European Soccer

Doku is a poor man’s Raz, but I’d take him. Would much rather try and make it work with Foden, Palmer and/or McAtee rather than throwing $100 mill at Paqueta, but as you said, they haven’t had too many misses since Pep arrived.

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I still haven’t settled on a team.

At least for this season, Liverpool is a good option in terms of they’ll be successful, the will be on USA a decent amount if you don’t want to pay for Peacock, they play a fun style with one of the more dynamic scorers in the game, but aren’t one of the absolute favorites (though still really well resourced). Also, if you care about such things, they are the only vague contender not owned by a sovereign wealth fund or the Glazers

I still recco Brighton too

I started cheering Wolves because of their logo and a hilariously jacked guy (Adama Traore) and sort of regret the choice. I got one good year I guess, now they’re a mess.

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Just watch a half dozen games this weekend and look for something that speaks to you. Manager, player, environment, kit, crowd, venue, whatever.

Especially with NBC having a pitch side desk setup for many games.

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If you want to support nation state owned / oil funded teams, that essentially buy the league, I have a team for you.

Which teams (professional and national) are the equivalent of the Red Wings Russian Five teams? Quick, surgical passing, etc.

National is harder because you can’t build your team, you are (mostly) stuck with the players you have. The Spain teams of the early teens would pass you to death, but they don’t play exactly like that anymore.

As far as Euro teams, I’d say Arsenal usually score the prettiest goals (they already have 2 this morning), also Barca (pre last year).

They aren’t my team but Bukayo Saka is my favorite player in the league

Feel like being quick and having surgical passing are sort of contrasting at the EPL level. The great passing teams usually try to slow down the tempo of games with their passing. The teams that play more direct or press tend to play much faster.

Don’t have stats to back that up but it feels right to me.

Okay… here are stats :rofl:

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Look at all these nation state owned oil teams buying the league.

Looks like I’ll have to choose between Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Brighton and Hove Albion for a pass-heavy team.

Or City! :wink: They are hard to see on the graph.

Oh, it looks like they are the clear winner as far as most passing. Manchester City it is!

Honestly though, don’t just pick City because they pass the most. That shouldn’t be how you choose :rofl: As a City fan, there’s a part of their play that makes them somewhat boring in some ways because it is so focused on dominance of possession.

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Ah so it’s a lot of passing and waiting for an opening?

I’d jump all over Brighton if I wasn’t in this far already. Nice kits, good style of play, European football this year and looking like they will stay close to the top 10. Might have an American midfielder in Adams joining soon.

City, at this point and I say this as a supporter, is about as front-running as you can get. Might take a step back when Pep moves on in 2 years though.

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Also, these days rooting for City can feel like rooting for the 90s Yankees or Alabama football.

I root for Liverpool because they are my son’s favorite team and then I liked to root for Chelsea and Leads because they had Americans on their teams who I wanted to see so well.

Now mostly I turn on the EPL early on a weekend just to enjoy some fun soccer without commercials. Watching college football or the NFL is still my favorite, but the commercial breaks have gotten out of control.

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I get that people say this, and I understand all of the sports washing/oil money/etc. but the Yankees/Alabama reference is more along the lines of Real Madrid/Bayern.

City spent/spend outrageous money to crack into the group of teams that already spend outrageous money.

And yes, they are backed by oil states like many other clubs. And yes, they are the best team in Europe right now with the best manager in Europe.

But the manager isn’t going to be there forever and there are plenty of other clubs that spend as much money.

The club, fans of the club, attitude of the club is all very different than the Yankees/Alabama.

But yeah, I probably wouldn’t choose to root for City right now because they are already on the top. When I started rooting for them in college, they were trying to play their way up the table.

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typical Brits making a European thread all about them

:croatia: :ireland:
:it: :greece:

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You clearly need to become a City fan with Gvardiol and Kovacic coming in.