A player would cost £223m
Things in 2006 you'd get laughed at for saying would happen in football by 2016?
- Thread starter Fortitude
- Start date
eSports becoming a thing. Players being paid to play FIFA and it being watched by a global audience of thousands.
Does this actually happen?
Does this actually happen?
The feck? Is it still 2006 in Australia?
Indeed. The FIFA eWorld Cup is this year apparentlyDoes this actually happen?
https://www.fifa.com/fifaeworldcup/
They have an awards ceremony and everything, along with a prize fund.
I meant professional footballers playing, I know there are gaming tournaments
Spurs regularly playing in the CL.
If darts, bowling and snooker is a sport. Then so is this.Indeed. The FIFA eWorld Cup is this year apparently
https://www.fifa.com/fifaeworldcup/
They have an awards ceremony and everything, along with a prize fund.
Indeed. The FIFA eWorld Cup is this year apparently
https://www.fifa.com/fifaeworldcup/
They have an awards ceremony and everything, along with a prize fund.
Its every year and the winner gets 1/4 of a million or something, no laughing matter really. Pays better than winning Lakeside darts.
There is a Fifa pro on this site, can't remember who right now.
Michael Owen would join Utd on a free transfer and win the league with Utd.
Esports was already a thing...
I remember watching Quake 3 tournaments on stream where the best teams had sponsors and won thousands.
I'm sure they had similar in unreal tournament and cs aswell.
City winning the league multiple times.
Liverpool fans still believing that it will be their year
- Qatar hosting a World Cup
- A World Cup to be held in the winter
- The Italians become mostly a non-entity in the Champions League and go a decade without winning one
- Atletico Madrid to become an European powerhouse and stay one for several consecutive seasons
- United to go more than a decade without producing a homegrown regular starter for themselves
- Leicester to win the league without sugar daddy money
- Portsmouth to be relegated all the way down to League Two
- Messi to power home a header in a CL final
- Ronaldo to lose his dribbling ability but become a lethal finisher with a bodybuilder's body
- Ronaldinho to suddenly become crap and never really return to form
- Alan Curbishley to fade away
- Salzburg to fail to make a single CL group stage appearance despite all of their investment
- England to win a penalty shootout in a major tournament (providing that 2018 counts for this thread)
- A World Cup to be held in the winter
- The Italians become mostly a non-entity in the Champions League and go a decade without winning one
- Atletico Madrid to become an European powerhouse and stay one for several consecutive seasons
- United to go more than a decade without producing a homegrown regular starter for themselves
- Leicester to win the league without sugar daddy money
- Portsmouth to be relegated all the way down to League Two
- Messi to power home a header in a CL final
- Ronaldo to lose his dribbling ability but become a lethal finisher with a bodybuilder's body
- Ronaldinho to suddenly become crap and never really return to form
- Alan Curbishley to fade away
- Salzburg to fail to make a single CL group stage appearance despite all of their investment
- England to win a penalty shootout in a major tournament (providing that 2018 counts for this thread)
Clubs winning 6, 7 league titles in a row in major leagues
2006 is especially interesting for Juve as that when they got relegated
2006 is especially interesting for Juve as that when they got relegated
This thread again puts into perspective just how unlikely Leicester’s premier league win was. It’s the most unlikely story in the history of sport.
If someone told you that in May 2013 that Leicester would be on the brink of a championship play off final, be awarded a penalty, miss it (and a 3 yard rebound) and then concede with the last kick of the game on the counter attack from the missed pen ensuring they played championship football again for another season... then WIN the premier league three years later with a margin of ten points, with Claudio Ranieri as manager. It’s crazy. Even reading this back before I hit post reply it giving me goosebumps.
Nothing comes close, I don’t think anything ever will.
If someone told you that in May 2013 that Leicester would be on the brink of a championship play off final, be awarded a penalty, miss it (and a 3 yard rebound) and then concede with the last kick of the game on the counter attack from the missed pen ensuring they played championship football again for another season... then WIN the premier league three years later with a margin of ten points, with Claudio Ranieri as manager. It’s crazy. Even reading this back before I hit post reply it giving me goosebumps.
Nothing comes close, I don’t think anything ever will.
Brazil would lose a WC semi final 7-1
Huh? When was this decade?
Well who was the last academy product to become a regular before Rashford broke through? Wes Brown?
Hibs winning the Scottish Cup
Hibs, Hearts & Rangers will all be playing in the Scottish Championship at the same time.
Rangers would be liquidated
Man Utd to be on their 3rd new manager since SAF retirement (Moyes, LVG, Jose)
Man City would be one of the best teams in England after being bought over by a suger daddy
John O’Shea will still be playing football
Hibs, Hearts & Rangers will all be playing in the Scottish Championship at the same time.
Rangers would be liquidated
Man Utd to be on their 3rd new manager since SAF retirement (Moyes, LVG, Jose)
Man City would be one of the best teams in England after being bought over by a suger daddy
John O’Shea will still be playing football
Still waiting for that...
There’s been plenty who were regulars for periods. Jonny Evans, Kieran Richardson, Darren Fletcher, Danny Welbeck, Darrom Gibson, Tom Cleverley, John O’Shea. That’s off the top of my head.
A player being sold for over a 100million.
Considering the era and just how many phenomenal defenders there were, a new one for the updated version of this thread (2008-2018) would be that: there will be no defenders of that calibre in the world, let alone 5-10 of them being argued about as to who is the best.
Another would be that defending is no longer the most important quality in being a defender.
Bonkers!
Another would be that defending is no longer the most important quality in being a defender.
Bonkers!
Lingard? Cleverley? Welbeck? Fletcher? Evans? Rafael at a stretch.
When I said regular, I meant a regular starter, ie, a player who would be expected to start most games. Out of all those quoted in the two posts, only Fletcher fits the criteria for an extended period of time. The others started regularly for not more than a season (Evans, Welbeck) or were never regular starters. Lingard at a push, but he is more of a rotation player.
An international footballer caught wanking in public - well, nearly...
Best game ever. Once beat a guy who was TOP 50, although not 1 v 1. So many sleepless nights after seeing dodgy skins of apostles running around with bazookas with everything covered in blood and skulls.
Rory Delap's throw in trick wouldnt be a trend that every team wouldn't have a throw in specialist.
Sky Sports news would be using Football Manager stats as if they are the actual players rating in real life.
But this is not something you would get laughed at for is it? Hopefully we are still laughing in 2026.
United fans cheering for City to get from second to first.
Darren Fletcher becomes a key player for a Manchester United side who dominate the PL and reach consecutive Champions League finals before having his career at the club cut short by IBS. He’s now playing in the Championship for Stoke, a club who had an almost decade long spell in the Premier League, with Paul Ince’s son, two former Champions League winners at Barcelona and a goalkeeper who represented a united GB team at the Olympics.
Middlesbrough prospect Adam Johnson, who scored his first Premier League goal in May, would go on to win a Premier League title and be capped for England by manager Fabio Capello, before being imprisoned for sexual activity with a child.
Middlesbrough prospect Adam Johnson, who scored his first Premier League goal in May, would go on to win a Premier League title and be capped for England by manager Fabio Capello, before being imprisoned for sexual activity with a child.
Bournemouth will become a solid Premier League club
Yeovil would make the Championship
Juventus will be relegated for fixing and win promotion straight back despite being docked 30ish points
Yeovil would make the Championship
Juventus will be relegated for fixing and win promotion straight back despite being docked 30ish points
In 2018, Premier League club Cardiff City’s manager Neil Warnock caused controversy for his comments on the UK’s impending withdrawl from the European Union. 2008 FA Cup and 2012 League Cup runner up Cardiff City FC, owned by Chinese-Malaysian Vincent Tan, distanced itself from the comments, having previously been at the centre of controversy when former manager Malkay Mackay was involved in a text messaging scandal, in which he made sexist, racist, xenophobic and anti-semitic comments. Warnock achieved promotion to the Premier League for the first time since Mackay’s replacement, current Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær, relegated the Bluebirds (who were briefly renamed the Red Dragons and wore red as first choice colours during their first Premier League season).
Leicester were bank rolled. They broke ffp in the championship.
Ronaldo and Messi's goalscoring records is probably the most implausible thing to have happened.
Especially Ronaldos. I mean he didn't score a champions league goal until 2006 and now he has over 100.
Argentina World Cup stars Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano show up at West Ham on the last day of the transfer window and join the club in mysterious circumstances. Mascherano is unable to break into the West Ham team ahead of Hayden Mullins and moves to Liverpool in January, where he plays in a Champions League final in May, becomes an integral part of a world class midfield and eventually leaves for Barcelona three years later, becoming one of the world's most decorated centre backs. Tevez fails to score for West Ham until March, after which he goes on a run of goalscoring form which saves West Ham from relegation, culminating with the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over champions Manchester United at Old Trafford. Relegation rival clubs attempt to sue West Ham as Tevez was never officially eligible to play for the club. During the summer, Tevez transfers to Manchester United and goes on to win a Premier League and Champions League double in his debut season, followed by another Premier League title a year later. He then joins rivals Manchester City and captains the team to an FA Cup win. The following season, he is disciplined by the club for refusing to be subsitituted on by Manager Roberto Mancini in a Champions League match at Bayern Munich. Tevez then refuses to play for the club for five months, instead returning to Argentina and playing golf. He is eventually reinstated to the squad in time to overcome an eight point deficit to United and win the league on goal difference in stoppage time of the final game of the season. He celebrates this by displaying a banner with the message "RIP Fergie". Tevez goes on to play for Juventus, before rejoining Boca Juniors. However, he becomes the world's highest paid footballer when he joins Shanghai Shenua in the Chinese Super League, where he remains for a just a year, failing to impress in China and scoring only four goals. He then returns to Boca again and is a substitute in Boca's Copa Libertadores final loss to River Plate held at Madrid's Estadio Santiago Bernabéu.
I think as much as anything the craziest thing about Ronaldo is that he would go on to often be discussed as a purely efficient, economical player as if he wasn’t all that technical or skilful. It’s not exactly true of course, it’s just how the Messi/Ronaldo argument shaped the narrative. It’s just that he was once mostly fart and rarely shit.