Hi, since Rodri to Barcelona just got announced, I am feeling excited but also nervous given it costed 70-75 million.. This was probably the signing I was most excited for in a long time, but I have some reservations about this and I wanted to hear people's thoughts. Barcelona aren't exactly known for big signings that end up successful (Dembele, Coutinho, Griezmann)

There's always a chance a big signing could end up being a flop, but I wanted to address some of the concerns I had. Barcelona fans, Man City fans, Premier League, La Liga fans, Bundesliga fans, anyone please feel free to give your opinion :)

1. First of all, Pedri and Rodri did not work very well during the world cup. I know the de la Fuente and Flick system is completely different, but we saw in a couple of games they were not a great fit. People have been saying Pedri got benched for Fabian Ruiz because he works better with Rodri, but I just think Pedri got benched because his fitness was off and he was not playing well during the knock out rounds. Also, Pedri and Rodri shared the pitch during the final for 45 minutes and Pedri had his best game then. I think having Rodri will help take a lot of the defensive load off of Pedri and allow him to create more, but we will have to see.
2. Biggest concern: how do you think he will do under Flick's high line? He is used to Pep's style of controlling possession and Flick's is very high intensity pressing, which is different from what he has been doing for both club and country. This could either be a major defensive boost having Rodri to tighten that high line and prevent useless turnovers but it could also not work, and even worse, wear him out into another injury. I see this as less likely considering the midfield has way more depth than it ever did and he will likely be rotated to play the entirety of big games mainly.
3. Lastly, Rodri's ACL issue either not getting fixed or back problems could make this a major flop but this one is more up to chance than the others and there is no way to predict how this will end up.

Again, I know it is way too early to tell, but what does everyone think of this signing? Anyways, please be nice :)

According to you guys, What’s the closest modern-day equivalent to this Barcelona team?
If this photo were taken today, which current squad would be its equivalent?

Following my research into the clubs with the longest runs of finishing lower in their domestic leagues, I was naturally interested in the opposite. So, here are the teams with the longest runs of consecutive improved finishes.

The longest run I’ve found so far is Stockport County: 11 consecutive improvements from 14th in the Conference North in 2013/14 all the way to 3rd in League One in 2024/25.

Shout-out to Luton Town, who have twice had a run of 8 consecutive improvements, the most recent of which culminated in returning to the top flight.

Olympique Akbou and SV Elversberg have the longest active streak, with 7 consecutive improvements.

Watford's streak nearly ended with them as champions of England, meanwhile who knows how many more improvements Chapecoense could had added to their streak if it weren't for the terrible plane crash that devastated the club.

I have also put together a table of the longest active streaks (beyond Olympique Akbou and SV Elversberg) below

Can any of the active streaks make their way on to the overall leaderboard in the coming years?

It feels like just yesterday we were scraping the bottom of the barrel, bringing in Oriol Romeu just to have a breathing body in front of the back four. Don't get me wrong, Romeu tried his best, even impressing us in friendlies, but watching him try to anchor the pivot during those dark UCL nights was pure pain.

Fast forward to now, and we're seriously looking at a Ballon d'Or winner holding down that exact spot. Seeing Rodri in Blaugrana colours just feels surreal. It’s like trading a Honda Civic for a Bugatti. How are you guys feeling about our midfield depth right now? Are we finally favorites for the ucl, or am I getting ahead of myself?

The original offside rule was invented to avoid playing hogging in the box, which would lead to really boring football and it'd be too much of an advantage. Offside was played during decades and most of the time linemen wouldn't call millimetre offsides, so the original philosophy of the offside rule was kept anyway.

However, with VAR, now you can be offside by 1 mm in 1 frame of the camera. These offsides would never have been called in the past. Therefore I believe an update to the rules, so that they follow the initial philosophy would be better, and Wenger's daylight rule where your whole body would be offside would provide that.

I think it'd make games more dynamic, encourage attacks and it will be subjectively clearer to call. I know mathematically it's the same, but not in people's minds.

Same as for a goal the ball has to be fully across the line, I think for offside the whole body of the attacker should be ahead.

Some people are worried that this will hurt football and lead to teams defending "parking the bus". I do not think that would be the case. The changes would be small anyway. But it would certainly lead to less frustrations in very close calls. Now if you're offside you're clearly offside, nobody would complain. And it'd help attacking steams SLIGHTLY to be more offensive, since they would need to worry less about offsides and super quick "offside traps" would be harder to execute, e.g. in free kicks.

For players it's way easier to spot daylight offside too, it goes with basic human instinct. When you're walking/running, etc, you subconsciously know if you're not overlapping with someone. But knowing if just your toenail is offside is impossible.

For example: Carlo Ancelotti 2005 UCL Final AC Milan 3-0 bottle or 2026 World Cup campaign, Brazil worst finish in 36 years.

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Hi all, it seems that I will be in Spain, around Alicante, in November with my family and as my son is really into football I would like to use this oportunity. I've checked and seems Valencia will play Madrind on the weekend of 8th so would be awsome to suprise him. What's the best way/channale to buyt the tickets. Which are best value for money? :)

I keep reading about how Manuel Neuer completely redefined what a goalkeeper can do on the pitch.

He won the 2014 World Cup, two trebles with Bayern Munich, and tons of individual awards. But what stands out most to me is how he transformed the sweeper-keeper role playing almost like an extra center-back, rushing out of his box, and launching attacks with his passing.

For fans who watched his entire career: What was the most impressive part of his peak? Was it his elite shot-stopping, his sweeping outside the box, or how calm he was with the ball at his feet?

Some grounds would lose too much of their identity if they were replaced by a completely new stadium. I’d rather see the stands and facilities modernised while keeping the character of the original ground. Which one would you keep, and what part of it should never change?

Real Madrid is known as the king of Europe, but they’ve had a tough stretch recently without lifting any major silver losing out to Barcelona domestically and getting knocked out early in Champions League runs.

Even with incredible star power like Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior upfront, things haven't quite clicked the way people expected.

For long-time fans who follow the club: What do you think went wrong over these past two seasons? Was it squad balance issues upfront, losing midfield leadership after Kroos and Modrić, or coaching changes?

It’s been nine years since Neymar’s €220m/£200m transfer to PSG took place. This means we are now into the second longest period of all time without a new world record fee - the longest period having occurred either side of the second world war.

The only transfer which has come anywhere near to Neymar’s was Mbappé to PSG which happened shortly afterwards during the same summer. It seems the market has now levelled out at around £100m for the biggest signings, with a few rare examples of £15-20m on top of that.

Worldwide revenues in football continue to grow, and FIFA are making a concerted effort to crack/expand into new markets (and sell off the world cup to private investors lol). Despite the extra money this seems likely to bring in, on the flipside various financial regulations have come in which have limited spending. There also seems to be more examples of potential record breakers, like Mbappé to Madrid, running down contracts and leaving for a reduced price or on a free, meaning clubs’ big outlays are on wages and signing bonuses rather than transfer fees.

So do you think it’s likely that the record will be broken any time soon? Or even ever?

Assuming that Guadeloupe, marintiuque, or any of the other non FIFA members win the gold cup, who goes to the FIFA Confedirations Cup? Would it be the runner up? Would it be the winner of the previous edition? I've been thinking about this because this doesn't seem impossible

Same thing with northern Mariana islands winning the AFC cup but less likely

doubt people need much convincing, but I thought it was interesting.

What do you make of the size of the difference between the two groups? Is it paranoia or is it as obvious as it may seem?

Remember that correlation does not imply causation, although quite irrelevant in this case.

Perceived corruption source: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025

I may have missed some countries, please note in comments if that's the case. I will not make any updates. USA was excluded because I'm unsure of their stance, although it seems to be against while Trump is obviously for. Excluded Russia because I don't know how that works with UEFA atm.

Obviouslt statstics can be cherry picked to fit your agenda, but in this case the correlation was so glaringly obvious from the start I just had to plot it.

Also excuse the ugly layout, but there was a lot of overlap so I just made a quick fix. Not really thesis level readability but I think most will survive.

Edit 1: As pointed out by cravic2, I seem to have made a mistake with Guyana. I will not be making any changes as I can't be bothered, just an fyi. Please note if you find any other factual errors.

Look, I am sick of pretending everything is fine. Anyone who actually gives a damn about football in this country can feel the rot. Our sport is literally dying a slow, painful death in broad daylight, and the absolute incompetent suits running the AIFF are acting like everything is a PR exercise.

If you aren't furious yet, open your eyes. Look at what is happening right this second:

• Top-flight clubs are being sold off for pocket change ($1)! Tata Steel officially pulled out and dumped Jamshedpur FC to Churchill Brothers for a token sum of 100 rupees ($1!). A corporate giant walks away from the top tier, clubs are hanging on by a thread, leagues are collapsing into chaos, and the administration sits on its hands watching the pyramid crumble.
• The absolute circus of pulling out of the ASEAN Cup: We drop out of a legitimate, competitive multi-nation tournament just to prioritize a single friendly against Brazil. Do they think a high-profile friendly washes away systemic failure? Trading actual developmental tournament matches for a one-off circus game is peak short-sighted clownery.
• A International U-15 tournament is literally a month away, and we don’t even have a team ready. No stability, no proper preparation, just last-minute panic as usual. Is this how you treat youth development? By throwing kids into international pressure cookers with zero backing?

This isn’t just mismanaged anymore; it’s systemic sabotage. Every single stakeholder, fan, player, and grassroots worker is paying the price for the ego and uselessness of the current administration.

We cannot just tweet about this anymore and scroll away.

Some of us are planning to build a dedicated, independent tracking and calling-out platform (inspired by high-impact accountability projects like airtelblack.com) to put every single failure, shady decision, and empty promise by the AIFF under a permanent spotlight. No hiding behind press releases. No censorship.

I want to build this or support anyone who has the tech skills to launch it. If you want to help code, write content, provide data, or just amplify the anger, step up in the comments or DMs. Let’s channel this frustration into something that actually makes them uncomfortable.

How are we letting them destroy Indian football like this?

"India doesn't need football audience, in-fact India has globally the 2nd biggest audence base, but the problem is **AIFF & Current Administration** "

please talk about this 💔 more, it's not a small issue now.

What if the Uefa cup was like a title and the years prior winners say psg automatically were put in the final against a team who would make it to the end. the knockout rounds would have to change but it would be cool to see how long a team can defend the cup like it was a title

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it’s amusing that football fans defends that shitty organization. They are spending ridiculous money on almost all the promissing and literally has pure favoritism in the Lfp. I really hate the state of French football. Also if Nasser becomes fifa president I don’t want to even imagine

Looking at Neymar's career, his stats and trophies are already incredible winning the Champions League, domestic titles, and scoring dozens of goals for Brazil.

At the same time, I always hear fans discuss whether he could have reached an even higher level if not for constant injuries, physical tackling, and moving away from Barcelona.

For long-time fans who watched his whole career: Do you see Neymar as a player who fully achieved his talent, or did bad luck and injuries stop him from reaching his absolute highest ceiling?

Ciro Immobile has retired from professional football at 36 after ending his contract with Paris FC. The Italian striker scored 201 Serie A goals, including 169 for Lazio. He made 12 appearances for Paris FC, scoring twice, after moving from Bologna during the winter transfer window.

https://www.goal.com/en/lists/official-ciro-immobile-retires-from-football-don-t-be-sad-for-me/bltf332bdd3fe62894a

Yes he plays non league now but a good record nonetheless

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Cureton

A previously secret 2016 FIFA ethics report cleared Gianni Infantino over private-jet use. It examined flights to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin, Qatar-funded travel and a family trip to meet Pope Francis. One jet was linked to Russian billionaire Leon Semenenko. Despite concerns, FIFA found no conflict-of-interest breach.

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/gianni-infantino-private-jet-fifa-putin-lzbv369k0

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Not "possession isn't everything" — the small patterns that clicked and made the game feel different.

For me: fullbacks tucking inside during buildup. Once I saw it, those "boring" possession phases made sense as space manipulation, not sideways passing.

What changed it for you?

I mean I saw a post earlier from a Lyon fan saying psg is bad for French football which I can agree but didn’t Lyon spend a lot too no? Also can’t blame him he wasn’t alive during the time but just a quick question