Some exciting finishes the past few weekends in Europe:
- Leicester City managed to avoid having the clock strike midnight on their Cinderella story and won the English Premier League title. Glad to see the Algerian player, Riyad Mahrez win the Professional Footballer Association’s (PFA) Player of the year Award. By the way if you had put $100 for Leicester to win the title at the start of the season, you would have collected $500,000.
- In the Netherlands, all Ajax Amsterdam had to do was win against De Grafschap and they would have the title. Instead, they tied and PSV Eindhoeven beat Zwolle and won the title.
- Barcelona prevailed against Granada to beat real Madrid by one point and claim their second consecutive La Liga crown after a scary last month.
- In the yawn category, Benfica claimed its third consecutive title and Juventus won its fifth consecutive title.
As some of you may remember, in my last post I bemoaned Arsenal’s recently sloppy form. I was also teased by some Tottenham Hotspur fans in the comments. Today, on the last day of the season, all Tottenham needed to do to seal second place was to tie at Newcastle United, the third team from the bottom. Instead, they lost 5-1, giving up three goals after Newcastle had a player sent off (in fairness, one goal was on a very dodgy penalty). Still, if Arsenal did not win against Aston Villa, Spurs could still finish above them.
Alas, no such luck: Arsenal won 4-0 and claimed second place by a point. I’ll let this picture speak for me and all Arsenal fans.
burnspbesq
The suspicious package that caused the cancellation of the Man United match was left behind after a midweek training exercise for the bomb-sniffing dogs.
I shit you not.
ThresherK
What is that cartoon panel from?
@burnspbesq: Wow. All I read about was that it appeared 100% but was non-functional, which means it wasn’t a bowling ball with a burning fuse on it.
raven
Good to see you.
Randinho
@ThresherK: I pulled it off the internet a few years ago.
Prescott Cactus
I missed the post to drop a hundred on Leicester.
Randinho
@raven: As they say here, igualmente!
Mike J
And how about Rosberg taking out Hamilton?
Max Verstappen isn’t throwing away his shot. He’s young and scrappy and hungry.
Randinho
@Prescott Cactus: Just mentioned it to indicate how unlikely it was for them to have won: 5,000 to 1.
ThresherK
@Prescott Cactus: I had a work acquaintance win a bundle on the Patriots’ first Super Bowl victory (back before that was a thing). He placed a bet before Labor Day (i.e. before the opening kickoff of the season). I think his payoff was more in the 80-1 range, nothing like 5000-1.
Wag
Way to go, Newcastle! I lived in student housing at the University of Newcastle just across the road from the stadium. An amazingly friendly city in 1983, despite Thatcher’s attempts to kill it.
Prescott Cactus
@Randinho: If you had made that bet I would be asking you who you like in the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes.
@ThresherK: Aren’t those great bets ? I enjoy dropping $10 on mid to long shots whenever I make it to Las Vegas. My hope is that it’s enough to pay for the trip to cash the winner. NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, NCAA Football and maybe even NASCAR.
Lightning hasn’t struck yet !
Mr Stagger Lee
Leicester City’s championship will be regarded as the greatest legend in Premier League history or at least this century. Will their manager be fleeced to some other team? Oh by the way who won the Bundesliga?
burnspbesq
@Wag:
There is nothing wrong with Newcastle United Football Club that new ownership couldn’t cure.
burnspbesq
If I were to make a list of over-the-hill superstars most likely to destroy the chemistry of a winning team, Zlatan Ibrahimovich would be right at the top. DO NOT WANT. There’s only one ball, and it’s hard enough to get Keane, Gerrard, dos Santos, and Zardes to share it.
Randinho
@burnspbesq: Full article here.
ThresherK
@burnspbesq: And maybe returning Newcastle brewery as a sponsor. I can’t believe that ever stopped. My wife, who loves the ale but asks “why are those guys dressed in referee shirts” concurs.
Mike J
Footballer plays football. Seahawks kicker takes penalty
https://twitter.com/brad_evans3/status/731988863929851904
Jeffro
Speaking as a relatively new and only occasionally-remembering-when-the-game’s-gonna-be-on Tottenham fan, the heck with you Arsenal fans and most certainly with Leicester City and also now Newcastle United.
It’s almost like I picked up a club to root for and three to hate, all in the space of one season. Exactly like that, actually.
burnspbesq
@ThresherK:
You could say the same for Leicester. I understand that the guy who owns King Power owns the team, but the fromt of Leicester’s jerseys should say “Walker’s.”
Geoduck
@ThresherK: For anyone who is interested, here’s the original version of that graphic.
burnspbesq
ManU-Bournemouth rescheduled for 8:00 p.m. BST on Tuesday.
Mike J
@Jeffro:
You’re supposed to hate Chelsea too, but the only thing they did to annoy you this year was the game that made it impossible to catch LC. So I guess that’s good enough.
We hate Tottenham Hotspur
We hate Arsenal too
We hate Man United
But Chelsea we love you
dedc79
A dark day for Spurs fans. Actually a dark few weeks. Have had a bad feeling ever since the draw against West Brom. What the last few weeks have shown is that Kane is great, but can’t carry the offense all by himself. They’ve really missed Alli.
JCJ
@Mr Stagger Lee:
If you are serious with your question the answer is Bayern München. For sure it was not FC Kaiserslautern.
JCJ
@Mike J:
I sent your poem to a coworker whose kids are huge fans of Chelsea. She liked it.
Mike J
@JCJ: Sing it to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory (Pomp and Circumstance). It will make graduation ceremonies livelier.
? Martin
@Mike J: Yeah, I just… Hamilton needs every race to claw those points back. It was his own fault for getting passed in turn 1, but Nico should have known he was caught when he screwed up his engine map.
That aside, Max ran a good race. He’s earned a top ride. Lets see if he can not cannonball through Monaco this year.
Mike J
@? Martin: I was afraid Ham was going to get a 10 spot penalty in Monaco, which would mean there wouldn’t be a lot of reason for him to even show up. (Easter egg in original comment for the LMM fans)
Nobody wants a rerun of last year’s Monaco. Not Max, and certainly not Lewis.
A
Fair play to the Arse. Ever since we made a meal of the Chelsea debacle and lost both Dembele and Alli for the rest of the season, this was in the cards. Need to do some business in the summer. Very few outside of the starting XI can keep up. We’ll lick our wounds and rebound. Onwards and upwards. COYS
ThresherK (GPad)
@Geoduck: I love the paragraph of speech from each of.them in that panel. Perfect example of the trope “Talking is a free action”.
@burnspbesq: Now I have to go to a liquor store and buy whatever Walker’s is.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThresherK (GPad): Isn’t Walker’s the crisps company?
burnspbesq
@A:
Given how much he improved over the second half of the season, you should expect to get multiple offers for Yedlin. And ffs, send Carter-Vickers out on loan so he can get some playing time.
Francis
So my wife roots for Arsenal and I’ve gotten up early (here on Pacific time) to watch a game or two. And it seems to me that the offensive strategy is for Alexis Sanchez to run around really hard while everyone kinda stands around, especially Giroud. Then once per game someone makes a good pass and suddenly the ball’s in the back of the net. Wouldn’t it make more sense for a couple of the midfielders to work a little harder in support, or do I just know nothing about (english) football?
KRK
Happy St. Totteringham’s Day, Randinho!
A
@burnspbesq: Agreed Yedlin did a great job out on loan with Sunderland. He and Defoe certainly contributed mightily to them staying up.
Don’t know the reason for CCV being in limbo. Think a lot of movement is going to be going on this summer.
After a few weeks, will be back to being excited for 2016-17. Here’s hoping no one gets injured out on international duty this summer (that goes for everyone’s players of course).
? Martin
@Mike J: I didn’t see any way that Lewis would get a penalty. Even though he was behind Nico, he was closing so quickly that there was no way to avoid either a collision or going on the grass. Nico should have left a car width as the regs state and should have been the one to get sanctioned.
Amir Khalid
The most important for Newcastle to do now is persuade Rafa Benitez to stay on as manager. He’s done the club a world of good since he was brought in, even if a bit too late to save them from relegation, and the fans and players believe in his leadership.
I do hope Liverpool win the Europa League final this week and get into Champions League for the new season.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@burnspbesq:
Ain’t that the truth. I spent the second half of the season actually hoping to be relegated, since I think spending a couple of years in the Championship may be the only way to get him to sell. For Americans, think what David Glass’ ownership of the KC Royals was like prior to the past four years, or Donald Sterling, except possibly without the racism. His strategy was to collect the shared revenues, and put just enough into the team to avoid relegation, while using it as a vehicle to promote his athletic apparel stores. It’s fitting that it blew up in his face by failing to avoid relegation right before the huge new TV contract kicks in.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Jeffro: It could be worse; you could actually be a Newcastle fan, a fate full of self-loathing.
Origuy
@burnspbesq: If you forget to pick up the fake bomb after a training exercise, you fail the training exercise.
Mike G
@Mike J:
Max Verstappen winning a Formula One race at age 18!
Amazing.
Origuy
I haven’t picked a team to like in the English League but I already hate Man United, and I’m not too fond of Man City. Mainly because I didn’t really like Manchester when I was there four years ago. Getting a ticket for driving in a bus lane from one of the ubiquitous cameras after I’d gotten back home didn’t help.
Humboldtblue
We’ll never see another Leicester City because teams like Man City, United, and Chelsea aren’t all going to have down years together no matter how much revenue sharing the new TV contract brings in. Spurs doing a “That’s so Spursy” thing isn’t much of a surprise but Pochettino has them set up for a long ride at the top of table and the manager matchups for next season are looking delicious with Klopp, Conte, Pep and most likely Mourinho roaming the sidelines.
Let’s hope United keep Van Gaal on board just so those miserable Mancunians remain miserable and I would expect a top-6 finish for the Foxes if they can avoid the injury bug and the loss of either Kante or Mahrez in the off-season. They’re going to spend on depth and they’re going to need it after a winter in which they had to play no mid-week games. Liverpool are going to play their 63rd match of the season on Wednesday (and they had better fucking win it too) compared to Leicester who played just 44. That difference in the number of games and the quality of the opponents will change dramatically next season.
Still, it was the single most exciting and shocking Premier League season on record and what Claudio Ranieri was able to accomplish goes down as the greatest single-season accomplishment in team sports.
Humboldtblue
@Origuy: Any decent human being who hates Manchester United automatically becomes a Liverpool fan, it’s a rule of the universe like stars and planets and shit. So welcome to the Reds, origuy, you’ll find tradition, the best team anthem in the sport and a manic German on the sidelines and of course, you’ll never walk alone.
Terpitude
Well, Arsenal certainly know their place. Second!
Origuy
@Humboldtblue:
I’m good with that. My Welsh and Irish ancestry qualifies me.
humboldtblue
@Origuy: Welcome aboard! Tomorrow at 11:45 a.m. (PST) the Reds take on Sevilla for the Euro League championship, the only way for Liverpool to reach European competition next season!
Sevilla are two-time defending champs of Euro League and have an outstanding offense but they play defense like a Palin daughter prevents pregnancy and the Reds have found an extra gear in attack and with Daniel Sturridge fit and hale it should be an entertaining match.