discussão sobre o futebol quandos os papás-açucar ainda eram relevantes

Nicolas Rioux	7:34 PM (14 hours ago)
to me

I am not taking the moral high ground against every other club. Like most other fans, I am against the sugar daddy clubs. There is a difference between spending money you generate and money you don't. Chelsea just stockpiled a load of players before FPP came in and the last two years, they've have had to sell just to break even because they spend stupid amounts in wages. Same goes with City and PSG.

The problem with this is that other clubs then have to pay inflated prices for players and spend huge amounts just to stay competitive while they can just write it off like it was pocket change. We'll see how they fare in a few years time without a youth policy and no more salable assets because all they do is buy players in their prime. Chelsea is a small club with a small fan base and yet they have spent well over a billion (net) in the last decade or so. Without Abramovic they would go back to mid table or most probably go bankrupt. 

Anyway, the point is Liverpool, Arsenal and ManU have to spend so much money because Chelsea and City just outspend us irrespective of the money they make. Should we just sit back and let them win title after title? At least we can try to do something about it because don't forget about the likes of Tottenham, Everton, Newcastle and Aston Villa. All bigger or at least similar in support to Chelsea and City but they now have no fucking chance of even getting in the Champions League, let alone win the league.

It makes me laugh that you try to argue about this when you would be saying exactly the same thing if it happened to your club.  

Pedro Campos <pedrofreitascampos@gmail.com>	7:36 AM (2 hours ago)
to Nicolas

What I'm saying is that the sugar daddy clubs are no different from Liverpool in the way they are ran, as in they abuse the proven correlation and causal relationship between spending and success (and always have). Liverpool, for a club that has no sugar daddy, has spent crazy amounts of money in a highly inefficient way at times (while at others, in a successful way). This is only symptomatic of what bothers me the most in Liverpool, a club that I grew up admiring and which I identify as a special and unique club, with similar social and historical traits as Benfica. What bothers me about Liverpool is the inconsistency stemming from a seeming lack of vision for the club, from a strategic point of view. Much like you have shown in your text ("we have to spend as much as they"), Liverpool seems to just follow big spending models in their own (relatively) more limited way. Liverpool buys tons of overpriced players every season, mostly with little criteria (remember the Houllier days?). I think Liverpool's total spending is crazy for the level of domestic success you've had (wages aside, which I haven't bothered looking at the real numbers, Liverpool has spent up to 76% of Chelsea in new players).

I don't think you've realized that my point is more radical than yours: what I'm trying to say goes further than the bemoaning about sugar daddies as the destroyers of the modern game. The modern game was already destroyed for at least 10 years before them, they only recently made it more obvious. Nowadays fans of other clubs herd together in repetitions and reiterations of the same things you've said, over and over again, while missing the point altogether - the problem is not the sugar daddies (although I also hate their vapid participation in the game), the point is put simply, capitalism and the free market. It would always tend to this and always will, if the market is free. Just like a planet attracts more mass as it grows, a club will, on the long run, generate more wealth the wealthier it gets, and ultimately generate more success, the more successful it gets, spend more, and so on (Real Madrid being a prime example of a club that is run the same way as sugar daddy clubs, without having a sugar daddy). You may claim the romantic argument over how Real Madrid would have "deserved" this, as they use the money they've generated themselves (only half true, as they have extremely strong backups from banking institutions), but that is the same as claiming Microsoft is entitled to buy every promising start up there ever was, just because they've built their status quo before others, and that new players with big capital are less entitled to do that. I see sugar daddies as business angels, which will pick a start up for some reason and finance it into success motivated by whatever often obscure and dodgy reasons they have (the methods for success are well known and documented, you just need enough capital), it's just that for something like football, which you expect and want to be less predictable, it's frustrating, we don't like to see it, and that's where my argument comes in, I don't like to see it for Chelsea or City, and I don't like to see it for Liverpool, for me it's the same shit, different angle. I already criticized Liverpool before Abramovich came into scene, it just came across as a wasteful club, with a very loose market strategy.

Anyways, to break this you need market regulation. This is tough for me to say because I am anti-regulation by default, I like to believe in the natural order of things, but if the Universe is capitalistic - which it is, big galaxies become bigger and so on - and we would like to keep this game a bit less predictable, a bit more open, a bit more human, then we need to regulate. Also, you need to restore club ownership to fans, make them engage and participate more, discuss more, and have a say on how clubs are run, why they are run and what identity they should have. And that's my point: if you eliminate sugar daddies, you still have a problem, the rest is a matter of quantity and proportion, which I'm frankly not bothered by.

Nicolas Rioux	10:15 AM (10 minutes ago)
to me

Well, I agree with pretty much all of this. Liverpool wastefulness. Fan ownership. The inevitability of a free market global game and the predictability of it all...

 It's kind of ironic that the best model is in the land of the capital as all the major sports in US now have salary caps. I think most would be in favor of that. Problem is, how do you implement it in football? NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL are all private entities and they do what they want. Player power comes from the Players Associations but they get their "share" of the revenues. A bit like football but in a more even way.

Without the fear of relegation, investments are pretty secure and it's not catastrophic if you have a "few" bad season. On the contrary, you get the best picks with the draft system. Free agent rules makes it very hard for young players to move just to go to a successful club. 

One thing that might make things change though is the growing influence of agents and especially the arrival of the "super agents" or agency companies like Jorge Mendes'. I think there will be a point where clubs will come together and say we have to do something about this because these guy are taking money out of the game (the club pockets and the fans in the end) for no reason other than greed. Unfortunately for a lot of clubs, the only way this will probably happen in the form of a European super league with all the big clubs forming a breakaway system. It would be good for the few but bad for the rest. Although, I'm not sure if fans of "the rest" feel like they have a chance anymore anyway. Most of the guys from the Lions supporting smaller say they like it better in the lower leagues because of the unpredictability of it all.

Last thing about the sugar daddies though. If they did it as a romantic investment just to get a club to be competitive, I would not have a problem with it. The problem is not that they spend money at the level of their competitors. They completely dwarf their spending. And yes wages makes all the difference. Correlation between wages and final positions is higher than any other metrics in football. 

John Henry (FSG president) philosophy is to spent smart. Find a way to exploit untapped potential in the market to find value. That's where I think the strategy has changed for Liverpool under the new owners. Buy young players before they become world class. Try to find world class players who are undervalued because they are perceived as undesirable. Spend less money to get to the goal: win. I'm not sure if we talked about it but it's based on Billy Beane and the story of the Oakland A's. Moneyball. The movie is one of my favorite.

Pedro Campos <pedrofreitascampos@gmail.com>	10:26 AM (0 minutes ago)
to Nicolas

Love the movie as well, agree with pretty much everything you said, did not know about John Hentry's strategy. Let's remember we agree on this for the next time haha.

Nicolas Rioux	10:29 AM (4 hours ago)
to me

Agree to agree. Isn't it just wonderful. Let's just hold hands and go for a walk in the sunset :)

brove life

Pedro Campos <pedrofreitascampos@gmail.com>	11:04 PM (1 minute ago)
to João

fonix bro.. partiste-me todo com este e-mail.. quem é que tá a descascar cebolas e porque é que não param?

Como escreveste, senti também que esta vez foi especial, porque fizemos imensa coisa diferente juntos, e independentemente do contexto, quer tivessemos a discutir ou a rir, senti sempre que tavamos na mesma onda. Repara, isto não é normal, que um gajo de 31 e um de 13 se dêem tão bem, e se isso acontece, é também porque tu és um baixinho como deve de ser (não és baixinho bro - quanto é que medes, por falar nisso?). Aliás, eu aprendi bastante contigo neste mês que partilhámos, aprendi (ou relembrei-me) que a importância que damos às coisas, especialmente aquelas de cariz mais negativo, é relativa e dependente de nós, aprendi que não existe nada mais energizante do que ter uma pessoa ao nosso lado que, independentemente das circumstâncias, vê as coisas pelo lado positivo. Quantas vezes me disseste "é na boa", quando 99% da população teria aproveitado a situação para me mandar uma farpa pelo meu comportamento não ter sido perfeitamente alinhado com as suas expectativas. Isto é amor, tem muito de amor, mas tem também de maturidade, uma maturidade notável para um bro da tua idade. e é parcialmente por isso que nos damos tão bem, outra razão sendo que és bué forte nos cruzamentos de canto.

E tens razão também quando dizes que juntos somos invencíveis, nunca ninguém te pode derrotar quando dentro de ti - das tuas entranhas, da tua alma, daquilo que é mais sagrado e que ninguém pode tocar -, já ganhaste à partida. E isto acontece com amor, com sensação de segurança e empatia. Junto a quem quiser e contra quem ousar, tamos fortes, fortissimos, a trascender qualquer circumstância ou adversidade que se atreva a se atravessar à nossa frente. De peito aberto, em tronco nú, contra a chuva e a tempestade, desafiados pelo sul ou pelo norte, somos bros muito mais do que bros, somos bros ao quadrado ou ao cubo, demasiado fortes para ceder, demasiado juntos para quebrar.

isto foi o melhor mail que já recebi na minha vida bro. és o meu heroi. we never walk alone !

inconclusive

faye and joão are looking at pictures on the internet

- these are alpacas
-- i think they are sheep
- no, sheep have like afro hair
-- alpacas have afro hair too
- its a different kind of afro hair, alpacas have more squared afro hair, not that much... eh... how do i say this.. look this is like sheep [cerra o punho], its more round, alpacas it's square hair.

a absoluta fina flor da web

**** http://dksince1983.tumblr.com/ **** 

isto não avança porque está muito congestionado. de regresso às spin-offs e isto passa a ser mais pessoal, talvez não, ainda vou pensar

untittied 2

mais ou menos em fogo, mais ou menos relaxado / mais ou menos drogado, mais ou menos enganado / a vida a dois tons, eu preciso de mais pompons / no ceú ou na terra, no verão ou no inverno, quatro vezes dois dá sopa, sete por oito noves fora: nada.

a rir de mim a tentar perceber se isto tinha algum sentido, e a pensar que novo que tu eras a pensar que velho que tu estavas.

confusiaac asimov

ok, notable quote do dia: "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom" - Isaac Asimov eh lá foda-se esta não estava à espera bué bem metida. o asimov é gajo pra ter razão.

banquinhos

tens 1 bola e 2 jogadores ou mais sobre um relvado com espaço. cada jogador cria uma baliza individual de dimensões razoáveis, medidas a olho e de acordo unânime. como criar as balizas fica ao critério de cada um. as balizas não precisam de ser sinalizadas a 3D, mas se for a 2D há um acordo sobre até que altura vale golo (normalmente altura da cintura do jogador a quem pertence a baliza - inconsistências de altura entre jogadores são ignoradas e normalmente tabu).

o objectivo do jogo é primariamente sofrer o menor número de golos possível (porque o último a ficar é campeão). secundariamente, deves marcar na baliza dos outros, para eliminá-los. É acordado um número de golos sofridos a partir do qual um jogador é eliminado, normalmente 5 ou 10.

O jogo começa com uma gesto técnico de lançamento da bola em jogo em que pontapeias a bola para o ar e anuncias "aliviada!". A omissão do anúncio verbal é considerada violação do espírito do jogo e o infractor sofre penalty contra - já explico os penalties. Cada vez que a bola sai do terreno de jogo, este ritual deve ser repetido, sempre pelo jogador cuja baliza está mais perto do ponto em que a bola saiu de jogo. A mesma regra geral se aplica quando há um golo, sendo que nesse caso é obviamente o jogador que sofre o golo que tem de aliviar a bola.

Após o alívio, é necessário que a bola bata pelo menos uma vez no chão antes de alguém a poder tocar. Cada jogador só pode tocar na bola uma vez antes que algum outro a toque. Isto quer dizer que não se podem dar 2 toques consecutivos na bola sem que alguém a toque primeiro, excepto se a) os toques forem dados sempre com a bola no ar - nesse caso, uma vez que a bola toque no chão outra vez, o jogador perde a vez e tem de esperar até que alguém a toque b) a bola toque no jogador outra vez de forma claramente involuntária (o tribunal é composto pelos restantes jogadores e muitas vezes permeável a decisões puramente políticas/competitivas) c) o jogador tiver em cima da linha de golo da sua baliza, e evite que a bola entre de forma passiva.

Golos de pé direito e esquerdo valem 1, golos de cabeça valem 2, golos de calcanhar valem 3 e golos de bicicleta valem 5.

Às alianças premeditadas entre jogadores (normalmente ou por amizade fora de campo ou por simbiose competitiva) é dado o nome de "caixinha". é comum durante o jogo haverem alegações sobre jogadores de "tarem a fazer caixinha". Embora em última análise inevitável por ser de prova difícil, a "caixinha" é considerada contra o espírito do jogo e as consequências sociais de fazer "caixinha" a jogar banquinhos normalmente estendem-se para fora do campo.

os penaltys acontecem quando alguma das regras que descrevi acima são violadas. o jogador que primeiro identifica e anuncia a violação (em voz alta) é o marcador do penalty. O penalty é marcado desde a área à volta da baliza do marcador, desde qualquer ponto escolhido pelo marcador, desde que esse ponto seja atingiível com um único salto iniciado dum qualquer ponto em contacto com um dos postes da baliza. o infractor não pode defender a sua baliza e é permitido marcar de qualquer maneira (inclusive bicicleta).