The General Football Thread

England managed by Graham Taylor? Some lovely lump it football for twenty-five minutes but then they forgot to hoof and started playing football. Tsk. Tsk.

 

Been an awful lot of hoofball from England. Netherlands deserve the lead. 3rd place playoff beckoning

 

Mistake 2-0. Gg

 

I am really beginning to hate the Dutch!

 

Do I not like orange.....

 

Was just saying to a mate, it's like watching a Poch team against Big Sam.

 

The Dutch are more aesthestically pleasing, anyway. Football-wise, onviously.

 

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Graph showing that the world record for transfer fee has been rising at a steady rate for the last 40 years, pretty interesting. First £850m player by 2027 then

 

The better team has won, no complaints.

 

Game plan was wrong for England unfortunately. Fair play to Netherlands they look a good side.

 

It was painful to watch all the high balls into the box and the Dutch defenders just easily heading them out. Jeez.

Also, England are rubbish with coping with pressure. We only perform well when we're underdogs and have little expectation to win (e.g. France, Germany in the World Cup) or are clear favourites (e.g. Scotland, Portugal).

 

Is it too harsh to say that was a performance worthy of the men?

 

Given the discussion of Women's football, is there an appetite for a Southampton Women's football thread on here? The Lionesses relative sucess & Southampton Women's FC have persuaded me to follow them this season (or to be precise a few tweets and this podcast persuaded me: https://sfcdellivery.podbean.com/e/...look-at-the-southampton-womens-football-club/ ).

They seem very on the ball, professional, did the double last year, getting promoted to the Women's Premier league SW Division 1 (the equivalent of League 2 in the men's pyramid) and are aiming for promotion again this year and eventually to the WSL (crazy, seemingly unachievable dreams of a lower league club sound familiar to anyone?); they're also 8 times Women's FA cup winners, only Arsenal have won it more times... The city also has Southampton Saints G&L FC in the same league, along with Pompey Ladies in the league above, so there's local derbies to be had in the cup as well as the league.

 

I think you should go for it. Though just (another) warning. If Southampton (either side) wins the WPL South (the division Portsmouth are in), they'll be forced to compete in the footballing equivalent of the hunger games by taking part in a play-off against the winner of the WPL North, because if you win you get glory and fame and recognition and money. If you lose, your best players will be taken from you and your team will become relegation fodder: see Portsmouth, West Brom, and no doubt Blackburn next year (apparently three of their key players from their title winning squad have been signed by Man City already).

 

Probably best to leave it on the General Football thread....a special thread would get so few posts that it would keep slipping out of sight.. and people would forget there was a special thread and carry on as before.

 

Sounds like the Championship\EFL play-offs...

That's why I was asking - to see how many people would be likely to post . Perhaps We should wait until one\both clubs get to the WSL.

 

Or strike while the iron's hot. To get into the WSL you'd need to win two leagues plus a play-off. Surely that would generate some interest as it's happening? Furthermore, you guys talk about how the journey from League 1 to the Premiership was very enjoyable and some of the best years in recent Southampton history... why would you therefore miss the women's equivalent of the same journey?

Oh and the Championship/EF play-offs aren't quite so bad because the gulf in finance and coverage, while big, isn't nearly as big as the gulf between the WSL and WPL. Therefore while losing the play-offs in the Championship is bad and can potentially have a negative impact, the consequences are not nearly as dire as losing the WPL play-offs. Hence why some teams can be in the Championship play-offs one year, and auto-promotion the next. The consequences of missing out on the WPL play-offs were pretty obvious to anyone with a vague bit of knowledge of women's football, either the FA are run by complete idiots or they don't care. Possibly both.

 

Sorry

 

That's part of the reasoning I used to pick between SotonWFC & SaintsG&L - call me a glory hunter, but judging from their onle presence, SotonWFC seem to be better run & more sustainable as well as having recent success. I'll certainly be down at Testwood Stadium* to support them this season. But unless anyone else wants to talk about it, we're probably better off keeping it on this thread so it stays on this page!

In (un)fairness, Southampton probably has an advantage - the Men's club runs the FA Tier 1 regional talent club** - the local elite players are already playing there, waiting to be picked up by the big clubs. Once SotonWFC\SaintsG&L are good enough to push for the WSL, I suspect calibre players won't be hard to find, they'll probably even get them 'on loan'.
If not, plenty who don't quite make it at the talent club will still want to play football and they're already in Southampton, just one promotion away from their dreams. It could turn into a revolving door, but I'm used to that with the men.


*Home of AFC Totton - For info, Saints G&L play at Sholing FC
**https://southamptonfc.com/womens-and-girls-football

 

Blimey, sounds nearly as bad as that Scottish Prem thing they do, dividing the league half way through etc, definitely dreamt up during a night on the p*ss.