No. But FIFA have a huge stash of cash and World Cups could easily be staged accordingly. How many countries now have obsolete stadiums after Euros/Worlds? All the World Cup is these days is an orgy of self-hype and self-promotion. How many fans actually go and watch these days? It's all corporate back-slapping ****ery. The last two World cups should have been about the football as they were held in poorer countries. Sod the razz-matazz and the "my tournament is better than yours" mentality. Yes, make sure the stadiums and all that are safe but the amount of money poured into these "shows" is now obscene. Keep it simple and make sure that at least the locals can get to see the football instead of a load of uniterested money-men and rich, hooray henrys who go because they think football is fashionable.
Should be interesting to see how Madrid line up next year with Ronaldo, Bale, Suarez, James Rodriguez and Kroos all in the team. Add Modric as DM () and you have a scary team going forward but not much of one in defence? That's discarding DiMaria, Benzema, Khedeira, Isco, Alonso, Illarramendi
Madrid signed Suarez from Barca?! Gosh that went a bit under the radar! I'd presume though: Modric, Kroos, Bale, Rodriguez, Ronaldo Benzema ....Gosh that's f**ing ruthless.
Good point! Mixing up my thieving Spanish teams. All makes sense now. Although still has Modric/Kroos as their deep lying players - surely that's not much protection?
With that amount of attacking talent, would a DM really be necessary? Even if they conceded 4 they'd go and score 8! Lol.
And to add, when a player like Angel Di Maria can't make a starting XI, you know a team is bloody strong!
As I was saying, should be interesting to see how Madrid line up next year with Ronaldo, Bale, James Rodriguez, Benzema and Kroos all in the team. Add Modric as DM () and you have a scary team going forward but not much of one in defence? That's discarding DiMaria, Khedeira, Isco, Alonso, Illarramendi
Never understood Illaramendi's move, great player who is just short of the quality that Alonso and Modric possess though would make 85% of teams in Europe, wrecked his WC chances too as had he stayed with Sociedad, chances are he'd have been in with a good shout. Khedira is potentiall Arsenal bound. Isco has been linked with loan away I believe. Presume Alonso, at his age, will be content with a back up/ rotation role now.
We should use our "special arrangement" to get Illaramendi and Isco Isn't Di Maria supposed to be off to PSG? Incredible really, you'd never think the squad they have were the best in Europe last season by the way they're spending.
If we pulled that off I'd start to slightly forgive them for unsettling and ultimately nicking Luka and Bale. They'd go from super **** status to just ****s. Didn't know about Di Maria, good buy for PSG if it goes through. Him, Zlatan, Cavani would be very impressive.
...until you remember Ramos, Pepe and Marcelo are in their back four. Apparently it's on loan to get around FFP.
"Apparently it's on loan to get around FFP." His wages will still count on the PSG balance sheet though.
And doesn't help Madrid FFP. Surely they must have bust through the limit by now. One stat on Twitter, the money they spent on 3 players (Ronaldo, Bale and Rodriquez) is more than Ajax have spent in their entire history.
"And doesn't help Madrid FFP." We are in the rolling window stage now. If their total debt from season start 2012-13 to next May is more than 45m Euros, then UEFA have to punish them (assuming they complied at the first checkpoint) .
Stoke have signed Bojan Krkic from Barcelona, a former wunderkind who broke various records and was tipped for greatness, before he lost his way quite badly. Interesting to see if they can get him back on the right track, as he's definitely got the natural talent. Odd move, though.
Both those guys were touted as future world stars, like Gio. I remember reading about Bojan years back, he broke numerous records of goals scored for the Barca youth sides, think he got something like 50 goals in one season if I remember rightly.
