2013-14 Club Soccer/Football Discussion Thread

[minionofmidas]

Lol Hector Herrera of Porto... sent off in the sixth minute... for a second yellow.

(The previous record for that was 15th minute, apparently, and held by Peter Crouch.)

[minionofmidas]

Is a "goal" like this even legal if it comes from the outside ?

How do we define legal?

On the one hand, there's the FIFA doctrine of the Tatsachenentscheidung (not sure how they call it in English), and really, the situation is not really different from a ball that didn't actually wholly cross the line - or from a wrong offside call that comes after the ball's in. OTOH there is the famous precedent of 1994. We'll find out what the DFB decides this time.

It's official. The result stands, the goal counts. Meanwhile, Fourth Division South with the best own goal ever: at 1:38 (video link, sorry bout the ad)

[minionofmidas]

The German TV channels ARD and ZDF show nothing at all.

It's been 15 years or so since ARD had any Champions League. (And until recently the same was true of ZDF.) It's also been the case for at least a decade or so that free-tv in Germany shows exactly one wednesday game and no tuesday games; Leverkusen vs ManU this week.

[minionofmidas]

Looks like it'll all come down to the Napoli - Arsenal game in December.

But Napoli would have to win it pretty big.

[minionofmidas]

Basel score against Chelsea!

Now we need Schalke to score against Steaua...

EDIT: Except that Schalke and Basel play each other once more of course, so little hope of a Chelsea elimination even in that case.

[minionofmidas]

Like Lewis said, we need an insane result or Dortmund somehow losing or drawing to pointless Marseille.

Napoli win by 3 or more goals, Dortmund win by any score, Arsenal come third. You know what you have to do.

[minionofmidas]

I thought the Bavaria Derby was between Bayern and Nürnberg?

There is no such thing as "the Bavaria Derby". There's the Franconia Derby (Nürnberg vs Fürth - now that's a game that people can get really worked up about), and there's the Munich Derby.

There is only one Lower Saxony Derby, either, and it doesn't involve Wolfsburg no matter how many times journalistic pondscum tries to insert them.

[minionofmidas]

The game was actually interrupted when the snow gave way to hail. It was continued today... amid more snow. The good guys won, too!

[minionofmidas]

You may well get your wish. Montolivo sent off in the 22nd minute.

[minionofmidas]

Napoli up against Arsenal and Dortmund tied.

[minionofmidas]

Come on Napoli, two more goals for the best possible outcome!

[minionofmidas]

So close. Now Milan instead of Napoli are the last Italians in the "Champions" "League".

[minionofmidas]

Austria Vienna finally wins 4-1 !

They are not the worst Club in the CL season.

Who would have thought that ?

And hilariously, Tsenit (or whatever they call them in English) do not mind, but only because Porto loses as well.

[minionofmidas]

Fun fact regarding the seeding pots:

Pot 1: 5 take first place, 1 second place, 2 third place
Pot 4: 6 take fourth place, 2 third place
Pot 3 overperforms: Dortmund take first place, 5 take second place, 2 third place
Pot 2 doesn't mean a thing: 2 first, 2 second, 2 third, 2 fourth.

[minionofmidas]

Finally.

Eintracht Frankfurt can win in the league and not just in diverse cup competitions. Away to Leverkusen of all places.

[minionofmidas]

Hahaha.

If Frankfurt and Napoli win, they'll meet in the 1/8 finals.

I was hoping for this.

PARTY LIKE IT'S 1995 and it's my first-ever international match (Frankfurt won both halves of the draw 1-0 and both teams sucked royally in both games, if memory serves, and certainly were heading towards a dark decade of their history, but meh. Ignore that part. It was a last 16 round against Napoli. We then lost the quarterfinals to Juve.)

[minionofmidas]

And we finally have it. The public self-outing of a well-known footballer as gay. And not someone that makes you go "hah hah, that was, like, so obvious anyways".

Kind of a shame he had to wait until after injuries stopped his career short, though.

Thomas Hitzlsberger.