2012-13 Soccer Season Thread

[Y Ddraig Goch]

The standard of officiating, or more to the point lack of, was highlighted big time on Sunday.

As much as many people dislike Luis Suarez because generally he is a flat out cheat and will throw himself on the floor if you go within a mile of him, that goal was good - and it wasn't close to being offside to be fair.

With regards to the Chelsea-Man Utd game, yes Ivanovic should have been sent off but yet again Ashley Young has made a meal of it and cheated. It's embarassing that one of the better players arond has to cheat so often and dive every chance he gets.

The Torres sending off was just flat out wrong. Evans fouled him, simple as that. I've seen Torres dive on a few occasions and that wasn't one of them. It was an awful decision from Mark Clattenburg.

And to make matters worse the winning goal was offside.

Big games like this should not be decided by poor officiating.

But the worst thing about it is if a player has a shocker, he gets dropped. If a referee does, he's not held accountable for it.

Mark Clattenburg's ineptitude handed Manchester United a win they didn't deserve.

Ferguson may moan and cry more than most but Manchester United get more freebies from referees than any other team.

[chilly666]

the problem with copa america and the gold cup (which they had the most recent one) is that not many in north america gives a rats ass about them. it's just like the concacaf champions league that they broadcast. not many that i know of give two craps about the french ligue or the dutch league either. so they would just be wasting money imo.

as for the world cup and euro's...there is no reason to bid and they should just go down the road that they did with speed. change it into a fox sports station and broadcast numerous events on it like they do with fox college sports (3 different ones). if you're gonna keep a channel around for 2 events, 10 years down the road, then go back and get what made you the channel that you were. losing coverage of italy and england to step down to lower english leagues and leagues not many care about here, seems dumb.

plus with fox and fx along with speed changing over, there is no real need for a specific soccer channel just to cover those two events imo.

[thepolishkid88]

Originally Posted by chilly666

the problem with copa america and the gold cup (which they had the most recent one) is that not many in north america gives a rats ass about them. it's just like the concacaf champions league that they broadcast. not many that i know of give two craps about the french ligue or the dutch league either. so they would just be wasting money imo.

as for the world cup and euro's...there is no reason to bid and they should just go down the road that they did with speed. change it into a fox sports station and broadcast numerous events on it like they do with fox college sports (3 different ones). if you're gonna keep a channel around for 2 events, 10 years down the road, then go back and get what made you the channel that you were. losing coverage of italy and england to step down to lower english leagues and leagues not many care about here, seems dumb.

plus with fox and fx along with speed changing over, there is no real need for a specific soccer channel just to cover those two events imo.

Most folks would care if Copa comes through as expected so long as FIFA releases the players to their international teams. It also will be hosted in the USA which is a major get for US Soccer and the fans. That's a big help.

Also they are looking to start gaining access to other leagues as I said, I just don't think they are going to drop the channel. They said they have no plans to and I would believe them in that. They could easily add German, French, and even some other random games (Russia, Netherlands, etc.). Also they are trying to retain the CL and this is a reason to keep the channel as well as they may be able to get some EPL games as well. Fox had the rights before but let ESPN sublicense some games for a good price. That would make sense for Fox Soccer.

Speed is doomed though and that hurts me more than Fox Soccer going away.

[chilly666]

can't add germany as GOLTV has the rights to the bundesliga...nbc sports isn't gonna sub-license the games out. that needed to be clear in the bid to the EPL. fox/espn made their combined bid but lost.

they have fx and the soon to be replaced speed channel to broadcast champions league soccer. a soccer specific channel isn't really needed is what im getting at. they don't even show soccer 24 hrs/day. they also don't have enough of their own programming to show a full day/everyday either unless they are gonna keep looping **** over and over again.

not everyone gets fox soccer or even fox soccer plus...fx and speed is in the general cable package that most everyone gets. that to me, is enough to cover the champions league.

[Shoryuken]

In the Chelsea game, I'll say what everyone else has said - Ivanovic's red was correct, Torres' wasn't. Hernandez offside for the winner (which lost me a fair bit of money as I'd backed van Persie to score first and it to finish 2-2 but I digress). In a further development, Chelsea have made a formal complaint about referee Mark Clattenburg using 'racial' language towards two of their players.

With regards televised football, even here in the UK there isn't a dedicated football channel. Sky Sports - the main group of sports channels - focus heavily on football, but also feature other sports, be it boxing, golf, cricket, formula one, and last night NFL, or whatever else has a UK interest in it. ESPN take a similar tack with their programming, though they have the excellent "ESPN America" channel which focuses purely on North American sports.

[chilly666]

Originally Posted by Y Ddraig Goch

But the worst thing about it is if a player has a shocker, he gets dropped. If a referee does, he's not held accountable for it.

Clattenburg won't officiate this weekend. PGMO says: "The focus should not be on the officials but on the players and the game itself''

ESPN FC

[Y Ddraig Goch]

Originally Posted by chilly666

ESPN FC

That's not for his error though.

That's because of allegations of racism against him by Chelsea.

[Sukoshi84]

Originally Posted by Y Ddraig Goch

That's not for his error though.

That's because of allegations of racism against him by Chelsea.

Exactly, he apparently called Matta a "Spanish Twat" and said something worse to Mikel!

[Shoryuken]

Not sure if it would have been shown abroad, but Arsenal made an amazing comeback last night in the League Cup.. down 4-0 at Reading after 35 minutes, they pulled it back to 4-4 by full time, then and went on to win 7-5 in extra time.

It's the first time in the history of Cup football in England - both FA Cup and League Cup - that a team has scored 5 in a match and lost.

[RetardedChimp]

A little late to the party, but in regards to the Torres dive issue...it seems there was contact made, but he certainly sold it by instantly clasping onto his knee as if there was some sort of injury. Faking like that to me is just as bad as diving and should be punished whenever possible.

It seems every player does that now, the blatant faking like you are hurt when you clearly are not. Start giving them cards for it, please. Even worse are the players who lay on the ground for the other team to pass it out, only to get right back up and fake limp for a few steps before all of a sudden being healed. People, including refs and the other team need to call them on that. Because it's bullsh*t.

Also, how is it the main refs fault if the linesmen misses the off sides? It's not like it was terribly obvious real time, and he was in no position to make that call. Unless he overruled the linesmen and called it a good goal he shouldn't be blamed at all for that.

[thepolishkid88]

Originally Posted by Shoryuken

Not sure if it would have been shown abroad, but Arsenal made an amazing comeback last night in the League Cup.. down 4-0 at Reading after 35 minutes, they pulled it back to 4-4 by full time, then and went on to win 7-5 in extra time.

It's the first time in the history of Cup football in England - both FA Cup and League Cup - that a team has scored 5 in a match and lost.

Watched the game from my CPU. Amazing game and really at times some really poor GKing/defending. Couldn't believe Reading had found a 5th goal in them to be honest. I thought for sure it was going to PK's only to see another 2 goals in like 15 seconds. Crazy crazy game.

Manchester United and Chelsea had a doozie of a game today as well. The Red Devils defending was poor to be quite truthful. Lots of concerns there moving forward, even if it was your youngsters.

[bostonirish8]

Looking forward to another nice little Saturday morning of EPL football.

Going to start with a nice Wake and Bake and catch Arsenal at United at 830 on ESPN with Macca and Ian Darke, who call a great match in my opinion. I think United is going to take this one at Old Trafford where they are tough to beat and Arsenals D looks shaky. Think RVP is going to continue his fine form with him and fat boy making a deadly duo.

The other game I'm looking forward to is Chealsea at The Swans in Wales. I really enjoy the way Swansea plays football with some of that Spanish flair. Michu has been impressive this season and they bring a nice style that is not seen in the premiership to often. Still I see The Blues takeing this one. Mata is class and I think Oscar will have an impact if he's starting.

Hope you fellas enjoy the football this weekend, cheers

[bostonirish8]

f*uck me RVP two mins in.

Bad defending from Vermaelen and unfortunately for him he gave it up to sum one who doesn't miss when he gets an opportunity like that.

Giroud just isnt going to cut it as Robins replacement. Arsenal made a grave error letting that boy walk, should have emptied the coffer to convince him to stay.

"RVP he scores when he wants"

[acdcrocksno1]

Originally Posted by bostonirish8

f*uck me RVP two mins in.

Bad defending from Vermaelen and unfortunately for him he gave it up to sum one who doesn't miss when he gets an opportunity like that.

Giroud just isnt going to cut it as Robins replacement. Arsenal made a grave error letting that boy walk, should have emptied the coffer to convince him to stay.

"RVP he scores when he wants"

Its hardly fair to call Giroud his replacement, Podolski however was non existent today I expect much more from him.

[bostonirish8]

Originally Posted by acdcrocksno1

Its hardly fair to call Giroud his replacement, Podolski however was non existent today I expect much more from him.

Fair enough, but my overall point was that they lost 37 goals when Robin walked out that door and I don't think they got enough this summer to replace those goals. Giroud had a huge season last year for Montpellier and was brought in with high expectations and so far hasn't produced.