A Gentleman's Game Played By Hooligans

I read that as "DC United overcame BRNY" and wondered how far the advertising effect on team names had gone in the US...

I don't know what that means but New York has a horrible corporate name for which they are rightly mocked by every single other team in the league. Depending on who you ask, it's either "New York Red Bulls" (NYRB) or "Red Bull New York" (RBNY), both of which are equally (100%) terrible. You see, many teams have sponsors, just like English teams -- my United sport a big fat VW logo. (Best worst sponsor name: Bimbo, which is a brand of bread and is pronounced "beem-bo.") But Red Bull doesn't just sponsor NY -- the team is owned outright by Red Bull GmbH.

On the other hand, they do have a normally-fearsome attacking line that includes Thierry Henry and Kenny Cooper and did quite well this season.

Speaking of which, Cooper apparently broke down in tears in the locker room after the match last night. I want to use that to mock the team, but Cooper seems like a real nice guy and I feel a little bad for him.

Thank you for your detailed response to my terrible Brony joke. I apologise.

It's not just them; Red Bull Salzburg are set up the same way. Red Bull are basically ad whores.

Red Bull Salzburg might be worst team in Europe that is the most hated by "normal" football fans. If that sentence makes any sense. Normally, you'd have to be Real Madrid, Juventus or Man Utd and you know, really work at it.

Anyway, are there any clues in US media as to where RBNY manager Hans Backe is going to end up?

It's like re-living it all over again.

TONY WHAAAAAAAAA!

West Ham picks up three points against Newcastle and move to 6th. My ability to troll Liverpool supporters continues unabated.

aaaaand the winner for Celebration Of the Season goes to...

Zlatan Ibrahimovic beat England by 4-2. This goal was pretty decent.

Caught the tail end of the game, just in time to see that. Almost made me wish I'd watched the rest of it. That was something special.

Caught the tail end of the game, just in time to see that. Almost made me wish I'd watched the rest of it. That was something special.

Apparently, he's the first guy ever to score four on England. That's something.

Somewhat overshadowed the post match interviews with Gerrard on his 100th appearance, but he was pretty gracious about it :)

Roberto Di Matteo sacked as Chelsea manager.

Not a huge surprise - it was obvious at the end of last season that Abramovich had no interest in keeping RDM and the Champions League win just earned him some time for PR reasons. Chelsea have been all over the place this season, particularly in defence, and they still have to carry Abramovich's lead weight Fernando Torres, who probably should leave in January.

Two in one calendar year! Is that a record? As a brand spanking new 2nd year Chelsea fan I don't have the hate for Benitez that most fans seem to, but I'm still hoping for someone a little more exciting.
It really did look like they were just waiting for a bad run of form to come along so they had an excuse to sack him.

Chelsea sure are making themselves look a little desperate, trying to get Drogba in through the back door for a couple of months. That news has got to kill any desire Torres has to even play (if you call what he's been doing the last month playing).

Well, so much for that, Benitez it is. So much anguish on twitter.

The Chelsea circus never fails to entertain. Appointing Benitez though, that's just a masterstroke, do we get to see the fans booing their own manager before the ball's even been kicked?

I still think that if John Terry makes that penalty against ManU in the final in Moscow, Avram Grant gets made "permanent" coach in much the same manner as Di Matteo. I'm not sure this does anything to make Guardiola want to come to Chelsea, no matter how much money Abramovich throws his way.

Speaking of high profile managers, Roberto Mancini has to be the most likely to be fired in a few weeks. One of if not the most expensively assembled squads in football, and you go out in the group stage of the Champions League for the second year in a row? Don't give me this shit about how City don't have any European history and it'll take 10 years for them to win it; the people you have in there have European experience, and quite a lot of it for the most part.

The big difference is that Grant is a personal friend of RA.

With legitimate apologies to all our resident Blues, I really hope that Chelsea get taken to the fucking cleaners over the Clattenburg affair. That guy's been through hell, and although he doesn't seem like a super nice guy or anything, being accused of racist behavior at that level is absurd.

Dig deep, Roman.

Why?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I completely understand why people loathe Chelsea. But as far as I can ascertain, this is what happened:

1) Clattenburg says something to Mikel that Mikel doesn't hear
2) Ramires mishears it as racial abuse, and tells Mikel afterwards
3) Mikel understandably gets pissed off and confronts the ref (note: This is what he was charged for)
4) Mikel/Ramires report it to Chelsea management
5) Chelsea deliberate over it, then decide to report it to the FA
6) The FA decide there's no case to answer

This wasn't some nefarious plot hatched to try and get a ref fired. Chelsea barely said anything about it, and it was those duplicitous fucks at the Society of Black Lawyers who kicked up a real stink about it despite not being involved. I would be very, very unhappy if Chelsea (or any club) ignored one of their own players reporting racist abuse.

It's not a nice situation but it's difficult to see how Chelsea could've done anything else.

While I know that the FA believes that Chelsea did the right and responsible thing by reporting the claims, there's still a lot more going on.

Ramires still insists that he heard it right, for one thing. Chelsea could have and should have kept the charges confidential, though they claim that there was no way they could have done this. No matter what else happens or has happened, officials are going to dread giving calls against a club that's willing to drag their names through the media mud because of the word of a single player. Chelsea, of all clubs, should have stayed the hell away from another public racism row on such flimsy evidence. They had a few days to realize that all of the match officials were going to stand behind Clattenburg and that literally the only thing they had to bring to the FA was the word of Ramires, but they decided to formalize the charges anyway.

Let's not forget, maybe most importantly, that it happened on the back of a very important loss with a lot of controversy. It's not like Chelsea doesn't have an institutional tradition of acting petulant, particularly towards referees. Graham Poll, anyone? I actually do think that this was a 'nefarious plot' to punish a referee who made some heinous mistakes in a rather important match, I just think that Chelsea aren't the best nefarious plotters in the football world.

Daniel Taylor wrote a really good piece about this when it first happened: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/oct/30/chelsea-mark-clattenburg-allegations

Basically, I agree with the ref's union:

It's because of it being Chelsea and everything that has happened with Terry and the opprobrium heaped upon them by the public and media that they had to raise it with the FA. Not only do they have to support their players when they are convinced but just imagine what would've happened if it had emerged that they had refused to investigate or escalate an accusation that one of their players was racially abused. You'd not see a black player sign for Chelsea again.

So everyone's seen this, right? If not, then, ah, mais oui, you are in for one belle surprise.

Today's Liverpool-Tottenham match was emblematic of Liverpool's current state. They managed only a single goal. It was an own goal. It occurred by means of a Tottenham defender clearing the ball off his own line directly into Gareth Bale's face, whereupon the ball caromed into the goal while simultaneously leveling Bale. In short, high comedy, mild incompetence, and almost nothing to do with Liverpool, who cannot score to save their fucking lives.

I find myself becoming a Swans fan.

I don't know what happened to Chelsea but I like it. Not just a win but a decisive 3-1 win for West Ham. I woke up at halftime -- shut up, it was early here -- and apparently I picked the right half to be conscious for.

Rafa happened.

It was there before Rafa - we bought lots of flighty attacking players and then relied on not-quite-defensive midfielders to help out our pretty shoddy defence.

Don't ruin the media narrative and fan vitriol with your logic and insight!

We didn't win, but I so don't give a fuck about the result. That AFC Wimbledon has climbed high enough from nothing to be in a position to even play the hated MK Dons is enough for me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/...ledon-in-pictures#/?picture=400386691&index=1

I'm not crying, it's dusty in here.

Celtics last home games has been against Barcelona, St Johnstone, Inverness and Arbroath. The only win came against Barcelona. Football, eh?

I sit here watching a game where they're extending the half break because of snow.

Rather because the ref had to explain to the people removing the snow you have to remove it symmetrically for the sake of fairness. Weirdly these two teams met each other last year around the same time in the same place. No snow then, but it WAS storming. I assume it's just permanently terrible weather up there.

Rounds remaining after this before winter break: 1.

The Guardian better sort out their site-wide issue with Chrome, stat.

Watching Dortmund and City. I absolutely love watching Dortmund play. They're a joyous side for any neutral, and the stadium is always fantastic.

Champions of Europe? Out.
Champions of England? Out.

WERE THE FAMOUS GLASGOW CELTIC
AND WERE ON OUR WAY TO WEMBLEY!!!

I for one enjoyed being able to start a post at a different board with "WHAT UP HATERS."

hahaha Killie you gotta be kidding me.

This is freaking great, apologies if old -- Away supporters' section in Serie A game: One fan.

Let's all laugh at Arsenal.

Pffffffffffffftahahahahahahaha



Who kidnapped Villa and Sunderland and replaced them with proper footballers?!