Football Banter

(08-01-2013 03:22 )Fernandez Esperenda Wrote:  The whole thing stinks of corruption and Sepp Blatter, even their video games are fixed!

Yes Messi deserved the Ballon d'or simply for his goal's record and carrying on from his last award, nobody can deny he is the best in the world.

What bugs me is the FIFA team of the year, clearly if you dont play in La Liga you won't get a look in.

IKER CASILLAS, DANI ALVES, MARCELO, GERARD PIQUÉ, SERGIO RAMOS, ANDRÉS INIESTA, XABI ALONSO, XAVI HERNANDEZ, CRISTIANO RONALDO, RADAMEL FALCAO, LIONEL MESSI.

The player's in red in my opinion aren't worthy of a place in that team at all.

Casillas im not sure about as he captained spain at the euros to victory and real madrid to the La Liga title last year but did he really do that much? For me either Cech of Chelsea for his heroic saves in the champions league final, without him chelsea would never have won that. Another shout for keeper would be Buffon, Juventus going unbeaten all season and a few trophies along the way is no fluke, also Captaining both Juve and Italy a team which also made it to the euro 2012 final.

Pirlo was immense at the euros and played a massive part in Juventus' anbeaten season is more worthy of a place than alonso. You could take alonso out of the spanish team and play busquests, fabregas, cazorla and spain would have still won the euros, on the other hand if you took pirlo from italys team, no way would they have got to the final.

Chiellini, again playing a massive part in Juventus success and italys run in the euros, not even mentioned. Surely he's more worthy of ramos who spent most the year arguing with mourinho and skying a penalty to virtually knock Real out the champions league....

Kompany, Toure, Both immense for city and winning the premier league for the first time in a season like last all deserve to be in that team.

I mean come on how Dani Alves and Pique get in there is beyond me really, Pique spent most the season out injured or couldn't get off the bench at Barca and mascherano was ahead of him in the pecking order, Pretty much the same as Alves, on the bench or injured and hasn't performed well for brazil, I remember seeing him subbed many times for poor performances, yet he still makes it.

me and dan thought same as well with chellini and kompany u see u can make sum intelligent posts when u put ur mind 2 it . toure as well he was immense last season! i can understand the forwards cos like i sed b4 its gonna be hard to dislodge that front 3 of falcao messi and ronaldo! surprised no chelsea or munich players got in though maybe in midfield especially with those teams reaching the champs league final. maybe robben on the wing and i thought buffon as well.

Not too sure about Robben to be honest, id say Lahm or Gomez played a bigger part in bayern reaching the final, the problem I have with Robben is he seem's far to selfish on the ball and doesn't always help the team out, he missed a penalty in the final aswell.

If anything before i'd put robben in people are forgetting this is supposed to be about world football, not just europe, SC Corinthians last year won the Copa Libatadores, the south american equivillent of the european Champions league, and also beat chelsea who beat bayern, to win the club world cup, and yet nobody from Corinthians gets a spot. Surley winning the club world cup and the Libatadores is more of an achievent than sitting on the bench at barca? I understand they might not be as big named players but they still achieved more and there are players in that squad that should have been considered too, it's just a shame about FIFA's inability to look outside of La Liga that is now becoming all too apparent.

(08-01-2013 03:58 )Fernandez Esperenda Wrote:  Not too sure about Robben to be honest, id say Lahm or Gomez played a bigger part in bayern reaching the final, the problem I have with Robben is he seem's far to selfish on the ball and doesn't always help the team out, he missed a penalty in the final aswell.

If anything before i'd put robben in people are forgetting this is supposed to be about world football, not just europe, SC Corinthians last year won the Copa Libatadores, the south american equivillent of the european Champions league, and also beat chelsea who beat bayern, to win the club world cup, and yet nobody from Corinthians gets a spot. Surley winning the club world cup and the Libatadores is more of an achievent than sitting on the bench at barca? I understand they might not be as big named players but they still achieved more and there are players in that squad that should have been considered too, it's just a shame about FIFA's inability to look outside of La Liga that is now becoming all too apparent.

I wonder now if La Liga is now rated higher than the premier League and is considered by Blatter and his fatcats to be the best league in the world, which to me is total poo!! And as for Blatter himself he needs to be in the nearest zurich care home. Who does he think he is saying that the Ac Milan deserve to be docked points for walking off the pitch. If it had been a league match yes maybe, but it was a friendly match and played in a atmosphere which I thnk has to be unacceptable for a football match to be played in. How he and Platini sleep in their beds at night I do not know. I think UEFA & FIFA need to start showing better and sharper teeth when it comes to dealing with racism. neither organsation seems capable of showing they can deal with it properly, with the Serbian FA decision being perhaps one of the most outrageous deciisons of all time. They should have been
fined way more thasn they got and exculded fromthe next competition and told to get their house in order.

I think that part of the trouble here lies with the fact that the prima donnas' of the footballing world currently play in Spain. However entertaining as individual footballers these stars may be, the Spanish league is not as exciting as the EPL overall imo. Perhaps that is because we generally have the philosophy that the team comes first and no individual player is bigger than the team. The trouble for us and perhaps Italy and Germany too is that Fifa want to promote the cream of the profession only and therefore tend to ignore the great players who work as part of a team. That and the fact the governing body is as corrupt as an Italian prime minister

(08-01-2013 03:58 )Fernandez Esperenda Wrote:  SC Corinthians last year won the Copa Libatadores, the south american equivillent of the european Champions league, and also beat chelsea who beat bayern, to win the club world cup, and yet nobody from Corinthians gets a spot.

I think you'd only have to watch Corinthians play once to understand why. Just watching them once would be enough to show you that they don't have any players who are better than those of Real Madrid and Barcelona.

(08-01-2013 08:30 )bytor Wrote:  The trouble for us and perhaps Italy and Germany too is that Fifa want to promote the cream of the profession only and therefore tend to ignore the great players who work as part of a team. That and the fact the governing body is as corrupt as an Italian prime minister

FIFA don't have any votes in the team of the year awards. Only the players themselves are allowed to vote, so your talk about FIFA wanting to promote something is irrelevant. You can insult FIFA as much as you like, but the players selected were voted for by their fellow professionals. It should be pointed out that nobody within FIFA has a vote in the Ballon d'Or either.

(08-01-2013 03:58 )Fernandez Esperenda Wrote:  people are forgetting this is supposed to be about world football, not just europe, SC Corinthians last year won the Copa Libatadores

Maybe people haven't forgotten. Maybe they just don't agree with you.

You say that players from Corinthians of Brazil should have received votes, but in the Ballon d'Or none of the Brazilian votes went to anyone playing for Corinthians or to anyone playing in Brazil. Even if you take the votes from the whole of South America there's still only one Brazilian based player who was listed, and that was Neymar who got only 1 vote and plays for Santos not Corinthians.

There were only 5 players who got any significant number of votes from South America and they were (in order) Messi, Ronaldo, Falcao, Xavi and Iniesta. The others who got votes from South America were Neymar as already mentioned, plus Aguero, Drogba, Ibrahimovic, Pirlo, Casillas and Neuer. Only Messi, Ronaldo, Xavi, Imbrahomovic and Falcao got votes from Brazil.

Going back to this best league in the world business, I find it a difficult question to answer to be honest.

I think though the Premier League is in a bit of decline in terms of quality compared to a few years ago when English teams were dominating the Champions League.

I think its a myth that the Premier League is miles ahead in terms of being the most competitive compared to other leagues. If my memory serves me right I think I remember reading an article in the World Soccer magazine and it was comparing the top 5 major leagues in Europe: Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1. I think it was only providing statistics since the Premier League was formed to the present day.

I think it was found that Ligue 1 was most competitive in terms of league titles won amongst different teams. I think Ligue 1 had around 10 and Bundesliga had 6. Then Premier League, La Liga and Serie A were next with 5 different champions.

I did some of my own work and compared the amount of different teams from each of the top 5 leagues in Europe that qualified for the Champions League. Here is the list:

Premier League

Man United.
Blackburn.
Newcastle.
Arsenal.
Liverpool.
Chelsea.
Man City.
Everton.
Tottenham.

La Liga

Barcelona.
Real Madrid.
Valencia.
Deportivo.
Atletico Madrid.
Malaga.
Real Betis.
Seville.
Athletic Bilbao.
Real Mallorca.
Real Sociedad.
Celta Vigo.
Villarreal.
Osasuna.

Bundesliga

Bayern Munich.
Borussia Dortmund.
Werder Bremen.
Bayer Leverkusen.
Kaiserslautern.
Hertha BSC.
Hamburger SV.
1860 Munich.
Schalke.
VfB Stuttgart.
VfL Wolfsburg.


Serie A

AC Milan.
Inter Milan.
Juventus.
Roma.
Lazio.
Napoli.
Udniese.
Parma.
Fiorentina.
Sampdoria.

Ligue 1

PSG.
Marseille.
Lyon.
Montpeiller.
AS Monaco.
FC Nantes.
Auxerre.
Lens.
FC Metz.
Bordeaux.
Lille.
Toulouse.

1. La Liga - 14 teams.
2. Ligue 1 - 12 teams.
3. Bundesliga - 11 teams.
4. Serie A - 10 teams.
5. Premier League - 9 teams.

The Premier League is still my favourite league although its more because I'm a Newcastle fan, but I think there are a lot of exciting games to watch. I just don't buy into what pundits like Paul Merson say by declaring the Premier League is miles ahead of every other league in the world.

In the past 2 or 3 years, I have started to watch football in the other major leagues in Europe and you get some really good games and the quality of football is just as good as the Premier League if not better than it.

(08-01-2013 14:22 )dan g 27 Wrote:  1. La Liga - 14 teams.
2. Ligue 1 - 12 teams.
3. Bundesliga - 11 teams.
4. Serie A - 10 teams.
5. Premier League - 9 teams.

I still say the Bundesliga is easily the best league in the world. Being English obviously I'm more interested in the Prem and get more excited by English football in general than I do other leagues. But overall I think it's behind the Germans and La Liga

(07-01-2013 19:51 )dan g 27 Wrote:  Here is the team he picked:

--------------------------------Cech----------------------------

Ramos------------Chiellini----------------Kompany---------Alba------

----------Yaya Toure-----------Pirlo-----------Iniesta---------

Messi--------------------------Falcao-------------------Ronaldo------

I agree with that team 100%, much more worthy of team of the year. The only arguments would be that Ramos has barely played RB this year (never really rated him there tbh) and has been outstanding at CB, but I suppose he's more recognised as a full-back. I'm sure many would make a case for RvP ahead of Falcao too, but I'd have Falcao ahead.

Quote:I still say the Bundesliga is easily the best league in the world. Being English obviously I'm more interested in the Prem and get more excited by English football in general than I do other leagues. But overall I think it's behind the Germans and La Liga

Ya I think overall the Premier League is the third best league in the world behind Bundesliga and La Liga. I think its 50/50 between Bundesliga and La Liga on who comes out on top, but I think perhaps Bundesliga edges it. Its a very good league with quality football, well run clubs and I would argue that would have the best atmospheres out of the major leagues in Europe.

Quote:--------------------------------Cech----------------------------

Ramos------------Chiellini----------------Kompany---------Alba------

----------Yaya Toure-----------Pirlo-----------Iniesta---------

Messi--------------------------Falcao-------------------Ronaldo------


I agree with that team 100%, much more worthy of team of the year. The only arguments would be that Ramos has barely played RB this year (never really rated him there tbh) and has been outstanding at CB, but I suppose he's more recognised as a full-back. I'm sure many would make a case for RvP ahead of Falcao too, but I'd have Falcao ahead.

As I said earlier that the only way to fit Ramos in was to put him in right back. I feel bad leaving Mats Hummels, as he was fantastic last year as well and is arguably the best centre back in the world.