Official Football Thread

Hey, look! Some Chelsea fans do have a sense of humour, after all.

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I really love this new generation the Germans are coming up with. They have so many young players who are not just the works of highly disciplined German football system but also are naturally talented. And also, Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund are my favorite teams to watch currently.

Goalkeepers

Guys like Iker Casillas, Petr Cech and Gianluigi Buffon may be more popular (they're fantastic goalkeepers, though) but I think the best keeper in the world currently is Manuel Neuer. An all-around modern goalkeeper, by far the best ball distributor in the world. His backup Rene Adler is an underrated goalkeeper capable of playing in many national teams as the first option. While Neuer is only 26 and Adler is 28, 20 year old Marc-Andre ter Stegen of Borussia Mönchengladbach is a promising youngster.

Defenders

Bayern's defense probably is the strongest in the world and two members of that defense, Philipp Lahm and Jerome Boateng are among the best in their respective positions. There aren't many good left backs remaining after the decline/retirement of players like Roberto Carlos and Ashley Cole, Philipp Lahm certainly is one of the best. He's highly experienced and composed and still hasn't reached his 30s. Jerome Boateng (24) is one of my personal favorites with his toughness and versatility. Dortmund's left back Marcel Schmelzer (25) has been a key in the team's success lately. Centre-backs are probably the team's only weakness at the moment, while 24 year old Dortmund defender Mats Hummels is world-class, the others aren't up to par. But tough guys like Per Mertesacker (28), Serdar Taşçı (25), Benedikt Höwedes (25) and Holger Badstuber (24) give hope.

Midfielders

The team's strongest position. Defensively, Bastian Schweinsteiger (28), Sami Khedira (25) have excelled as hard-working defensive midfielders. The new brand of offensively creative and talented yet defensively hard-working and versatile midfielders in Toni Kroos (23), Mario Götze (20), Marco Reus (23), Lars Bender (23), Lewis Holtby (22) and İlkay Gündoğan (22) is fun to watch. You of course, also have one of the best creative attacking midfielders in Mesut Özil (24). Germany's playing style isn't much based on wingers but rather central midfielders who can play at the wings but watching an upcoming superstar, 19 year old winger Julian Draxler giving a hard time against my team in the Champions League 2nd Round was fascinating.

Strikers

Mario Gomez (27) is one of the most improved strikers I've ever seen. I thought he was too slow in his early years in Stuttgart, but after coming to Bayern München he's become one of the best finishers and position chasers in the world. Quick opportunistic Thomas Müller (23), although not quite on form always dependable Lukas Podolski (27) and although old still clinical Miroslav Klose (34) give Germany a great set of goalscorers. From the younger players Leverkusen's Andre Schürrle (22) and Liverpool's Samed Yeşil (18) are my favorites.

Really looking forward to the growth of this group of players. And although I have no relation or special feelings towards Germany (though I named four players who are of Turkish heritage -Serdar Taşçı, İlkay Gündoğan, Mesut Özil, Samed Yeşil-), the amount of work I put into this post which came from nowhere probably shows the excitement I have over these guys.
 
Forostar said:
Flash, I don't find these guys so young. At least, not compared with the new generation of our squad.
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Well they're young for the level of experience they have. They should be able to compete for the two upcoming World Cups.

I don't know the majority of the players on Netherlands' recent squads, which tells me "not enough experience". I don't see the Netherlands competing for a big tournament for at least 5-6 years. (if they keep the "getting younger" system alive)
 
The Flash said:
I don't know the majority of the players on Netherlands' recent squads, which tells me "not enough experience". I don't see the Netherlands competing for a big tournament for at least 5-6 years. (if they keep the "getting younger" system alive)
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I do not see the Netherlands competing for a big tournament if they had kept all the same players. It was time to vigorously change matters. Things are looking bright at the horizon. There's lots of potential, and Van Gaal sees that.

I can imagine that you don't follow the Dutch competition. It has been years ago since a Dutch club did well internationally. From the current squad, lots of them come from Feyenoord (I am happy to see this club doing better again).

But if someone doesn't know the majority of the players, then that doesn't influence a thing.
Quality of the play, the teamplay, results: these are better indicators to form an idea of what could happen.


Something else:
Not a single team from the beloved Premier League has reached the CL quarter finals! The silence about this fact was so deafening that I had to break it.
 
Forostar said:
Something else:
Not a single team from the beloved Premier League has reached the CL quarter finals! The silence about this fact was so deafening that I had to break it.
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Do you mean on this forum or in general? Because this is one of the articles I recalled seeing after Arsenal bowed out: http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/championsleague/story/english-failure-in-champions-league-a-cause-for-concern-031413

I think there is a lot of heightened competition from other countries but champions league seasons can be very luck-based (i.e. Chelsea winning it last year was just strange, they were definitely not the best team out there) so I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that English soccer has gone down the tubes . If anything I think the Premier League is very entertaining, but there are hardly any English players in it.
 
Forostar said:
Something else:
Not a single team from the beloved Premier League has reached the CL quarter finals! The silence about this fact was so deafening that I had to break it.
Click to expand...

Perhaps because the present fans of Premier League clubs don't care about it. Of course I can only speak for myself, but I really, really don't care about how many teams from a particular league are at the QF level. I rejoiced at the demise of Chelsea and Man City, and in the tie between Arsenal and Bayern I couldn't make up my mind about who to root for. And I really don't get why people who are not from England, Spain, Germany or Italy should argue about which of those leagues which is strongest. I don't understand the idea of supporting leagues. A league which contains your favourite club, also contains a number of its fiercest rivals.

In fact, when TV pundits are wanking over a particular league - be it La Liga, the EPL or the Bundesliga - I walk away or switch channels, and switch back when the match begins.
 
Here, I meant. I'd say the Premier League itself is going down the tube. At least a bit. Thanks for the article, still need to read it.
 
I think there's definitely a distinction here between a league and a team. I think La Liga pretty much sucks. But my favorite team is Barcelona. So when people slag La Liga off, I agree. But don't touch Barcelona. :p
 
Forostar said:
Well yeah, sometimes it isn't that nice to hear bad things about something you like.
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I don't understand what you mean. I was talking about the opposite - pundits talking about how great a league is supposed to be. On the channel that has the CL rights in Norway, they are more likely to wank over the EPL than any other league. Except one of the pundits, who will trash talk all English teams and drool over the German ones. But he used to be Werder Bremen captain :D
 
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