Essential The Official Football (Soccer) Thread - We are SO back, the Premier League returns!

Kunty McPhuck

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true, I said it the other day, french coaching has always been meh to me. I don't know what they are doing to produce the players they produce. But I feel like more than ever, they have a bundle of young up and coming midfield with different skillsets who can be top class. I don't think they had that in the modern era.

Can thank Houllier for that. I think after 98 the football syllabus is set in stone for life. The interesting thing is before Clairefontaine opened in typical French fashion it took them like 8 years to make the decision to go ahead with the academy and it took winning in 84 to actually sign off on it.

Another interesting thing about French football is all of their big name players have either born elsewhere or been sons/grandsons of immigrants. Kopa (Polish) Fontaine (Born in Morocco Spanish mother French father) Platini (Italian) Tigana (born in Mali) Luis Fernandez (born in Spain). The Djorkaeffs (Mongolian/Polish). Everyone knows the squads from 96 onwards. Even Cantona is from Spanish and Italian background.

The only French French player I can think of is JP Papin.
 

MikelArteta

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Can thank Houllier for that. I think after 98 the football syllabus is set in stone for life. The interesting thing is before Clairefontaine opened in typical French fashion it took them like 8 years to make the decision to go ahead with the academy and it took winning in 84 to actually sign off on it.

Another interesting thing about French football is all of their big name players have either born elsewhere or been sons/grandsons of immigrants. Kopa (Polish) Fontaine (Born in Morocco Spanish mother French father) Platini (Italian) Tigana (born in Mali) Luis Fernandez (born in Spain). The Djorkaeffs (Mongolian/Polish). Everyone knows the squads from 96 onwards. Even Cantona is from Spanish and Italian background.

The only French French player I can think of is JP Papin.

This breh knows everything about football and track and field :ohhh:
 
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Can thank Houllier for that. I think after 98 the football syllabus is set in stone for life. The interesting thing is before Clairefontaine opened in typical French fashion it took them like 8 years to make the decision to go ahead with the academy and it took winning in 84 to actually sign off on it.

Another interesting thing about French football is all of their big name players have either born elsewhere or been sons/grandsons of immigrants. Kopa (Polish) Fontaine (Born in Morocco Spanish mother French father) Platini (Italian) Tigana (born in Mali) Luis Fernandez (born in Spain). The Djorkaeffs (Mongolian/Polish). Everyone knows the squads from 96 onwards. Even Cantona is from Spanish and Italian background.

The only French French player I can think of is JP Papin.
:salute:
 

Liu Kang

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People haven't forgotten.

ant-comp.jpg
I know about that :stopitslime:

It's known that Griez isnt smart but brehs were hating on his footy skills not his character.
 

Kunty McPhuck

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This breh knows everything about football and track and field :ohhh:

I love sport. I want to and need to know the how and why of each sport that interests me. From the competition to the technical and mental aspects of competing down to intricacies and nuances of each individual sport.

Watching different sports you'll get to understand each countries mentality character technical traits to sports and they generally carry over from sport to sport.
 
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Didn't particularly like the way his teams played but he's one of the most important/best football people over the last 30-35 years.

Yeah his style of play is not the most attractive and quite defensive at times, it was like that for Liverpool, but he will always be loved at Liverpool for what he did there

It was his team plus Alonso and Garcia what won us the CL and we can never forget our triple winning season of 00-01
 

BelieveBeOK

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Must have been an a bad split if Mark/Drawty aren't even
allowing the guy to at least say goodbye live.:gucci:


KG brought some flavour to TUS and the last few fan forums without him just weren't great. I have no issues with any of the hosts besides that annoying white dude who stans Dean Henderson but besides Mark, Flex and sometimes Kev, they just lack personality which takes the entertainment out of it. Also, with KG not being around, Flex is gonna have tone himself now like when Rants and Saeed left.

Looking to me (without any inside knowledge) as if Mark and Drawty are only happy to keep you around if you're a yes-man. :unimpressed:
 

Civilisé

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Can thank Houllier for that. I think after 98 the football syllabus is set in stone for life. The interesting thing is before Clairefontaine opened in typical French fashion it took them like 8 years to make the decision to go ahead with the academy and it took winning in 84 to actually sign off on it.

Another interesting thing about French football is all of their big name players have either born elsewhere or been sons/grandsons of immigrants. Kopa (Polish) Fontaine (Born in Morocco Spanish mother French father) Platini (Italian) Tigana (born in Mali) Luis Fernandez (born in Spain). The Djorkaeffs (Mongolian/Polish). Everyone knows the squads from 96 onwards. Even Cantona is from Spanish and Italian background.

The only French French player I can think of is JP Papin.
The 90s area was definitively the moment when the French Federation decided to professionalize and centralize the sport. We historically had a strong public education system in France and the federation used this philosophy for football as well. Which means you end up with a formation open to everybody regardless of their background, including non-citizen, and FREE. Some argue that this is prime meritocracy.
This is why: 1/ The French league became basically the best youth development league and produced mad talents for other leagues and countries. 2/ Other EU countries started to copy this system in the mid 2000s. 3/ The negative consequence is that it's hard to keep the talent home and it favors a business model where local academies rely too much on richer foreign clubs.

Regarding the "diverse" aspect of the squad, it simply reflects the immigration waves in France. Anglo American media have been recently obsessed with the number of Black and Muslim in our team but it's not a new thing. People started immigrating to France in the late 1800s... Eastern europeans after WW1, then Southern Europeans, then Maghreb and Caribbean, then West Af in the 70s/80s, Central Af in the 90s/2000s. These waves were composed of mainly poor and low educated individuals, which means school success is less likely for their offsprings. So sport, not just football, is seen as a great opportunity to move faster in the social order. But it's a riskier option too.
 
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