That’s like all of sports though.
It’s not nothing or players not playing in the WC. They’ve talked about plenty of other remedies that seem more fair.
eta: I also don’t see why someone like Pulisic should be kept from playing in the WC to protect UEFA, who has no say over CONCACAF.
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Sure, but a lot of people have defended the current status quo because of how smaller teams belong in it.
I think the last decade has been pretty bad for the CL in terms of quality. Just a lot of boring Madrid/Bayern teams dominating.
The conversations around this are very weird because no one bar a tweet like that seems to care about what the players want/what is best for them, where that is where most of the discussion has gone to in NA sports as the players have more power these days.
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Details of this are pretty laughable. Feels like if you want an exclusive breakaway league, you should just making it fucking fully exclusive. There’s not much in it for the non-core teams.
Yeah the not fair argument kind of doesn’t really work on me. Life ain’t fair. Tots and pears.
They are a massive leverage to be used over the greed and avarice of a few piece of shit owners who have no soul.
It’s not fair to the players, confederations and fans of international football either. USMNT would lose their 3 best players + likely starting GK minimum as an example.
If you don’t care about fairness, why do you care about the creation of the league at all?
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Well as I said life ain’t fair. But I do think sport is only meaningful if there is meaningful competition. This would stifle that. I’m happy for UEFA and FIFA (corrupt and shitty as they both are) to use any tool to shit on these guys parades because I honestly feel this is bad for the sport. I can’t swear on my life but I think I would truly believe this even if Leeds were 1 of these 12. And I remember a time when we were arguably the greatest side in the world and would have been a shoe in if this shit had existed then.
I just don’t see your position as congruent. If you think sport is only meaningful if there’s meaningful competition, then why is it ok to block concacaf players from playing in the World Cup because they play in a league that competes with UEFA? That action would destroy the meaningfulness of the World Cup, gold cup, nations league, etc.
Sure seems like you’re simply prioritizing a specific type of club football at the expense of everything else.
Yeah you are right. It’s probably not rational. But I’m a fan of a football club. If Leeds can’t ever get to the pinnacle of the sport, if that avenue is cut off to them then fuck it, burn it all down.
The reason ManU fans, Liverpool fans, AC fans et al are also against this is because they know the achievements they get going forward are diluted. Its hard to express to non fans of a team, to people who just appreciate the sport if you like, but half the joy of being a fan of a club is shitting on other fans of other teams and also being shate on when they are in the ascendancy. If the footballing world is whittled down to 15 global clubs not connected to any culture, any place or any history it can go fuck itself and I don’t give 2 shits if you yanks can get into it every 4 years for a couple of weeks because your national team gets a plucky draw against a heavyweight. With or without Pulisic. (Who could always leave Chelsea and play somewhere else - you know like he did before he went to Chelsea. In fact he could come to us. Win Win.).
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They’re not going to have a world cup where the best players are Jack Grealish, Richarlison and Koulibaly.
Presently, the narrative of top-flight domestic competition is all about reaching the top placements, in order to get into the Champions League. Which would not exist anymore. Aha, say the not-at-all villainous masterminds behind the ESL, we will – our generosity to the smaller football species knows no bounds – offer five qualifying places to, presumably, the winners of the English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian leagues. Except these winners could be the big clubs that are already in it. Or more likely, those big clubs would lose interest in the domestic leagues very quickly, and just play their reserves there. Which would lead to the laughable situation of Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal knocking about the bottom half of the Premiership, whilst the other clubs battle it out to join a league with Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal in it.
It’s hard not to suspect that there’s something American here. Americans have never quite taken to football, because it is a sport that requires a certain tolerance of boredom. As far as sport goes, Americans just want all the top action, all of the time. Which is why they satirised soccer in The Simpsons episode The Cartridge Family, by having a commentator’s voice saying “This match will determine once and for all which nation is the greatest on earth – Mexico or Portugal!” And then the match starts, and it’s very dull.
Sometimes football is dull. Some football matches are not mouth-watering fixtures. It’s what makes the glorious moments more glorious.
Caved in head bloke sounds suitable to being Spuds manager.
Thanks for the laugh. Americans cannot tolerate boredom in sport, yet baseball and TNF exists. Y’all are easy marks for jingoist bullshit.
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He’s saying there’s always action in baseball, which there obviously is. In football though, some games meander on for 90 minutes with few moments of excitement.
I used to post on another US poker forum where people said American sports are superior because they have more points in the score - LOOOOOOOL - missing the point that by that token the best sport would be international test cricket (which it is of course, but not for that reason).
Jal buddy, when you say stuff like ‘there’s always action in baseball’ you sound just like the guy who says that American sports are better because they score more points. There’s 20 plus seconds between each pitch in baseball. It’s 3 hours per game. I love baseball, but it’s boring as shit more than some of the time. Honestly, a big part of why I like it is that I can turn it on the radio, sit on the porch, drink a beer and watch the sun set. On top of that, the vast majority of every football game is inaction and commercials, not action. The entire premise of that article is jingoist dumbass euros who think they understand America. I might as well say that Scots/Irish like soccer because they’re drunk anyways.
The reason why a country like sports falls back onto history, cultural traditions, etc. Don’t be such an easy mark.
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Man City too now apparently