The9

I'd take the 2 grand, but because I'd want to use it to watch Saints in Europe. Tricky. Also, where's "Braega"? There are enough daft names in Europe without you making them up. If you meant "Braga", they're already in the Group Stage, so I'd happily take us getting to play the 10 Europa League qualifiers and group matches it would take for us to be able to get knocked out by them. Or of course it could happen at any point after that in the knockout stages. Also, Braga's stadium is amazing.

The interesting thing to me is that Switzerland (due to the nature of its banking) won't extradite based on tax matters, only criminal behaviour. But they're happy to get on with these ones.

I think there was a "joke" there about landing in mud being dirty, which doesn't work as pitches aren't muddy any more.

Add Shawcross to that list. Every time I see Stoke I'm amazed at how many off-the ball hits they manage to make during the course of every challenge, which go unpunished. Shawcross (and Adam) usually get a forearm to the head in on every header and two of them for a challenge from behind on the touchline.

Can someone nail Ricardo Teixeira for something please? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Teixeira "Ricardo Terra Teixeira was president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) from January 16, 1989 to March 12, 2012. In July 2012 a Swiss prosecutor's report revealed that, during his tenure on FIFA's Executive Committee, he and his former father-in-law Joao Havelange took more than $41 million in bribes in connection with the award of World Cup marketing rights" In July 2012 after protracted court proceedings, Havelange and Teixeira were named as beneficiaries of bribes from ISL. A document released by a prosecutor in the canton of Zug revealed that from 1992 to 2000 Havelange and Teixeira were paid 41m CHF by ISL.[3] At the time of the payment of the bribes, commercial bribery was not a crime in Switzerland.[3] In 1997 as President of FIFA Havelange had granted ISL FIFA's exclusive marketing rights, and exclusive TV and radio rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups in 1998. ISL paid FIFA 200m CHF for the marketing rights and $1.4bn for the TV rights. After ISL's bankruptcy its liquidators examined all payments made by the company.[3] FIFA, under the presidency of Sepp Blatter, was found to have known about the bribes, yet argued it did not need to have the money repaid. Prosecutions were mounted for alleged embezzlement against Havelange and Teixeira, but were stopped in May 2010, after Havelange and Texeira repaid 500,000 and 2.5m CHF respectively.[3] The repayments were considered reasonable due to the fact that bribes paid before 1995 were outside the statute of limitations, and Havelange's advanced age.[3] The prosecutor also believed that Havelange and Teixeira were guilty of criminal breaches of their duties to serve FIFA as senior executives.[3]

You're info starved over there Phil, the only reporting of the day's activities is the detail on the specific charges, the rest of it has clearly been sat in a file marked "FIFA Corrupt Practices" for about 5 years waiting for this day. Also, all this stuff (especially about Warner) has been being reported in World Soccer magazine since about 1994. There's plenty more on Wikipedia about the way various corruption investigations were closed once people resigned... 2010 in South Africa, bribery, who'da... oh yeah, everyone.

If you want to hate Jack Warner it's not hard: England World Cup bid[edit] Warner once again caused controversy in 2007 in an interview with the BBC about England's chances of holding the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He asserted that "England invented the sport but has never made any impact on world football" despite being one of only (then) seven nations to ever lift the world cup, "For Europe, England is an irritant", and that "Nobody in Europe likes England". Furthermore Warner proposed that, if the World Cup were to be held in Europe, it should be held in Italy, Spain or France (countries that last hosted the competition in 1990, 1982 and 1998 respectively). He said that he would "battle to bring...the tournament to his region"[27][28] However, on 14 February 2008, Warner retracted this stance. England's Football Association agreed to visit Trinidad and Tobago to play a friendly against the Trinidad and Tobago national football team on the condition that Warner apologize.[29] Warner argued that, "The time has come. The fact is they invented this sport [...] They last held the World Cup 42 years ago. That is almost two to three generations. There are guys in England who have never seen a World Cup on English soil." Warner maintained that the choice of England would not be popular among mainland Europe though.[30] During the bidding process to host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup's Warner continually supported the English bid, promising to vote in England's favour at the draw in December 2010. Warner approached the England bid team through David Beckham, offering to hold off on bringing out the vote for Russia in exchange for promises in relation to CONCACAF.[31][not in citation given] Russia won the vote to hold the FIFA World Cup in 2018, with Warner widely reported to have voted for the Russian bid.[ Black market ticket sales[edit] Via a private family company, Warner owned shares in Simpaul, a travel and holiday company. In late 2002, various global media publications alleged that Warner had made a profit of $350,000 selling 2002 FIFA World Cup tickets.[36] In a series of exposés during December 2005, the Trinidad and Tobago Express revealed that Simpaul was offering $30,000 packages to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, which effectively marked up match tickets at a high rate.[37] FIFA's ethics committee criticised the ticket deals, concluding Warner had abused his position to obtain personal benefits and failed to declare his business interests. Warner agreed to sever all family links with Simpaul immediately. However, his son Daryan remained a director of Simpaul throughout World Cup 2006, while his personal assistant remained the company secretary of Simpaul.[36] FIFA started an investigation, and asked their auditors Ernst & Young, to investigate. In a report submitted to FIFA in March 2006, E&Y estimated that Warner's family had made a profit of at least $1 million from reselling 2006 World Cup tickets, that Warner had directly ordered or sold on behalf of the T&TFA.[21][38] Minutes of FIFA’s executive committee indicate that in consequence of being found guilty of breaking FIFA's Article 5, a fine of almost $1 million, equal to the expected profiteering, was imposed on the family.[39][40] Despite numerous reminders from FIFA, only $250,000 has been paid.[41] Andrew Jennings the presenter of FIFA's Dirty Secrets, an edition of BBC's Panorama repeated the allegations in a November 2010 programme during the week Warner and his fellow FIFA ExCo members voted to decide the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Warner_(football_executive)

Confused to the nature of the Jack Warner stuff, he's been off the FIFA gravy train since he fell on his sword the LAST time round, when Blatter threw a few of the possible rivals under the bus for the 2011 election (along with the awesomely named Chuck Blazer). ...and he's been a member of the Trinidad & Tobago Parliament since 2013. "On 20 June 2011, FIFA announced Warner's resignation from all his positions in international football.[8] As Warner is no longer part of FIFA, they have ended the investigation into any and all ethics violations, saying "As a consequence of Mr Warner's self-determined resignation, all ethics committee procedures against him have been closed and the presumption of innocence is maintained" I guess that statement from 2011 and the arrests being about the Qatari bidding process back in 2009 answers my question. It doesn't explain why a suspended member of FIFA would even be there though.

I've been to one. West Ham.

Basically both the Luxembourg sides you mentioned start in Qualfying Round 1 with lots of other smaller countries' runners-up (and the Fair Play winners), and Saints wouldn't start til the 3rd Qualifying Round, so for us to play them they'd have to win through 2 rounds - my calculations suggest we'd be seeded in 3QR and based on coefficient the Luxies wouldn't so there would then be a chance of drawing them. It's straight two-legged knockouts until the Group Stage itself (with away goals counting) so at least that bit is straightforward.

My thoughts are that there's been a stickied thread on this for 8 hours already. And another duplicate already locked.

He's probably better than Niles as well.

Why is it a problem for us that a different team in the same competition has to play 4 more matches than we do if we qualify for it?

Too many daft sods in orange t-shirts and wigs for my liking. Had none of them noticed we'd already sort-of half failed to do the orange thing at St Mary's already? FWIW, though my train wasn't cancelled, I don't recommend the FIVE HOUR direct journey from Southampton to Manchester Piccadilly to anyone. Cross-Country train broke down before it even got to Parkway, then broke down again between Stockport and Piccadilly, leaving us about a mile from the terminal for half an hour. I think they got a donkey with a bit of rope to do the last bit.

Are you planning on changing the formation or playing him in as a narrow supporting midfielder?

His brother signing for Villa permanently in the last week might have done something towards that too though.

They've changed it so the top seeds are the reigning champions and the top 7 countries' national champions (the team with the next best coefficient will be added to the top seeded pot as the winners will already be one of the national champions) and then the remaining pots are by coefficient as the whole thing used to be. You still can't draw someone from the same country in the group though. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29562047 http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=2236360.html "A significant change in the regulations concerns the seedings for the group stage draw on 28 August. Previously, the pots were ordered purely by the coefficients of the competing clubs. Now, the top pot will be formed by the champions of the top seven associations – that is, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Russia – plus the UEFA Champions League title holders." So S-Clarke's point about us needing to get our coefficient up still stands, unless of course we win the Premier League.

Jesus Christ. :facepalm::facepalm::facepalm: We haven't got where we are by settling for third rate cover players as starters. Except in goal.

Well, having seen the film and as I'm currently reading the book (and have already read the football re-interpretation of it), I can confirm that's an oversimplification and it's not just about buying low and selling high, but actually about appreciating undervalued skills and delivering success from seeing those skills before others do - the value is already there, it's just obscured by bad analysis (eg that a hard-working wide man with defensive skills "doesn't score enough goals" when actually he's involved in the creation of chances for others to make assists, and preventing goals by pressing defenders and wide midfielders long before the ball gets near our goal). Kinda like goalkeeper wins you more points than any other position, but they're the cheapest position for wages and to buy the transfer market.

Quite. It's about identifying key skills needed for success ("getting on base" was a key one for Oakland) and acquiring them. With the different skillsets needed in football compared to baseball, a team ethic is a key driver and the relationships between the different positions are a lot more complex than in baseball.

If you mean this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Elmohamady his front and centre Hull promotion celebration dancing antics whilst his teammates celebrated with each other tell me everything I need to know about his team ethic and suitability for Saints.

No it doesn't.

The application of the moneyball principles to football are easiest covered by Simon Kuper's Soccernomics book. Signing the players which have the characteristics you need when they are available is an underlying tenet of the whole thing. Obviously the A's example was based on picking unpopular choices because they were cheap, but it also applies to taking the longer view, and identifying and then acquiring the talent you most need at the expense of a short term cost (and there are plenty of examples of them trading heavily to get players they wanted).

And the assumption that either of those Luxembourg teams manage to navigate 2 rounds of Europa League, which hasn't happened often.

Question is, do we plan for a Europa League campaign? We'll know on Saturday 30th May if we're in Europa 3rd Qualifying Round, but that could only be two matches in late July and early August. In early August we'll only know if we're in the Europa League Play-Off round, and we won't know if we're into the Group Stages until August 27th, which is only a few days before the transfer window closes. Unless we're completely out of Europe (which might lead to a couple of departures anyway) we're going to have to decide how to do our business based on where we HAVE to strengthen, and where we may need additional depth if we end up playing an extra load of games (would be 10 extra before Xmas if we make the group stages, plus travel stresses and impact on training, etc.). It would be an extra 19 matches if we went all the way to the Final.