OT: soccer thread

[Det the Threat]

With reports that we were talking to Klinsmann AGAIN, I'd have much preferred we signed him.

I'm not sure about that.

It was Loew who did all the tactical work with the German NT, when Klinsmann was in charge. He's more of a motivator and not really a coach IMO.

BTW: If someone's interested. Here's a recap of that Gladbach at Leverkusen match from this past weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7fupuXliMY

[fatlever]

anyone have any thoughts on the 2 recent USA friendlies vs poland and colombia?

i thought jones looked fantastic. based on what ive seen he appears to be our best central midfielder. i'd still like to see holden get some time in the central midfield like he does for bolton. either paired with a defensive holding mid or at the tip of a diamond.
4-3-3 just doesnt work without donovan and dempsey on the wings.
jozy still cant finish for crap and just doesnt seem to be a smart player. his off the ball movement is suspect.
lichaj looked very promising, not so much for shea. spector's job on the mnt is in trouble.
like parkhurst and goodson. thought they were solid.
dempsey is much better when he moves in centrally and not simply stuck on the wings.
bradley struggled. maybe not used to playing next to someone like jones in the middle.

what are we going to do about the central midfield? until now, bradley has been the main man in the central midfield. he's played basically every single minute of every single game where he has been available. now with jones on board, bradley is no longer the best player in the middle. also, edu is getting tons of mins at rangers playing champions league. if he isnt equal to bradley he is close. holden has played every minute for bolton in the center this year where he has been super. i dont think bradley can continue to be a guaranteed starter and 90 min guy for every game going forward. there are simply too many other talented central guys that deserve minutes. i havent even mentioned torres who still deserves some mins in the middle.

i guess for now my main 11 would be (4-2-3-1) or (4-4-2) depending on how high dempsey plays:

--------------------------howard----------------------------------
dolo--------gooch(barely)---goodson-------boca(barely)
------------------jones----------bradley(barely)-------------
---holden-----------------------------------------donovan----
------------------------dempsey---------------------------------
--------------------------------altidore--------------------------



edu
benny
torres
lichaj
parkhurst or demerrit (not sure how he is doing this year)
guzan
token forward - no idea who to prefer between johnson, buddle or gomez at this point. (davies cant get healthy soon enough)

[e4Nf6]

In theory our roster screams for a 4-3-3. We have 3 good CMs that we need to get on the field and a tone of winger/CAM type players with only one decent forward. In practice last night none of the CMs got forward at all and we basically played with 3 attacking players which isn´t enough. Jones made a few mistakes but his class is obvious. He and Bradley have no idea how to play together right now, they both wanted to start the offense and were stepping on each others toes all night.

I think Dempsey needs to play a roaming withdrawn forward for us. I´m also optimistic about the Edu at CB experiment, although he hasn´t played great there so far. I´d go with:

Cherundolo---------Gooch---------Edu----------Bocanegra

----------------------Jones-----------Bradley---------------------

------Holden----------------------------------Donovan----------

--------------------------Dempsey--------------------------------
-------------------------Altidore---------------------------------

[fatlever]

i was talking to a friend last week about the 4-3-3 and how our roster now seems to set up well for that formation with edu, jones and bradley. i compared it to chelsea midfield with basically consists of 3 central guys mikel (role for edu), lampard (role for bradley), essien (role for jones). i definitely think those 3, with time, could figure out how to play next to each other. in theory it seems to be ideal if we want to keep those 3 on the field. the wingers and jozy have to do better than they did last night though (assuming jones-bradley-edu can get their issues worked out).

as for the central defenders (and including edu), until gooch gets more pt and with demerrit getting older and his late move to his new club, i am open to anything. those 2 jobs should be wide open for the next 12 months.

also thought pearce was pretty decent defensively. he doesnt seem to provide much at all going forward, but he scares me less defensively than bornstein. boca is just getting too slow to really handle anyone with pace out there.

[Det the Threat]

Hi folks.

Some infos on soccer again, by your German "correspondant".

Michael Bradley will join Aston Villa on loan form Borussia Moenchengladbach.

merican midfielder Michael Bradley has been handed the opportunity to earn himself a full-time switch to the English Premier League after joining Aston Villa on loan.

Bradley, one of the stars of the U.S. World Cup team coached by his father, Bob, is being leased out by his German side Borussia Moenchengladbach until the end of the season and could even play for Villa in its EPL clash at league leaders Manchester United on Tuesday.

However, sources confirmed to Yahoo! Sports that the loan deal includes a clause that gives Villa an option to buy Bradley, 23, outright in the summer – for a figure thought to be around $9 million.

The loan gives Bradley the chance to prove himself in arguably Europe’s toughest league, having experienced difficult times in Germany. Despite his own strong performances, Moenchengladbach sits at the foot of the Bundesliga table and looks doomed to relegation

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slu ... illa012911

We've(Gladbach) been horrible so far this season and it looks like we're very well going to be playing 2nd Bundesliga next season.

We started very well with that 6-3 win at Leverkusen in August, but didn't do anything at all(besides beating our rivals FC Cologne 4-0 at their stadium in November) since then.
We've had 10 points in the first 17 games and are now at 13 points, after 19 games, while not winning a single home game all season long.

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bund ... eltag.html

Bradley was pretty awful, playing at defensive midfield and making lots of mistakes passing the ball to the opponentes.
He's been benched during those first two games of the 2nd half of the season and will now got to Villa, who'll have an option to buy him at seasons end, which would net us something around $9 mil, if the yahoo report is correctly.

Other then the problems of my team, it looks very likely that Borussia Dortmund will win the league. They're currently 11 points clear of 2nd place Bayer Leverkusen, while Bayern Munich's even 14 points behind.

Werder Bremen's got loads of problems and seems to miss Mesut Oezil a lot, as theiy're only 3 points clear of the relegation zone.
Mainz and Hannover have been the surprising teams so far, and might be able to make it to Europe next season.

There are also a lot of youngsters showing some signs of being really good.
Shinji Kagawa(Japan) of Borussia Dortmund was pretty good so far, but will most likely miss the rest of the season after breaking his foot at the Asian Cup.
Dortmund's Mario Goetze is another one of those intelligent offensive midfielders who's playing better every match.
Also Lewis Holtby of Mainz is doing a pretty good job so far.

Of course, Marco Reus of Borussia Moenchengladbach is playing pretty good, despite the poor showings of the team, and surely would net us quite some money(he's got a 14 mil Euro opt out clause), if we were to sell him.

So that's it so far. Hope I could give you some interesting informations on German soccer and the Bundesliga.

[fatlever]

hey det. welcome back and thanks for resurrecting the OT soccer thread.

i was happy to read the bradley news yesterday. now i can watch him on a regular basis (assuming he plays his way into the first team at villa). also this gives us a chance to really see bradley, jones and holden playing in the same league. we can now compare all our central midfielders on an apples vs apples situation. i want to see bradley earn all those automatic starts he gets with the national team by outplaying jones and holden. holden has been fantastic this year for bolton. of course, if usa sticks with the 5 man midfield then all 3 guys can play centrally with dempsey and donovan out wide and jozy up top. now we just need edu to make the jump south from rangers to england.

why do you think bradley struggled so much this year? was it because the coach was asking him to play deeper than in previous season with more holding/defensive responsibilities?

anyone heard what they plan to do about the usa vs egypt game next week? canceled or moved?

[Det the Threat]

why do you think bradley struggled so much this year? was it because the coach was asking him to play deeper than in previous season with more holding/defensive responsibilities?

Yes, he was asked to play a holding midfield role as we're playing somewhat of a 4-2-3-1 formation.

It pretty much looked like that, even though you surely won't know any of the names.

---------------------------------------------Heimeroth--------------------------------------

--Levels----------------------Brouwers------------Dante----------------------Daems--

-----------------------------------Marx-----------Bradley-----------------------------------

---Reus------------------------------------de Camargo-----------------------Arango----

----------------------------------------------Idrissou------------------------------------------

Though, after the winter break we bought a couple more players, sold some, send some on loan and are now playing with Stranzl instead of Brouwers, Nordtveit(came from Arsenal) and Neustaedter for Marx and Bradley, and with Idrissou instead of Arango while Hanke's playing up front.

We had lots of injury problems on defense, playing with all sub defenders at times and conceeded about 3 goals per game(already have 50 goals against, after 20 games) during the first 17 games of the season.

Bradley was a huge factor in this cause most of the time he gave the ball away when we were going forward, just after he won them back. That killed us, as it gave lots of easy chances on goal and goals away for the opponents.

Anyways, we just won 1-0 at Frankfurt and are now tied at 16 points with 17th place Stuttgart and only 3 points behind Cologne, who're holding 16th place, which qualifies for relegation matches against the 3rd best team of the 2nd Bundesliga.
Next week we'll play at home against Stuttgart and the week after that we'll play at St. Pauli, who are only 6 points clear of us.

[doc.end]

Hi Det, welcome back. Everytime I was checking the bundesliga standings I was thinking whether your favourite team was really 'Gladbach... Good luck, hopefully they wil make. But first thing first I hope for K'lautern to be safe ASAP - you know we need Morávek to play nad improve. How is Wolfsburg doing without Džeko?

[Det the Threat]

Hi Det, welcome back. Everytime I was checking the bundesliga standings I was thinking whether your favourite team was really 'Gladbach... Good luck, hopefully they wil make. But first thing first I hope for K'lautern to be safe ASAP - you know we need Morávek to play nad improve. How is Wolfsburg doing without Džeko?

Yeah thanks, I still hope we can make it, but it will be tough and will go till the last game.

I don't really care for Lautern and wouldn't mind them being behind us, even if they'd be relegated into the 2nd Bundesliga again.

Wolfsburg's doing about as crappy as they did with Dzeko.
They're 4 points clear of the relegation zone after being thrashed 3-0 at home by Borussia Dortmund.

[fatlever]

gotta love this insane winter transfer window. so many big names on the move.

[Eoghan]

Liverpool turned into Man Citeh all of a sudden.

[fatlever]

Liverpool turned into Man Citeh all of a sudden.

that much cash for andy carroll seems very steep. typical english premium on homegrown talent?

as a chelsea fan, still hard to swallow getting torres. on one hand i love it since we desperately need some help up front (and eventually replacement for drogba), but stealing that player from rivals feels soooooo dirty. love the luiz deal though.

and how about adu going on loan to 2nd division turkish team. what is next the japanese league?

[Det the Threat]

So it's official now.



http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0 ... 57,00.html

Really liked the guy, even tough he didn't have the greatest of runs with my club.

So good luck at Villa Michael and hopefully they'll use their option at seasons end and pay us those reported $9 mil.

[Eoghan]

Liverpool turned into Man Citeh all of a sudden.

that much cash for andy carroll seems very steep. typical english premium on homegrown talent?

I'm a Reds fan and even I'll admit that that is exactly what it was. They also wanted to pair Suarez with someone that's proven to score goals in the premiership. Overall, I like the signings (wish we could have gotten Charlie Adams though, we've been lacking a creative midfielder ever since Xabi Alonso), Carroll gives us a better threat on corners with his ability to get on headers, something that's been sorely lacking since Peter Crouch and Sami Hyypia were last at Anfield.

But yeah, 35m pounds, yeesh.

Enjoy Torres, he's amazing when he wants to be. Unfortunately, he just limps around and pouts if the game isn't going his way.

[fatlever]

Liverpool turned into Man Citeh all of a sudden.

that much cash for andy carroll seems very steep. typical english premium on homegrown talent?

I'm a Reds fan and even I'll admit that that is exactly what it was. They also wanted to pair Suarez with someone that's proven to score goals in the premiership. Overall, I like the signings (wish we could have gotten Charlie Adams though, we've been lacking a creative midfielder ever since Xabi Alonso), Carroll gives us a better threat on corners with his ability to get on headers, something that's been sorely lacking since Peter Crouch and Sami Hyypia were last at Anfield.

But yeah, 35m pounds, yeesh.

Enjoy Torres, he's amazing when he wants to be. Unfortunately, he just limps around and pouts if the game isn't going his way.

i work with a liverpool fan. ive been giving him crap all day. he said same thing about charlie adams and compared him to alonso. seems that tottenham almost stole him at the very end of the day. not sure why they needed him when they have modric and van der vaart.

torres and drogba, two of the most frustrating strikers in the history of soccer. amazing when they feel like playing but so often they just jog around pout, dive and fake injuries. if those two get motivated at the same time watch out - then again, neither has ever shown chemistry playing with another true striker.

i like suarez. i think he will jump right in to PL and start scoring goals.

[e4Nf6]

This certainly is convenient for US fans, all our players in one league now. No need to pay attention to the Bundesliga, La Liga, or Seria A. Until Jozy stars getting time at Villareal or one of our bajillion youth players in Germany breaks into a first team.

[doc.end]

Well, UK has some immigrant law that makes it almost impossible to get a work permit for players with less than X matches for their respective national teams unless they are from EU and few other countries. That makes english clubs to overpay for the rest they can actually get without problems.

Turkey is a quite usual destination for non-elite players and/or aging ones. At least here we experience several czech players (usually those who kind of lose their starting spot) ending up in Turkey, Russia or Ukraine as not many other clubs are willing to pay for players (and those who do have better players in mind). I guess many times it is just player agents wanting to get provision from the transfer no matter what. Adu could be just odd man out among non-europeans in his club? I don't know.

[Det the Threat]

Some news from Germany again.

Hi folks, what up?

The Bundesliga is nearing it's finish this season and there are still quite some things going on.

Bayern Munich(48 points) is currentliy 4th place and are trying to catch Hannover(50 points) and maybe even Bayer Leverkusen(55 points), to at least reach the CL qualifier.

My club will almost certainly be relegated into the 2nd Bundesliga, after losing another "6 point match" at home against Kaiserslautern 0-1, with our goalkeeper Logan Bailly scoring a crazy own goal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEDqtdIRygk

After that one the whole croud always cheered very hard as soon as he was able to catch a ball.

Dortmund has been struggling some the last couple of matches and is only 7 points clear of Leverkusen(or "Vicekusen" as they're called over here) with 7 games left on the season.

The fight to avoid relegation should also be interesting and till the last day, with every team from 10th place down only being up 6 points at most.

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bund ... eltag.html


Though, the craziest thing as of late has been the coaching changes.

Frankfurt fired Michael Skibbe and replaced him with Christoph Daum.
Schalke tried very hard to find a way to get rid of Felix Magath and avoid paying a huge fee to him, but found something to release him last week. Though, just two days later Magath had a new job, taking over from Pierre Litbarski as manager of Wolfsburg, whom he coached to the title in 2009.

Bayer Leverkusen will replace Jupp Heynckes with current SC Freiburg coach Robin Dutt.
Heynckes left Leverkusen, because he'll replace Louis van Gaal at Bayern Munich, who will be out at Bayern this summer.
So get ready for Bayern to try and get a Leverkusen player(Arturo Vidal haas been mentioned quite often already) here and there along the process.
Also get ready for Bayern to spend more then ever, after a season in which they won't win any titles and will look to get back on track.
They're said to be already very close on Portugal international left back Fabio Coentrao and most likely already have a deal in place with Schalke and Germany keeper Manuel Neuer, which will be official once the season is over, to avoid problems with Schalke fans for Neuer.

Neuer has been linked with Man United as well, but recently stated that other countries only interest him for holidays, which means he's either staying at Schalke(very unlikely) or go to Bayern.
I really don't get all those players going to Bayern, if given a chance at another league, especially with Neuer being attacked by Bayern fans during the German cup semifinal at Munich, when they screamed we don't need/want Neuer and booed him very hard.

That's it for now.

[fatlever]

will be interesting to see what happens to bayern if they dont make CL. didnt robben already say he would look to move this summer if that happened? bayern just doesnt seem the same when robben isnt playing.

hannover led by american captain steve cherundolo - would be pretty cool to see that in the CL next season.

usa vs argentina tonight. first time we get to see usa 1st in action since world cup. sucks so bad that holden got hurt last weekend though. i was really looking forward to seeing him as the CAM. now we will most likely get the 3 defensive mids - bradley, jones and edu, which will be boring.

and how about david luiz at chelsea? he is fantastic.

hey det, what can you tell me about tim chandler who recently joined usa? heard he has looked good at right back this year in bundesliga. can he play right wing at a national level?

[Det the Threat]

will be interesting to see what happens to bayern if they dont make CL. didnt robben already say he would look to move this summer if that happened? bayern just doesnt seem the same when robben isnt playing.

Don't know about that one, but I doubt Bayern would let him leave.
They're going to spend and try to add to their current core after this crappy season, for their standards.

hannover led by american captain steve cherundolo - would be pretty cool to see that in the CL next season.

I don't think so.
I think they'd be kicked out of the CL qualification if they don't get lucky and draw a bad team.

They're normally a team trying to avoid relegation and I think they'll have quite some trouble next season, after this one.
They're pretty lucky this year and are clicking on every cylinder.

hey det, what can you tell me about tim chandler who recently joined usa? heard he has looked good at right back this year in bundesliga. can he play right wing at a national level?

Who?
Hoestly, I'm bad at telling you much about guys outside of Gladbach, espececially if they're playing for a club like Nuremburg.

BTW: The Bundesliga has overtaken the Serie A and will have a fourth CL spot(3 guaranteed and 1 qualifier) starting in 2012.