What is your football club?

**Miguel_80** · July 21, 2018, 05:09 AM

My football club is Real Madrid. Despite being born and lived in Barcelona all my life.

If I have to choose the favorite goal (best celebration, in 1998), I choose this one. It marked a "before and after" of the typical 6 cups of Europe in "black and white" with the 7 in color...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Macunaíma** · July 21, 2018, 09:13 AM

A madridista from Barcelona? Tell us more about that. Is the rest of your family Madrid fans as well or are you some sort of "black sheep"?

**Miguel_80** · July 21, 2018, 12:15 PM

No, none of the "other world", or anything strange. Barcelona and its metropolitan area is very large. You can meet people of all kinds. I personally am Real Madrid by my Cantabro-castilan origin, "Castilla la Vieja", that his team is not in 1st Division, they tend to be Real Madrid. As an example you can see that the Real Madrid B is called the "Castilla".

Well, in short, my first team is Real Madrid, but now also Real Valladolid; and hopefully climb of category the "CF Palencia" and "Racing Santander. And I'm of the Real Madrid because I liked the fifth of the "Buitre" (Emilio Butragueño)

And regarding the Catalan political issues, every day I feel more proud of not belonging to the FC Barcelona, it is a politicized club in which if you are not an independentist you do not paint anything. In Catalonia there are many people who are fed up with politicizing "their" football club and using them as "guinea pigs" for their pro-independence propaganda. And now of these problems the UEFA account ... When in the 80s I went to Euskadi to see a football match and listened to "ETA kill them, ETA kill them... etc..."

P.S: About Cristiano Ronaldo. He had already planned to leave Real Madrid months earlier if they did not fix the tax issue he owes to the Treasury (Hacienda). The rest is "salsa rosa" from the press. And if it serves as something for this thread, as a Madridista, I was very annoyed by the statements he made when the game against Liverpool ended. It was premeditated and ready to be the protagonist. Hhhmmmm ... 34 years old, Thank you, God bye ...
Real Madrid and its 13 European Cups are above one player.
In short ... Hala Madrid and nothing else! "¡Hala Madrid y nada más!"
P.S.2: As Florentino said: "the contract is that there is and there is no more." (in bus) After celebration of 13th Champions League

And before insurrections and disrespect, goodbye.

**Candy_Licker** · July 21, 2018, 12:57 PM

Borussia Dortmund. Though I'm barely interested in football anymore because the sport has become so rotten and uncompetitive.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · July 21, 2018, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by Candy_Licker

Borussia Dortmund. Though I'm barely interested in football anymore because the sport has become so rotten and uncompetitive.

A man of culture. I used to watch Dortmund quite frequently back in the Golden Days.

**Macunaíma** · July 21, 2018, 04:56 PM

Watch South American football then, mate. It's still competitive, without the same teams always winning. It's rotten alright, but it's the old rot, the one that has always existed, not the new one with its petrodollars and money laundering.

**Knight of Heaven** · July 21, 2018, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by Macunaíma

In 2004 I know you beat Once Caldas from Colombia by penalty kicks. They were probably one of the greatest upsets on Libertadores history, beating defending champions Boca Juniors in the final by penalty kicks too.

Is Porto in 2004 considered an upset?

Edit: In 87 you beat Peñarol in extra time. A great honor if you ask me. Peñarol is one of the greatest South American clubs, but that was their last Libertadores title. Now they barely reach the knockout stage.

They did reach the final in 2011, though, and were defeated by Neymar's Santos. Even knocked us out in the eighth finals

.

Was Porto an upset in 2004? no i dont think so. The Mourinho tenure was brilliant, as it was his football at the time. ( not the Bus that is like today in United if you ask me)

They won everything they could win in those years with Mou, they also played the best football i ever seen Porto play, under Mourinho. With the likes of Deco, Maniche, Costinha, Ricardo carvalho, Paulo Ferreira, Valente, Baia, Derlei, Carlos Alberto ( when he was young and good), The awesome Benny Mcharty and such. best Porto team i have seen. And i was fortunate to have seen a few.

From what i remember that match against Once Caldas, Porto was already looted of players, and the manager was Luiz Fernandez. So different team, different football etc.

It was a peculiar and particular awesome champions the one Porto won in 2004. It was a year where the smaller teams suddenly begun to win against the Big teams. It wasnt just Porto.
Monaco, Lyon, and Deportivo, made Brilliant runs in that season in CL, beating the likes of Real Madrid, Ac Milan, and Manchester United from what i recall, in epic matches. Porto was able to eliminate United, Lyon did the same with madrid i think. Depor had a legendary match vs AC. MIlan. Etc.

Porto ended up winning the final against Monaco 3-0 SO nothing upset by that.
That champions league was a pretty awesome edition if you ask me.

Of course people who lost it will always be upset. But that is football.

Btw the year earlier Porto had a legendary final in Seville against Celtic, in Uefa cup final.
That final was everything but Upset

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Also In that UEFA cup, Porto had legendary game against Lazio in the semis ( At the time Lazio was a great team btw.) Porto had a 0-0 draw in the first leg with Lazio in Italy. And the second leg was...well..EPIC!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

P.S: About Cristiano Ronaldo. He had already planned to leave Real Madrid months earlier if they did not fix the tax issue he owes to the Treasury (Hacienda). The rest is "salsa rosa" from the press. And if it serves as something for this thread, as a Madridista, I was very annoyed by the statements he made when the game against Liverpool ended. It was premeditated and ready to be the protagonist. Hhhmmmm ... 34 years old, Thank you, God bye ...
Real Madrid and its 13 European Cups are above one player.
In short ... Hala Madrid and nothing else! "¡Hala Madrid y nada más!"
P.S.2: As Florentino said: "the contract is that there is and there is no more." (in bus) After celebration of 13th Champions League

And before insurrections and disrespect, goodbye.

Salty much?

Btw i agree he should have stayed quiet after the Liverpool game, and far from me to want to defend Cristiano on fiscal issues. But everything else? I cant agree with you. Nor do i see how Cristiano put himself above the club either.... Florentino promised him a better contract. Wich he didnt follow trough, or more likely didn't wanted to follow trough since the beginning, knowing very well the situation would create. Perez have been pushing to see Cristiano go, for a good while now. As lots of Madridistas, oddly enough.
So im not really surprised by this to be honest. Nor your reaction.
I do think its Real loss though.

**lolIsuck** · July 21, 2018, 08:54 PM

Roda JC, club has been in the gutter the last few years and relegated through the play-offs last season from the Eredivisie to the first division for the second time in 4 seasons after 41 continuous seasons in the top flight. We used to have a decent side in the 90's and early 2000's, even beating Milan in San Siro in 2002 and recording a 10-0 victory against Hapoel Beer Sheva as well as finishing 2nd behind Ajax in 94/95, the year they were unbeaten in both the domestic league and Champions League. For quite a while they were almost a certainty for a left table finish but that all changed dramatically in the last few years.

The team never had a massive budget, relying mostly on good scouting and success, both sports-wise and transfer-wise so when that changed and they got into financial trouble things went south quite fast.
There were plans for a merger with Fortuna Sittard, a rival team, but that was wildly unpopular with the fans and the merger was called off in the end. Still, the season wasn't going well and the team ended up in last place with only one match to go, Feyenoord away. In the Dutch competition last place means direct relegation whereas the 2 spots above it mean relegation play-offs against the first division teams. To make things even more interesting it just so happened that the two teams occupying those spots had to play eachother. Roda needed a win to avoid direct relegation and against all odds (really all odds, the ref even gave a penalty to Feyenoord for handball by our defender Kah, despite the fact that it was clearly the white arm of Feyenoord defender Hofland and not his darkskinned arm) they did win 3-2. In the play-offs they barely survived on penalties.

The years after that were a bit better and there was some hope they'd gotten the club back on the rails with 9th, 6th and 10th places but that was just a temporary revival as they relegated in 2014, after barely surviving the play-offs again a year before with a stoppage time free kick, for the first time in 41 seasons.
On the last day they needed a win and NEC couldn't get a point away against the champions Ajax, I was in Vienna on a student trip at the time and as I studied in Nijmegen, hometown of NEC, most were hoping for NEC. The restaurant didn't have wifi and we relied on the dad of the leader of the student club (who was a fan of NEC's rival Vitesse himself) to send the scores. It was looking good for quite long, Roda was ahead and so was Ajax. Then NEC equalised with 20 minutes left to go and I was getting a bit more nervous than I already was. Ajax regained the lead with 10 minutes to go but NEC equalised once more in the 88th minute and Roda was relegated. To make it worse NEC was trashed by a side that ended 16th in the first division (these play-offs are weird, they were allowed to participate in them because they ended 3rd in one of the 4 periods and the first 2 weren't eligible as 1 was PSV's youth team and the other had already won another play-off I believe) and relegated as well.

After a truely terrible season in which they still somehow managed to get 3rd place (the first division isn't great) they promoted via the play-offs, the final match being another thriller that required extra time and another late goal after they'd conceded one in the first half of extra time. The year after they managed to avoid the play-offs with some of the ugliest football I've ever seen before deciding last year that it just isn't the same without some extra matches at the end of the season. They once more dragged through it, playing the final against their biggest rival team MVV with a spectacular 0-0, 1-0 scoreline.
Last season they decided this couldn't go on much longer and tried to build something more responsible and sustainable from the ground up (very hard without much money and your prospective new owner in a Dubai prison cell), which resulted in a terrible first half of the season but they actually played quite well in the second half, apart from a few mysteriously out of form performances in the middle, and managed to avoid direct relegation. Now for the first time I was feeling pretty confident about surviving the play-offs so naturally they went out against the first opponent they faced after somehow falling back to the level of football of the first half of the season.

For the next season the team is nowhere near ready due to lack of funds and a lot of players leaving due to the relegation and the end of their loan period, just when the first division is arguably stronger than it has ever been with FC Twente, NEC and Sparta there (yes we have a team named Sparta

). It's hoping the prospective new owner gives some money or local investors cough something up or we're looking at another bleak season. The problem is that the man who wishes to take over the club is still in a legal battle in Dubai, he was given a 3 year prison sentence for allegedly writing an unsecured 17 million dollar cheque, which has since been reduced to a $3500 dollar fine as he seems to have proven that he didn't write that cheque. He still wants to clear his name completely though so he hasn't agreed to pay the fine but that also means his interaction with Roda has been minimal although he did finally get a minority share last month when the money he had reserved for it finally became available. That money was then quickly spent on covering deficits though so more is needed.

**Macunaíma** · July 22, 2018, 07:16 PM

Quite a story. I'm really saddened by struggling teams which are bought by foreign millionaires and end up in trouble because of that. A century-old club can be easily trashed by bad management. I heard stories of European clubs actually going bankrupt or never getting back to their first divisions because of uninterested or incompetent owners who just want to profit from them, and don't care about what the club actually means to their supporters.

Originally Posted by Knight of Heaven

Was Porto an upset in 2004? no i dont think so. The Mourinho tenure was brilliant, as it was his football at the time. ( not the Bus that is like today in United if you ask me)

They won everything they could win in those years with Mou, they also played the best football i ever seen Porto play, under Mourinho. With the likes of Deco, Maniche, Costinha, Ricardo carvalho, Paulo Ferreira, Valente, Baia, Derlei, Carlos Alberto ( when he was young and good), The awesome Benny Mcharty and such. best Porto team i have seen. And i was fortunate to have seen a few.

From what i remember that match against Once Caldas, Porto was already looted of players, and the manager was Luiz Fernandez. So different team, different football etc.

It was a peculiar and particular awesome champions the one Porto won in 2004. It was a year where the smaller teams suddenly begun to win against the Big teams. It wasnt just Porto.
Monaco, Lyon, and Deportivo, made Brilliant runs in that season in CL, beating the likes of Real Madrid, Ac Milan, and Manchester United from what i recall, in epic matches. Porto was able to eliminate United, Lyon did the same with madrid i think. Depor had a legendary match vs AC. MIlan. Etc.

Porto ended up winning the final against Monaco 3-0 SO nothing upset by that.
That champions league was a pretty awesome edition if you ask me.

Of course people who lost it will always be upset. But that is football.

Agreed, mate. And, although I know it's usual to consider Benfica to be the greatest Portuguese club, I personally think the title belongs to Porto. You've had less domestic success but have the same number of continental cups, plus the World titles they lack (losing to Peñarol and Santos). And for me that counts a lot.

I got some videos of Inter's Libertadores wins, in 2006 and 2010. The 2006 final was against the powerful São Paulo which had won the championship the previous year, and defeated Liverpool in the Club World Cup to win their third World title. So it was no safe bet to say we'd actually win the tournament that year. There was no favorite. The first leg was on their stadium, the legendary Morumbi, and Inter would make 2-0 before they scored one. This match was incredible, I was 11 years old and could barely believe what was happening. The crowd in the stadium almost went silent after the second goal, only Internacional fans chanting. And there were even 2 red cards in the match before any goals scored, one to each side. The second leg would be a 2-2 tie, with Inter leading most of the time, but a very tense match nonetheless. Damn, I miss that team. They were fierce, and had a lot of skilled and tactically minded players, not to mention a solid three-man defense. The most memorable player was certainly Fernandão, the captain and centerforward. Dude's headers seemed like cannon shots. Unfortunately he would die very young (36 years old) in a helicopter crash in 2014. They even made a statue to him in Inter's stadium Beira-Rio (hosted World Cup matches in 2014). He just scored in the secong leg of this final. In this match the two Inter goals were scored by Rafael Sobis, who was only 21 at the time. Amazing player as well. They formed an incredible attacking pair.

Here are alll the highlights from both matches, with a less excited narrator:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

In 2010 we had a team which I consider to be not as good as the 2006 one. One interesting thing is that after the World Cup break the club brought back players which were champions in 2006, like Sobis and Tinga (a midfielder, which scored the second goal in the 2006 second leg of the final). The final was against Chivas Guadalajara, of Mexico, and Inter won both matches. The hardest match of that Libertadores, in my opinion, was in the semi-final, against São Paulo, again!

Inter passed on away goals, since one match was 2-1 for them and the other 1-0 for us. That was some challenge. This team of Inter had great players, like Guiñazu, a defenside midfielder which seemed to have 4 lungs or something (Kanté reminds me of him), Giuliano, a young player which usually started on the bench and went in to score decisive goals (he currently plays in Fenerbahce), and Dalessandro, a talented midfielder of great technical skill (he still plays for Inter, at 37 years old). And although some players from 2006 were brought back, some happened to stay on the club all that time, like center back Índio, one of the most memorable defenders on the club's history (playing here until his retirement in 2014). Unfortunately, due to bad management and poor choices (the team even switched managers mid-season during this Libertadores run), Inter performed very badly at the Club World Cup that year, losing in the semi-finals to African champions Mazembe, which was very shameful.

But here are the highlights of that Libertadores final. A funny thing is that Inter suffered the first goal in both matches, but turned the score.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Flinn** · July 23, 2018, 07:09 AM

any Club where CR7 plays and of course Juventus... oh wait..

**Knight of Heaven** · July 24, 2018, 05:32 AM

Originally Posted by Flinn

any Club where CR7 plays and of course Juventus... oh wait..

**Diocle** · July 24, 2018, 08:16 AM

For me, as for my dad and for my granddad and his dad, there's only one football club:
Genoa Cricket and Football Club 1893

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**AnthoniusII** · July 26, 2018, 04:43 AM

Originally Posted by isa0005

As an Australian, I "root" for the AFLs Saint Kilda Football Club. CAAAAAARN SAINTERS!

Won't lie though, they're not an easy team to barrack for, they've only won one premiership game and that was in 1966 :'( which is waaaaaayyyy before my time haha. Although my dad was there as a little tacker.

As an Australian too...my favorite club is one of the most historic ones in the country with participation to world club Cup once:

Former Hellas Melbourne FC.
As a Hellen but fun of the Middle Ages Roman Empire my favorite FC is PAOK:

**Wulfburk** · July 28, 2018, 10:24 PM

Since i was a wee lad i root for Cruzeiro, the main team (of course

) of my state of Minas Gerais in Brazil.

One of my earliest memories is when i was 5 years old, crying my ass of because of São Paulo's first goal in this match:

I got to the point when i was a kid that my mom grounded me and didnt let me watch matches, because i either cried or got crazy.

Ive seen my team win three brazilian championships and three brazilian cups. Was too young to see the libertadores of 97, and its what we dream of achieving now. I got my ass clenched ever since we got on the hardest bracket in the current libertadores.. Flamengo, then Boca Juniors, then Palmeiras/Corinthias, then to the final. Im not gonna handle it.

Best player i saw with my own eyes in the club, Alex de Souza. Que HOMEM

**Macunaíma** · August 05, 2018, 02:04 PM

The first Brazilian League I remember was in 2003, when Cruzeiro won it with 100 points. At the time I thought it was the greatest Brazilian team there was. A few years later I realized it was actually Inter though

.

**Copperknickers II** · August 08, 2018, 06:30 AM

Come on you bhoys in green!

Proudest moment - the Lisbon Lions become the first British team to win the Champion's League

**~~Stone Cold Shogun Panther~~** · August 09, 2018, 01:02 PM

Why does everyone hate Manchester United?

**Noble Savage** · January 10, 2019, 01:15 AM

Wait , why no love for football ? No posts for months .

Anyway , I'm a long suffering Toffee . Long , long suffering .
Supporter Everton since 1988 . I missed the glory years .