IdleRich

IdleRich
I didn't realise that Ronaldo is apparently actually going back to United. There have been a lot of transfers lately that I just don't understand. When you are a kid you think that teams should just buy the biggest most glamorous names and if you play some manager game on the computer you end up with a team with the five biggest strikers in the world and you put them all on the pitch at once...
But as you get older you realise there is a bit more to building a team than that and that top teams don't just buy names, they have strategies for the overall shape of the team and within that they have tactics of what types of players they are missing and lists of those who could potentially come in and do the job - they are watching people all over the world, monitoring everyone from first team players to those coming through in youth teams and seeing if they have the potential to be molded into what they need, comparing their strengths and weaknesses with other options, seeing how they will fit with the present team and other potential signings, will their skills bring out the best in each other or will they cancel each other out... and a million other considerations that I am not even aware of.... but it seems that all this can go out of the window for the chance to give Ronaldo the dream ending to his career at the club that made him.
I suppose that Messi's fame and glamour made him irresistible to PSG even if his powers are fading; imagine then how easily United's defences were overwhelmed by this double-whammy of glamour and sentiment - and, I suppose, the simple romantic perfection of the story with its dream ending; Ronaldo finishing his career on a high with a second Premier League and Champions League double at the club he joined as a skillful but lightweight teenager and left as the best player in the world*.
And of course it would be a great story if it happened, because it's so unlikely to happen. And I thought that professional football clubs should have someone there whose job it is to make trophies likely, not romantic. Some have criticised United for employing Solksjaer as though in the sentimental hope that his very presence would somehow bring back the glory days when he was the baby-faced assassin, but that looks like a cynically hard-headed business decision compared to this fairy-tale, to me it feels like a sad old man trying to recover his youth by going back to an old flame, not realising that it will never be as good the second time around and that there is every chance of tarnishing the treasured memories... though in that analogy I am not sure if the sad old man is Ronaldo or United.
Unless it works out of course and then I will be happy to be proven wrong.

*let's say that just for the sake of the story
 

jenks

thread death
It looks like one of those ‘shirt sales’ moves where they’re going to take back the money that way, otherwise it makes no real footballing sense. If you’re Rashford, Greenwood, Martial you might start thinking about your future. Spurs just about got away with this with Bale but only towards the end of the season. I would not be surprised to see Ronaldo at the MLS this time next year unless those long standing rape allegations ever come to anything.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm thinking about it a bit more calmly now. You could argue that they are "only" paying 20m for him which doesn't buy you anything these days and he's still fit and he scored 100 goals faster than anyone in Juve's history - admittedly cos the team was built around him and I seriously hope United don't do that - I guess it's not so silly as I said yesterday.
20mn for a couple of seasons of one of the all time greats who probably does have a couple of seasons left in him doesn't sound so bad. And I think that as they haven't paid a ridiculous sum they won't need to sell other players and there won't be the political pressure to play him every game, build the team round him or let him take every single deadball... all of which contributed to Juventus going backwards when he arrived. If they can treat him as a 20m player who can come in and do a job instead of the returning king AND if he is happy to be used in that way then maybe it can work out. Maybe.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
David Stubbs is a big Arsenal fan, one of my guilty pleasures is checking his facebook updates when they suffer a particularly humiliating reverse, which these days is pretty much every time they play.
 

version

Well-known member
Griezmann going back to Atletico's embarrassing for Barca, but they're probably right to move him on. It clearly wasn't working and they need to lower their wage bill.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Gotta say that as Atletico are already champions, if Griezmann can play as he did before for them it's kinda ominous for the rest of the league, maybe they can do something in Europe too.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
They bought him for 120m and they're loaning him to Atletico for a season then selling him back for 40.
The more I think about it, the more I feel embarrassing doesn't do it justice.
Barcelona lose Suarez and Messi and have Griezmann for three underwhelming seasons. And pay a net 80mn for the privilege.
Meanwhile Ateleti get Suarez and 80m, the league and keep Griezmann.
Catastrophic mismanagement from Barca, I guess they can argue that each decision kinda made sense at the time but that's not how history will judge them.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Barcelona and Real Madrid are finally seeing their chickens coming home to roost after years of buying the most expensive players ant the top of the market... 100m for Hazard, 120m for Griezmann, Bale still drawing 600k a week and hasn't kicked a ball for Madrid in years, more than 100m for Dembele and so on and so forth.... for years people have said it was unsustainable and it would have to unravel at a certain point and at last we see it with Barcelona stuck with no strikers after having had to give away all their best players at a horrendous loss and Real Madrid only able to bid 200m euros for Mbappe.... er, wait a minute, that doesn't seem right, how is that possible? Madrid seemingly do have a magic money tree or are they just cheating like fuck again?
Anyway, it now seems more and more obvious that Barcelona could see all this coming and their ludicrous contention that ESL was necessary to save football is revealed all the more clearly as a shameless attempt to cover their arse and prevent the extent of their mismanagement being revealed.
Now, I've never really cared for Barcelona but now it becomes clear that they spent loads of money they didn't have to create a squad well beyond their means and then were prepared to destroy football as we know it to prevent them suffering the consequences, their moves in favour of the ESL seem particularly scummy. As I read it they use "the good of football" and "the good of FCB" completely interchangeably and they expected everyone else to simply go along with it. As a result of this, I am taking a huge amount of pleasure in the slow motion car crash that has been the start to their season. Actually less like a car crash and more like seeing the Titanic grinding into the iceberg - and I will really enjoy any further disasters that befall them, particularly if they finish out of the top three in La Liga or if they go out in the first round of the CL (with Bayern putting double figures past them in each game). Funniest would be if there was a ESL created a few years down the line but Barcelona were no longer one of the teams selected for it....
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It's hilarious reading about this on twitter, I have seen people seriously suggesting that Barcelona have realised that they themselves have no chance of stopping Real winning the league so have decided to actively help Atleti stop them, even at the cost of further damaging their own team. What I find particularly funny about that theory is that a) it's totally mental and yet b) Barca's recent manoeuvres are pretty much entirely consistent with that they would do if they were trying to achieve that goal.
 

luka

Well-known member
me and craner willl always support teams like madrid and rangers over victim-mentality clubs like barca and celtic.
 

version

Well-known member
Barcelona and Real Madrid are finally seeing their chickens coming home to roost after years of buying the most expensive players ant the top of the market... 100m for Hazard, 120m for Griezmann, Bale still drawing 600k a week and hasn't kicked a ball for Madrid in years, more than 100m for Dembele and so on and so forth.... for years people have said it was unsustainable and it would have to unravel at a certain point and at last we see it with Barcelona stuck with no strikers after having had to give away all their best players at a horrendous loss and Real Madrid only able to bid 200m euros for Mbappe.... er, wait a minute, that doesn't seem right, how is that possible? Madrid seemingly do have a magic money tree or are they just cheating like fuck again?
Anyway, it now seems more and more obvious that Barcelona could see all this coming and their ludicrous contention that ESL was necessary to save football is revealed all the more clearly as a shameless attempt to cover their arse and prevent the extent of their mismanagement being revealed.
Now, I've never really cared for Barcelona but now it becomes clear that they spent loads of money they didn't have to create a squad well beyond their means and then were prepared to destroy football as we know it to prevent them suffering the consequences, their moves in favour of the ESL seem particularly scummy. As I read it they use "the good of football" and "the good of FCB" completely interchangeably and they expected everyone else to simply go along with it. As a result of this, I am taking a huge amount of pleasure in the slow motion car crash that has been the start to their season. Actually less like a car crash and more like seeing the Titanic grinding into the iceberg - and I will really enjoy any further disasters that befall them, particularly if they finish out of the top three in La Liga or if they go out in the first round of the CL (with Bayern putting double figures past them in each game). Funniest would be if there was a ESL created a few years down the line but Barcelona were no longer one of the teams selected for it....
The thing with Barca atm is the architects of what you're talking about, Barto and Rossell, aren't even there anymore. They tanked the club and others have to deal with the fallout.
 
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