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2018 Copa Libertadores

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    I wasn't able to watch the first leg of the Sudamericana as closely as I had hoped. I think the tie is still up for grabs but Atletico PR must be the favorites going home.

    Well, we're only a few hours away from the Libertadores finals. I can't see that any major problems will occur now that the match is out of Bueno Aires. Of course, this move is a total joke, reaffirming the idiocy in CONMEBOL.

    The new year-long Libertadores means we recycle quickly after only having a few weeks off. I haven't been able to keep up on as many league games as I had hoped but did watch some cup finals that now put more teams in the Libertadores after various federations gains more spots to replace Mexican sides. Copa do Brasil has long served as an entry into the Libertadores. Cruzeiro beat Corinthians to earn a spot. Palestino beat Audax Italiano in Chile (very exciting second leg). And I'm 43 minutes into the Copa Argentina, which is currently 1-1 between Central and Gimnasia. The league that I had been watching more than others until this season is Colombia. The final started yesterday and I haven't had time to watch that game yet between Junior and Independiente Medellin (DIM). It will be interesting to see if the two finals affects Junior's quality of play.

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      I assume there’s some of us watching this.

      Three superb goals including what could be a winner from Quintero’s magical left foot. Not long to go now but Tevez has just come on as sub to save it for Boca...

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        Boca with 9 men hit the post!

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          All over. Martinez breaks with the keeper in River’s área to make it 3-1.

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            It wasn't technically great. But by fuck it was as exciting as I'd hoped. it was good to see a few old fashioned panic crosses going in as well.

            River just deserving I thought.

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              I only realised it was on when extra-time started, but that last 30 was brilliant, and normally I wouldn't agree, but even more so with an insane commentator.

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                Will River stand a chance in the Club World Cup? Real Madrid aren't the team they were under Zidane.

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                  Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post
                  Will River stand a chance in the Club World Cup? Real Madrid aren't the team they were under Zidane.
                  Much as I enjoyed their performance and the match last night, I wouldn’t have thought so.

                  I base this on the fact that they only scraped past Grêmio in the semi-final by the narrowest of margins and I know Grêmio wouldn’t stand a chance against Real Madrid.

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                    I'd be surprised if Real Madrid sit quite as deep as Grêmio did against them, though.

                    This River team are better than the team who won the Libertadores three years ago, and this year's Madrid aren't as good as the Barcelona who beat River then. But obviously Madrid are still massive favourites because it's the twenty-first century and it's no coincidence that one of River's best players is off to Real Madrid once the Club World Cup is over. Charming of Rogin to ask the question, though. The real challenge for River is going to be losing fewer than five or six starters during the summer break. Gonzalo Martínez (Atlanta United) and Exequiel Palacios (Madrid) are both done deals already, and today there's talk that Gonzalo Montiel (who admittedly is only River's second best right back), Rafael Santos Borré (who's spent the year on loan from Atlético de Madrid anyway) and ... whimper ... Juan Fernando Quintero (to China! Please God no) might all be the subjects of offers River can't refuse. At this stage it looks likely Gallardo's staying, though, which is the most important thing. Well, apart from Quintero.

                    For all the criminality of uprooting the thing to a different continent, and the worrying precedent that might end up setting for global football, not just in South America, the biggest way in which that was a factor on the game that actually got played, I thought, was the pitch. The pitches at the Bombonera and Monumental normally aren't bad, obviously, but neither of these clubs are used to playing on the bowling green of one of the top sides in Europe, and I thought that showed especially during the first half hour or so, during which both teams were struggling a bit to get used to how quickly the surface was playing. Nahitan Nández's pass for Darío Benedetto's opener was superb, but I'm not sure he could have played it much earlier in the game, and the moves for River's first two goals (and for that matter the sustained passage of play which led to Esteban Andrada having to punch clear immediately leading to the move for Quintero's) were similarly much slicker than anything they put together in the first half of normal time.

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                      Excellent post, sir

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                        Oh, you.

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                          Completely sincere.

                          In addition to the quality of the pitch, it was striking to see those teams contesting a meaningful fixture in a ground with world class lighting and unfenced stands that close to the pitch. It looked rather like a video game.

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                            Yes, that was a point being made quite a bit on Argentine football Twitter when it kicked off. Certainly made the shirts pop nicely.

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                              I hadn't thought about the quality of the pitch relative to the quality of play, but that's an interesting point. The Boca goal was nice (in fact all three were exciting goals) but the first half never got going for me. The second half was better. And River really showed how to boss a game with a (deserved) man advantage.

                              On the whole, this was one of the more exciting finals in recent years and one that lived up to expectations. In part, expectations have been tempered in recent years because we've had some smaller clubs matched up against bigger clubs. But if I think back to River-Tigres, that Tigres side was very good; they just didn't show that quality in the final.

                              I think the final abroad came off well, but I'm still not happy with the move. Just because the product was good doesn't mean the process worked. And I think that a lot of the intensity of this tie stemmed from a two-leg (albeit an insane two legs) so I'm still not pleased with the choice to go to a single final starting in 2019. Two sides from Argentina made Madrid do-able but if we end up with a Libertad-Millionarios final (just to choose two random second tier, yet big clubs in their respective countries) in 2019 can we really expect the same energy in Santiago that was on display in Madrid? I don't think so.

                              Anyway, congrats Sam and other River supporters (although I don't know who that would be since I don't know if cantaglo has an Argentine side and UA is a Huracan man if I remember correctly).
                              Last edited by danielmak; 10-12-2018, 20:55.

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                                Originally posted by cantagalo View Post
                                Much as I enjoyed their performance and the match last night, I wouldn’t have thought so.

                                I base this on the fact that they only scraped past Grêmio in the semi-final by the narrowest of margins and I know Grêmio wouldn’t stand a chance against Real Madrid.
                                Real Madrid 0 CSKA 3

                                Rogin has a point. I know they’ve already qualified but what a miserable performance.

                                I may have to revise the contents of my previous post.
                                Last edited by cantagalo; 12-12-2018, 19:37.

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                                  Atlético scrape through on penalties.

                                  After Gutierrez had equalised Pablo’s opener, Junior were the better side and were awarded a penalty in the second half of extra time which they predictably missed; they had converted just 1 of their 7 previous penalties in international competitions this year and had missed one in the first leg.

                                  Atlético duly won the shoot-out 4-3 to win the first international title in their history.

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                                    Al Ain (the UAE domestic champions) have just knocked River out of the Club World Cup on penalties after a 2-2 draw.

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                                      It was a decent second half. Al-ain were at least as good as River.

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                                        I finally had time after traveling to watch the 2nd leg of the Sudamericana final. Junior missed a penalty in the first leg, a penalty in extra time of the second leg, and two penalties in the PSO. When idiots say that penalties are the luck of the draw, they should watch Junior over these two legs. That's not luck; that's poor preparation and execution.

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                                          Why do none of the clubs from Brasilia compete at any sort of level in the national league system? As far as I can see, none of them are even in Serie D? That's pretty remarkable seeing as Brasilia is the third largest city in the country? It would be like Birmingham not having a team in the top four divisions in England! Is there no interest in the local teams, because everyone there supports a Rio or SP club?
                                          Last edited by Rogin the Armchair fan; 02-01-2019, 21:37.

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                                            Because it is an ersatz city that very few people fully fell a part of, and one which civil servants and legislators leave as often as possible for their "real" hometowns.

                                            All of the domestic attendance records for matches in Brasilia are for matches featuring at least one (and often two) of the traditional "big" clubs from Rio or São Paulo.

                                            It is similar in kind to the reason why Canberra is largely bereft of significant clubs in any major Aussie sport other than rugby union, just on a much bigger scale.

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                                              The answer must lie in the fact that the city of Brasília was only inaugurated in 1960 when the capital and all the functions of government were transferred there from Rio de Janeiro. As such it has been unable to build a football tradition and people who move there to work retain their previous allegiances. Maybe a parallel could be drawn with Canberra which, as far as I know, doesn’t have a sporting tradition. However, it should be mentioned that in large swathes of the North and North East of Brazil, the most popular clubs are Flamengo and Corinthians.

                                              Brasília does possess the second most expensive stadium (after Wembley) ever built, the Estádio Mané Garrincha. Of course, none of the teams from Brasília, who usually attract crowds of less than a thousand can afford to play there. It is now used only for concerts (which mess up the playing surface) and the occasional game transferred from Rio to cater for the numerous Flamengo and Vasco fans there. (Vasco have also staged games in another white elephant in Manaus). Since 2014, several of those teams’ games have been played at the Mané Garrincha to large crowds, though in the last few years the attraction seems to be waning and the CBF have been trying to restrict the sale of matches to other states.

                                              As for local teams, the two biggest are Brasiliense and Gama. Brasiliense are the only team from the Distrito Federal to have graced Série A but were relegated in 2005, never to return. Gama have never risen above Série B.

                                              Each state has a minimum of two teams in Série D (there are 68 teams in total!) with qualification gained through the State Championships. The Distrito Federal’s two representatives in Série D 2019 will be Brasiliense and Sobradinho.

                                              * Damn - Ursus is too quick off the mark for me! Hope I’ve added a bit of extra detail though.
                                              Last edited by cantagalo; 02-01-2019, 21:43.

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                                                No, that's interesting, thanks. You'd have thought just on the basis that Brazilians are football crazy, there would be sufficient interest in a city of 2 million people to generate enough emphasis behind the local side(s). Appreciating that Brasilia is a new city, there must be a fair few living there among those 2 million who are third generation residents now.

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                                                  My knowledge of Brasilian football is very, very minor compared with others who post in the South American threads, but one thing that resonated with me is Tim Vickery's repeated comments on BBC World Football Phone-In that attendances in Brasil are generally poor. When callers ask about MLS, Vickery regularly comments that teams in Brasil would love to have MLS attendance. My ability to carve out consistent time to watch games on TV is hit and miss during the championship and during the state championships and I'm not hip to where TV cameras are placed in Brazilian stadia, but I have watched a lot of games where crowds are very thin (and these are always games featuring the bigger clubs--GolTV in the US rarely shows a game between two small sides). All of that is to say that if there are Flamengo games in the Marcana with a lot of empty seats, I am not surprised that a club in Brasilia will have problems drawing fans and by extension sustaining enough of a run to climb to the top flight.
                                                  Last edited by danielmak; 03-01-2019, 01:33.

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                                                    http://app.globoesporte.globo.com/fu...e-a/index.html

                                                    Here’s all the info you need for Série A in 2018.

                                                    Average crowd of 18,821 with an occupancy rate of 43%.

                                                    Attendances have actually risen by about 20% in recent years, helped by stadia built for the World Cup used by Corinthians, Internacional, Bahia and Ceará, new stadia for Palmeiras and Grêmio plus Flamengo now playing all their games at the Maracanã. It should be noted that World Cup stadia haven’t done much for attendances at Cruzeiro or Atlético-PR.

                                                    I’m sure Tim Vickery will have run through the reasons for poor attendances such as high ticket prices, inconvenient kick-off times, a perceived threat of violence and a sharp decline in the quality of the football on offer. Also every match can be seen live on TV in your local bar and I confess that on occasions, I have taken this easy option rather than trekking to the Maracanã for a 9:45pm kick-off and arriving home some time after 1am.
                                                    Last edited by cantagalo; 04-01-2019, 11:30.

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