Quite enjoyed this article on Luciano Spalletti, the Napoli coach. The link is a “give” so should be accessible.
Germany down 2-0 late to Colombia in Gelsenkirchen. Even though it’s just a friendly, that won’t play well in Deutschland.
Kind of cuts in to World Cup qualifying. Then again, there will always be something on the plate in Europe: WC, Euro Qualifier, Euro, World Cup qualifier, Nations Leagues.
Seems like the solution would be to drop the Euro (and qualifier) from the rotation, keep Nations League as the sole way to determine the Euro Champion. That’s what FIFA will want: less competition for their tourneys.
Anywho, looking at Euro clubs as of now – wiki says “UEFA 4-year Ranking” as the determinant (is this the current club coefficient?), which for the top nine, will require four years of Euro competitions (or win the Champions League).
wiki has a five-year ranking which is used for seeding teams into Euro pots. So, need to drop 2019-20.
I took the liberty of pasting the wiki to a spreadsheet.
The current #12 (three past UCL champs are in and are in the top 9) is Benfica with 59 points.
Lowest five-year ranked team (15) with the highest four-year ranking (7) is Villareal.
Wondering which US team will get the coveted Host spot. 2024 league champ? Supporters’ Shield? Oh, and fun for them, they will play during their season, so they’ll play two a week for at least three matches plus one for each elimination match they play, while most of the rest of the league won’t (save SEA so far).
I have never gone to any of the Euro exhibition matches in the US. Not very interesting to me. I would go to a Club World Cup match depending on schedule and cost. Agree that it’s a tough schedule for MLS teams. They may have also been playing midweek in CONCACAF Champions League and US Open Cup leading up to the Club World Cup.
I assume those Euro clubs will not be happy giving up their practice tour money, unless this tournament will compensate for it.
Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappé must sign a new contract if he wants to stay at the club, as the French champions will not let him leave for free next year, club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi said on Wednesday.
Part I’m not clear on is the “if he wants to stay at the club.” Does he mean, before the season starts? Cuz, currently, assuming no changes made, he’ll be leaving after the season ends, and for free. So, assuming he doesn’t sign an extension, they will move him to team that will pay handsomely for him, a team that would expect Mbappe to sign a nice, long contract. And that list appears to be one team long, and that team could simply wait for the transfer price to drop.
If there were more than one team that Mbappe is interested in, his transfer might be more iminent.
1 Like
Early qualifying rounds for Champions League have started, and we have an upset.
KI Klaksvik plays in a town of 5,000 in the Faroe Islands. They just knocked out Hungarian champs and heavy favorites Ferencvaros in Budapest. Ferencvaros was good enough to make the CL group stages 3 years ago.
In the TIL category, I saw Adama Traoré on the Ferencvaros roster and was thinking WTF. Wiki tells me there are several soccer players named Adama Traoré
Insane
Reminds me of an expression my dad used to mutter: “more money than brains”.
And… he refuses to meet with them.
I hope he doesn’t show up dead somewhere.
I assume that PSG might loan him out to someone he is agreeable to. Cuz, looks like RM isn’t in that big of a hurry to buy the cow when in a year the milk will be free.
I’m still trying to figure out the business plan of the Saudi League and their Fund.
I mean, can I watch all these blood-moneyed stars on my TV in the Fall? Are they planning to sell them back to some Euro team for more than they paid? Will they sell them back to some Saudi/other-Arab-controlled team for peanuts on the dollar, so as to evade FFP rules? Selling millions of shirts at $500 a pop?
https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/neymar-joins-saudi-club-al-hilal-psg-2023-08-15/
That’s a bargain signing compared to Benzema
Neymar and Mbappe decided to toss away greatness playing for too many years in the 5th best league in Europe. Now Neymar will continue his journey of irrelevance . Hope he is happy with his choices. He is rich but at 40 may look back at lost opportunity of experience by not playing up to level of competition worthy of ability.
Their long-term strategy is to be included in the Champions League.
Thats gives the global exposure (which is what they really want) which they can then leverage.
That will be a geographic miracle, seeing as Saudi Arabia is in Asia, technically.
Perhaps they want to change that, then refuse to play Israel’s teams, then use their leverage to push Israel out of the UEFA (and they are there due to Muslim pressure not to be in Asia)?
Neymar is 31. If they get into the Champions League, it won’t be in next 2 years and, at best, they could potentially get 1 team in the CL. Teams in Europe aren’t just going to give up spots to destroy their leagues for the destroyer. It does not benefit any domestic league in Europe to allow them in. We will see if any major outlets broadcast the games or any jersey sales happen. I haven’t seen any.
This view is a bit naive.
CL is all about the money and UEFA and the larger European teams would be chomping at the bit to add SA teams because it would increase the available prize pool (and lucrative tv rights).
SA league has not reached critical mass yet, and its probably going to take a few more years, but if they play it right and keep adding above average players (for $$), I can see the league becoming competitive in less than 5 years.
I don’t see the SA league imploding like the Chinese SL.
Five years is a long time. By then, Neymar will be 36 and a non-factor in the football world. Also, it would be likely that all the Saudi teams that are remotely good would be in violation of the financial fair play for UEFA.
It would be more likely that Saudi Arabia hosts a CL of their own, inviting the top clubs, regardless of their domestic finish to a year long tourney for the largest purse. They would try to reinstate the super league with 2-3 teams from SA that they tried to stack and eliminate the FFP rules.
While purses can be enticing, if the Saudis stack their teams and the others can’t keep the best players the owners of those teams would have a diminishing asset. Real Madrid and Barcelona could not survive this long term. Neither could Liverpool, ManU, Bayern, or any of the Italian clubs.
Sounds good, but it ain’t straightforward. FFP is something that runs counter to the Saudi plan.
I don’t agree that the top clubs would not survive.
Only the older above-average layers would head off to SA. The younger players want to win trophies (League, CL, WC, Euro etc) so they are highly unlikely to head to SA.
Real and Barca would easily survive that one because the level of play in Europe is higher, and the culture of SA is not something the younger players are comfortable with. Plus, it would be very hard to move from SA back to Europe. Its basically a one-way move really at this point in time.