Originally posted by Satchmo Distel
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For the match ticket yes but not presumably for flights etc. -
Not sure I'd call Bratislava a 'glamour' trip.Originally posted by seand View Post
Besides a small part of the Old Town, always found it a bit of a dump tbh.Comment
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Yes, many times.
Had an aged aunt who lived there, poor woman.
But worse places than there, both in Britain and Europe.Comment
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I’ve been to Bratislava, and admittedly you can walk round the old town sightseeing bit after breakfast and still be in a bar before lunch, but I quite like those smaller, quirkier European capitals. Ljubljana’s like that.Comment
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And it's almost on the Vienna metro, so you can fill your boots with a Proper Capital before dinner if you feel like.Comment
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The one year we were guaranteed Europe beyond August AND I had a job and could consider going, we got a Slovak team...Tatran Prešov. If it had been Bratislava I could’ve had a direct flight. As it was I had to settle for sitting behind Ricky Ross at the home leg.Comment
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That seat called Dignity.Comment
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This comment prompted me to wonder how diplomatically awkward it might be to turn down a loan bid from a club at the level you've already indicated you'd like to see the player at. Would it be possible to say "Sorry, we don't think this would be a good fit" without raising the hackles of someone you may wish to do business with in the future? "He'll be playing in the Premier League, what's the problem?" "Well, the thing is, your team plays horrible anti-football and we don't want him in that environment." Real etiquette stuff.Originally posted by jwdd27 View PostComment
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A bit sneaky that Bratislava can get income from 200 tickets priced at 55 quid because they are Category 1, with no option to buy regular cheaper tickets.Originally posted by jeanmid View PostComment
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Well I think things have moved on since the Wenger days, and Arsenal now have a dedicated loan manager, and it's handled a lot more professionally. I read that when Eddie Nketiah was made available for loan, there were quite a few clubs interested and Arsenal picked three who were then invited to basically pitch for the player, describing how often he'd play, systems, training methods, how they would help the player's development etc.Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post
Another win for Bielsa's PowerPoint skills, then.
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Christ, that's really shitty.Comment
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Watched Celtic Lazio on Italian TV this evening. Lazio were clearly the better team but the atmosphere at Parkhead was utterly brilliant - bet there haven't been many Europa League group games that have such an intense crowd. Lazio led at half time but two goals in the last quarter (both the result of shocking marking) and two utterly fantastic saves from Forster in the last 20 minutes gave Celtic the win. Seems to be no VAR in the Europa league which if true makes it even more worth watching and a superior competition to the CLComment
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After the way Slovan behaved coming from behind to beat them is all the more satisfying.Comment
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It was necessary for Wolves to win this.
The half-time substitution, sending on Traore for the no10, turned the game around, thank God.
The Wolves coach was classy in his comments both before and after the game - the ones about why all the kids were present and how important it was for them to know why they were present. So while it was close on the field, Wolves won hands-down off it.
The Slovan chief executive was this week convicted of making Nazi salutes towards his club's supporters. I could write a dissertation on what a disgusting organisation Slovan Bratislava is, but that one fact is all you really need to know. That he got off with a €5,000 fine also says quite a bit about the Slovak 'judicial system'.
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Did the kids know why they were present or were they lied to?Comment
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Some knew. I know teachers who took kids there and they definitely explained the background. No doubt others had it presented to them as simply an opportunity to attend a game of football for free.
Still, I'm not sure it's possible to lie to kids above a certain age about things like this - the reasons for the (non-)ground closure have been as well-documented in the media here as they would have been in most countries.Comment
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Fair enough. I'm in danger of stereotyping Slovakia as being a closed society, like North Korea, which it clearly is not. Thanks for the correction.Comment
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In some respects, Slovakia is in a better place than Hungary, Poland, or even the Czech Rep. The election of someone like Zuzana Caputova (new Slovak president) would be highly unlikely in any of those countries at present. And last year, protests on a scale not seen since 1989 forced the prime-minister, interior minister and chief of police to resign their positions. A lot of Poles and Hungarians probably wish they could do similar.
The issues around Slovan Bratislava are at once football spcific and symptomatic of problems the country still has. The club is owned by an oligarch, one who (allegedly) has links to organised crime going back to the early 90s. He is a media magnate turned property developer, and owns a few broadcast outlets. The use of these to cover Slovan can be comical - there's one channel that does laughably biased highlights packages on their games, for example. But this turns sinister when it comes to racism and hooliganism, as the outlets simply don't mention these issues at all, and omit the images the other channels show. And when any club figure, be it coach, player or chief exec is asked about what led to this stadium ban (or previous ones, as this isn't the first), he either refuses to answer the question or says, 'it's sad that UEFA has opted to punish us this way' or other such evasive bullshit. Slovan have never, at any level, owned up to having a problem with racism.
Luckily, there are other media that don't try to gloss over these matters, and then there are people like Santo, who need just a few well-chosen words to remind the country why 18,000 kids are getting to watch European football for free.Comment
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I presume that Slovan are still the most popular team in the country despite this muppet's best efforts.
Does any other club have nationwide support?Comment
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Spartak Trnava, though not on quite the same scale. They can fill their ground when they're doing well. Dunajska Streda are currently as well supported as either in terms of matchday attendance, but they represent the Hungarian community and draw some support from Hungary itself.Comment
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They were going to be my guess.
It would appear that historical success before independence is still an important factor in this respect, as well as making such clubs more attractive vehicles for oligarchs.Comment
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