“Football is the most important of the least important things in life.” Had my account verified so I can write very long posts. You’ve been warned!
Joined August 2019
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The more Ballon D’or voters speak the more irrelevant it becomes. Condo’s voting approach: In the absence of clear favorite, vote for career.
Mbappé got Condo’s vote for being an exceptional talent running out of time of winning (career not year)
He didn’t vote for Yamal because he thinks he still has time to win in the future.
Then didn’t vote for Kane because Condo thought other voters will treat Kane like he treated Mbappe.
Pure stupidity.
Also, if this is how Condo thinks (in the absence of clear winner vote for career) then hard to reconcile this drivel with Condo’s Top 3 vote in 2025:
1- Lamine Yamal
2- Ousmane Dembélé
3- Mohamed Salah
🚨 Italian journalists, Paolo Condo, explains why he voted for Kylian Mbappé as his Ballon d'Or winner:
"In the absence of an indisputable candidate this year, I made my choices by looking beyond just this year.
By placing Kylian Mbappé at the top of my list, I hoped to prevent a player as EXCEPTIONAL as him from retiring without a Ballon d'Or.
Harry Kane is a wonderful striker at every level, but he has probably also benefited from his career to decide this Ballon d'Or, tied to his 33 years.
We have the feeling that Lamine Yamal will soon start winning the Ballon d’Or regularly and that his rival could be another Frenchman, the wonderful Michael Olise."
Glad this dick missed his penalty. For the referee to ignore it is another reason referees are losing the fans respect. It’s not always the big decisions, but these stupid in-your-face actions going unpunished are just embarrassing.
Alonso never won as a coach at Anfield as he lost the three times he came with Leverkusen, Real Madrid and now Chelsea.
I like El Loco, but I disagree with his analysis here. I find any analysis of Salah that is built mostly on “age” to be incomplete.
Age is the convenient go-to angle when some are trying to analyze a Salah performance “He’s 34 so it must be age”. I’m not saying age is not a factor especially for a winger, but I remember when VVD returned from his injury and had a bad game immediately the analysis became “he’s not the same center back because of his injury, career over”. The injury was their simplistic go-to. Same thing with the Salah “age” some use it too conveniently in their analysis.
Last season when Salah struggled, lazy pundits or those running an agenda focused on “age” while ignoring that Salah’s RB partner that was key to Liverpool’s ball progression left after 6 years of partnership (Trent), Salah played with 6 different RBs with incompatible profile (carriers rather than passers), Robbo on LB was dropped when he was a key source of feeding Salah (with stunted Kerkez as replacement) or Slot changed the system to anchor Wirtz as #10 and asked Salah to play deeper/wider, and changing the #9 profile from false 9 to facilitate and create space for Salah to a traditional #9 like Isak waiting for Salah’s crosses. Many ignored all that and made it simply about “age” and I noticed some make the same mistake now in Turkey.
In addition to the missing context, El Loco’s analysis is slightly transactional where he uses the “first 45 minutes vs Rizespor” to reach a wider conclusion. For instance, every Trabzonspor player vs Rizespor in the 1st half underperformed and Reis emphasized that in his press conference. So to make it only about Salah or have unrealistic expectation that Salah will not have off games is strange. All players 24yo or 34yo have bad days at the office.
Even Salah in an off day vs Rizespor provided two “pre-assists” leading to 2 of the 4 goals, and his presence created space for the other three forwards (we’ve seen Reis use Salah before as a defenders magnet “bait and switch). It is also strange that Salah who is a volume shooter (3.1 shots per game in Turkish League) had 1 shot in the whole game at the 76th minute, which shows the level of service he was receiving and his role in the game. By the way, about dribbling, at Trabzonspor he is having his second best dribbling per game since 19/20 season.
Then El Loco jumps to another dimension “Salah’s performance in tough away games” which is again a bizarre argument as if Galatasaray at home was “easy home game” or KuPS was not away game where Salah starred, but then at home vs Hearts had an average game. The home vs away game distinction is simplistic and using a team overall away performances (Trabzonspor vs Samsunspor first away win) and blunt stat (only 2 G/A in away games) to build inaccurate narrative.
Salah was never a traditional winger (Doku) nor a winger to constantly help with defense (Mane) and in many games (regardless of age) Salah was more of “key moments” player rather than nonstop hammering winger fighting in ground duels and nonstop pressing (Diaz). Klopp (in all seasons) and Slot (in 24/25) understood that and built a system to maximize the good (goals and creativity in chances creation) and minimize the bad (Henderson or later Szoboszlai to support the RB, Left winger to do the “dirty” work, and false 9 to drag defenders and create space for Salah). This was the case in most of Salah’s Liverpool career so it’s not the “age” or “home vs away games”. By the way, this is exactly what Reis is doing so far.
The worst thing to happen is for Trabzonspor fans to start Salah vs Aral vs Muci vs Dju. Salah and other new players are still adjusting to a new team, league and country, yet they are generating excellent results so constructively supporting them is key to help the players and the team have more consistency.
•salah'ın insan olması ve rize ilk 45'e dair•
salah kendine ne kadar iyi baksa da insan doğası gereği eski keskinliğinde değil ve defoları mevcut. özellikle deplerde bu defolarla sıkça yüzleştik. pres ve savunma konusunda eksi yazdığı çok rahat gözlemlenebilir. başta hocası ve takım arkadaşları da bu kusurlarını örtüp onu daha da keskinleştirmek adına gerekli gayreti bugüne kadar göstermiştir.
salah, en iyi döneminde ne kadar iyi bire birciydi veya çizgiyi tek başına ne kadar domine edebiliyordu pek emin olmamakla beraber benim ondan burdaki seviyenin alıştığından daha altta olmasının da etkisiyle özellikle sert deplasmanlarda beklentimin yüksek olduğu iki konu vardı.
1- topa basma & top saklama
2- rakibi yakaladığında bire bir
dün aral'ın takım rezil vaziyetteyken topla ilk 45 koyduğu akıl, top saklama, dirayet ve 1v1 becerisini salah'dan deplasman maçlarında göremedik. beklentim gerektiğinde rakibi sırtına alıp baskıyı kırması, rakip sırtındayken topla içeri devrilmesi, takımı yerleştirmesiydi. nwakaeme'nin meşhur gs depte en bitik dönemi olmasına rağmen fizik kalitesiyle sunduğu resitali türkiye'de her maç bekliyorum salah'dan.
çizgide bunları yapmaya pek yeltenmediği için zaten klasik bir kenardan ziyade oyununu dönüştürerek daha içte bazen forvet bazen serbest bir 10 no gibi takılarak fark yaratıyor. bunu bertaraf etmek için ortaya akıl koyması tebrik edilesi lakin oyunu alamadığımız bölümlerde bir çizgi oyuncusu olarak da ondan fark yaratmasını beklemeyi kendime hak görüyorum.
Predicted Liverpool XI vs Chelsea: Mamardashvili, Araujo, Gomez, VVD, Kostas, Maca, Nyoni, Rio, Graven, Barcola, Koumas.
Will be great if VVD is rested, but doubt it. I think Wirtz will be on the bench given his ankle injury. Munoz sadly is unavailable.
Alonso never won as a coach at Anfield as he lost both times he came with Leverkusen and Real Madrid. Let’s hope this is his third loss.
Parted Beard retweeted
Jeremy Jacquet is already veering into Virgil Van Dijk territory. Nobody is talking about the transfer fee now. For @SportingLifeFC. sportinglife.com/football/ne…
Trabzonspor played most of the top 6 and most of the bottom 6, now it will mostly face mid-table 6 teams (and Fenerbahce) in the remaining of the first half of the season.
Is that good or bad?
Given how Trabzonspor play I’d say this is the perfect mix of teams as they do not park the bus and have the ambition to attack (with the exception of the more prudent Erzurum and Alanyaspor).
It’s not only about winning the CL, but style of play and team identity matter too. The claustrophobic and anti-football way Arsenal played with vs PSG in the CL Finals (25% possession and 1 shot on target) diminish your team’s chances of gaining credibility.
believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
PL 26/27: I looked at the teams Liverpool played (1 team bottom 5) compared to City (4 teams bottom 5), Arsenal (3 teams bottom 5) and Chelsea (0 teams bottom 5).
Too early with only 8 games played, but City had the easier start, Chelsea tougher, Arsenal easier journey ahead in the first half of the season and Liverpool the most balanced.
In 2026:
▫️Voted Bayern player of the year: Olise
▫️Voted Bundesliga player of the year: Olise
▫️Voted England player of the year: Bellingham
▫️Voted Champions League best player: Kvaratskhelia
▫️Voted World Cup best player: Rodri
▫️Ballon D’Or winner? Harry Kane.
The Ballon d’Or is a media award where the narrative to select the winner is decided by elite media and the voting is done by 100 media personalities carefully selected by the elite media.
In 2025 the media narrative was “you have to win the champions league” to win the Ballon d’Or. Salah and Raphinha had outstanding individual seasons, but when Liverpool and Barcelona exited the CL the media told us their chances were over. Salah came 4th and Raphinha 5th. The fact that Salah arguably had the best season in the PL history, broke many individual PL records in the best league in the world to help his club win its second league title in 35 years were all muted by the media.
In 2026 the media narrative shifted to “goals involvement is the key criterion” to win the Ballon d’Or. England, World Cup favorite, lost to Argentina with Kane having a horrible game and not even playing vs France in the 3rd position decider, Bayern a Champions League favorite exited, but the whole media narrative was about G/A. Some even mentioned Kane helping Bayern win the Bundesliga as if Bayern didn’t win 13 of the last 14 trophies.
This post is not anti-Kane as he deserves recognition for his outstanding career and amazing talent, but it is also important to recognize that the Ballon d’Or is a biased and manipulated award.
Parted Beard retweeted
19 years old and rising to the occasion 🌟
🔴 @LFC
Liverpool vs Brighton:
- Brighton the closest in the PL to a Bundesliga team
- Araujo’s Liverpool contract a matter of time
- This is Alisson’s last season at Liverpool
- Gakpo today had a game out of 25/26 season
- We need an Araujo for the LB position
- Kerkez should be our new Kostas (backup & cup games)
- Ayari could’ve had a hat-trick
- Isak is playing recently like Liverpool’s Inzaghi!
