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Didn't make the cut for the match day team

I have no idea what is going on in Barcelona at the moment, but the club seem to have lost their mind. They are bazillions in debt, yet signing players that cant even afford to register in the squad and play, then still talking up going on some Galacticos transfer spree in the near future signing mega players like Haaland to huge deals.

From every level Laporte is coming across as incapable madman. Barcelona's debt agreement means they can only spend 20% of their revenue they generate on players, so in other words they would need to likely clear 2.5 million weekly wages to sign Haaland and generate 400 milllion of transfer revneue..... why exactly would the worlds hottest property agree to join a club thats just sold all its assets?

Laporte is also planning to build so super stadium.... the likes of which just cost the LA Rams 5 billion to build.... this is fantasy economics.

At this rate, Barcelona will be no more in 5 years.

I see that the fat boy is thinking about buying Derby County

I'll bet the fans are thrilled to bits about that

A bit of a disaster in the Tunisia Mali match. The ref blew for full time with 5 mins still to go, and Mali 1-0 up..... then when he realised his mistake and restarted he blew again with 30 secs still remaining. After much protest and with the ref taken to hospital for sunstroke, the 4th official agreed to come on so that the remaining seconds could be played, but this was 20 mins later and only the Mali players came back out

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/59981733

sussexpob wrote:I have no idea what is going on in Barcelona at the moment, but the club seem to have lost their mind. They are bazillions in debt, yet signing players that cant even afford to register in the squad and play, then still talking up going on some Galacticos transfer spree in the near future signing mega players like Haaland to huge deals.

From every level Laporte is coming across as incapable madman. Barcelona's debt agreement means they can only spend 20% of their revenue they generate on players, so in other words they would need to likely clear 2.5 million weekly wages to sign Haaland and generate 400 milllion of transfer revneue..... why exactly would the worlds hottest property agree to join a club thats just sold all its assets?

Laporte is also planning to build so super stadium.... the likes of which just cost the LA Rams 5 billion to build.... this is fantasy economics.

At this rate, Barcelona will be no more in 5 years.

How did they find 55 million, was it down the back of the Sofa?

I think Barcelonas change can be best shown by having Unicef on their shirt to now playing a Spanish Cup games in Saudi. A team that was once likable to supporters of other teams seems to becoming one of the most hated outside of Spain. I guess they seemed to stand for something for many but now are still saying the super league will work whilst taking money from any source they can get their hands on. Sure most teams do that, but barcelona did not so long ago. The change has been rapid and spectacular.

Its a shame.

The problem I think stems from Barcelona trying desperately to cling onto the success of a once in a lifetime line up. About 5 years ago all their top players from that great side had either turned past 30 or had hung up their boots. I could give you a trillion pounds to spend, and put simply, you aint replacing the quality of Xavi or Iniesta because there is no one in football right now that comes close to the quality of these two players. I could give you a time machine and allow you to bring any player from history, and they aint Messi at his peak in his 20s. They were always going to decline, it was impossible for them not to.

Rather than embrace that decline and try to build a sensible squad, they just spent a billion quid instead. And then showed zero patience with the players they brought in. I mean the most bizarre thing was spending about 300 million on De Jong and Coutinho, both who play in Messi's position.....and then playing them in central midfield engine rooms and complaining they were flops. De Jong is about 10kgs, he just got battered routinely because he needs to play between the lines. Dembele showed flashes of brilliance and Messi took him under his wing (was great to see Messi coaching him constantly on the pitch, telling him what to do) but he was another that was instantly another Messi and got canned in the press (he was like 19/20 - youngsters under that pressure will just fall apart, and he did). May as well have burned a billion, because at least then they wouldnt have a squad full of crap earning 200k a week to be subpar.

They are pretty embarrassing at the moment. They have signed a Man City reject (in the only position Man City have need of quality) and proclaimed it a once in a generation coup (then couldnt play the person after buying him for salary cap reasons). Then proclaiming they are once again buying the top talent, while signing utter garbage. They loaned a 18 year old kid from Austrian Wien for christ sake. They loaned Luuk De Jong who is now 33 and couldnt get a game at Newcastle in the Championship.

Auba! Give me a break .... paying him 300k a week, when he already proved at Arsenal he got a big deal and was happy to ride out to retirement. A player nearly 33 whos not produced recently, has a bad attitude, and commands an incredible salary. What the hell are they doing.

The most mental thing about it is, they are about to double their debt to nearly 2.5 billion!!!! because they just approved plans to increase the stadium capacity. They want a 110,000 capacity increase.... they currently when games against the Madrid teams are taken out, cant get more than 35,000 in. Its total madness. I think even if you gave some a job to hijack the club covertly, he couldnt do a better job than Laporte.

Its got to the point its no longer even a joke.... they really, really might fold at some point in the not to distance future.

Senegal win the AFCON with a penalty shoot out victory v Egypt. Mane, who missed a penalty in normal time, slotting home the last penalty. Got to question why Salah was chosen to take pen 5... scores the most penalties in the game atm, but didnt get to take one.

Happy for Senegal, who tried to play football but had ten bells of **** kicked out them by a Egypt team who came to hang on for 120 mins.

Always think its a bad move saving your best penalty taker for 5th. It can give the player the glory but as happens so often they dont get to take the kick.

Did Shearer always go first?

Salah didn't have to take one in the semi's either, iirc, but he did earlier in the comp

Pretty sure Shearer would always go first..... it'd take a brave man to try and stop him. There's no way he'd ever go last.... he loved any opportunity to slam the ball into the back of the net

I guess it's old fashioned that you want the business penalty taken by your best player. But surely as soon as you miss or it 3-3 and penalty 4, you move him up.

When Shearer took the ball in the shoot out you always felt like England would be 1 up. Best to have that goal in the bank and it helps relieve some pressure on those following.

I remember reading during Euro 96 that there were only 2 players practicing penalties for England. Shearer and Pearce. After every session Shearer would go and take 50 penalties. Whilst every German session finished with every player taking penalties.

This weekend's last regular season game at Union should have been a party to celebrate European football for the first time since 1930s and winning the first stage of the Belgian league, but sadly Beerschot's fans turned up with other ideas. In what was clearly a pre-determined move, and by supporters displaying Neo-Nazi banners, after about 80 minutes we noticed the Beerschot fans were surging forward behind the goal, and from there a group jumped the barriers and attacked the home end below us, with a significant amount of punches landed on fans at the front. The stewards and police were quickly on the scene to tackle and arrest the fans, and riot police were deployed, but Beerschot continued to throw fire works into our end, and a few people were injured.

The game was abandoned 15 minutes later as Beerschot fans refused to move back from the side of pitch, and continued to pelt the home end with missiles.

The saddest day I have experienced at a football stadium in many years.

This leaves a huge problem for the Belgian FA about what to do. Going into the championship top 4 playoff, the points in the regular season are halved, so right now Union retain a 1 point advantage over Brugge assuming the game is declared over after 80 minutes at 0-0. But obviously for Union and in terms of general equity, how can this be fair? We were battering them at the end, and there was likely still another 15 minutes to score a goal, which would up the points advantage to 3... in a 6 game playoff a three point advantage is a large one.

The obvious thing assuming they cant replay 15 minutes is to say Beerschot were 100% responsible for the calling off, and we win by default 5-0.... at this point though, Brugge argue not only is that not reflective of the actual game, but the default goal advantage cripples the goal difference decider if they were to gain the three points back.

Likely this will end in court and a huge mess. And very unlikely its decided before the Champions League/Europa League preliminaries, that are decided by the final classification in the 4 way playoff.

Sadly Beerschot were already relegated, so any points deducations will have no effect.

I guess the additional thing is, what exactly does it set as a precedent if away fans can get a game called off and the game is called a draw? So if in game 6 of the playoffs, Union just need a draw vs Antwerp, do we just send a battalion of hardcore nutters into the away end to put a few people in hosptial, and then claim the league trophy?

Surely the game, and the offending team, has to be punished?

The first incident was caught on camera.