He nearly choked away the EPL title last season, had to be bailed out by a miracle 3 minute, 2 goal barrage. They were virtually a nonfactor in the Champion's League group stage, and they never found a consistent peak stretch this season while Man U kept winning game after game. Mancini's fate was sealed supposedly before the FA Cup defeat to Wigan, but as this is the first year I've followed the EPL closely, I can't say I'm shocked at it. Chelsea's manager got fired only months after winning a Champion's League title. Mancini seemed to be able to fire up the players last season, but this year it seemed like he spent more time trying to clash with them than actually worrying about tactics at all. Anyway for those of you who don't know, Man City is run by former Barca Director Txiki Begiristain, who was there from 03-2010. He has hoped to begin mining Spanish talent and they have a great Spanish player in David Silva, who is a very creative passer, dribbler and finisher in the mold of Messi, without the sheer finishing accuracy of Messi though of course. Make no mistake, Silva is a great player and one of the game's finest central attacking midfielders. It would make sense for Begiristain to want to bring in another respected La Liga man like Malaga's Manuel Pelligrini to influence more Spanish talent to start migrating to Man City. Lets face it, Spain doesn't have the sheer production of international talent like Brazil, but Brazilian players almost always eventually go to Europe. La Liga is already considered by many to be the top league in all of world football, so why would great Spanish players want to leave Spain? Well maybe some of them don't want to live under Barca/Real Madrid for their entire careers. It makes great sense for Begiristain to start building a pipeline from Barca to Manchester. With Fergie gone and Rooney with one foot out the door, Man U will be facing stability issues for the first time in a couple decades. They will still be a force, but it seems unlikely they will be able to sustain a run such as they did under Fergie.
IIRC Mancini had more player issues last season than this season. Plus he only had Balotelli for half of this season. Go easy on Pellegrini being respected. His work with Malaga hasn't been awe inspiring. He did great work at Villareal but his Madrid stay was not helpful. Then again, how many coaches outside of Capello and Del Bosque recently have had a good stay at Madrid. Still Pellegrini is by no means automatically a completely better manager than Mancini. I think he is better tactically but in terms of managing big personalities, I'm not so sure. Not like Mancini is great at that but I can't think of that many managers that could have handled Balotelli, Tevez and Nasr(The greatest ego's amongst the other egotistical players on the team). TBH, Mourinho must be antsy at the prospect of returning to Chelsea. His opposition for the title next season would be Pellegrini who is no match for him, Wenger, Moyes and Brendan Rodgers. The pipeline can also start with the manager/coach and the agent the club decides to deal with. The director helps but if the coach has had some level of success, he would get his way in terms of players from whichever country/league he'd like the money to be spent on. Mourinho's Chelsea and Wenger's Arsenal come to mind. Txiki will definitely help with the Catalan/Barca players making the move to City, but with regard to other Spanish players, all City need would be Pellegrini or a spanish agent to help.
If Mancini didn't seal his sacking with yesterday's loss, he keeps doing more to seal it. Today was news about him going in verbally at the City Press officer Vicky Kloss. I think he realizes he is done for and he is going to go in on everyone at City that has ticked him off in the past. I just can't wait for what he has to say about the players.
No congratulations deserved imo. Barca staff, team, fans, etc should all be thanking Mourinho. Sending cards and gifts. He set out to sabotage this season for Madrid and he accomplished that.
For those of you who have not seen the crazy finish between Watford and Leicester: Leicester won the first semifinal leg 1-0, and with Watford leading 2-1 in the second one, teams were supposed to go to overtime (no away goals rule). Then, the referee gives a penalty for Leicester, too harsh in my opinion. The rest is history. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JgUevnYJOvI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The team started great and sent Real hoping to win Champions 3 months ago. They never challenged us this season and La Liga is ours again! Real never won la decima with Mou and that's got to suck for them with makes me If ManU can get drunk off winning EPL so can we! Cheers!
Neymar to Bayern supposedly a done deal: http://www.jb.com.br/esportes/notic...o-santos-crava-neymar-no-bayern-esta-fechado/ I don't really know when/where he would play on this team, but I wouldn't mind :grin:. ...................Neuer......................... Lahm.....Dante.....Badstuber......Alaba ........Martinez....Schweinsteiger........ Müller...........Götze................Ribery ..............Lewandowski.................... Main Subs with significant minutes: Neymar, Robben, Kroos, Mandzukic, Pizarro, Boateng, Shaqiri, Gustavo (with extra guys like Rafinha, Contento, van Buyten, Kirchhoff, Can, Hojberg logging some minutes here and there). Pep as coach and Neymar, Robben, Kroos, Mandzukic as main subs - I can live with that . As a sidenote, van Bommel has finished his career and wants to become a coach - would love to see him as assistant to Guardiola and it would make total sense - he knows Pep, has played for Barca, understands their system, speaks Spanish and German, has always been a coach on the field anyway, is very well-respected at Bayern - makes total sense to me. Metzelder could be another assistant coach, also speaks Spanish and German. We are in the best position in Europe for the next 5 years.
Why would Neymar go to Bayern? Lewandowski deal done? To whoever asked where Rooney was going, I think its either PSG, Monaco, or Munich. Chelsea is supposedly interested in him but I don't feel comfortable United selling a player to a rival.
Bayern definitely not interested in Rooney. Neymar would go to Bayern because he would want to play for the best team in the world.
Van Bommel will get a position with PSV (what is not clear yet). PSV also gets a new head coach: Phillip Cocu (Ruud van Nistelrooy and André Ooijer will train the youth teams of PSV).
OOOHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIII, if this is true I'm wettin my pants. Nothing more exciting in sports than being a Bayern supporter atm.
So looks like this Neymar rumor might not be true...for now. Dortmund will get some pretty good replacements for Goetze and Lewandowski: Eriksen, De Bruyne, Son, Jackson Martinez - not bad.
