Sam’s Safe Space For Soccer Stoolies
Hello there soccer/Sam haters, and soccer/Sam lovers (Hi mom), and dummies who meant to click on Guess That Ass but missed!
So here it is, the last soccer blog Barstool will post this year – and what a 12-month rollercoaster it has been.
woke af
In fact, before we get started, a quick note of THANKS to those of you who have been reading for a while, I assume mostly to watch gleefully as Spurs raise my hopes then crush my soul when St. Totteringham’s Day inevitably rolls around; as well as any recent additions to the few, the proud, the uncloseted “army” (division? brigade? regiment? battalion? company? militia??) of soccer fans in or around or even not associated with the stoolieverse. Someone left a comment on the last blog saying they didn’t get into jogo bonito until they started reading the blogs, which warmed even my cold black stump of a heart since that’s 75% of why I’ve been doing these things week in and week out (the other 25%, of course, being to piss off the “SOCERS FUR THE GEYS” commenting contingent). Anyway, point being thanks for following along and here’s to another year of Messi magic, Ronnie ridiculousness, Pulisic pizzazz, Spurs suckiness and MNT manic-depressiveness.
In Bruce we trust… after all, what other choice is there?
Moving right along, we gots lots to discuss this week, including some extremely prestigious awards to hand out, some big, bad, bald Bob Bradley firings to discuss (briefly), and last but not least some games to discuss (and mo’ money to win)… and away we go.
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17th* ANNUAL SMARMY™ AWARDS
Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of you might be a little confused while thinking that this is the first annual SaMsARMY™ Awards Celebration & Gala, but that’s what is so liberating about this post-truth society in which we now reside. I was a little nervous at first but I gotta admit it is pretty liberating. As for the awards themselves that are being handed out, not to mention the winners, I’m just sorta (totally) making it up as I go along so feel free to suggest awards I missed or winners I got wrong in the comments.
Now let’s start with the boring ones and work our way up:
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Team of the Year Award
Leicester City Football Club – there’s really nothing left to say about these buggers. Ranieri and company deserve all the credit in the world for coming out of nowhere and shaking up the oligarchical EPL system down to its very foundation. Also, after some earnest genuflection, I would also like to add my own heartfelt THANK YOU to the Foxes for downgrading what might otherwise have been the single most awful, painful, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in the history of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club into just another extremely sucky St Totteringham’s Day… because Spurs’ late-season (suspension-fueled) implosion that allowed Arsenal to jump us into second place was bad enough, but if the Gooners had jumped us into first place on the last day of the season and lifted the trophy right in my face then I would have legitimately been forced to jump off a bridge.
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Coach of the Year Award
Claudio Ranieri – I mean, obv, and while EPLeicester’s performance this season takes some of the shine away, UCLeicester’s inexplicable success means Ranieri gets to take home the silverware. Among the notable honorable mentions in this category are Zinedine Zidane, who fell short because his team costs more than the combined GDP of the developing world; Antonio Conte, whose late charge wasn’t quite enough to get him over the top; and finally Jurgen Klopp, who earned a smattering of votes for shepherding Liverpool into 2nd place in the EPL at the moment despite a defense held together with toothpicks, silly string, a piece of gum and (sometimes) Joel Matip.
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EPL Player of the Year Award
N’Golo Kante – in the ultimate case of nbd but kbd Kante was bought by Leicester for the equivalent of chump change prior to the 2015-16 season and has since helped carry the Foxes to the single most unexpected championship in soccer history and is now playing a key role in Chelsea – fresh off the club’s most embarrassing season in years – dropping its tiny blue testicles on the rest of the league after 18 games.
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Player of the Year Award
Ronny – credit where credit is due, the guy has been a godamn machine in 2016.
Not even flexing
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Bae of the Year Award
Christian Pulisic – old boy, literally, went from 17-year-old with untold potential to 18-year-old starter for Dortmund and possibly already the best player on the USMNT. A lot of things did not go “right” this year but the development and evolution of Pulisic could not possibly have turned out better.
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GFY of the Year Award
Gianni Infantino – the newly installed FIFA president is immediately seeking to burnish the “I only give a shit about cash-money” credentials that got him elected in February and proposing to fix what absolutely is not broken by changing the format of the World Cup to include more teams, thereby ensuring more games (aka money) while watering down the quality of play. A lot of people wins under this scenario – FIFA, sponsors, national federations – but one clear loser is the fans. Who gives a shit about them though, amirite Gianni?
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Frank Lampard Honorary “Wait Remind Me Again Why You Aren’t Playing In MLS Right Now?” of the Year Award
Wayne Rooney – Father Time can be a real asshat sometimes.
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Donald J. Trump Honorary “Jfc Where Is This Going?” Award
The Chinese Super League’s desperate attempt to buy relevance by making Carlos Tevez the highest paid soccer player in the world. The Boca Bulldog (if that’s not his nickname it sure as shit should be) is a nice player and all, and his dogged determination and perma-hustle makes him fun to watch, but this – not to mention then contracts being offered to guys like Oscar, Gervinho, Jackson Martinez, Hulk and even (reportedly) Cristiano Ronaldo – has BUBBLE written all over it. How this plays out is anybody’s guess, and I’m all for a free market system, but you’d be well within your rights as a rational person to be a little nervous about what it all means.
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Hillary Clinton Honorary “Landslide Ass-Whooping” of the Year Award
The USMNT garnered some votes for their roll-over-and-play-dead 0-4 loss to Argentina in this summer’s Copa America, but there is really only one serious contender for this one: Mexico’s 0-7 annihilation at the hands of Chile a couple days earlier was the single worst loss suffered by a team/country since Germany blitzkrieged the shit out of Brazil in WC14.
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“Reason #7,500,498 Not To Share Your Twitter Password” of the Year Award
Samir Nasri – who we always suspected was a big stupid idiot, but a little confirmation never hurts.
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Downy® Honorary “Fans Softer Than Baby Shit” of the Year Award
I never thought this day would come but after winning the award in 16 straight years the unthinkable has happened: Liverpool was beaten out this year. I know, I’m as shocked as you but there is simply no denying the amount of butthurtedness oozing from the comment section this season from Manchester United fans. Unfortunately the comments disappear these days so I can’t provide all the highlight-reel worthy remarks, but here is a good example:
Pregame comment:
Postgame comment:
I guess you showed me, bigbadrad. Shame on me for ever having doubted United. Out of curiosity, I wonder what my “disrespectful” prediction was?
Oh.
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Goal of the Year Award
Lots of options, and included in the youtube video below are all the candidates nominated for FIFA’s “Puskas Award” (though it is missing some like Xherdan Shaqiri’s bicycle for Switzerland in the Euros and Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s scorpion kick against Sunderland this past weekend – just to name a few), but for my money, and from a “holy shit what skill” perspective, I’m going the first of the nominated options that came from Spain’s Mario Gaspar in a friendly versus England in late 2015:
[Massive honourable mention goes to the nominated candidate from Atletico’s Saul Niguez against Bayern in the Champions League based on the combination of skill and incredible importance.]
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BOB BRADLEY
VERY BRIEFLY, everybody and their mother has offered “takes” on Swansea’s decision to part ways with Bradley after only 11 games so I won’t belabor the point too much. In fact, Soccer Twitter just about folded in on itself this week discussing the various why’s and who-fucked-up-more’s of the situation, with lots of people saying the club was right to fire BBBB given the team’s poor performance, and plenty of others saying it was ridiculous to do so after such a short stint in charge.
The fact, per usual when it comes to “twitter arguments”, there are elements of truth to both sides. Swansea has suckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkked hard for most of the 85 days since Bradley was brought on board (2 wins, 2 draws and 7 losses is Bad with a capital B), and perhaps worse they haven’t shown much improvement. Bobbo has also made some rather strange tactical decisions, which haven’t helped his cause.
That said, firing a coach you brought in midseason without giving him a single transfer window means the ownership group – especially or excluding Big Cat, depending on who you talk to –
royally fucked this entire thing up, and is far more to blame than Bradley.
NOW ON TO THE FOOTIE…
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ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Reminder of what happened last weekend:
News, notes and observations:
– I’ll keep these short and sweet but despite the big wins for all the top clubs – we’re going to have to start referring to them as “The Big Six” from here on out this season, btw – not named Arsenal, there was a very wide range of “impressiveness” from the performances themselves. Specifically, the nature of the wins by Tottenham, United and City were hardly results to write home about, whereas Chelsea and Liverpool looked comparatively more dominant (albeit at home, unlike Spurs and City).
– Huge win for Everton, which is somehow in 7th place and on pace to finish 2016 with more points than it has had in years, this despite rarely looking much like a good soccer team since September.
– As I said above, firing Bradley without giving him even a single transfer window to clean up the mess he was handed strikes me as ridiculous… but that said, conceding four goals to West Ham is a prettttttttttttty disgusting look.
– Priceless points for Burnley in precisely the type of ugly 1-0 home win that Swansea was no doubt looking for more of from BBBB (R.I.P.)
– Bad news for Hull: clubs at the bottom of the table at Christmas almost always go down. Good news for Hull: Sunderland and Leicester have both beaten the odds in recent years.
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After 18 games this is what we got:
And here are the games on deck this weekend:
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PICKS OF THE WEEK
Liverpool [+130]
City [+200]
Draw [+245]
Bit silly to call this a “title eliminator” with 50% of the season left to be played, though some talking heads will no doubt do just that. Anyway, first thing first: this game should be a lotttttttttttttt of fun. Picture two extremely top-heavy young ladies walloping each other with pillows. Defense? Nope. Big boobsy offenses throwing haymakers? Yessir.
Both clubs are out of sorts defensively, and the “chess match” (ie, tactical decisions on starting XI and formation) between Guardiola and Klopp should be interesting, but I can’t help thinking this game will come down to one matchup: Sergio Aguero vs Philippe Coutinho. One is fresh (and freshly motivated) coming off a suspension while the other is hurt and on the bench. I know which one I’m going with. City to win 3-2.
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Watford [+415]
Tottenham [-155]
Draw [+280]
Watford has fallen to 10th place after hitting a rough patch, having lost four of its last six including a home draw last time out versus 17th place (and recently coach-less) Palace. Be that as it may, and this coming from a guy who likes Spurs as much as the next guy – or way way way way way more, whevs – the bookies seem a little too pessimistic about a perfectly healthy Watford squad at Vicarage Road against a Tottenham squad that will be without two of four backline mainstays thanks to suspensions for Jan Vertonghen and Kyle Walker, while Toby Alderweireld is fresh off a mysterious “illness”. This will come down to Watford’s anemia offense versus Spurs’ decimated defense. I’m on the fence on this one with 49.9% of me saying 1-1 draw, but gotta go with the other 50.1%: Tottenham to win 2-1.
Note: nobody is talking about this since they pulled it out anyway on Wednesday, and I’m not a conspiracy theory guy, but the fact that Spurs score roughly 97% of their goals from the penalty spot and the grass at Southampton’s penalty spot mysteriously was for shit… just connecting dots here, people.
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Other picks:
• SAM’S LOCK OF THE WEEKEND: Swansea [+175] at home in what should have been a must-win-or-get-canned game for BBBB against Bournemouth [+150]. Little tip on caretaker manager’s: there is a reason they aren’t full-time managers. Cherries were thoroughly overmatched against Chelsea on Sunday, but this will be like playing FIFA on amateur after warming up on world class. Bournemouth to win 3-1.
• Stoke [+1000] is in dire need of a striker at the transfer window (who would’ve guessed that Wilfried Bony would – yet again – disappoint?) and just isn’t the same with Marko Arnautovic out (suspended). I would not be surprised if Chelsea [-400] gets tripped up at some point during the busy holiday period, but tough to imagine it being in this one. Chelsea to win 2-0.
• Lost in the hubbub about Chelsea’s impressive winning streak is the fact that United is on a 11-game unbeaten streak stretching back to a Europa League game at Fenerbahce in early November, including 8 wins and 3 draws. Not too shabby. That said, it may come as little surprise to the haters that I’m still not sold on the Red Devils as a top four team despite the undeniable glut of talent. I’m still not sold on the Red Devils as a top four team at the moment despite the undeniable talent. Middlesbrough on the other hand is a tough club to figure out. They fought for draws against the likes of Arsenal and City (and lost a close 1-0 game to Chelsea) a few months ago but in their most recent matchup against one of The Big Six they got whooped 0-3 in their own backyard by Liverpool. I’ll admit I’m still not sure what to think about Boro at this point, and when all else fails the only smart plan is to refer to my handy-dandy flowchart:
[Hint: Roon-dog has been ruled out with a thigh injury] United to win 1-0.
• Arsenal [-330] has looked surprisingly listless lately, while Palace [+850] deserves credit for showing some signs of life in the last few games despite not having any wins to show for it. The Eagles look a little too one-dimensional to win this, particularly with Mustafi back next to Koscielny at centerback, though a draw is not out of the realm of plausibility. In the end I’m playing it safe though, Arsenal to win 2-1.
• And finally some quick hitters to increase the chances I end up getting one right: EPLeicester over West Ham because the Hammers scored all their goals for the month last weekend, Southampton over West Brom because the Saints deserved better last weekend and Tony Pulis is the midst of making his traditional bee-line to 14th place, and finally Burnley/Sunderland draw because that makes nobody happy and misery loves company.
LATE UPDATE: blog didn’t go up in time to include a preview of Hull vs Everton, which the Toffees somehow found a way to NOT get three points in.
Everton gonna Everton
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REST OF THE WORLD
Spain: too lazy to play this week
Italy: too lazy to play this week
Germany: too lazy to play this MONTH
Scotland: OLD FIRM DÆRBY!
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So there we have it. Have yourselves a safe and sound NYE but get ready because the next round of games starts immediately after this one ends. Thus, I’ll be back with a possibly abbreviated and definitely inebriated preview on New Year’s Day.
R.I.P. homey
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