Omnibus World Football Thread 2020-2022 (edited)

Why should he? It always works somehow. The goalies never seem to learn.

Sheesh - Bale back to the Spurs again.

Well that Bayern opening match was low-anxiety. Schalke managed to pack the back third yet still leave a lot of open space for runs.

A lot of lovely touches as well - the Mueller longball header to Sané being one of them.

Interesting weekend with Augsburg surprising Dortmund, and Hoffenhiem absolutely clobbering Bayerrn Munich 4-1. (Should’ve been 6-1.) Can’t have a great game every game, and that sure was the case with fellow-Canuck Alphonso Davies.

Interesting tidbit: the new Hoffenheim coach Stefan Hoeneß coached the Bayern’s farm team in the last season and won the Third Bundesliga. He’s also the nephew of Bayern’s club legend Uli Hoeneß.

And after 32 undefeated games in a row, such a thing had to happen at some time . I think Bayern are a bit outpowered by a stressing game schedule since the restart after the Covid break.

Correction: The name is Sebastian Hoeneß. He’s such a rookie that I still don’t exactly know his name.

And speaking of rookies, I’m very pleased to ‘officially’ anounce the arrival of Dortmund’s 20 y.o. Norwegian striker Erling Haaland. (Rookie AND player of the month in January.) A strapping kid at 6’3", he’s already showing he’s an absolutely pure scoring machine. No idea what his scoring percentage is, but in the last couple games I’ve watched, it seems as though every touch within 15 yards of the goal ends up in the back of the net, rendering Reus and Sancho almost invisible this season. Fans in yellow should be forgetting about Lewandoski soon.
And class, too: right near the end of the game, with a brace under his belt, Haaland could’ve easily potted a third for the hat-trick, but instead passed off for the assist.

Today he scored the 17th goal in his 18th Bundesliga match for Dortmund. I don’t believe anyone ever did better in his first 18 matches.

Huh, wow.
And very funny, expressive, histrionic young fellow.

Holy shit, that kid is 20? He’s been really fun to watch, I can’t wait until they sign him at Bayern. :wink:

:rage:

And probably will happen, eventually.
If and when he does desert, hopefully it’s to Chelsea or Barca. (If he fits in with either of their systems, at the time, though.)

Another disappointing turn from Griezmann for Barcalona, and sure enough, as I’m searching for the correct spelling of his name, I come across this.
Wish Braithwaite was played more - can play mulitple positions.
I’m giving Dembele only a couple more chances - hope he doens’t end up an overpaid albatross. (huh - ALBAtross)
Amazing seeing 42 y.o. Buffon between the pipes for Juventus, in his 24th year and 650th Serie A appearance earlier today. Not really challenged too much in the game, which really was a dud compared to the AS Roma/Benevento game, which was a very lively, end-to-end game.
But with Buffon, I bet he still has a fire going over Italy’s failure to qualify for the last World Cup - at times I wonder if he wants to stick around for another two years, to just, well, you know, stick around for something he’s really too old for.

Bayern still seem to be hungry, crashing 4-0 over Atletico. And a surprising 2-2 draw for my club, Borussia Mönchengladbach, at Inter. In the same group, Real lost 2-3 against Schachtar, certainly the even bigger surprise.

Even though they seem to be a little less of a squad this season than last, Atletico still has to be the hardest team in the world to beat 4-0. That was a really impressive win by Bayern.

Agreed - there certainly aren’t any top English teams who have shown themselves capable of avoiding such this season!

Haaland was hair-raising against Bayern today. Fantastic match.

And the EPL continues to throw up excitement, with 2 missed penalties just yesterday, bottom club Sheffield United taking the lead against Chelsea (OK they went on to lose 4-1 which was a shame), and Aston Villa thrashing Arsenal. If Villa win their game in hand they could go top of the table! From nearly being relegated last season. Could be a really good one, this.

…bleedin’ Herta Berlin today?
Like, four goals, all in the second half?
And saw Youssoufa Moukoko come onto the pitch for the first time, later on, for Dortmund. He’s the Bundesliga’s youngest-ever player, at 16 years, one day.

So is this going to become the Haaland-Watch Thread? :grinning:

Meanwhile, depending on tomorrow’s games, Barca could end up on the gull-durned bottom half of the table!

I’d be fine with this being a Haaland-watch thread, he’s going to provide a lot of content!

One of the many amazing things about him is that he can move at a speed that’s proportional to his size, unlike a lot of big men, so he just eats up ground. On that third goal he just outraced the defender and the keeper, it’s fun to watch.

Yeah, that was some quality finishing. Though I might criticise the keeper’s positioning a bit for the second, he was a little too close to his near post I think, leaving a fairly comfortable gap for Haaland to slot the ball into.