DISQUS

I found this:

Hitlerjugend (Boys): "Treu leben, todtrotzend kämpfen, lachend sterben"

http://books.google.de/books?id=H7YpyO7mj04C&pg...

Bund Deutscher Mädel (Girls): "Sei wahr, sei klar, sei deutsch"

http://78.46.67.42/showthread.php?t=46404 (Not the most reliable source and there are only seven google hits for this)

"So no one here is disgusted by the exorbitant amounts of cash that these players are earning and how they’re spending their money on cars, mansions and the like?

No one finds this excessive at all?"

I'm not, and I don't. Like many people, you seem to think that you know what the "right" or "fair" wage for doing something is. I believe there used to be an experiment along those lines in the 20th century; it didn't work. I, for one, am glad I live in a market economy.

And I can find nothing wrong with a person spending his honestly earned money on a gym. If he commits assault, that's a different issue.

I think the simple answer is that TV's two-dimensional. This never happens if you watch a game in the stadium.

As for free public transportation, most (all?) Bundesliga clubs have something similar: Free intra- (though not inter-) city transportation if you own a ticket. My understanding is that the clubs pay the local public transport organizations money for that, so that will be priced into the tickets. (I would guess UEFA had to do something similar.) Besides the money, the benefit to the transport organizations is that the bus driver doesn't have to sell 50 fans a ticket before he can restart the journey, which would disrupt schedules.

Zurich is known as one of the world's most expensive places. If it's feasible, try to get out of Zurichn as soon as you can to go to Basel, Klagenfurt, Vienna, wherever.

(offtopic, a technical matter)

If you click on "comments" at the post above (about Sneijder), you actually get taken to the comments section of a two-year-old post. Huh?

Michael,

would you have written a similar article if Terry hadn't slipped and scored the penalty?

A few things:

1. The lenience with the comments. As I've said before, a lot of the comments that remain I would actually delete if it were my blog. Calling someone a moron, for example, should not be on.

2. More importantly, I really hate the recent policy/software change of putting things below the fold. Extremely annoying; I could name at least one blog I would read daily if it didn't do that.

3. If that's technically possible, a preview function for comments would be great.

Simple explanation:

a) The group of fans that chooses to travel away is the hardcore lot.

b) The very act of traveling away puts them in a more boisterous mood. It's a day out. People on holiday likewise tend to behave more "freely", or whatever you want to call it.

It would be really stupid for clubs to increase the share of tickets for away fans given that that would increase the audible support for the away team.

Do you feel under pressure to deliver a trophy. Is that the reason for the monosyllabic answers?
‘No.’

Pure genious. Should qualify him for the Ernst Happel memorial medal. That Happel bloke, by the way, won two European Cups as a coach.

I think the Liverpool owners are a disgrace, but in England, professional football clubs happen to be businesses, so you'll get chairmen that aren't in it for a love of the game. Accusing a businessmen of wanting to make money is a bit like accusing a striker of wanting to score goals.

There are quite a few economists who study sports, including footie (some of whom blog here. I would think they have some interesting stuff to tell. In particular, Stefan Szymanski comes to mind.

Disagree with dragonki. Best piece I've read here for quite a while.

Scout,

even if there was no rape (as I assume), that Christmas party is still nothing to be proud of.

Rooney can't play alone up front, can he?

To me, the away shirt looks clearly green rather than grey. Something wrong with my monitor?

I've always liked these kinds of simple statistics in relation to sports, but I agree with Jim above: Given that it's a free-flowing game, statistics tell you relatively little in football.

To illustrate, if you learn that a midfielder only completes 40% of his passes, you know there is a problem. But seeing that one midfielder completes 70% and another completes 80% tells you hardly anything - for the simple reason that the former might try more risky passes.

Well, almost.

Again, all the best - although it doesn't seem to have helped much last time.

"That’s my point, Wenger should’ve taken a step back and refused to comment until after he had had time to cool down and speak with a clear mind."

1. Yeah, he probably should have refused to comment, but he's a human being.

2. Note in this respect that as a coach he's expected to comment both on the telly and in the press conference. That's part of his job description.

3. It's also part of his job description to show leadership. One might interpret this to imply answering questions to the press after matches, although I'm not sure I agree.

"He has other things to worry about than the punishment of a player on another team who Arsenal won’t play again this year and aren’t challenging their title run. "

4. Coming back to the topic of emotionality, I can't blame Wenger for not being able to analyze his team's defensive weaknesses right after the match. I'm sure he'll do so in the coming week.

5. If this were my blog, I'd have deleted most of the above comments for reasons of etiquette. Policy? Software problems? Just curious.

Like commenters above, I disagree. I didn't see the match on the telly, and the footage you linked to, as well as the clip I found on youtube, doesn't show an awful lot, but I've seen photos. The one that was linked to above is pretty tame; if you want to see sickening stuff, go here. A commenter at the linked page suggested that maybe fouling players should be banned for as long as their victims are injured, a thought to ponder.

How one can use this incident for an attack on Wenger is beyond me. Of course Taylor won't be banned for life, Wenger's was a moral point made in a very emotional situation.

Even so, I wish commenters would voice their disagreement in a more civilized manner.

Michael,

I've actually crunched the numbers and it turns out that in the history of the CL, 70.6% of the teams that played 0-0 in the first leg away went through. (Full results are here.

Of course, you could make the opposite argument: At Boro, he's more likely to play regularly than at a bigger club, and playing regularly helps you improve.

Geeez Christ, someone mentions that he didn't like City's kits (I disagree) and the majority of commenters is all over him - "hahe, but we have the points!" - sometimes insulting him.

As far as I am aware, The Gaffer isn't even a ManUtd supporter.

But if you want to perpetuate the stereotype that football fans are imbeciles, just go ahead.

Good to see you back! Get well soon!