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2014/2015 Season Thread


Woodsinho

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Morally and ethically, German football is significantly ahead of most other footballing countries. It's kept highly affordable across all social classes; it aims to include, not exclude.

 

I'm also quite partial to a bit of Werder Bremen and Hertha Berlin.

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I enjoy German football. Not as much as I enjoy Italian football, but there are so many fascinating German clubs with great stories, particularly during the period between World War II and the Cold War.

 

I'm partial to Hertha BSC and Union Berlin, because Berlin is my favourite place on the planet. Hertha are a bit vanilla, history-wise, compared to Union though.

 

You guys should definitely read-up on their history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Berlin. Berlin is such a complicated, fascinating place and I think that Union and their struggles with the Stasi-sponsored Dynamo Berlin encapsulate the city well. They also have a strong left-wing fan culture -- like a far less kitschy St. Pauli -- though they're pretty naff, and tend to hover around the 2. Bundesliga's upper-mid table region.

 

For the sake of not being an obscure bastard, I also like Dortmund, because Klopp.

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I like Wolfsburg for two reasons - firstly I had an amazing career with them on FM.

Secondly, Wolfgang Wolf was their manager for five years. Wolfy.

[EDIT= They have just given Nicklas Bendtner squad number 3 tho. :( ]

it shouldn't be the squad number allocated that saddens you. It should be the player they are giving it to!! :)

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Dortmund's recent history is very interesting, there's a good piece in an issue of the blizzard about how they almost went bust 10 (?) years ago. 

 

I will mostly be watching the premier league and la liga in addition to Aberdeen matches as normal. However I would like to watch a bit more of other leagues. I'm going to try and watch highlights / a round up show of bundesliga and serie a most weeks.

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The new Sky Sports channel will show quite a lot this year which will be great as i really really struggle to enjoy watching the EPL now, i just find i have next to no interest at all, even with the bigger teams. I need something to justify Sky Sports for the missus and the flights premier league doesnt start again till the new year. 

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As per the general consensus, the Bundesliga is a great watch. I find it similar to the Premier League in terms of tempo and width. Lots of expansive football and pace on the wings. Usually lots of goals. Great atmospheres in the ground as well. The fans literally bounce on the terraces. BT Sport has decent coverage, and the ITV highlights show is good. Streams for almost any game in the top 2 divisions are very easily findable, for research purposes, of course. Any working links you do find should be directed to the authorities.

 

Eriedivisie is getting coverage on Sky Sports 5 this year. It's not a good quality league overall, but it's very attacking, and a lot of the teams are a bit of a mess tactically, so it's pretty entertaining. Not quite as quick as the Bundesliga or the Premier League though.

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I've been watching some of the Eredevisie on Sky Spots and it proves to be just as poor in quality as Spfl but still entertaining.

Does anyone know what channels show highlights of some of the European leagues and when? I always seem to miss out on it. Especially Bundesliga and La Liga(although I manage to catch some matches now and again).

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Camie -- The European Football Show on BT Sport. It's absolutely fantastic. They show highlights from most of the continents big leagues, James Richardson (!!!) hosts, and the punditry (from the likes of James Horcastle and Rafael Honigstein) is always top notch. Great show.

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As above, the European Football show is very good, and the pundits definitely know their stuff. It's not just typical English pundits basing their opinions on Champions League games.

 

 

Also, the Bundesliga Highlights are on ITV4 every Monday at 10pm, and is on ITV player for a while afterwards

 

Revista de La Liga in on every Tuesday at 6pm on Sky Sports, but I can't remember which one. It might be moved to SS5 now, with the rest of the European football.

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I loved the Eredivisie in the early 2000s, and I was a bit of an Ajax buff. I went across to Amsterdam to see them play RKC Waalwijk in 2003 (honestly, that is the reason I went to Amsterdam) and I loved it. 6-1 to Ajax. I went to see a few training sessions on the Ajax sports complex, and even the 9 and 10 year olds looked immense in terms of touch and technique. I know this sounds weird, but even the way the 9 and 10 year old substitutes warmed up was considerably more advanced and professional than we see in the United Kingdom.

 

Ajax's squad consisted of:

 

Cristian Chivu, Steven Pienaar, John Heitinga, Maxwell, Wesley Sneijder, Jari Litmanen, Rafael van der Vaart, Nigel de Jong, and, of course, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

 

That is proper vintage. I always thought the Eredivisie would evolve into something akin to the Bundesliga by now, but it's not quite happened for some reason - the standard has scarcely improved, and personally I wasn't suprised to see Aberdeen compete so well with Groningen recently.

 

I still think it's a wonderful little league to take an interest in, though. I loved it when Van Gaal was in charge of AZ Alkmaar in the late 2000s and was winning the league and stuff. I hope he loved it too, because he's not going to feel the same sensation of winning the league whilst he's at Manchester United.

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I follow Ligue 1 pretty closely, particularly the exploits of Lille, Lens and Grenoble 38 (well up until they went bankrupt and got banished to the lowest league) - having lived in the catchment area of those teams and had friends/colleagues who support them. I'll watch the 'big' matches (your Monacos vs PSGs, Marseille, Bordeaux, etc) and subscribe to the official youtube channel (which is excellent). The matches are surprisingly readily available in Poland. It's really not the greatest league, especially now there's less competition with Monaco and PSG gobbling up everyone but maybe 5 years ago it was cracking. Bordeaux and Lille were playing great football and it was always interesting to see who'd be the next star to get poached by teams in stronger leagues (Hazard, Gervinho, Chamakh, Giroud, Gourcouff) and everyone collectively rejoiced at the failures of PSG and Lyon. I did think Chamakh would be better than Hazard in the premier league so I don't profess to being 'in the know' :(

 

I watch a lot of Real and Barca matches but that's not to say I follow La Liga. Although now Altetico are just as big an attraction so maybe that'll change.

 

I really try with MLS but honestly it's just not there yet. It's largely terrible football punctuated by the odd magical piece of skill/a thunderbastard by an ex-european player. BWP is currently tearing it up which tells you everything you need to know about the level. There are interesting teams coming up though - Seattle, Portland, Toronto... they all have crazyily dedicated fanbases and the atmosphere at their games at least don't sound like Crufts.

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Plus, you'll have NYCFC soon which will be cash-tastic.

 

I genuinely can't wait for that. They're gonna be playing somewhere that's not in the arsehole of nowhere (Yankee stadium I think, until they get their own stadium) so i'll definitely go to a few games.

 

I went with a few friends to Liverpool v man city a while back at Yankee stadium and we were all kinda taken aback by how 'normal' it felt. Like we were just going to see the football - it didn't feel like a novelty. 

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