Football 08/05/2017 - 12/-5/2017

On the face of it it’s been such a shitty, non-event of a season - major squids (or Chelsea) winning all the major trophies, assuming Real old man Juve, and the dullest Man United side in living memory sweeping up all the minor nothing trophies.

Look beyond the silverware, though, and there have been some pretty impressive performances by clubs who had no right to be challenging. Maybe Leicester have skewed our perceptions of overachievement. Nice in France, Atalanta in Italy, Vitória Guimarães in Portugal, Sevilla and Eibar in Spain, Basaksehir in Turkey. Even Hoffenheim and Leipzig in Germany if you’re mature enough to judge them on their footballing merits.

We should talk more about these sides, and less about Ronaldo scoring an offside goal in every big game, or Man United playing a back seven.

Joe Hart!

*Rangers, Europa League 2008

4 goals* for all Sweden

Quite a trek from the home counties to Stockholm tbf

Cup final ticket allocations are an absolute joke across the board.

probably the exact same amount as the other team tbf.

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Assuming that Ajax get the same, United fans will buy up the majority of the general sale tickets, the Swedes will be supporting Zlatan and the corporate prawn sandwich wankers will probably be cheering us on too, so I wouldn’t worry.

Aye this is the thing. The allocation is awful in the first place. Most of my mates went for tickets for the general sale release and took the potential hit. I’m now resigned to the fact that I won’t be joining them.

What were the odds in Manchester United drawing 1-1 last night?
Hopefully it won’t go to the last game, but I’m increasingly confident we can draw 1-1.

We’ll be resting all our main players for the final, for sure. Unlikely to have anything left to play for after the Spurs game either. Think you can get at least a draw.

A routine win then.

Friends Arena is a bit shit to be honest - 50,000 max capacity for football matches which is pretty poor for a European final - plus that place has no fucking atmosphere at all, totally dead acoustically even with the roof on

gonna try and get a ticket though ofc

It’s the Europa League, though, mate.

Could it BE any less suitable for a european final

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I just meant, to put it in context, it’s probably the Ajax fans who’ll fair worse and who’ll end up with the fewer tickets and fans in the stadium. Presuming we do have a “home” atmosphere, you can put the farm on a 1-1 draw leading to penalties.

One of my work pals got a ticket in the ballot, might see if he could be tempted to part with it

My mate’s kids’ school managed to fill the bottom tier (28,000 people) for a Christmas Concert

[insert joke about the Etihad wishing for crowds like this here]

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How are you doing, mate?