LJ Cason taking notes 
https://x.com/lapulgaprop_/status/1850276860770545893?s=46&t=xsoD7F1QL4iGG_8kXTdpkw
ETH was my #1 choice for City when Pep eventually moved on as of a couple years ago. I’m still not sure if it’s entirely him or just the situation at United, who are just churning through previously successful managers, but shout out to ManU for the long demonstration on why he might have been a bad choice.
Wonder which poor soul is next on their list.
Yeah I have no idea if Ten Haag is good or bad (I would normally say that “winning at Ajax doesn’t say much”, but they’ve also not really won since he left so idk), but there is a slowly growing body of work that suggests the problem is institutional and not really the slow growing pile of bodies outside the manager’s office.
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love a good Reinsdorf effect
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Heard Southgate as an early possibility which would be hilarious since they all seem to hate him from the national team already.
They prolly gotta throw crazy money at Amorim (Sporting CP), right? Idk, maybe there’s some pep/klopp assistant coach that I know nothing about. Hoeness at Stuttgart would be good imo, but probably not a flashy enough name/ team.
ETH is probably not a ManU caliber manager, but this squad is also not ManU caliber. How many of their players would start at any of City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Villa? Not nearly enough.
Seems like it.
https://x.com/david_ornstein/status/1850965637650391404?s=46&t=xsoD7F1QL4iGG_8kXTdpkw
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Feel like I am in upper 25 percent at least as far as euro soccer fans in USA and I really like Real Madrid (sue me) and I confess I have no idea how CL is supposed to work anymore. My sense is that it somewhat similar to Big Ten football Championships but slightly less structured.
Ted Knutson (who has done a lot of work on coach recruitment in a past life) was surprisingly down on Amorim, citing the rigidity of his game model (3-4-2-1) not fitting the Man Utd squad.
Seems like a slam dunk choice on its face to me, a simpleton. I also thought Flick wouldn’t be much of an upgrade on Xavi, though, so…
Interesting… I like Ted, but I also feel like his brand is sort of slightly over the top and very loud takes against things. Maybe he’s always right, but it feels like he’s always telling us why people are wrong and why he’s smart more than why other people are sometimes right! 
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I would try to explain this, but I haven’t grasped how it works either. I only know more teams are getting through so groups of death aren’t a thing anymore maybe?
I’m just waiting to pay attention until knockouts.
It is much more like a league than a traditional group stage. So there’s a 36 team league table and the big shift is that you play eight different opponents (at random) from the league – two teams from each of the four tiers/pots.
It used to be you play your group teams in a round robin (and the group was made of teams from tiers/pots).
- The top 8 placements get a bye…
- 9-24 goes to a playoff for the other half of the round of 16
- Everyone else goes home (no more Europa league fall back)
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Ugh that is classic contemporary low stakes soccer. 36 teams play 18*8 games to eliminate 12 teams.
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The idea is to make it lower stakes mostly, and stave off the Super League concept. The idea is more matches between big clubs earlier without risking whether big clubs get through.
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Musah on the wing? 
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Didn’t Poch play him there in the friendlies too?
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This pitch is going to look like a WW1 battlefield by the end.
Musah probably just up there to hold the spot for Weah and Tessmann holding Musah’s spot?
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Believe so, yeah
We didn’t look amazing or anything last night, but can already see a few of the differences with Poch and GGG. The forward runs and passes are more directed to the goal than to the corner and the overlapping full back runs are putting them tighter to the goal as well so not playing as wide it seems and we aren’t dunking it back and forth in defense and midfield as much, think Poch realizes we aren’t going to tiki taka ourselves out of pressure so just sending it forward.
That pitch was garbage though so hard to take a lot from it. Was good to see us get a few yellows in retaliating for dudes hacking on Puli, that kind of stuff will go a long way eventually.
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I am always amazed at simply how bad the pitch is in some of these countries. It is hard to believe that it can be that horrible. I know pros don’t play on turf, but you’d almost rather play on artificial than that stuff.
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