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The Second Club Thread

Well, the perfect form at BofA ended last night, with an 0-1 loss to *sigh* New England.

Because football is cruel, allow me to paint this contextual picture. Imagine Jesse Marsch. Now make him even more pompous. And also worse tactically (and I say that with the general TWF opinion of Marsch in mind, not my own opinion). You get Caleb Porter, New England’s manager. He’s almost repulsive to me. Hate losing to him. And worse, the winning goal was scored by Carles Gil, who is every bit the stereotypical Spanish footballer; arrogant, selfish, acts as if he should have special rules applied for him… and in MLS, good enough to back up all the talk.

Icing on top: Pep Biel went off injured. Our attack went to pieces after that. Didn’t seem like a contact injury, so… 😬

On the positive side, when Pep was still out there, we were fairly dominant. Created a ton of good chances, but, as we often have this season, we’d overcomplicate with one pass too many, or just punt the shot into the Upper Bowl.

Special shoutout to Zaha, who suddenly looked like his Crystal Palace self again. He is absolutely brilliant to watch when he’s on form. A different type of thrill to watching Adama but the levels are the same, if that makes sense.

Can’t be perfect forever, I suppose, and for as much as I think Caleb Porter is a giant bag of dildos, he’s recently switched NE to a 5-2-3 that’s made them really, really solid defensively. That also adds some positive value to cutting them open so often (with Pep), so no moral victories but encouraging nonetheless.
 
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I knew one day this photo I took would prove useful. :)
 
4-2 loss for Charlotte at Columbus last night. We desperately miss Biel (out with a minor knock, as mentioned last week). Missing Byrne, too. His backfill is a youth who has done well but is not nearly the dynamic presence Nathan is. Also a couple of players who have been here long enough to get settled and either haven’t progressed or have gone backwards, which obviously makes the missing players look even more important.

No shame; played okay and Columbus are worthy of some remarkable hyperbole.

Speaking of which, accepting that levels are relative, Columbus under Wilfred Nancy play the best football I’ve ever seen. Point blank, period, end of discussion. It’s the sort of stuff you could lose 7-0 to and still feel privileged to have seen it.
 
88th minute 1-0 home defeat for St Pauli vs Stuttgart yesterday.

However Heidenheim need to beat both Union Berlin and Werder Bremen to have any chance of catching us, and Kiel effectively can't catch us due to goal difference, so safety is all but assured, even if we were to lose to both Frankfurt and Bochum (the latter will surely already be down by then).

HSV need to win one of their last two vs Ulm (17th) or Greuther Fürth (14th) to secure their Bundesliga return.
 
88th minute 1-0 home defeat for St Pauli vs Stuttgart yesterday.

However Heidenheim need to beat both Union Berlin and Werder Bremen to have any chance of catching us, and Kiel effectively can't catch us due to goal difference, so safety is all but assured, even if we were to lose to both Frankfurt and Bochum (the latter will surely already be down by then).

HSV need to win one of their last two vs Ulm (17th) or Greuther Fürth (14th) to secure their Bundesliga return.
🤞🤞🤞
 
It should be HSV and Köln going up automatically (two teams who should never ever be in 2.Liga), the chase for 3rd is of course absolutely wild.

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So after back to back A League winners, the Mariners end up 10th this season. Still a chance of some silverware though if we beat Perth Glory in the Australia Cup.
 
Big night at the bottom of Serie B, 5 teams can still go down and separated by 1 point citadella and Salernitana play each other and are 19th & 18th respectively.
Sampdoria just 1 point and place above the drop go to 5th placed Juve Stabia.
 
Sampdoria relegated to Serie C drew 0-0 at Juve Stabia which was an ok result but salerntinana, Frosinone and Brescia all won. Pretty unbelievable really considering Frosinone won at Champions Sassoulo
 
Pretty sure Serie C divides into regional leagues to so Sampdoria will be in the central division I think with clubs like Ascoli, Perugia and SPAL.
 
Thought it was over! When is the play off? 2 legs?

Monday 1st leg, yep 16th & 17th have play off for the last relegation spot, it doesn’t happen if 16th have come more than 5 points above 17th I think.
 
Fell over the line in the end. Not a good end to the season with only 2 wins out of 15 and signing off with a home loss to rock bottom Bochum (granting them 33% of their total wins for the season in the process).

But still. The job is done.

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HSV bottled winning 2.Liga by losing at Fürth on the final day.

Heidenheim vs Elversberg in possibly the world's smallest time playoff. Elversberg had never even played in the second tier until 2023 and have a ground that's more Bescot Stadium than BayArena.

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