victory, gaining the third spot in the Bundesliga table in the process and demonstrating that success after the departure of Kevin De Bruyne can continue.” Bundesliga Fanatic

Getafe CF 0-2 FC Barcelona: Match Review

“With Real Madrid winning earlier on Saturday, it was important for Barcelona to match Madrid’s result against Getafe and stay level with their rivals. With it also being a Champions League midweek on the horizon, coach Luis Enrique would’ve been hoping to see the game off as quickly as possible.” Barca Blaugranes