The Ultimate Football Thread 2013-2014 Vol. 4 EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A etc

First leg is actually in London. UEFA doesn't want two games in Madrid on back to back days. At least that's what I heard on sky sports
 
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RetroBaller said:
First leg is actually in London. UEFA doesn't want two games in Madrid on back to back days. At least that's what I heard on sky sports
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Chelsea's Twitter posted that, then deleted. Make up your damn mind, UEFA.
 
Welp gundogan ruled out of wc and any chance of a united move. Kroos staying at bayern too.. Today's a bad day
 
Ever since I've been following Real in like 07 it seems like they're always getting knocked out by German opposition. Aside from that one win in Schalke, they have a terrible record in Germany. Not feeling great about this, but I guess to be the best, you gotta beat the best.
 
UEFA going for the narratives.

It'd be lame as hell if Courtois is forced to sit out due to contract stipulations. And I don't see why UEFA would want to limit one of the final four teams in the biggest competition in Eurpoe. And quite frankly I want to go against him.
 
I really wanted to see Bayern vs Chelsea right away...

Que? Courtois to play without Atletico Madrid paying the fee? Fee violates UEFA rules?


In response to media reports referring to the situation of Club Atlético de Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, UEFA would like to reiterate its position.

The integrity of sporting competition is a fundamental principle for UEFA.

Both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations contain clear provisions which strictly forbid any club to exert, or attempt to exert, any influence whatsoever over the players that another club may (or may not) field in a match.

It follows that any provision in a private contract between clubs which might function in such a way as to influence who a club fields in a match is null, void and unenforceable so far as UEFA is concerned.

Furthermore, any attempt to enforce such a provision would be a clear violation of both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations and would therefore be sanctioned accordingly.
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http://www.uefa.org/about-uefa/administration/news/newsid=2088774.html
 
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Good post from Graham Hunter via ESPN FC. The most intelligent piece I've read so far on the Bara La Masia/transfer ban.

I agree with every point he made but again as it matters to the letter of the law, Barca is guilty. If anything, the club should've filed for some sort of dispensation before enrolling these kids at La Masia.

The funny thing is just how many clubs are in violation of this FIFA code, most notably Real Madrid who signed a 9 year old Japanese kid back in Oct to their youth academy.

I think if Bara had their ish together, their legal appeal will act as a catalyst for change in this rule where youth academies can get some sort of certification from FIFA that allows kids from other countries attend the youth academies without fear they'll be abandoned without at least a solid education if they don't make the grade.

Burning Questions about Barca's impending ban


So far, the whole Barcelona ban episode has taught us almost as much about the football news machine as it has about FIFA's Article 19 (Protection of Minors) in the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players.

When this bomb dropped last Thursday, there can't have been anyone outside FIFA HQ who wasn't stunned.

The most successful and venerated club on earth over the last decade caught and given a swinging, exemplary ban for malpractice in precisely the area that has given their trophies an extra sheen over these ten years.

From FIFA (and its playing/coaching elite) genuflecting at the alter of La Masia in January 2010 when Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi were the holy trinity of the Ballon d'Or to April 2, 2014, when FC Barcelona were fined and banned from two transfer windows on the basis of the age of disciples they allowed into that same temple, has been the shortest of journeys.

A genuinely astonishing tale.

Yet by the beginning of this week, about three and a half days later, it was a mammoth story that has been greedily devoured by a thousand hungry news piranhas.

Bayern Munich's defeat which deprived them of an unbeaten season, the once 'invincible' Arsenal's loss to Everton and the threat to their Champions League status, Cristiano Ronaldo's injury difficulties, whether or not Zlatan Ibrahimovic will play again this season, Jay Rodriguez's huge misfortune, the Steven Gerrard show at West Ham -- the infernal and incessant drive of football's hunger for, and production of, issues and news meant that the remarkable situation at the Camp Nou had been elbowed out of the way as quickly as a short-sighted sheriff in the wildest of Wild West towns.

Don't misinterpret me; there has been a great deal of intricate, accurate and important news reporting on the issue, above all here by colleagues on ESPN FC.

But the news agenda can't be allowed simply to sludge its inexorable way forward and leave this story behind, thus leaving only the Camp Nou spin doctors (aka the board) to construct an all-consuming "victim-conspiracy" narrative.

In my view, there remain a number of matters to be addressed, cleared up or simply explained better.

1. Why would a club like FC Barcelona need to be recruiting a 13-year-old from so far away?

While it wasn't unheard of for footballers to make youthful debuts in previous generations, it's now almost de rigeur for 16-year-olds to be in the "if you are good enough you are old enough" category.

Think Romelu Lukaku, Wayne Rooney, Thibaut Courtois, Messi, Samuel Eto'o, James Milner, Cesc Fabregas, Alen Halilovic, Clarence Seedorf, Stevan Jovetic. There are many more. Sixteen is the new eighteen.

At Barcelona, the football science is intricate. Not perfect, not utterly unique and certainly not the only way to learn.

But intricate, almost a separate "language" from other football tongues, and it's one which gets stronger and more successful the earlier and the longer it's embedded in a kid. The type of teaching, the daily practical examinations are why Iniesta, Xavi, Cesc, Sergio Busquets, Messi, Gerard Piqué and Jordi Alba play as beautifully as they do.

Although there is a "Benjamin" category at Camp Nou, where kids are playing and training in an organised fashion from seven years old upwards, there is a shift in gear from around ten or eleven years old ("Alevin" category) onwards.

By the "Infantil" category and the age of 13, the very special ones will be three seasons away from a possible first team debut -- be it on a tour, in a friendly, in the Copa Catalunya... or perhaps even competitively.

There is a drop-off ratio, of course. Some won't make the developmental leap from 13-16, just as some will fail to flourish from 16-19 or 18-21. Solve that enigma and you'll be a multi-millionaire. But all the top clubs are now fiercely competitive about getting their hands on the most talented 13-year-olds -- either accept that point or get out of the debate.

Interestingly, FIFA's own regulation on the compensation due for formation of a footballer states: "A player’s training and education takes place between the ages of 12 and 23... the calculation of the amount payable shall be based on the years between the age of 12 and the age when it is established that the player actually completed his training."

Twelve.

FIFA accepts that it is utterly normal, perhaps even basic, that a professional player will usually have been getting vital vocational nourishment from the age of twelve. In fact, actually, from the age of eleven given that the compensation ratio starts from the season of the boy's 12th birthday -- which in theory could include seven or eight months of a kid playing from eleven.

There is also now a widely held philosophy (at least among elite clubs) that the hungriest, least slothful and least complacent youth prospects will come from countries where football is venerated but where football may not be as developed as in the G6 European nations -- England, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Holland -- and where there may either be terrific athleticism, intense discipline or a need to work the family out of very restrictive financial circumstances.

Top clubs have long been discovering that the talent pool in the most developed football countries is being eroded, to a greater or lesser extent, by kids' devotion to television, computers, mobile phones, drugs, alcohol, laziness... lack of desire.

While there will always be an intense requirement to find and recruit the cream of local quality, the leading clubs, with Barcelona in the vanguard, want to explore the idea that in Japan, South Korea, the U.S., China and some parts of Africa, for example, there will be naturally talented, highly motivated and immensely ambitious kids (with equally ambitious or needy families) who will eventually become the next (even better) George Weah, Landon Donovan, Shinji Kagawa, Park Ji-Sung or Harry Kewell.

They view this like a stock-market investment. Research well, invest well -- wait patiently for dividends.

However this is not an exercise in kidology. Clubs like Barcelona (but them in particular) know that were they, for example, to develop a Chinese, Japanese or Korean footballer who came through the Futbol Base (youth development) ranks and triumphed in the first team, the marketing and revenue possibilities for the club in not only that country but the entire Asian market would be mind-blowingly big.

Long term this may be, it may even appear slightly random to you. But it's a hard fact.

Moreover, spotting and developing Messi has been a gold rush experience for Barcelona. The only thing he lacks is a massive, wealthy consumer market behind him; imagine that he'd been Japanese, Korean, Indian or American.

In short this recruitment of potentially excellent footballers aged 11, 12 or 13 is not an anomaly; it is commonplace, potentially important and likely to increase.

2. Do FIFA really need to police this area of player recruitment or is this just a case of unnecessary and uncalled for bureaucracy?

This point is crystal clear. While in my view FIFA have gone fishing for tuna and caught a dolphin in their badly designed nets, in this instance there's no question that trawling for offenders is vital.

The trade, indeed trafficking, of very young black African footballers to avaricious clubs in France, using totally unscrupulous "agents" is not the only area for outrage in this area of the debate, but it's probably the most clear-cut demonstration of why some form of legislation is required.

Football is now what boxing once was -- a dream ticket out of poverty for some. Or at least that mirage is intensely hypnotic.

There is a flood of cases where African families have been conned out of money they can't afford by fake agents, or where a promising but under-educated kid is plucked from his community, taken to a club or "academy" and then just kicked out without a penny or an education if he fails to make the grade.

If you want to read more on this, seek out Culture Foot Solidaire. If the information you find there is new to you, you'll be horrified.

FIFA, the European Union and indeed police forces in countries where such practices occur have a duty to prevent, protect and punish. But they equally owe a degree of re-calibration to regulations which need to be as sharp and well-honed as a rapier but are currently blunt and bludgeoning like a truncheon.

3. Is the law an ***?

Despite the clear need for regulation in this matter, article 19 of the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players is not only inadequate, it is in the same danger zone as the transfer regulations were when Jean Marc Bosman and Marc Dupont (coincidentally Halilovic's lawyer and representative) took FIFA to court and won between 1990 and 1995.

a) If Lee Seung-woo, and more importantly his family, want the youngster to be developed at FC Barcelona (or Bayern Munich, or Manchester City, or Juventus) and that club is willing to invest in him plus all national laws are met, then is FIFA legally or morally in a position to deny him/them their freedom of movement or freedom of labour, especially when the club happens to be able to demonstrate that it is a centre of excellence?

In short, no, it isn't.

b) Why has Article 19 been predicated on a blanket ban of all international movement under the age of 16 unless the kid's parents move with him for "non-football" reasons?

Instead of all the emphasis being on the junior player and his family, FIFA need to examine and certificate their member clubs' academies and, once an academy is so certified, allow them and the family to come to a conclusion as to whether or not a kid is talented enough, hungry enough, mature enough or determined enough to "board" with his new club in a new country.

c) FIFA has created a "law" which would have prevented the young Messi moving from Rosario to Barcelona, having his growth hormone treatment funded and becoming a professional footballer.

Without being empirically provable, it's a very strong bet that had these rules applied in 2001 we would never have seen the full Messi talent on either a world stage, or possibly even domestically. Messi's talent will be one in a million kids, but much more relevantly he thrived as a person and his entire family utterly changed their economic circumstances.

Despite long spells when either Barcelona's then-faltering understanding of how to handle a young kid from another continent, or Spain's football bureaucracy, prevented him from playing (i.e. doing nothing more than training with his peers), the experiment was a success based far more on his determination and ambition than, initially, his talent. Messi's other-world ability is not a common thing but that kind of spirit, that kind of will to cope and to get on in life, is.

d) Andres Iniesta. Given that he moved domestically there isn't a direct correlation between his case and the current FIFA regulations. However his trajectory nonetheless flaunts them. Barcelona, themselves, placed a minimum age of 14 for La Masia inductees but for a variety of reasons took a risk on Iniesta, aged 12. Not sixteen.

He moved north far, far more than the 100km maximum which the FIFA regulation currently allows and he did so without his parents.

He has never shied from the fact that until he made friends with Victor Valdes, tears were his number one companion. The first few months were extraordinarily hard. Yet here he is, not only a triple Champions League winner but a world and European champion with Spain and someone who when the new €10 million Masia building was opened in 2011, said: "When my parents left me in the old Masia all those years ago there was no better place in the world to which they could have delivered me."

e) Bosman won his case because of restraint of trade and similar issues are in play here. If a family or a club affected by this regulation chose to get adequately "lawyered up," then many of the same issues will be in play. This is where FIFA deserve some sympathy. There must be protection of minors when voracious football clubs wish to talent-spot them. But, if challenged, I suspect that natural justice would triumph over unilateral football rules.

f) As the regulations stand, FIFA is certifying their complete confidence that a 16-year-old Portuguese winger with the unorthodox background of having been brought up in a Romani community (like, say, Ricardo Quaresma) is guaranteed a better treatment, development and pastoral care by moving to a mid-table Greek superleague club (within the EU, thus allowed) than a 15-year-old kid from Miami would be by leaving his parents and moving to live in a model academy like FC Barcelona's Masia (banned)?

Isn't there some room for maneuver needed?

Respect to the FIFA suits who, in this case, decided that: "...while international transfers might, in specific cases, be favourable to a young player’s sporting career, they are very likely to be contrary to the best interests of the player as a minor." On the basis of this analysis, the committee concluded that "the interest in protecting the appropriate and healthy development of a minor as a whole must prevail over purely sporting interests."

You can't fault their intention, merely their execution.

Think about your favourite football team. The one you support. That striker who always has the right intentions and regularly shoots at goal (but very rarely puts it on target, never mind in the back of the net)... you wouldn't change him or try to correct him would you? Enough simply that he's trying to do the right thing despite never scoring. Right...?

4. Will the Barcelona transfer market ban stand?

If it does, then how fascinating. With due respect to FC Barcelona fans who probably crave success far more than a unique journey of discovery like this, it would be utterly fascinating to see how the club coped.

Forced to put more faith in Marc Bartra and Sergi Roberto, to repatriate Rafinha and Gerard Deulofeu from Celta Vigo and Everton respectively and to promote more quickly players like Jean Marie Dongou, Sergi Samper, Denis Suarez, Alex Grimaldo, Patric and Jordi Masip it would, over time, be a spectacular litmus test of the Futbol Base work at FC Barcelona.

However that eventuality must be in serious doubt. Firstly, Barcelona and the Spanish Federation have quickly sprung into action and are not only appealing the sentence, they will demand that, in any case, it is currently suspended.

Secondly, FC Barcelona claim that FIFA took the transfer market ban decision in November but only communicated it in April -- ignoring the multi-million pound decisions which were being formulated in the interim four months and giving the Spanish champions just two months to react and adjust their strategy before the market opened. Incomprehensible.

If this allegation is proven/admitted then natural justice demands that the ban cannot be imposed for this first market in summer, 2014.

With their accusations of dark forces at play, their demands that they become the only club exempt from Regulation 19, their threats of action against whoever is deliberately "tripping them up" in public -- all of this came out as extraordinarily ill-judged, paranoiac piffle.

Barcelona flaunted the rules, were warned about doing so and despite cooperating in terms of the information flow will probably have to face some sanction, whether it be economic or strategic.

They can argue that out with FIFA and a host of committees. Best of luck to them all.

If, ultimately, that headline story detracts from the real issue of self determination in youth development plus some Spanish clubs' pursuit of the "next Messi" in their scouting of minors then we, and the talented young kids around the world, will have been done a disservice.
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http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/laliga/id/1682?cc=5901
 
None of what UEFA is saying even matters. Chelsea has already agreed to let Courtois play without Atletico having to pay the fee


Loser of Atletico vs Chelsea should be forced to keep Torres


Would have preferred we draw Bayern or Real. Chelsea thrives on solid defending and counter attacking against attack minded teams. Atletico is scrappy, physical, extremely solid defensively, and conservative attack wise. Worst possible matchup for us. They're a team you're going to need a dominant striker to beat. If they can hold Barca to 1 goal over two legs just imagine what they'll do to us.
 
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Feel real could match Bayern in a final, but over two legs? Highly doubt it, would still love to see a real vs chelsea final. The man they brought to win la decima is the one that will take it away. Mourinho would be a legend.
 
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Prettyboy RY7 said:
THIS

Quaresma always been one of my favourite players so I may be a bit bias but he should be at the WC, He is a match winner and something that Portugal could really use as an advantage, Plus he is great friends with Ronaldo so the communication will be strong between the 2
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I am a fan of Quaresma, it's just too bad he hasn't lived up to the hype. Talent wise he has enormous amounts of it, I mean he was rated higher than Ronaldo coming out of Sporting. Maybe he finally will realize it, because he sure has been playing well for Porto, and in truth I would rather have him than Nani on the field at this point. Either way go Portugal! 

On the Champions League I bet Jose Mourinho would love to meet Real Madrid in the final or even Bayern, one to stick it to Madrid or to stick it to Pep. Although Atletico will not be an easy task for Chelsea either. 
 
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don't understand a word, but the emotion was real 

Kid brought Falcao to tears 
frown.gif


 
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