Well Cap never talked shite to others and never claimed he was strong cause “hardwork” and “natural genes” so...
Is Marco Verratti's star fading?
- Thread starter Fortitude
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PSG are not heavyweights, you don't become European heavyweights by not ever winning anything. But you know that, no amount of Gallic posturing will change that.
Anyways, Italian football is far more interesting than Ligue 1, teams like Juve, Inter, Milan, Roma, Napoli have a pedigree and tradition that is not matched in France. It's not just money either, the best Italian players have traditionally played at home, whereas the best French players (Platini, Zidane, Thuram, Henry, Griezmann, Benzema, Ribery, Pogba) hardly played in Ligue 1. Even now, the backbone of the team that won the WC plays abroad. I'm sure Mbappe can't wait to get the feck out of dodge.
I am surprised you didn't mention Vikas Dhorasso, I thought he played well for PSG in the mid 90's
It’s small man syndrome. Nobody would play for their little team if those Arab overlords dont pour some blood money. PSG is Qatar form of PR, deal with it. Without Glazer, United would still be relevant but without those owners PSG would be nothing. It’s literally form of money doping in highest order. If Qatar decided to buy Lille or Nice, PSG would be still dwelling on the bottom barrel of Ligue Un. You guys deep down know that
not that we all love trump but i've seen it all when someone is trying to make united fans feel guilty by trying to equate trump with the qataris, even ignoring the tenuous at best claims of the glazers funding him. just like fans of other little clubs who try to make themselves feel better after their club 'cheat coded' their way to making sure they will keep getting the shiniest toys in the store.
I don't need to feel better, I supported this club before Qatar and will after they leave. Kinda ridiculous to see you describe the claims about the Glazers funding Trump as "tenuous at best" when it's actually well documented.
It's pretty disapointing to see how any thread here can turn into a "this or that club doesn't deserve this player, they don't have history like us; he's in it for the money". I guess players don't get paid to play for Man Utd. Alexis Sanchez could have something to say about these condescending assertions. I'm also sure that DDG stayed for the love of Man Utd's history and splendour, and not at all because he's getting 20M a year when Ter Stegen at Barcelona (who's a FAR superior gk) only gets 8M.
PSG won't win the UCL until the french league improves they always seem incapable of "rising" to the occasion. I say this because would Liverpool have won last season if they didn't aspire to go past the level that City set domestically ? The quality of individual players in a squad doesn't necessarily equate to having a good team. I like Tuchel and think he's a very good manager but PSG are certainly not European heavyweights that's absolutely comical.
I wouldn't even consider us to be considered a European heavyweight despite winning the competition three times, I'd say we have been highly competitive especially considering the inception of the competition was formed in the 50's there's very few clubs who can fit such a description.
I wouldn't even consider us to be considered a European heavyweight despite winning the competition three times, I'd say we have been highly competitive especially considering the inception of the competition was formed in the 50's there's very few clubs who can fit such a description.
United aren't European Heavyweights.... really
3 Champions leagues
1 Europa League
1 Cup winners cup
I'd say that makes us a heavyweight myself but you're entitled to your own opinion.
You have dozens of definitions of heavyweight, and every supporter choses the definition that suits him best.
My definition is : a team that consistantly reaches CL semi finals in the past 5-10 years. Meaning that neither PSG or Man Utd are currently heavyweights.
Can we go back on track now? I'm sure there's already specific threads to trash PSG.
I mean if that makes us heavyweights, what are the clubs who are twice as successful as us in Europe (Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, AC Milan). Obviously nobody gets near the god of European football - Real Madrid.
Well to be fair, we arent exactly in the same bracket as Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Liverpool, and Bayern when it comes to Europe. Even Ajax has one more then us. And SAF admitted he wished he squeezed out more then 2 champions league thropies. I wished we had at least one more. But I'm not complaining. We were monsters and feared in Europe back in the 2000's.
But we are a top 10 European club though. Just not the giants as the clubs I mentioned above. Their Tier 1. We are Tier 2 in the Europe.
They went to the place where they wanted to be and most likely where they have interests. Marseille are on the cusp of a similar takeover and I believe Paris FC as well. Not forgetting Monaco who has an owner who dwarfs Chelsea's.
Laughing heavily out of nervousness, maybe?
You do not have to win the UCL to be considered a heavyweight but PSG are getting there and I must say have some of the worse draws year after year while Juventus often get cakewalks.
I would not say so especially now when it is obvious italian football is on the wane and those teams got their history from a time when Italy controlled the majority of money in football. Since that has changed their success and tradition has largely dissipated bar the odd win for the milanese clubs.
The best italian players have stayed at home because they are not great travellers same as the brits, that has nothing to do with what league is better. Russians hardly leave their league are you saying that league is great as well?! French people on the other hand are great travellers so go play in other leagues but even that is changing now in that many of them prefer to come back to Ligue1 and the French countryside before long. Payet for instance was playing in the great epl but could not wait to get back to Ligue1. The French league is on the up while the Italian league is threading water, that is clear.
you could use that logic to claim benfica and forest are bigger clubs than they actually are. its not just about trophy counts.
it's the ones who have 'always supported' such clubs who often come off worse at such times by bending over themselves backwards to reach for any sliver of legitimacy. look at many of the city fans or the newcastle ones who are pining for the saudis.
All tenuousness aside, businessmen will fund every side of the political spectrum to cover their bases, so let's not get into that. your desperate false equivalency is just that. let's not even get into comparing your genocidal isis funding owners with the orange man.
guess what? ddg did choose to stay and come here in the first place and alexis was always going to get paid a feckton no matter where he went anyway, see City. this 'condescension' comes from having done it the hard way over decades without having to use the real life equivalent of a cheat code. it's also what lets us sign players who would otherwise not sign for clubs who don't play in the CL. It wouldn't be as much of a problem if the likes of you actually admitted the truth of the matter.
You seem very naive.. You really think that DDG would have stayed with a "normal" wage? You just overpayed so he doesn't leave. Ter Stegen gets 8M at Barcelona, Oblak gets 7M at Atletico, same for Courtois, but you give 20M to DDG out of kindness of your heart? Come on, give me a break.
What about the fact that taxes are FAR higher in France than they are in the rest of europe? PSG pays more taxes than ALL the clubs of Liga, Seria A et Bundesliga COMBINED. Where's the cheat code for that?
What about the fact that PL clubs gets a feckton of money because of absurd TV rights and ticket prices that takes the money out of the supporters pocket? Isn't it a cheat compared to all the other clubs in europe with less money? You spent 80M€ on Maguire and a couple of years back, what was spent on Martial or Pogba was also ridiculous, its hardly the "hard way".
So yeah, Qatar injected massive amounts of money, that's the way it is, it's a fact, i'm not disputing that. But at least it was temporary and the club is now self sufficient (even if we shot ourselves in the foot with Mbappe's and Neymar's salaries because it means we can't invest in other good players to fill our gaps). Am I proud of that? Not really no, but it doesn't make the PSG a fake club, and i'm pretty sure it was clear last year when we were at Old Trafford and when the only supporters you could hear were ours.
Nothing is black and white, but it seems that you fail to see any nuance.
While I’m not aggressively disagreeing with you on your posts throughout the last two pages of the thread, but do you seriously think that bringing up last season’s tie would work as a point in favor of PSG? Or have you repressed the memory of the second leg?
No, because if you noticed i'm not the one saying that we're a heavyweight in Europe. I actually don't think we are yet because :
1) our team lacks leadership and intensity
2) our righ/left backs aren't on par with a top level club (especially our right back, Bernat was actually good in C1). Same goes for our midfielders besides Verratti.
3) Overall, we're not balanced enough.
I brought up last seasons from a supporter's perspective to demonstrate that this club wasn't born when Qatar purchased it.
Yes PSG's lack of stature makes me nervous
I agree. But if I would have to draw a parallel, PSG from 2000s would be a smaller club which would reach the UCL in most seasons but were never expected to make much of an impact. Similar to probably what Lyon are these days.
To a global audience, PSG actually gained prominence post Qatari owners and signings such as Ibra, Silva, Cavani etc. From a comparison perspective, Chelsea before and after Roman isn’t too dissimilar. Everyone knows that the club exists. But to become a desired club for players and to be named in the same breath as other major European clubs has probably got something to do with the ownership. That’s just my take though.
The whole argument started when someone said that PSG has no history, which isn't something that is hearable for a long time supporter and I find that very condescending. Now, i pretty much agree with your entire message, nobody can deny that we wouldn't have the same global audience without the money invested by our ownership.
Why do people demonstrate that they don't know much about a club or a nation and do it being slightly insulting and xenophobic?
that's a new development. ^ you act like the only reason he ever came here was because of the exorbitant wages we were offering here. and at the time of the contract extension he was looking like far and away the best keeper in the world, almost like a keeping version of ronaldo and messi if you will so you can see where we were coming from. we offered rooney similar wages just for optics after fergie left, it doesn't always have that much to do with waning prestige or anything of that sort.
We have had plenty of top players joining despite not getting CL football nor always offering eye watering wages. by trying to make some non existent point wrt ddg and sanchez you're actually somewhat contradicting yourself and proving the ones who are arguing for the 'status quo' right because of this.
taxes are different in different places, none of the european nations are easy on the pocket for that matter and even in Spain plenty have been guilty of tax evasion. You've got that whole paris thing going for you though haven't you?
PL teams get a 'feckton of money' because of market economics and the fact that their popular markets are all commonwealth nations who are populous. It's for a similar reason that Madrid and barca are so attractive for South american players. Maybe in the future there may be a more equitable model but the current one is all about who can grab the most eyeballs. I won't argue with you there but it is what it is.
I feel as though i came across as more adversarial than i should have in my initial response, apologise for that and don't want to continue this discussion in a similar tone and tenor. A verratti thread has degenerated into a pissing contest. PSG are a pretty big club in their own right, perhaps the biggest in France though i suppose OM and Saint Etienne would probably contest that.
Yeah, it's better we stop now because i don't understand your argument at all. His contract extension happenned last september, I don't know in what world you live in if you saw him as a "keeping version of Ronaldo" 10 months ago.
Will he be fit enough to start the final? I'm hoping so.
One of the most reliable french journalist said there's 99% chances he starts.
The club is also optimistic about Navas.
I rate him the same. People are just snobbishh towards players like him because they play for psg. That will ONLY end if they win the UCL this sunday
Is his star fading ?
That's good news! I want to see both teams at their strongest. Verratti vs Thiago could be a fun battle.
I actually see Thiago on the bench, I think Flick will play with Pavard on the right and Kimmich Goretzka in the midfield.
I'd be surprised by that, mate. Thiago's seemingly started every game for Bayern in the CL this season so I can't see them dropping him now. Especially after such an impressive European campaign.
I certainly hope not anyway! A midfield battle with those two is one of the key aspects of the game I'm most looking forward to myself.
Kimmich Thiago could also be a possibility. Pavard is very likely to start, if Flick deems him match fit, I agree. Kimmich gets carried away too easily in his attacking ventures. Benji's stabilizing influence has been missed in this tournament
Same here. Tuchel has a real problem here because Paredes did very well, Herrera too and Verratti isn't a big game performer but has the quality to bring the ball forward when pressed. Guess who will moan the most Verratti or Thiago?
Kimmich and Thiago is entirely too soft to deal with PSG. Goretzka has to start. Don't see why Pavard will start.
In what world is Verratti not a big game performer?
I this one. For PSG in the knockout stage he disappears somehow...just like Zlatan.
Kimmich has a tendancy to play far too high sometimes, the WC with Germany being the worst he can do. He had some tough moment against Lyon, if he does the same thing against PSG with Mbappe behind his back it's going to be pretty hard to handle. Pavard will stay a little lower and will help Bayern deal with Mbappé/Neymar because they're very active on the left wing.
But I agree with you, Goretzka has been great I think he'll start (it's just an intuition)
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Can't see him starting Pavard he's played about 10 minutes. Not the sort of game you want to start when rusty against Mbappe!
Bayern won't change a thing.
Not really, in a lot of bad knockout stages from PSG, he was the only decent one. I can disappear if he takes a red card though.
He might be trying to send false signals but Flick said specifically that he'd change his defense. On top of that there's chances Boateng isn't fit so I highly doubt it'll be a copy/paste from the semi.