MrEmjoy

Leeds Vs Man U-Shited today!!

WOOP WOOP!

Ridski

Let's rephrase the assumption, shall we?

Arsenal are the team that DESERVES to win everything. Man Utd are twats, but they DO win everything that Chelsea doesn't beat them at.

Fair assessment?

Kaffy Mintcake

This thread is fantastic! I, too, found the leagues very difficult to follow because no one laid out how they were structured in plain English.

My husband is beginning to get into European football (well, the style anyway) and is up to 4 football jerseys now.
Celtic
Rangers (yes, I realize it's ridiculous to own both!)
Manchester United
Munich (I couldn't figure out what British team to give him so I opted with one of his favorite European cities)

This reminds me of when I lived in Luxembourg and saw a teenager get on the bus wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt with a University of Michigan cap. Clueless but endearing, as long as he didn't come to our neck of the woods.

Manc

Arsenal no more deserve to win anything than Crewe Alex.
or Bristol City......

kimilseung

1860 Munich or Bayern, you have to say which one (I am a pedant)

Kaffy Mintcake

Bayern Munich apparently.

another bloody yank

Thought of another question...

Why is time added to the end of a game?

And just a couple general observations after watching the grand total of 2 1/2 games on TV...

Players seem to fall down a lot while battling for possesion, creating a stoppage in play. Sometimes the fall seemed justified, other times I was sceptical. The Manchester vs. Hull game was especially bad, seemed there was a whistle every 30 sec. I remember the name Fagan being involved in many of those.

The passing to shooting ratio is unbalanced, heavily in favor of passing. It is really nice passing though, with instances of exceptional ball handling and footwork by individual players.

If there were more shooting there would be a lot more scoring, I'd say due to the size of the net the keeper doesn't have a snowball's chance on a good percentage of shots.


All that said, I enjoyed watching the games.

elfman

You've answered your own question there - the added time at the end is to account for significant stoppages - injury treatment on the pitch, substitutions, etc, during which play can't continue. Unlike major US sports the referee on the pitch is in charge of timekeeping and although most UK grounds will have some kind of clock on the scoreboard, it's not the official match time, which is entirely at the discretion of the referee.

orangemirror

The added time (called injury time) is only for stoppages for treating an injured player (and also to compensate for any obvious time wasting tactics the ref sees). Regular stoppages for fouls, throw-ins, etc are not added on.

Also if you are playing Man Utd at Old Trafford and winning, the ref normally adds on however many minutes are necessary for Man Utd to score.

orangemirror

This was actually the philosophy of English football during the 80's. Just whack the ball up field and try to get shots/headers on goal. Took about 15 years for people to realise it didn't work and actually passing and trying to create effective opportunities was more successful.

cindyabs

Uh oh,

Kaffy Mintcake

He was a European teen, listening to rap music on headphones if I remember correctly. I got a big kick out of the combination.

orangemirror

When I was a teenager one of my friends had a Chicago White Sox cap (I only know that now I live here, i had no idea it was a baseball team cap back then). For years i thought it said 'SEX' not 'SOX' and thought it was really cool.

Kaffy Mintcake

That's great. Did you try to get one too? Ever ask him about it?

Ridski

Woo-hoo! I caught one! Now, how do we reel it in...