Football/Soccer thread II

Some of the players on that list really ended up declining in the past few months. A lot of Liverpool fans complain about VVD now

Yeah Manchester United is 3 points behind with a game in hand. Also Everton is shockingly close, much closer than anyone expected

Bruno Fernandes is such a monster. Legit might be the best player in the EPL since he came to the league. Gets a goal and assist seemingly every game

Now yes he does score penalties, but before he came along I remember Rashford and Martial both missed a ton of penalties. So feels good to have someone who puts 99% of them in

Rangers look almost certain to win the league now, Gerrard  is strongly staking his claim to be Klopp's successor in a few years. He's openly said he wants the Liverpool job, and overthrowing the most dominant domestic side in Europe sends out a huge statement.



Celtic fans are amazingly fickle, 9 league titles in a row, a "treble-treble", yet after a month of bad results they were calling for everyone's heads.

Yeah honestly didn't even realize they managed to beat Celtic. Weren't Celtic like hyper-dominant just a couple of years ago? They had 106 points during 16/17

Scotland wasn't always a pub league, often behind England, poor amount of competition, but the top two were but no slouches. Look at the stadiums Celtic and Rangers play in. Sometimes world-class players like Paul Gascoigne and Henrik Larsson would go up there to play football.

Rangers were the most successful team in the world in terms of league titles won, although Celtic have won about 30 or so themselves (there's only 2 teams in Scotland tbh), and won a European Cup in the 60's. This record of 9 titles in a row isn't new, Rangers and Celtic have both done it in the past. The last manager to break their dominance was Alex Ferguson at Aberdeen, way back in the 1980's, hence why he was given the Man Utd job.

Rangers went overboard on their spending, so they went bust about 10 years ago, had to reform, start in the bottom league in Scotland and build back up. They were playing in front of 50,000 fans for home games, a couple of hundred for away games.

Celtic celebrated the unchallenged success they then went on to enjoy. It seemed strange to me since they would eventually pay a price for having no competition. A lack of challenge led to falling standards for themselves, alongside  less interest, and therefore less income, in Scottish football. They were winning easily at home, but falling way back in Europe. In 2006 Celtic beat Man United with an amazing free kick.



In 2007 Celtic took AC Milan, the eventual champions, to extra time, and it needed magic by Kaka to pull Milan through.



Since then they've frequently lost by massive scores, 5-0, 6-0, 7-1. Their biggest result was a draw against Man City. It was embarassing, yet they still thought they were the big cheese because they were winning unchallenged titles back in Scotland.




They could no longer guarantee qualifying for the Champion's League, since they couldn't even beat Romanian fishing villages, and even once lost to a team from Gibraltar. So their majormoney spinner is gone. Rangers, who were dead and buried, have slowly rebuilt under good management for over a decade, and seem to have retaken their crown.

Would be cool to see AC Milan back, not before we equal or surpass their 7 European Cups!

A hilarious fact, Nottingham Forest have won more European Cups than Juventus.

They did have the bad luck of running into the last great Barca team, and then running into a legendary Real Madrid side. Still hilarious

Best of all Inter Milan seem fully in the race too

Looks like arsenal are finally out of a relegation battle. We're now back to a mid table side!

You're quite the jinx