***Official English Football Season 2021/22***

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Don't mind international breaks most of the time but the one 3 weeks into the season sucks ass. Just kills your momentum getting back into the swing of football.

 

[Uppercut]

What would you do with them? Ignoring Covid for a second.

Scrap international breaks during the season completely. Cut the number of games, and move the remaining ones to a single part of the calendar where all of the qualifiers are played. The obvious time would be June/July in odd-numbered years, but scrapping international breaks would significantly shorten the time taken to complete domestic seasons, so there might be other options.

 

[Furball]

Scrap international breaks during the season completely. Cut the number of games, and move the remaining ones to a single part of the calendar where all of the qualifiers are played. The obvious time would be June/July in odd-numbered years, but scrapping international breaks would significantly shorten the time taken to complete domestic seasons, so there might be other options.

When it comes to qualifiers, is there a case for the top nations just automatically qualifying for tournaments? It's ****ing hilarious when the top teams don't make it but it happens so rarely it seems like an absolute waste to make England, France, Brazil etc go through the rigmarole of qualifying just to confirm that yes, oddly enough these sides are amongst the top teams in their confederation.

 

[Uppercut]

When it comes to qualifiers, is there a case for the top nations just automatically qualifying for tournaments? It's ****ing hilarious when the top teams don't make it but it happens so rarely it seems like an absolute waste to make England, France, Brazil etc go through the rigmarole of qualifying just to confirm that yes, oddly enough these sides are amongst the top teams in their confederation.

With expanded tournaments you could definitely make a case, but I don’t think they’d even want that. No properly competitive games for 2 years isn’t great from a sporting perspective and it’s probably a financial disaster for their FAs too.

But yeah I mean I’d be in favour.

 

[sledger]

With expanded tournaments you could definitely make a case, but I don’t think they’d even want that. No properly competitive games for 2 years isn’t great from a sporting perspective and it’s probably a financial disaster for their FAs too.

But yeah I mean I’d be in favour.

Yeah, I agree, though at the same time, I'm not sure if games like England v Andorra are "competitive" in anything but name.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah, I agree, though at the same time, I'm not sure if games like England v Andorra are "competitive" in anything but name.

Andorra and co should be moved into a separate pre-qualification group anyway. That’s one place where I’d be looking to cut the number of games.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, I'd basically put the likes of Andorra, San Marino, Scotland etc into that sort of thing, and then have groups with 4/5 teams in for the proper qualifiers.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I wouldn't mind the games against the smaller nations if they were likely to improve their game and eventually become competitive, but it's hard to see many of them ever being anything other than ten men behind the ball spoilers. Countries who have been around for a while like Malta and Luxembourg have improved in terms of coaching and organisation, but are really going nowhere.
I would have thought playing at their own level and winning a few matches would be more enjoyable than just being able to say they played at Wembley but lost 7-0, and knew they were going to before hand.

 

[speirz]

I wouldn't mind the games against the smaller nations if they were likely to improve their game and eventually become competitive, but it's hard to see many of them ever being anything other than ten men behind the ball spoilers. Countries who have been around for a while like Malta and Luxembourg have improved in terms of coaching and organisation, but are really going nowhere.
I would have thought playing at their own level and winning a few matches would be more enjoyable than just being able to say they played at Wembley but lost 7-0, and knew they were going to before hand.

Yeah, I think every confederation other than Europe and South America have a process that involves the lower ranked nations playing each other first in order to qualify further. South America makes sense because of the amount of qualification places vs number of nations involved, but in Europe it makes no sense anymore.

FIFA needs to come up with a way to financially compensate the clubs that release players for international games. It'd be the most effective way to bring those clubs onside IMO. Give them a reason to do it other than the fact you're making rules that force them to and there might be different results.

 

[speirz]

When it comes to qualifiers, is there a case for the top nations just automatically qualifying for tournaments? It's ****ing hilarious when the top teams don't make it but it happens so rarely it seems like an absolute waste to make England, France, Brazil etc go through the rigmarole of qualifying just to confirm that yes, oddly enough these sides are amongst the top teams in their confederation.

With expanded tournaments you could definitely make a case, but I don’t think they’d even want that. No properly competitive games for 2 years isn’t great from a sporting perspective and it’s probably a financial disaster for their FAs too.

But yeah I mean I’d be in favour.

Isn't that line of thought what lead to the bigger European clubs trying to breakaway into the Super League?

 

[Uppercut]

Isn't that line of thought what lead to the bigger European clubs trying to breakaway into the Super League?

Nah it was the opposite line of thought. Furball wants France to qualify automatically because they’re overwhelmingly likely to qualify anyway. United (for example) wanted automatic super league membership because they’re *not* overwhelmingly likely to qualify for the CL, which poses financial risks they’d prefer not to have.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

The Champions League draw is today and 17 of the 32 teams are from only 4 countries. Even at that ratio UEFA would still prefer Spurs or Roma to be in it rather than Sheriff Tiraspol or Salzburg.

 

[speirz]

Nah it was the opposite line of thought. Furball wants France to qualify automatically because they’re overwhelmingly likely to qualify anyway. United (for example) wanted automatic super league membership because they’re *not* overwhelmingly likely to qualify for the CL, which poses financial risks they’d prefer not to have.

I thought the push was mostly from the clubs on the continent (the likes of PSG, Bayern, Real etc.) who are that dominant domestically that they are basically guaranteed qualification. Essentially proposing the Super League so they could earn EPL level money by having TV rights to sell. For the English clubs there wasn't as much of a downside when it all fell apart, they all went back to the league with the best revenues by a distance anyway.

 

[speirz]

The Champions League draw is today and 17 of the 32 teams are from only 4 countries. Even at that ratio UEFA would still prefer Spurs or Roma to be in it rather than Sheriff Tiraspol or Salzburg.

Honestly, clubs can have zero arguments about the number of games in international competition when club level tournaments like this are popping up. Even having and FA and League cup in most countries is too much I reckon.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Ronaldo can **** right off

 

[andruid]

Let me tack on an extremely tangential point on FiFA versus club football. Am I the only one who finds it weird that the flagship video game released via EASports is built around club football, without any proper sort of FIFA World Cup, or Continental playable tournament? It's Essentially a FIFA branded game with very little actual FIFA on it.

 

[sledger]

Let me tack on an extremely tangential point on FiFA versus club football. Am I the only one who finds it weird that the flagship video game released via EASports is built around club football, without any proper sort of FIFA World Cup, or Continental playable tournament? It's Essentially a FIFA branded game with very little actual FIFA on it.

They release a World Cup game/dlc every World Cup year.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Honestly, clubs can have zero arguments about the number of games in international competition when club level tournaments like this are popping up. Even having and FA and League cup in most countries is too much I reckon.

If the elite clubs in England, Spain and Italy had their way the domestic league would 16 teams, and one domestic cup at most.

 

[Furball]

I thought the push was mostly from the clubs on the continent (the likes of PSG, Bayern, Real etc.) who are that dominant domestically that they are basically guaranteed qualification. Essentially proposing the Super League so they could earn EPL level money by having TV rights to sell. For the English clubs there wasn't as much of a downside when it all fell apart, they all went back to the league with the best revenues by a distance anyway.

The push was from the likes of Barcelona and Juventus who have pretty much bankrupted themselves by paying absolutely insane wages in an attempt to generate the sort of cash that gets generated in the Premier League.

 

[Uppercut]

Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy charged with four counts of rape

Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy has been charged with four counts of rape, Cheshire Constabulary has confirmed

www.theguardian.com

****ing hell.