That's one thing that did spring to mind actually. Is it a cold part of Canada or is all Canada just cold?
That's one thing that did spring to mind actually. Is it a cold part of Canada or is all Canada just cold?
It's not the coldest part of Canada by any means, but that's still really cold, especially for someone that has spend all their lives in south Italy one would imagine.
I belive the West of Canada has the gentler climate, whilst the east is pretty savage in the winter. Toronto is in the east I believe, so it'll be Baltic.
It’s cold here, but the season goes spring to fall so he’ll avoid the worst of it.
MLS Cup Finals in December in Toronto are not for the faint hearted, mind.
Just had a look, temperatures down to -17 on Monday night.
I'll allow him the use of gloves.
I suppose that's a decent wage, but presumably Canada, as a developed first world country, requires that he actually pay tax on that, and also presumably at a reasonable rate, so he'd have been as well settling for half that in Spain where tax is largely optional or fucking off to one of the pay leagues where I would assume there are basically no rules. Moving from Naples to Toronto might be interesting. Does he like living underground?
Coutinho.
Hopefully Barcelona hasn't broken him too much.
My brother moved to Canada three years ago and was simply not ready for what happens with the weather. Their tourist board does a cracking job of keeping that shit out of their literature.
I know soccer money isn’t actually real money, but how do Barcelona go from not being able to register players to signing Halaland?
Surely that's just rumour mill filler?
The Ferran Torres stuff is funny though.
They might be fucked financially but presumably there are enough vultures still willing to pump money in on the off chance they get to loot the corpse. Beyond that the biggest problem they have is the salary cap in Spain, so if they get a few high earners off the books then I could see how it'd be feasible.
I heard something about a loan from Goldman Sachs. They recently approved billion pound training ground refurbishments and shit. I presume the finance is all being made on the basis of mental valuations of dogshit players who they'll really have to get the corrupt agents sweating over but ultimately, it sounds like they'll need some Arab money at some stage in the coming decade.
There's a complex arrangement around how money can be used in Spain. Explained here
https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/statu...Fg82HYm4g&s=19
So my understanding with Barca is that their main problem with signing players is the La Liga imposed wage cap. It's based off earnings in the previous year and with covid stopping fans in stadiums, Barca's income dropped massively and their wages were suddenly way above the cap. I don't understand why it seemingly affected them and no other teams, aside from their wage bill being obscene I guess.
Once it hits this summer, the wage cap will readjust and because fans are back in stadiums, Barca's will go way back up and they'll be able to register new players again.
They will seemingly always be able to get loans from banks and shit to keep them afloat and spending.
EDIT: Well, fuck
Signing them and registering them to play are different things entirely.
I believe they've only just been able to register Dani Alves whose wage is something like €1 a week. They haven't registered Torres yet either.
The fans have deserted the club. Their previous income models have presumably been destroyed as a result of Messi's departure both for on-field and off-field reasons and it's hard to see a way back.
They're quite fortunate their academy has actually produced a few good prospects over the past year or two. They'd look a lot more fucked if they didn't have Pedri, Gavi or Fati lining up for them for the next 15 years.
Didn't Pedri come from Las Palmas like a year ago?
So he did. I had no idea.
Internet rumour mill in full force over a supposed Liverpool move for Luis Diaz of Porto. Even stranger is it's suggested that it will happen in January and not the summer.
Salah, Firmino and Mane are all into their final 18 months on their deals and I can only really see 2 being given a new one at best, so it's expected to see things like this popping up. Klopp is a long term admirer.
I really hope that doesn’t happen
I don't know why you'd let either of those front three go.
FSG seem to have settled on a wage structure/model that doesn't lend itself to chucking the cash at over 30's. I believe all 3 will be 30 when their contracts are due to end.
It's the reason they let Wijnaldum go. He wanted a big payday, but they weren't willing to budge on it. I suspect Salah will get a new deal, but I'm really not sure the other two will.
Klopp would make WC players out of any ol shite (see Mane and Salah) but I hope that malnourished favela cunt isn't the guy.
It ends up being ~€6M/season after taxes in salary. Assuming 50% of the bonuses are easily-achievable ones, and they're taxed at ~50%, that's another ~€1.1M/season net of taxes. All told, €7.1M is about double what Napoli were offering, and easily the highest in MLS history. Not sure if anyone in Spain would bite at those figures, and I'm not sure Saudi/Qatar are the right play for a 31-year-old. MLS is probably a good balance between getting a payday and only playing in a semi-dogshit league vs. an actual joke league.
Last edited by Luca; 08-01-2022 at 01:47 AM.
Eventually you're paying a player based upon their track record rather than their future performances, which means you're overpaying someone on the decline.
It makes perfect sense that Liverpool want to shift one or two of them on.
Not sure what to make of Coutinho returning to the Premier League. If you take his time at Barcelona then yeah, flop for them given cost but then wasn't he pretty reasonable whilst on loan with Bayern? If he can get or if he is anywhere near the level he was whilst with Liverpool, he'll win Villa enough points to secure top ten easily enough which tbh, they probably should be looking at doing anyway. I think his name alone will/has and him joining them will probably be the highlight though. I'd have taken him back even on loan but I doubt he'd have got anywhere near the sort of minutes he'd want and we'd be getting a poorer version than the one we sold for certain.
He was not very good at Bayern.
He did grab some goals/assists but his all-round play was poor and whenever he played it meant less of Muller who was having a great season.
Did European defences do something underhanded to him like show him onto his left foot?
He, along with Pogba, was only worth a shite when dubstep laced YouTube highlight reels were in fashion.
Villa can't be paying all of his wages, can they?
Villa also need someone to fill the Grealish shaped void.
That Stevie G pulling power
I'm a twit
The idea is that the sum of Buendia, Ings and Bailey fulfil all of the things that Grealish did on the pitch. I can see how you would come to that conclusion, but it's not really worked so far.
To be honest I have no idea how good Villa are at the moment. ON PAPER one of the four or five sides that should be fighting it out for eighth.
Last edited by -james-; 08-01-2022 at 10:57 AM.
Is that according to Transfermarkt player values or what?
I'm a twit
I did notice the other day that everyone's favourite pollster/fraud, Nate Silver uses Transfermarkt for his football stuff. Take it up with him.
Are we meant to know who that is?
He's your favourite pollster/fraud.
Has Nate Silver given you permission to change your stance on Juventus yet James?
Ange is keen on signing Mehdi Ghayedi.
Ange talks up Iran starts at 5:14.
What are your thoughts on this bloke? @Don?
Last edited by Queenslander; 10-01-2022 at 11:56 PM.
Not sure I believe that midget is on his radar. Azmoun to Juve though
TTH's favourite Japanese grandpa, King Kazu, has signed for 4th tier Suzuki Point Getters.
This past season, playing for top flight Yokohama FC, Kazu managed a grand total of 1 minute of action, as his team finished bottom of the league and were thusly relegated.
Suzuki Point Getters is challenging Kakamega Homeboyz for the best team name ever.