World Football - The Shit Leagues (Sponsored by Richie Towell)

[Giggles]

:drool:

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2019/1127/1095599-fai-audit/

[Giggles]

Another one bites the dust. Looking like Shamrock Rovers B will take their place.


1204746029607903234

[Shindig]

I think these New Caledonians on the BBC website have covered up their sponsors.

[Giggles]

Shit could get very real soon. I think the debt figure is up to €62m now.


1207265205660639232

[Giggles]

#greatestleagueintheworld


1214584397556531200

[Spikey M]

That would be amazing.:drool:

[Giggles]

In like a flash for the scrap.


1218952915332796416

[Giggles]

Absolute shitter of a weekend to kick off the season. Also, I know it’s for TV but Bohs v Rovers on a Saturday afternoon just seems weird.

[Giggles]

If it goes ahead it’s going to be brutal anyway.


1228642864546144256

[Giggles]

It goes ahead but RTÉ have pulled out because of the wind and won’t show it on telly. What a league :cool:

[Giggles]

Jesus.


1232288592094998529

[Giggles]

If the rumours are right about only 100 tickets being available still for this Rovers Dundalk game in Tallaght, it must be the biggest crowd at a LOI game in years. Should be a cracker anyway, pity McEleney isn’t fit.

[Giggles]

That equaliser from Flores was seriously tidy.

[Giggles]

:drool:


1233541664423235590

[Kikó]

Some hit that. Brilliant.

[Giggles]

That was a cracker of a game after. Not often the TV ones end up decent.

[bruhnaldo]

:drool:


1233487784859578368

Jesus i just saw this randomly on twitter and thought maybe one of you fellas were actually at the match

[Jimmy Floyd]

I thought I'd seen every possible type of goal but I'd never seen that one. He must have an elastic groin.

[Giggles]

I didn’t cop for a couple of replays that he managed to get high enough to hit the ball downwards too.

[Giggles]

Winner wasn’t too shabby either, but that’s standard for Byrne these days. Great to see him still playing at all but he could have been so much more with a better attitude in his younger days.


1233506495230304257

[Giggles]

That would be amazing.:drool:

Shamrock Rovers II’s first game was today. Galway United showed up.

[Spikey M]

:( Spineless twats.

[Giggles]

Christ :face:


1254457932613390337

[Jimmy Floyd]

Ireland is like a little America when it comes to football fandom, which they don't seem to get. You'd have to abolish Celtic, Liverpool and Man U before you got a chance for the domestic cash grab some of those people seem desperate for. Just play football and let it be what it is.

[Giggles]

Ireland is like a little America when it comes to football fandom, which they don't seem to get. You'd have to abolish Celtic, Liverpool and Man U before you got a chance for the domestic cash grab some of those people seem desperate for. Just play football and let it be what it is.

We don’t need to join up with another league for a start. Us + NI would be no bigger than either on their own so, as you say, just get on with it.
Even apart from the big 2 English and the Scottish club, it’s only the second sport here anyway (counting both GAA codes as one).

[Spikey M]

We don’t need to join up with another league for a start. Us + NI would be no bigger than either on their own so, as you say, just get on with it.
Even apart from the big 2 English and the Scottish club, it’s only the second sport here anyway (counting both GAA codes as one).

It's an odd one. As you say, a merger between 2 lower leagues achieves nothing. You just know they'd try to turn Dublin vs Belfast into a budget Liverpool vs Man Utd as well.

It's all just opening doors to the Champions League replacing the top tier of domestic Leagues. Load of shit.

[Giggles]

This is sadly not even surprising any more. The Delaney legacy lives on.


1254817722610774016


1254836497334878214

[Giggles]

Strange. But better than nothing and hopefully it’s televised/streamed.

1261389963565793280

[Shindig]

It's why I wish the FA pressed on with finishing the cup competitions first. Less games, less risk.

[Giggles]

The FAI have some neck.


https://www.dundalkdemocrat.ie/news/sport/550651/column-fai-s-request-off-dundalk-fc-is-a-disgrace-and-a-tax-on-club-s-success.html

[Giggles]

Don

1273008832051138567

[Don]

I do miss following it - especially the European qualifying games - but I ain't going back.

[Giggles]

We back.

https://www.balls.ie/football/the-league-of-ireland-will-return-on-july-31-following-club-vote-438945



.

[Giggles]

We back.

https://www.balls.ie/football/the-league-of-ireland-will-return-on-july-31-following-club-vote-438945



.

Maybe not.

1278063508211380224

[Giggles]

I can live with €55 for the rest of the season.


1283152166711066628

[Giggles]

https://www.watchloi.ie/

Up and running, better than nothing anyway.

[Don]

Ryan Manning looks to be on cusp of blowing, second time I've seen him linked to prem (West Han today). Thought he was AML when Galway picked him up but seems to be operating as a LB these days.

[Giggles]

Think he played a little bit in midfield on a recent loan down the leagues but does seem to be settling on LB now. Hopefully, we only have Enda Stevens.

[John Arne]

We played Hanoi last night and fucking pumped 0-3. Absolutely shocking reffing, deffo on the take.

https://gyazo.com/1eb1b5be3c2e51eb86e2ed336e219c1b.jpeg

Both of these handballs were ignored...
https://gyazo.com/9e9345066f2326981f6f1943d0eefab1.jpeg

[Manc]

Woeful stadium.

[Giggles]

We’re back :drool:

[John Arne]

Woeful stadium.

Agreed. Running tracks are fucking shit. Oh, and the new plastic seats are way too small.
And the toilets reek of piss.

[Kikó]

Sounds brilliant tbh.

[Giggles]

First weekend. Didn’t take long.


1290226963970314242

[Shindig]

The LOI hashtag is too close to LOL. It really makes the tweet.

[Giggles]

LOL is usually fairly apt for the league. I think it’s kind of deliberate at this stage.

[Giggles]

:lol:


1294436480136470529

[Giggles]

A kids coach :face:


1297858569820344320

[Jimmy Floyd]

He's Italian though so must be a managerial genius.

[Don]

Come back to me when you've got him pictured sitting on a coolbox.

[Giggles]

"never managed an adult team..." :thbup:


1298688421800620032

[Giggles]

:face: :face: :face:

1306330594725556231

[John Arne]

That is proper cringe.

In proper footy, we got dicked in the FA Cup semi last night, 5-1 against fucking Hanoi. Cunts. We were missing our first choice centre-halves, but were still shit. Our 2 new Costa Rican's looked fairly overweight, which bodes well for the rest of the season.

[Giggles]

1309620816733261824

[Shindig]

Fergal Time.

[Giggles]

Didn’t take long.


1312099058807259137

[Giggles]

Shamrock Rovers champions and Cork City relegated (3 years after a double).

[Giggles]

Cork City supporters trust approved the sale of the club to Preston NE’s owners for €1. Not sure how much debt there is though.


1321614429344178177

[Don]

What's his boner with Ireland about? They've shipped over a few of your boys to play for them.

[Giggles]

Probably just sees some value in it because the players are so cheap.

[Don]

Too fucking right, the pool is a goldmine waiting to be exploited.

[Giggles]

You’ll probably get one championship level player in 20 or so prospects, but when all 20 would combine for under £200,000 then there’s some rewards to be had.

[Don]

Imagine the rewards if you lock in a Grealish, aided by rise of future % clauses and brexit/COVID.

[Giggles]

:D not a great example. A Coleman or Keane would do.

[Giggles]

Athlone did us 4-1 in the quarter final too :face:


1333153003956809736

[Giggles]

Another infiltration job like Drew Harris.


1338893177923756032

[John Arne]

Feels like the season just ended, and we are starting our pre-season this Saturday, at home to our city-rivals, Saigon FC. Season proper starts on 16th January.

We have 3 foreigner slots, Pape Diakite will stay from last season (still on holiday in Senegal, has to fly back and do 2 weeks quarantine), Costa Rican striker Jose Ortiz will also stay from last season - hopefully sans 10 kgs.
We have one spot left, with João Paulo expected to sign the next few days. His Wikipedia suggests I need not get too excited.

We also have a new manager in Mano Pölking (who looks like some stressed-out British comedian), who was previously in Thailand with Army Utd, Suphanburi and Bangkok Utd - picked up a few runners-up positions in the Thai League.

https://gyazo.com/f6077189053e55cd4db72a32aa493290.jpeg

[Giggles]

The Preston lot have pulled out of buying Cork City which will mean a fair bit of pain for them in the coming years. Amateur for a while for sure, if they survive.

Kevin Sheedy and Mike Newell have rocked up at Waterford.

[Giggles]

The first division here is a club short next year after the owner of one bought another and merged them :cab:

[SincereTheRebel]

Is that the Top Ireland version of moving teams across the country like they do in the USA?

[Giggles]

Ah bless you're squeezing every drop out of that one. And you know what, I wouldn't blame you at all champ.

[Giggles]

Soccer is back :drool:

[John Arne]

After Chinese club teams once again sent U23's teams to the Asian Champions League and got battered, it is now seriously affecting their coefficients :drool:

1518775953941741569

[Shindig]

I am now watching more Welsh Premier League than I probably should. Turns out they just chuck games out live on youtube in English and Welsh. Airbus UK are one of the worst teams I've seen in a long while, although the standard is pretty bollocks across the board. Rock bottom with 1 point after 9 games and currently being thumped 5-0 by Bala Town.

Make that 6-0.

Also, I'd take Welsh over English commentary any day of the week. Specifically for those moments where Welsh has no equivalent.

"lllwlwffdfdlllwwwd ..The daaerk arts."

[John Arne]

We (Ho Chi Minh City FC) got beat 0-6 at home last night, against our rivals, Hanoi. That leaves them top, and us bottom, with 5 games to go.

We were in the Asian Champions League 2 years ago....

https://gyazo.com/11c6564553ffa3b30cdcf9c256a537ef.jpeg

[Jimmy Floyd]

Sorry to see the mediocrity of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (big sp), who lit up the weird Football Asia magazine show on Sky back in the early to mid 2000s by getting consistently rodded by the likes of Jubilo Iwata, Al-Nasr and Suwon Bluewings in the Asian CL group stages.

[John Arne]

Sorry to see the mediocrity of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (big sp), who lit up the weird Football Asia magazine show on Sky back in the early to mid 2000s by getting consistently rodded by the likes of Jubilo Iwata, Al-Nasr and Suwon Bluewings in the Asian CL group stages.

They started off really well, but currently going a terrible run - their imports really letting them down. There manager is Kiatisuk "Zico" Senameung (who played for them during those mid-00's glory years), who is a bit of a legend and the nicest guy in the world.

[Giggles]

Jackpot.


1589676725885181954

[John Arne]

Those cunts Hanoi did Tue double last night winning the cup final, including this beaut...

1596862412011212800

[John Arne]

V.League season starts this week.

So far my club have not released new jerseys, sold any season tickets, or even bothered announcing the fixtures.

At the end of last season, we released 80% of our first team players, and have since replaced them with players from the second division.

We are getting relegated.

Looking forward to Ian's preview in the Feb football thread.

[John Arne]

As predicted we, Ho Chi Minh City FC, have been fucking awful this season. Last two games saw us concede a 97th minute goal to lose 4-3 and lose the game prior to that at home 5-3. Currently bottom, and hosting Danang tonight - even though we still have 11 games left (4 in the normal league, then another 7 in the split) defeat tonight and we are truly in the shit.

https://gyazo.com/f3c2336c688757233de74cecdd813356.jpeg

[Adramelch]

23 goals conceded in 9 games is quite some effort

[John Arne]

23 goals conceded in 9 games is quite some effort

Yup. Can't defend for shit.

Amazingly we ended up winning our last game 5-1 and moved up to 13th.

[niko_cee]

And where was the tip on that? Odds must have been obscene.

[Giggles]

The fuck?


1667064166585102338

[Spikey M]

It's looking all but nailed on that Southend will be wound up tomorrow. The court ruled previously that all debts must be cleared and as of today:

1678843123475030017?t=HAoKdJlu6163UxffzVwUuw&s=19

The staff haven't been paid for 4 months now and half the squad have left this summer. We currently have 14 players, half of which are midfielders.

1678787365467242498?t=ILY6zWtlzqYJu392ABGnoQ&s=19

We've been here many times before, but it's never been this bad. 14 hours to go and we can't even afford the waterbill. This feels terminal.

[Lewis]

Your confidence would be shattered if nobody else picked you up and you went down with the club.

[niko_cee]

Where are Jimmy and Jamie when you really need them?

[Shindig]

At a time of great crisis, the writer still had to get a pun in. What a cunt.

[Giggles]

Rovers losing at home to some Icelandic farmers :face:

[Giggles]

:cab: That's way too fucked to have been an accident.

1756712728956371105

[Dan]

A few interesting updates from Serie A over the last few days:

1. Sassuolo, the most consistently entertaining for the neutral team in the league over the last decade, were relegated at the weekend.

2. Cagliari, meanwhile, have been kept up by Claudio Ranieri, who has promptly announced he’s leaving.

3. Inter’s owner has been kicked out after failing to pay back a three-year loan to an asset management company, who have seized his share of the club.

[Dan]

A few interesting updates from Serie A over the last few days:

1. Sassuolo, the most consistently entertaining for the neutral team in the league over the last decade, were relegated at the weekend.

2. Cagliari, meanwhile, have been kept up by Claudio Ranieri, who has promptly announced he’s leaving.

3. Inter’s owner has been kicked out after failing to pay back a three-year loan to an asset management company, who have seized his share of the club.

Brief summary of Ranieri's final match:
- Dominate Fiorentina in the first half, miss a load of chance & have a penalty turned down, then concede the first time Fiorentina do something
- Miss some more chances, have a goal ruled out for offside, finally equalise then throw on a young lad who scored in the 85th minute to put them 2-1 up
- Immediately concede an equaliser, then go back up the other end & score to make it 3-2, only to have it ruled out for offside
- Make some injury time subs to bring on an old lad & the third choice GK (also old)
- Get VAR'd with a typical awful European penalty in the 10th minute of 5 added on
- Watch Liverpool failure Arthur roll it past the 38 year old goalie that was just subbed on to win Fiorentina the game

Pretty typical Serie A stuff, really.

[Dan]

A few global bits, largely courtesy of The Sweeper podcast (https://x.com/SweeperPod), as well as some more Serie A:

- Watched the A-League Grand Final earlier, which was won by Central Coast Mariners to complete the first ever continental treble as they won the regular season & the AFC Cup as well, despite losing their manager to Hibs at the end of last season & then losing all of their first 4 league games at the start of this campaign. They travelled over 100,000km over the course of their AFC Cup campaign, and came from 1-0 down against Melbourne Victory in the grand final, levelling with a goal in stoppage time then scoring twice in extra time to win 3-1.

- Sturm Graz have finally broken RB Salzburg's dominance, winning the Austrian Bundesliga after 10 years in a row from Salzburg. They also defended the Austrian Cup that they'd won the year before to complete a domestic double.

- Ludogorets, on the other hand, have continued their domination by winning their 13th Bulgarian league title in a row. They were promoted in 2011 & have won the league every year since. Proper FM stuff.

- Brondby bottled the Danish Superligaen on the final day, losing to AGF to hand the title to Midtjylland

- Empoli went into the final round of Serie A games needing to beat Roma to stay up. They went 1-0 up, but gave up an equaliser in first half stoppage time, and struggled their way through the second half, only for former FM wonderkid M'Baye Niang to score in the 93rd minute to save them & relegate Frosinone, who lost to Udinese in what had then become a straight up relegation playoff.

[Gray Fox]

I hear Inter are now owned by debt collectors. I'm sure this will have no consequences whatsoever for them.

[Dan]

Seems like it probably won’t. They’ve kept most/all of the executives & when it happened to Milan a few years ago they went & won the league the following season.

They’re also way better than everyone else so as long as they don’t flog half the squad & fire Inzaghi they’ll probably be favourites again next year.

[Clunge]

Just on the Serie A relegation battle, turns out Villa reject Keinan Davis scored the critical goal for Udinese. Totally forgot we'd even managed to ship him off there!

[Gray Fox]

Add Bochum from Germany onto the list of things that happened. They have a relegation play off for the Bundesliga, in which 16th place plays 3rd from the league below over two legs. Winner goes up, loser goes down.

Bochum lost their home leg 3-0 but turned up to the 2nd leg all out attack. They managed to make it 3-0 to them on the night and took it to extra time. They only just held on with two big off the line clearances at the death and won the penalty shootout in sudden death too.

[Dan]

I don’t think the 2.Bundesliga team has won the playoff since Union Berlin did it a few years ago, so Fortuna throwing a 3-0 lead away is even more galling.

At least we’ve got St Pauli coming up again next season. A look at the 2.Bundesliga table is very surreal with the likes of Schalke, Hamburg & Hertha Berlin all now seemingly trapped down there.

Speaking of teams coming up, and returning to Italy, we’ve got Parma back next season, along with Como, who are an interesting story. They’re owned by an Indonesian cigarette billionaire, have Thierry Henry as a director & Cesc Fabregas as a former player turned AssMan who will probably be the coach next season, but their stadium by the lake is so small they probably won’t be able to play there. Also Dennis Wise is there for some reason.

I think it’s Venezia/Cremonese in the playoff final, so hopefully we get Venezia & their nice shirts there.

[Baz]

I went to Lake Como in 2009 and yeah their stadium looked very small.

[Shindig]

Looking at their last top flight season, they played most of their games at the adorable little 7,900 all-seater. Only a few had to be staged elsewhere.

[Ben]

Surely they can find a way to get some temp seats installed. Be a shame to rob football of that setting.

[wullie]

Venezia went up their own arses a bit with their kits, give me Cremonese's odd red and grey mix any day.

[Shindig]

Surely they can find a way to get some temp seats installed. Be a shame to rob football of that setting.

I dunno if they've got much space to work with. Even if they do, the thing they sacrifice is parking. :D

[Dan]

Venezia went up their own arses a bit with their kits, give me Cremonese's odd red and grey mix any day.

I saw a lad jogging past me in a Venezia shirt a few weeks ago. They’re definitely in the hipster zone.

[Dan]

Greenland have applied for CONCACAF membership, despite only being able to play football outside for half the year.

They’re also playing Turkmenistan today, which is the first time they’ve played a senior national team since 2013 (lost 1-0 to Bermuda), so I’m sure they’ll show some highlights of that one after the CL final later.

[Dan]

Greenland have applied for CONCACAF membership, despite only being able to play football outside for half the year.

They’re also playing Turkmenistan today, which is the first time they’ve played a senior national team since 2013 (lost 1-0 to Bermuda), so I’m sure they’ll show some highlights of that one after the CL final later.

Just a casual 5-0 loss. Unsurprisingly it’s a bit tricky to get details of the match but it seems like they got to half-time goalless & then fell apart when the first goal went in.

[Dan]

1814048706729295972

Pub team from Gibraltar have won a Conference League qualifier & will be facing FC Copenhagen in the next round :cool:

[Giggles]

There have been quite a few bad ones but that's the worst display of rubbish one of our teams has ever shown in Europe.

[Shindig]

Unbeaten at home in Europe. :cool:

[Giggles]

Another one likely to bite the dust this week unless they get a miracle. Mad considering how things looked for them a few years ago with the European money.


1835402040283173350

[Giggles]

Didn't do a Rangers after all.


1836084412426887268

[Giggles]

3 points ahead, 6 games to go, playing like dogshit for the last 6 or 7 games. We shall see what the Duffer is made of now.

[Dan]

Probably due a random world football update, sponsored by The Sweeper.

1852644238212686306
Auckland City have joined the A-League, becoming the second New Zealand team in the competition, and have started by winning all three of their opening games, including beating the other NZ side Wellington Phoenix this morning.

1852389391668236813
Turkmenistani side Arkadag, who are owned by the former dictator & are definitely not doing anything questionable, have finally failed to win a game after going 61-0-0.

1849408386745741585
Swedish fourth division women’s side Ängelholm finished second despite not conceding a single goal all season.

[Giggles]

:cool: He looks like he's from an early 2000's band that's doing a comeback tour.


1853208527285661888

[Dan]

Copa Libertadores final is on tonight - 8pm on BBC3 or iPlayer, I believe.

Atletico Mineiro vs Botafogo, which is the fourth all-Brazil final in five years & will be the sixth consecutive Brazilian winner, so that’s good.

Not many shit hot wonderkids on display by the sound of it, but Botafogo have Thiago Almada, who will be well known to FM players & is potentially getting moved to Lyon in January if Botafogo win this & Lyon aren’t completely fucked. They also have a couple of other notable players in Igor Jesus & Luiz Henrique, who are both around the national team setup.

Mineiro, meanwhile, have their own FM hero in the shape of Hulk, as well as Deyverson, who sounds like a gold medal shithouser, so hopefully he’ll spark a punch up if the game gets one sided.

It’ll probably end up being tense & a bit niggly, with Botafogo coming out on top, but fingers crossed we get a game worth watching.

[Kikó]

Great shout cheers!

[Dan]

Great shout cheers!

Just going live now.

[Shindig]

Dkokovic? Has Brazil ran out of celebrities?

EDIT: There's the first murder. :|

[Kikó]

Good start🤣

[niko_cee]

Never like those, but it is funny.

Pat Nevin has lost his mind.

[Dan]

That was ugly looking & ended badly, but is it really his fault? Dude lowered his head right into contact. It’s a bit like those NFL ones where someone drops their head & the defender gets flagged for helmet to helmet.

[niko_cee]

Given this is South Americans I wouldn't put it past the kicking guy to be snidely trying to kick the other one's head off, and the other one snidely trying to jump into the foot to get him sent off.

[Dan]

1862951144944762964

Here’s the red for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

[Dan]

Maybe Mineiro will actually try to do something with their man advantage now. Other than just let Hulk smack it from 30 yards, I mean.

[Dan]

Not quite what I meant.

[niko_cee]

Turns out a geriatric Hulk being their talisman means they're absolutely shite.

[niko_cee]

Telles should be sent off for this rolling about act.

[Dan]

Another fast start to the half, albeit for slightly different reasons.

[Kikó]

This final is like watching some old PES game. Everything direct and rapid with loads of skill moves.

[Shindig]

Yet everyone's got a rating of 67 so the end product is rotten. Makes me want to get back to my Brusque Master League.

[Manc]

This is all setup for Hulk to smash one in the top corner in injury time from 40 yards.

[Kikó]

This has been a pretty decent final. Botofogo never really looked in danger though despite having ten.

[Dan]

Mineiro were embarrassing there - barely did anything in the first half despite having an extra man for the whole time, then snatched at everything after they scored early in the second half - that attempted lob towards the end was particularly horrific.

[Dan]

Just heard about this on the Totally Euro pod:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c627zx21k94o.amp

Radja lives the way he plays, clearly.

[niko_cee]

Like an idiot?

I was particularly unsurprised when I saw that.

[wullie]

Scored direct from a corner a few days earlier though, so overall a good week for him.

[Ben]

He looks like a Bond villain. Not the main character, but one of those early side pieces that gets thrown to his death after getting in a few decent jabs.

He was class on FM11/12ish though.