Metal Reviews

I truly am speechless. Anyway, have fun !

Villareal = Celtic + Rangers.
And they can play futbol too.

Football-wise, nowadays Rangers + Celtics = Bahrein, basically. Or Vietnam.

Villareal is a good club. Not a big one. But I agree they play better than most of french clubs. Perhaps even all of them.

Perhaps even all of them combined.

The Villareal I saw today would crumble in front of Celtic.

As expected, we lost, but they had to fight damn hard for it. 15 seconds of bad defending and they got a shot in. For the rest of the came, they played ridiculously defensive, to the point where the entire Aberdeen stand started jeering every time they passed the ball to the keeper- which happened a lot. Anyway, lots of excellent chances from the Dons, it could easily have been a red victory at 2-1. Aluko dominated the midfield like always, and Darren Mackie honoured his testimonial match. I can't help but feel that had we had Hartley, Diamond and Maguire on the pitch things would have been very different.

Benfica plays Toulouse tomorrow in Lisbon! my club vs the city where i'm living now, in case you didn't know lol.

Bye bye, Rangers!

so Portugal's u-20 team eliminated Iturbe and Lamela's Argentina to make it to the u-20 world cup semi-finals, versus the winner of France x Nigeria. 0-0, penalty shoot-out and our keeper Mika defended 3 penalties to take us through.

captain Nuno Reis was... effusive in his celebration:


no joke.

See ? This is exactly why I can't love football anymore.

México is going in the semis vs Spain or Brazil. We defeated yesterday the host, Colombia, 3-1. Good times. Hopefully, the final will be México vs Portugal

So, Portugal vs. France it seems. Don't worry Az, we suck.

What happened to the Swiss under 20s? They won the world cup last year, didn't they?

Switzerland won the U-17 World Cup in 2009. They did not qualify for the current U-20 World Cup.

Bruce, Portugal isn't much better, i am sure. a few players from Portugal's big 3 but ones who maybe haven't even worn the shirt in an official match.

which brings me to a point. you could say that curbing "player imports" in favour of national players undermines meritocracy in football, but in countries like mine where I honestly don't think there is a meritocracy, with players seemingly bought on the influence of agents over club directors, it's the only way to bring national kids stronger. i don't care how strong local clubs can get after signing the right foreigners, when the impact on national squads is so obvious. the best European national teams still have a league with a majority of domestic players: Spain, Germany and the Netherlands.

this season Benfica is regularly fielding a starting XI with all foreigners. for shame.

of course, how much would this be a violation of european labour laws?

Azreal: I'm strongly in favor of the "6+5" system. At least 6 local players on the pitch, no matter what, and maximum 5 players from anywhere else. Actually my favorite system would be a "6+3+2" : 6 locals (min), 3 Europeans (max), 2 from the rest of the world (max). This way, the Champions League would really feel like a European Cup, and not a european imitation of the Copa Libertadores. But obviously, European legislation makes this currently impossible.

The current European laws are based on free trade and free circulation of goods and people. I say fuck this. We really need to amend them. I like Europe, but this is going too far, and doesn't make any sense anymore. We need European borders and European tariffs (especially on Chinese goods) AT THE VERY LEAST.

I'm stopping here because this would belong to the politics thread.

Bruce, how do you feel about this: Like 85% of the French team are not french. They're slaves from the colonies. The same is happening with England. Turks are overwhelming Germany.

And in clubs, especially in Italy, is ridiculous, sometimes the Internazionale di Milano plays without a single italian. This sucks, honestly, and have nothing to do with racism. There should be standars. In México there's a team called Chivas (Goats) from Guadalajara, and their philosophy is that only mexicans can play there, 100%. They're the most popular team here, that goes without saying. In España, there's a team, Bilbao I think, where only vascos can play.

Mexican league uses the 6+5 system, but I think 5 foreigners it's too much, 3 is a more adequate number, because most of the players hired in South América sucks.

The national identities are vanishing...

Oh, and what USA does is abominable, hiring mercenaries from all over the world to play for them. Sold for a greencard...

Right, because having a "Protestant only" policy was the smartest thing for Rangers...

I have to disagree here. Players of the French team whose parents originate from Africa are French, as long as they're born here, speak the language perfectly (well, most of french players do not speak french properly because they're dumbasses, but that's another matter), and RESPECT THE FUCKING FLAG. Other that that, I don't care where they come from. I am a son of migrants myself, my parents are Spanish. Yet I don't feel anything else than French. I expect the same from players of the national team. Most of them feel that way, but not all of them, granted.



I agree here. The Inter lineup is ridiculous. Liverpool a few years ago as well (not nowadays, they "Brittanicized" their team a lot).



This is a fact, yes. Perhaps it's the way things are meant to go. Perhaps this is what pupils will learn in a thousand years, the "Disappearance of the very concept of "nations"". Perhaps it is a good thing, go figure.
But still, I have to admit I'm uncomfortable with this.

And regarding football : 6+5!!

I'd have to disagree quite vehemently with the last several posts. There really aren't any rational arguments whatsoever for restrictions on player imports, only crass nationalism. Ok, what Azrael said about improving national talents has some merit, I guess, but overall I think football as a whole has pretty much everything to gain and little to lose from freedom of movement.

Allright, but would you mind explaining what football has to gain? It seems to me this sport gets worse and worse, year after year, but perhaps that's just me.