Soccer Thread V1: Klinsmann for Gold?

Interesting breakdown of all MLS salaries

MLS Salaries

No wonder Cahill and Keane came here, almost $4m a piece and not too far behind Henry. I wonder how the journeymen players on less than $50k feel?

We know who we are
We know who we aaarrre
Champions of Euope!
We know who we are.


First club to hold both European trophies simultaneously. Benfica played a great game. A few breaks and they win. They had more energy and more accurate passing until the first goal. Thereafter, a more even match. A very entertaining second half.

Now, a score draw home to Everton to secure third place.

Yeah, frankly they're not worth it. Not that I watch much MLS. But a league of that quality (poor) has no business paying anyone that much money, IMHO.

I'm not exactly Ronaldo's biggest fan, but I do think he was on the receiving end of an injustice today. Kicked to pieces the whole match and finally a Red Card

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Nice to see Madrid lose though

The ref was truly awful. That said, Ronaldo twice tried to retaliate. He was caught the second time and even tho he didn't make contact, hard to argue with that particular card. But a disgraceful performance by the ref. Can't believe how many times Madrid hit the post. It was not meant to be.

I missed the blatant foul by Ronaldo in about the 88th minute until I re-watched the second half. I can undertand Real's frustration with the ref., but, Ronny's petulance is common form with him. Perhaps the red card was deserved.

Mourinho yet again put's out a weird team given who he has on the bench. Under his tenure they've just never looked a coherent team. I hope he can take Chelsea back to the top.

Yeah. I wish I could understand why Madrid's defending was so poor. On paper they appear to have the personnel. And Mourinho certainly knows how to coach defending.

The Chelsea deal is hung up on Mourinho's favorite issue: control. Chelsea have a structure and a plan in place. Because it involves buying relatively cheaper, younger players and always having an eye on the future, there's no room for a coach who wants to control all the personnel decisions.

Mourinho quit when Frank Arnesen was given the player acquisition job. Arnesen failed and has moved on. But the job is now held by Michael Emenalo. And the club, which knows all there is to know about Mourinho and his ways, are apparently determined to not let him destroy the structure.

It's a big issue for Mourinho. It will be interesting to see if and how they solve it. There aren't that many clubs big enough for Mourinho in the world, so his choices are limited and he may be compelled to compromise. Knowing him, though, once he's through the gate he;ll start agitating anyway. He can't help himself.

At Madrid he needed it given the politics of the place, but I doubt there's any EPL team that's as machiavellian as Madrid (incompetent, certainly, but not political for the cultural sake of it).

Interestingly, AVB at Spurs wants a director of football. He may just be the quiet revolutionary of English football, particularly if he makes Tottenham a top three team.

I think it's just that Mourinho wants to control his own destiny.

Mourinho's never had a sporting director (except maybe Porto, I dunno about his time there.) At Madrid he started with one but forced him out. Jorge Valdano was the very first fight he picked.

Multiple issues as far as Chelsea are concerned. Like most coaches, Mourinho will favor veterans over youth, so he might not buy or play kids. And he spends gobs of other people's money.

But Chelsea are very focused on buying them cheaper and young and growing them in-house, in order to save money. Without a larger stadium, FFP is a real issue. Mourinho, so far in his career, has been the antithesis of that.

Assuming Roman stands firm, either Mourinho changes his ways or he doesn't come to Chelsea.

Although Mourinho is hugely successful, it wouldn't bother me if Chelsea hired another manager instead. So much baggage. I am, of course, in a miniscule minority among Chelsea fans.

So, Bundesliga is finished and what a nice drama they produced.

Bayern was a bit off balance in the first 10 minutes... was 3:1 against them by that time. A brace from Ribery and a goal from Robben brought them their 4:3 victory and a very entertaining farewell to Jupp Heynckes Bundesliga time. It was a well deserved Heynckes lovefest all around. He was born in Gladbach and was part of Borussia as player and coach for over 20 years.
Must have been very emotional for Heynckes to leave the league behind him in his home Mönchengladbach with him shedding some tears in the press conference.

Hoffenheim managed a win in Dortmund with BVB managing to concede 2 penalties. This lifted them to the relegation place where the little plastic club will hopefully be sent off to league 2.
This meant that Karma does work and dragged those little fu... (long list of expletives) by the balls down in their rightful place. Positiver Platzsturm my ass.

Anything else? Bayern München, Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen are directly qualified for the CL. Schalke plays the CL qualification, SC Freiburg and Eintracht Frankfurt (both a bit surprising) play EL. Stuttgart will meet them there as DFB Pokal finalist (Bayern München is qualified for Europe in any case).

Down goes Greuther Fürth with the inofficial new nickname of worst team since Tasmania Berlin (season 65/66, 8:60 points, 15:108 goals).
Augsburg jumped to place 15 with a brilliant second half season (24 of their 33 points).

Just as an addition. Jogi Löw just lost another player with Andreas Beck. He'll play relegation for Hoffenheim.

Arnesen fails at Hamburg, too. Just for the record.

I think to have a competent sporting director would be a nice thing for any team. Then there is some consistency with recruitment and in the best case there aren't any broken teams in perpetual transition with different managers prefering different players.

It's the US model for running a sports team. It's always interested me that football has traditionally done it differently.

:huh Exciting last day in the EPL. Chelsea and Arsenal secure top four but how about Bale's wonder goal against Sunderland

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I don't know how Tottenham are going to keep him - every top flight team in Europe must be lining up to buy him after the season he's had. And Man U draw 5 -5 with West Brom. Haven't see it but what an entertaining game that must have been.

p.s. In an afternoon of goals, Torres' against Everton looked like his old self. I keep hoping for the renaissance

What the hell language is that? Tibetan?

ps You have to feel for Benfica. They lost one league match all season... and it cost them the title.

Mats Hummels gave a nice interview after the Götze transfer was announced:
&#8220;I like it very much when you are in a team and you can say this is &#8220;my team&#8221;, I like it to improve performance together with this team and the team mates continuously. And I won&#8217;t join an already well-performing team and easily get three titles. Personally, for my carrer, it really doesn&#8217;t matter merely that I might have won eight Championship titles and seven Cup titles, but rather that I have won exceptional titles. The three titles that we have won in the last two years with Borussia are such exceptional titles.&#8221;

Tottenham does improve year by year. So to be part of this improvement can be very fulfilling. I think happyness is worth more than money and I do think a lot of players think the same.

Edit (That's when you stumble over the original and simply hate the translation):
Die Frage ist, ob man mit einer Mannschaft etwas Großes aufbauen will, ob man mithelfen will, sie zu einer der besten in Europa zu machen &#8211; oder ob man es anders macht, und einfach zu so einer Mannschaft wechselt, die vielleicht schon weit oben ist&#8220;, sagte er und wurde konkreter: &#8222;Mir geht es nicht darum, in meiner Karriere so viele Meisterschaften und Pokale wie möglich zu gewinnen. Sondern mir ist es wichtiger, die ganz besonderen Titel zu gewinnen. Und ich denke, was wir bis jetzt in Dortmund gewonnen haben, das waren ganz besondere Titel.&#8220;

It is the question, if you want to build something great with your team, if you want to be part of making it one of the best in Europe - or if you do it different and transfer to a team that is already one of the best. I don't care to win as many championships and cups as possible in my career. It is more important for me to win exceptional titles. I think what we won in Dortmund so far, were very exceptional titles."

I definitely admire players who are loyal.

At the same time, these men are professional athletes. They play for money.

You or I, when someone offers us a new job with a huge pay raise, we will usually take that new job. Money speaks. As it is with you and I, so it is with professional athletes. They only have a short time in which to earn money. I have a hard time blaming them when they jump to a better paying club.

This summer, someone's going to offer Bale a much, much larger paycheck. He's going to be sorely tested.

Bale signed on for Spurs today (at $250,000 a week, I guess he's making some sacrifices ). Nice to see his loyalty and I bet a lot of that has to do with AVB who seems to be building a great club.

And $250,000 a week

Thanks. So he will earn less than Torres, which doesn't seem right. But 150,000 pounds a week is huge stretch for Tottenham's budget, so well done to them for showing him the money.

I see he has a 50 million pound buyout after one year. I wonder if anyone will nibble?

Barca think they're done with Mourinho. How wrong they are.

Barca tend to be full of themselves. Some nonsense about showing the football world how to conduct itself properly. To show us plebeians how it's done, here's club vice president Carles Vilarrubi:

"Mourinho has been a blight on Spanish football," he said. "His leaving is positive. A negative climate was generated."

First of all, what an idiot. All he revealed is how much Mourinho scares Barcelona. Secondly, he just guaranteed that any time Barca meet a Mou club in the future, it will be a revenge epic.

So, not just classless, but also dumb. Barca showing the world how it's done.

Talk about fans and wasted taxpayer money.

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MIA SAN MIA

Munich's top ensembles close ranks!
The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
and their chief conductor
Maestro Lorin Maazel
wish the FC Bayern Munich
all success in the Champions-League-Final 2013!

&#8243;On the path to their greatest victory,
Bayern Munich is stronger than ever before.

The earliest Bundesliga title winners of all time,
Schweini, Müller, Lahm, Ribéry.

With Jupp Heynckes at the helm
They are on the verge of winning the &#8243;Triple"!

Bring the Champions League Trophy back to Munich,
Star of the South! MIA SAN MIA!

Munich, Bayern Munich -
The trophy's &#8243;coming home" at last!
You are the best!
The world is watching you -
The Champions"!

Performed by:

The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
and the Munich Philharmonic Choir
under the baton of their chief conductor,
Maestro Lorin Maazel