The Groupies : A Week in Soccer
That’s right, time for everyone’s favorite awards show, the GROUPIES! Jk, this title is referring to the fact that the past three weeks have been mostly group stages for both international and Champions League play. For international play, it’s been qualification groups for World Cup 2022 in Qatar, which is almost exactly a year away as it will be played in November- December due to INTENSE HEAT since last I checked, Qatar is a DESERT but ok pop off FIFA. For Champions, we’re starting up the season again with a bunch of random newbies!
Anyways, no time to go over ALL the groups in all the international conferences, plus we got a lotta time left before the Ship, so highlights :
France is still struggling to be a cohesive team after their tragic elimination in the Euro Cup, which was followed by 2 tie games, ( or as we say in French, match NUL) against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine (no, neither of these teams are that good!). France also showed little discipline, getting a well-deserved red card in the match against Bosnia. They DID manage to right the ship somewhat with a 2-0 win over Finland, but it remains to be seen how this team is going to come together. Right now, the in-theory-winning combo of Grizou, Benzema and Mbappé is simply… not it chief?? Only Mbappé has consistently played well (though sat out Finland due to a hit to the calf, leading to me learning the French word for calf, which is mollet) ; the other two just can’t seem to figure out how they all work together. Paul O Paul Pogba is being asked to play the long game, and the man simply cannot do it ALL okay! Of course, something to be said for the lack of rest and return to league play right before this break, but still. Les Bleus lead their group so all is not lost, but the chemistry issues need to be worked out sooner rather than later
CHAMPIONS’ GROUPIES
The great thing about this part of Champions’ is we find out about tiny random teams and it’s really delightful! oh, except for the evil Soviet team of Sheriff apparently? (wild happenings in Moldova, a real country that does exist, and Transnistria, a fake country that does not). In Tuesday’s play, lots of red cards thrown around (Sevilla, Man U, Wolfsburg and Villareal all got one) and a series of standard results : Juventus beat Malmö (an adorable Swedish town we’ve been to!), Lille (LOSC) tied Wolfsburg (0-0), Villareal tied Atalanta 2-2 (not Atlanta!) and Bayern beat Barça (clearly missing Messi, they did not have a single shot on target) (but also, can anyone beat Bayern rn). The most hilarious /interesting match was the Bern YOUNG BOYS that is right that is their ACTUAL NAME stunned Man U, beating them 2-1 after the red card was issued. I have no highbrow commentary about this, but I think it is straight up hysterical that they are named the Young Boys. Also always funny to watch Ronaldo lose!
Unfortunately, the fun ended on Wednesday when PSG had a MATCH NUL in every sense of the word, tying Bruges. They failed to get it together on the attack (because Verratti was missing? Because Icardi was shitty? Because Paredes? Who knows). At least the Bruges supporters had a good time I guess. Liverpool beat AC Milan, Dortmund beach some rando, Atletico tied Porto (another red card match) and Real beat Inter (more on Real later), and Evil Sheriff beat Turkey.
In the Premier League…
Liverpool beat Leeds, BUT AT WHAT COST??? Harvey Elliott. That’s the cost. Who knew people could also get injured in THIS type of football?!?! Man City continued to look scary, beating Leicester 1-3. Chelsea cruised to a 3-0 victory, with Timo Werner looking better and better each day. Spurs lost their clean sheet streak, snagged a red card, and lost to Crystal Palace in another 3-0 thriller. I guess the theme of the week was either you score three goals (Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Everton all did) or ya lose! Wolves broke their goalless streak with a win over Watford (cheap win, but fine) and Brentford lost for the first time since joining the top tier, to Brighton. There wasn’t a ton of interesting things happening here this week IMHO, just the face that here we are 4 weeks into the season and ALREADY there have been some gruesome injuries. Stay safe out there fellas!
In Ligue 1…
MArseille has been the most exciting team to watch. I mean, don’t get crazy, they’re not going to win the league or anything, but they’re winning crazy games and scoring some reeeeealllly pretty goals. I mean, Monaco is not the best team in the league or anything but they’re fighters and MArseille beating them is a solid W. Who’s not exciting to watch right now? Lille. They’re in a bit of a slump. But, remember, so was PSG at the beginning of last season! The arc of history (european soccer leagues) is long and it bends towards justice (and by that we mean $$$). Speaking of money, PSG knocked off the as-yet unbeaten Clermont Foot in a 4-0 slam. Ander Herrara cannot stop scoring goals, even though we paid LARGE SUMS of money to THREE OTHER PEOPLE (cough Mbappe, Neymar, Messi) to do that. Just kidding, all jokes, Mbappe scored too don’t worry. Lyon is also off to a cracking start (despite losing the transfer window, if you ask me, which no one does) and got a W this weekend as well. Looking ahead, you definitely should tune into some of the Ligue 1 action this week because there are derby days all over the map: Lens vs Lille, Nice vs Monaco, Angers vs Nantes, and PSG vs Lyon (which should be a good one).
In the Bundesliga…
I am once again on the hunt for a better bundesliga news source because my podcast switched to MONTHLY which, is not exactly helpful!!!! What I learned in the September edition is that Wolfsburg is off to a better start than anticipated, made good moves in the transfer window, and are looking better than say, a Frankfurt, at this time. However they also got in trouble during a recent game for making too many substitutions which is sort of like handing in your test without filling out the back page…dumb mistakes babe. They’ve won every game so far though! Not looking so hot: Hertha Berlin, who have a troubling tendency of conceding a lot of goals. Not great guys! RB Leipzig is on the struggle bus as well, down in midtable at the moment, and the same with Gladbach, who were ok last year but now no one really knows what’s going on with them. Also, there is a lot of drama in the Bundesliga over FAN AUDIENCES at games because venues are mostly only at 50% (even for vaxxies), and larger stadiums can only hold like 25,000 people (except Bayern, who agreed earlier to do 20,000) and then all the FAN ASSOCIATIONS (supporters clubs etc) were like this isn’t fair!!!! But it’s a state-by-state decision, and all the officials were like well we don’t know what it’ll be like to have people back so let’s try this and then we can talk full capacity!!! And the supporters were like EITHER WE ALL COME OR NONE OF US DO. Anyways tbd what’s going to happen with that!!!
In La Liga…
Ok is Real Madrid going to WIN THE LEAGUE?!?!?!!?!?! They’re playing at the top of their game right now, Karim Benzema (Booooooo) is scoring left and right, and Eduardo Camavinga made a GREAT debut scoring a little goal! Go off king! Also having a nice streak: Valencia, who sit in second and were a joy to watch over the weekend. A couple of games from this weekend were cancelled (Idk maybe because of weather or something, who can keep up, has anyone noticed how much content we are producing right now it’s exhausting), so I think that mostly wraps things up here, but keep an eye out for Selener (Real Madrid) because they are on a hot streak baby!
In Serie A…
Everyone’s favorite soccer league baby! As always, the drama continues! I recently found out that these games are just on TV on the ol’ CBS which is actually great news! I mean, we’re not sponsored by them or anything and I don’t support all that Paramount+ bullshit but I do like to acknowledge when soccer IS ACTUALLY ON TV instead of all these dumbass streaming services or special access plans. So, Kudos. We can also give out kudos to Fiorentina for beating Atalanta (Atalanta getting distracted by European play and dropping the ball, per usual), Venezia for hearing us talk shit and actually winning a game (against Empoli, but still!), and Napoli for beating Juventus (hahaha Juventus sucks now!!!!). AC Milan beat Lazio in a spicy little match up, but Inter failed to beat Sampdoria, which just is a fun name for a team.
Looking Ahead…
In domestic leagues this was not the most thrilling week of soccer, I’ll admit it, but 1) we’re all tired from that international break and 2) the champion’s league is BACK baby so we still have plenty to watch. The goals were good and the calves were sculpted by the gods, and for those reasons alone we will keep tuning in. See you next week, and until then Cheers!
