The General Football Thread

Mané looked very good tonight, for what it's worth.

 

Tbh, most European footballers interviewed seem to be less dense on average than a GB footballer. One plus point is that they often manage to speak a second language more accurately, and with greater vocabulary, than the British equivalent. This also appears to be the major reason why British footballers don't try to further their careers in Europe. Is it laziness, fright, or a bit of both.? British footballers seem to pride themselves on their inaccurate vocabulary. Notable obvious exceptions are Mr Lineker, but why others can't learn from him is mystery to me.

Just my personal experience/opinion, of course.

Unless you're talking about their sporting prowess, of course. then the rules change slightly. Not by much, but slightly.

 

Lincoln City in the fifth tier of English football (The old conference) took 407 fans away to Woking today. Was telling a couple of the Portuguese family and they were quite bemused by the fact that a 5th division team takes more away fans to a game than (more than) half of the Portuguese Primeira League teams can manage.

They won 1-3. Their first away win since November last year. lol. UP THE IMPS

 

That's not worth a lot... Thanks

 

A lot of those European footballers speak better English!!

 

British footballers seem to wallow in a "working class hero" culture. A mate of mine used to teach Danny Murphy. He tells me that Danny was a bright lad. Yes, he came off the local council estate, but he was a bright lad. My mate tried to persuade him to stay on for A levels but, incredibly, he chose to take his chances with Crewe Alex. (Big mistake - he could be an unemployed graduate now!). However, he went through a time when he seemed to have to re-invent himself as a "you know, thingy" interviewee. You only have to look at how Graeme Le Saux was treated to get why.

EDIT: Don't get the wrong idea about the council estate comment, people. I'm making a simple observation that the boy was from a "traditional working class" background - whatever that means!

 

That's why going to a Grammar School was a salvation for me....could be myself instead of being bullied for wanting an education. One girl got spat on because she said she wanted to be a nurse. Apparently ambition made you a snob. I still had to walk through the Paulsgrove estate in my school uniform....hairy....but didn't care by then.

 

My brief encounter at a club got me some stick. The club sent the youngsters to college one day a week to do a "nothing" course, but because I already had 2 years at college I asked if I could attend a higher education course instead. The club agreed and every Thursday I'd go to one college to do my course and 15 other lads would go to a different college! Boy I got some stick.

 

Ah yes, that's what I meant when I was referring to the second language.

 

Yes, interesting comparison. Le Saux is educated, informed, speaks well, and therefore perceived as not suitable to be a regular English pundit [yes, he's done the odd bit here and there] or part of the English football establishment.

 

Just my opinion, but English has always been the international language of business, which is an incentive for many Europeans and other nationalities to want to learn it.
From my own experience, of living in Spain for a few years, I know that families are more than willing to send children, as young as 4 or 5, for private tuition, after school, in order to improve their English skills.
Again, my opinion, but by getting children into learning another language, at an early age, would go a long way towards increasing the number of people who would stick with it.
I have tried to learn Spanish, and I can converse, on a basic level, and ask for products etc when shopping, even using correct conjugation of verbs and using the correct tense etc, but I don't have a "good ear" for hearing responses, nor an agile enough brain to quickly work out in which form a verb has been used, which can cause misunderstanding. Had I started to learn Spanish, as a 5 year old and not as a 50 something year old, I don't think I would have had that problem.
Also, that so many European languages follow similar structures, it is easier for them to become multilingual, than a Brit, whose verbs follow different conjugation rules, in which the emphasis is on the use of the correct personal pronoun, something the Spanish only tend to use, either for emphasis or clarification.

I have a brother in law who typifies all that is bad about the English and foreign languages. He frequently holidays abroad and his attitude is "If a restaurant wants my money, they can talk to me in English." Yeah, he is a bit of a knob.

But then I have a niece who studied French, German and Japanese. She found Japanese tough, and gave up on it, but to complete her language studies she spent a year in Germany, attending college there, to finish her French. The hard work paid off as she was employed by Siemens, because of her language skills.

 

1-1 Leicester - Vardy.

 

It's like Fellaini has never heard of Vardy.

 

Vardy, Musa, Grey - some serious pace up top for them there.

 

2-1 Man U - Zlatan (who's been middling to average, but scores. Of course).

 

Eljero Elia scored a hat trick in Feyenoord's first game of the season against FC Groningen. FT 0-5.

 

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Higuain loves the pay rise.

 

Christ

 

Tbf, the tweet concerns his bulk. He's a tad overweight, don't you think.?

 

Danny Murphy already pissing me off. Vardy throws himself into a challenge two feet off the ground, and Murphy doesn't think it's a foul