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Post by dalenichol on Nov 2, 2018 18:56:05 GMT
For anybody interested, the first leg of the African Champions League is kicking off shortly. Al Ahly v Esperance Tunis, two good teams in what should be a solid match. You can find a stream here: myopsports.org/op-hd2 |
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Post by Nick on Nov 2, 2018 19:30:34 GMT
Also worth noting that it's on Bet365 as well.
I'll be continuing my, what is now customary, watching of Australia's 'A-League' tomorrow morning. Wellington vs WS Wanderers at 06:35 might be a little too early for a Saturday, but Newcastle Jets vs Melbourne Victory (08:50) and Perth Glory vs Brisbane Roar (11:00) will both be being watched. Followed by Central Coast vs Adelaide (06:00) on Sunday morning.
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Post by dalenichol on Nov 4, 2018 18:50:12 GMT
Great stuff Nick, I really do need to find time to watch more world football.
The Ahly match was a cracker, 3-1 final score with some proper football corruption to boot. Al Ahly opened the scoring with a penalty awarded via VAR, despite every replay showing it was a clear dive (genuinely not even close) and later on an Esperance player was booked (I think) for ripping the shirt of another player during a set piece, and the replay clearly shows the Ahly player ripping the shirt himself (http://footballburp.com/stories/video-al-ahly-player-rips-own-shirt-in-first-leg-of-african-champions-league-final/)
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Post by chaodck on Nov 7, 2018 16:58:39 GMT
Rafa van der Vaart retired from football yesterday. He was a top FM legend in his time, a must sign from that wonderful 2000-01 Ajax side. http://instagram.com/p/BpzlrwXn9iy |
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Post by chaodck on Nov 11, 2018 18:55:56 GMT
Boca-River at the Copa Libertadores Final (First Leg), anyone's watching? It should be a heated clusterfuck of a match.
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Post by Nick on Nov 11, 2018 20:05:31 GMT
Excellent first half as well. River should have been ahead before Boca even got going. Pratto took his goal very well too.
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Post by chaodck on Nov 11, 2018 20:11:23 GMT
Excellent first half as well. River should have been ahead before Boca even got going. Pratto took his goal very well too. Yeah, terrific game so far. I went to the toilet 0-0 and came back to 1-1 hahaha. That's a classic Lucas Pratto goal, here in Chile I suffered him a bit as he played on Universidad Católica (in fact, he launched his career here). My fondest memory in football comes with him on the pitch, as he scored the lonely goal in a 4-1 La U win that handed us a Championship coming from behind (we lost the first leg 0-2). It was epic. |
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ianf
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Post by ianf on Dec 18, 2018 14:20:49 GMT
Christmas come early for United fans. Shocked the board have acted decisively for a change. Now for a DOF!
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Post by Nick on Dec 18, 2018 19:21:50 GMT
It was about time wasn't it? The writing has been on the wall since the start of the season and the only surprise was that it took this long for them to act. Some of the names linked to the interim job are a bit worrying though. Mark Hughes? He's more of a clown than Ed Woodward.
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ianf
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Post by ianf on Dec 19, 2018 14:39:15 GMT
Interim is a free hit for me. Most important is coherent long term planning around recruitment, style and manager
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Post by chaodck on Sept 2, 2019 14:57:56 GMT
 Fuck this is hard to watch. For anyone who has ever been interested in La U, please join me in my suffering. Bottom two teams are automatically relegated, and there's 10 more games to go. |
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Post by Robson on Sept 9, 2019 22:26:02 GMT
Problems here Chaodck for your boys?
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Post by chaodck on Sept 10, 2019 13:10:12 GMT
Problems here Chaodck for your boys? Yep, awful campaign, but problems run deep, at least since the end of 2017 We started off 2019 (seasons run alongside the calendar year here) with Frank Kudelka as coach, who had arrived around May 2018 after we sacked Angel Guillermo Hoyos, who was shamefully eliminated from Copa Libertadores 2018 group stage (Cruzeiro beat us 7-0 in Brazil). Kudelka had a decent end of the year, but nothing spectacular. The team didn't play good, but in the end it was good enough for us to finish in 3rd place and qualify for the preliminary stages of the Libertadores 2019. We brought in around 7 players and in the friendlies they played great, but when the real deal started, it was shambolic. We played Melgar from Perú in the Libertadores Preliminary Second Round (we had a bye on the first). We lost 0-1 in Perú, then drew 0-0 in Santiago despite playing against 10 men for a long period of time. Kicked out of the Libertadores before the group stage against a team we should've beat easily was bad. Then, in the League, after 4 games we had won 1, drew 1 and lost 2, which was enough for the Board to sack Kudelka and bring in another coach, Uruguayan Alfredo Arias who had negotiated his contract before the Board sacked Kudelka, it was a fucking disgrace. Well, Arias didn't work as well, in fact he was the worst win% of a coach in all La U history. After taking over in the 5th game of the season, he only won 1 game in the rest of the first semester, and only gathered 9 points in 11 games. Surely it was enough to sack him, right? No, the La U Board is a bunch of incompetent dimwits who know shit about football. They let Arias plan the second semester, bring in a few players and then, after a 1-1 draw in the first game of the second half of the season, they decided to sack him. At least, they brought in someone from in-house, as it was Hernán Caputto who took the job as interim at first (he was the Head of Youth Squads) and then ratified until the end of the year at least. In his first game, we beat Antofagasta, a direct rival on the relegation battle, and then we had 3 draws against top teams, La Calera away (3rd), Universidad Católica home (1st) and Coquimbo away (4th). But most of all, the team is starting to play better, you can see improvement on the pitch and there's a bit of hope. We won 6 points from 4 tough games, and our schedule is fairly easier now, except for the Superclasico against Colo Colo at their stadium. I think we can stay up, but a couple of things go wrong, and we might not. |
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Post by Robson on Sept 12, 2019 18:16:52 GMT
Things can change quickly can't they. I hope, for you, that an upturn is around the corner.
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Post by chaodck on Sept 15, 2019 16:08:27 GMT
Things can change quickly can't they. I hope, for you, that an upturn is around the corner. Well, another draw yesterday, 21 points in 21 games. We're not playing badly, we're not losing, but we cannot manage to get a fucking win. |
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Post by chaodck on Oct 15, 2021 16:01:25 GMT
I don't know if it's been heard in the UK, but since the Copa America an English born kid is playing for Chile. Ben Brereton-Diaz (his mother is Chilean, and he decided to hyphen his surname to reflect her heritage) currently plays for Blackburn in the Championship and he's a centre forward or left wing inside forward. He has had a brilliant start to the year scoring around 10 goals in the season so far and after scoring his first for Chile in the Copa America, he scored twice in this triple header, one against Paraguay and one yesterday against Venezuela. I'm sure it's not like you guys will miss him, despite him having quite a decent youth international record with England, but he's made an impact over here, mainly due to his off field personality and his willingness to outrun everyone in the pitch.
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Post by dalenichol on Oct 16, 2021 19:47:53 GMT
I don't know if it's been heard in the UK, but since the Copa America an English born kid is playing for Chile. Ben Brereton-Diaz (his mother is Chilean, and he decided to hyphen his surname to reflect her heritage) currently plays for Blackburn in the Championship and he's a centre forward or left wing inside forward. He has had a brilliant start to the year scoring around 10 goals in the season so far and after scoring his first for Chile in the Copa America, he scored twice in this triple header, one against Paraguay and one yesterday against Venezuela. I'm sure it's not like you guys will miss him, despite him having quite a decent youth international record with England, but he's made an impact over here, mainly due to his off field personality and his willingness to outrun everyone in the pitch. There's not been as big a deal made out of it as there maybe should've been, but it was talked about for a little while. I hope he continues to do well, I love stuff like this! |
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Post by Marshdweller on Oct 31, 2021 12:28:07 GMT
I've had an eye on Ben Brereton-Diaz as he came through Forest's youth system (after joining from Stoke) and was very highly thought of. It probably didn't feature too highly for most people, but three or four years ago Forest beat Arsenal 4-2 in the FA Cup and BBD single-handedly bullied both Arsenal centre-backs all game. Unfortunately, he spent a lot of time out on the right wing for us and I think his confidence suffered badly so we cashed in and sold him to Blackburn for £7m. He struggled there at first too, certainly in terms of goals, but now seems to be becoming the player Forest fans hoped he would about four years ago. It's great to see him doing well and I love the fact that he's playing for Chile!
On a similar note, Matty Cash, also from Forest's youth system, has just agreed to represent Poland rather than England due to having a Polish mother.
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Post by chaodck on Dec 6, 2021 0:39:44 GMT
I could've died today. Ok, no. But I could've had a heart attack. Football is the most beautiful sport in the world. What I lived today as a Universidad de Chile fan has no similar to anything I've ever lived and i've seen La U do almost everything. Win impossible games, after having awful luck before, but what I saw tonight was different.
La U has been bad for a while now. 2019 was a bad season and we finished just one spot above relegation (in the end, there was no relegation due to the championship being terminated early due to the social protests of Chile in October 2019). 2020 again La U improved a bit at first, but ended up fighting against relegation due to the bad 2019 (as there was no relegation, the league used a proportional system averaging 2019 and 2020). In 2021 things didn't change. We had a great first half of the season, but the second half was atrocious.
La U came into the last game of the season, today in 15th place, which is the place for relegation playoffs. In the last 9 games, La U had score only 1 goal, and the record was 2 draws and 7 losses. Our last win came in early September, and we needed a win in the last game, against Union La Calera a team that played Libertadores this year and was in 4th place, fighting for continental spots for the next season. A draw could save us, but we depended on other games. The first half was horrible and it ended 0-0, meanwhile the other games weren't going in our favour. The second half started in the worst possible manner as La Calera scored at '47. With that goal we dropped one spot into direct relegation. The other results kept the same and the game went on... 75th minute and La Calera scored the 2-0. "We're fucked", I thought. It's impossible that a team that scored 1 goal in over 900 minutes can score twice in 15 to get to the relegation playoffs.
But La U has taught me that you can never stop believing (well, Journey also taught me that...). 84th minute and Ramón Arias a CB who was already playing as a striker, managed after 35 bounces to score the 1-2. I didn't even celebrate it, as I thought everything was lost. 6 minutes of stoppage. 90+2 and miraculously we saved a ball being 2 vs. 3 and in the counter attack, Galani our holding mid, runs 90 odd yards and puts in a beautiful ball for Larrivey our #9, who geniously lets it pass, and Arias, again our CB hits it first time and scores the tying goal. With the 2-2 we were back up again into the relegation playoff. I was beside myself.
But, because football is the most beautiful sport in the world, there was more. 90+5, La Calera seemingly has a counter attack oportunity, after a ball lost from La U, Osvaldo "Rocky" Gonzalez, a 37-year old CB, the only remnant of the 2011 La U Copa Sudamericana winners, wins a key tackle and pushes the ball forward. He hits Galani the holding mid with a pass, and Galani puts the ball in the box, as you should in a position like this. Junior Fernandes, a heavily criticised forward who just arrived back at La U after a long career in Europe, finds some space and in a two-touch hit, manages to score the 3-2 and unleash a carnival on the sideline. With the 3 points, La U escalated to the 11th position on the table and saved from either direct relegation, a spot in which we were for nearly 40 minutes and from the relegation playoffs.
It was motherfucking epic. I love football. I fucking love football.
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Post by dalenichol on Dec 6, 2021 12:34:48 GMT
Oh man, chaodck I absolutely love that for you! That must've been such an emotional rollercoaster watching that match! Reminds me of the old "Aguerooooooo" moment when City won the league, but I don't like City so it's not anywhere near as good |
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Post by chaodck on Dec 7, 2021 4:07:16 GMT
Oh man, chaodck I absolutely love that for you! That must've been such an emotional rollercoaster watching that match! Reminds me of the old "Aguerooooooo" moment when City won the league, but I don't like City so it's not anywhere near as good Mate, between yesterday and today I've seen a whole bunch of grown men cry. Not only the players (almost all of them were visibly in tears after the game), but also a lot of fans on social media. In my family, we all cried, my dad just couldn't stop crying. It was such a relief feeling, having all the anger from the shit year accumulated to the breaking point, and release it with 3 goals in 10 minutes that saved the fucking year. I've cried a bunch today, watching replays and videos from other fans. There's a video of a kid around 8-9 that can't stop crying after the 2-2 mainly due to frustration and when the 3-2 hits he just loses it. In the words of Dani Rojas, Football is Life. |
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Post by dalenichol on Apr 30, 2022 0:46:34 GMT
Lads, your boy is going on a wee holiday. I think people here will remember one of my favourite FM saves in recent years in Poland with Slask Wroclaw. So I figured fuck it, let's go to Wroclaw. Gonna visit this beauty, but unfortunately wont manage to make it to a match  
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Post by 80slovechild on May 4, 2022 9:01:54 GMT
Lads, your boy is going on a wee holiday. I think people here will remember one of my favourite FM saves in recent years in Poland with Slask Wroclaw. So I figured fuck it, let's go to Wroclaw. Gonna visit this beauty, but unfortunately wont manage to make it to a match  Mate I've been to Wroclaw and its a brilliant place, i loved it ! Stadium is sexy an all |
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Post by dalenichol on May 4, 2022 12:07:43 GMT
Lads, your boy is going on a wee holiday. I think people here will remember one of my favourite FM saves in recent years in Poland with Slask Wroclaw. So I figured fuck it, let's go to Wroclaw. Gonna visit this beauty, but unfortunately wont manage to make it to a match Mate I've been to Wroclaw and its a brilliant place, i loved it ! Stadium is sexy an all You have? That's awesome. I've been wanting to go to Poland for years, so glad that I'm finally getting to. Hopefully make a second trip to either Gdansk, Poznan or Warsawa later in the year too. I've been speaking to some locals on reddit and we're not sure if the stadium tours are back operating again, and the club shop may also still be closed except for match days, so it might be a case of just heading out to take a few pictures before getting the bus straight back again!  |
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Post by 80slovechild on May 4, 2022 13:08:09 GMT
Mate I've been to Wroclaw and its a brilliant place, i loved it ! Stadium is sexy an all You have? That's awesome. I've been wanting to go to Poland for years, so glad that I'm finally getting to. Hopefully make a second trip to either Gdansk, Poznan or Warsawa later in the year too. I've been speaking to some locals on reddit and we're not sure if the stadium tours are back operating again, and the club shop may also still be closed except for match days, so it might be a case of just heading out to take a few pictures before getting the bus straight back again!  Yep, sure have. I would move there in a heartbeat if I could. Everything about it is great, in my mind its more welcoming and 'homely' than Warsaw and a nicer place. you'll love it. I didn't get on a tour or to a game but the ground is a beaut |
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Post by dalenichol on May 6, 2022 12:55:41 GMT
You have? That's awesome. I've been wanting to go to Poland for years, so glad that I'm finally getting to. Hopefully make a second trip to either Gdansk, Poznan or Warsawa later in the year too. I've been speaking to some locals on reddit and we're not sure if the stadium tours are back operating again, and the club shop may also still be closed except for match days, so it might be a case of just heading out to take a few pictures before getting the bus straight back again! Yep, sure have. I would move there in a heartbeat if I could. Everything about it is great, in my mind its more welcoming and 'homely' than Warsaw and a nicer place. you'll love it. I didn't get on a tour or to a game but the ground is a beaut I was like that with Tallinn, by the last day of my 3 days there I was looking at flat listings and English speaking jobs. I'd absolutely love to move out to Europe, but a career of retail experience and only speaking English doesn't open as many doors as you'd like |
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 30, 2022 20:40:47 GMT
A wee bit of Scottish football history for me today as me and two of my mates travelled through to the town of Bonnyrigg (Midlothian, near Edinburgh) to see Bonnyrigg Rose take on Forfar Athletic in Scotland's 'League 2'. It was Rose's first ever game in Scottish senior league football, having been promoted from the Lowland league last season. The club had played some Challenge Cup games before the season started today, but this was their first real test and their first league game. Bonnyrigg ran out 2-0 winners against a Forfar side that finished 2nd last season and are expected to challenge for promotion this season. The first goal was a result of a goalkeeper error, but the second was as good as you'll see anywhere in football as midfielder Scott Gray collected the ball, beat 3 Forfar defenders, leaving one on the floor to watch as he curled the ball into the top corner from just around the edge of the box...beautiful! A great wee day out and we're already planning our next trip to try and visit another stadium and collect another scarf! ![]()   |
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Post by jawzy on Jul 31, 2022 20:42:00 GMT
All the sides that have came up from highland and lowland seem to do very well.
Cove on the rise!!
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