Ideas for ILF

The idea of putting a premiership Everyman under the microscope was a good one, I thought.

Throw your ideas up here, so that we may hone or destroy them according to whim.

biggest racist poll

More unflattering rooney comparisons

I miss the 'random formations' thread, i think a thread where u post a formation and ppl have to guess the link or w/e would be neat

Sam's official ilf best player ever would be cool if he ever gets more than three ballots

Detailed thread for each club

I dunno

more discussion in threads we have like technique, skills a manager needs, etc

less spurs talk tbh

I was thinking of another 'greatest players' poll - maybe of the 90s this time.

I also wondered about adopting a cult club. They'd have to have a decent history for cachet but not so glorious that anyone else cares, be good enough to promise a visit to these shores once in a while, and be streamable occasionally. Standard Liege maybe?

arsenal

One idea I had was, next time there's an international week or something equally tedious, we turn instead to a simultaneous youtubing of some classic ye olde football. The 1974 world cup final for example, or England-Argentina from 1998. Both are up in their entirety. Could be all kinds of interesting.

great idea

IK, that's a great idea. I was gonna suggest the same thing, but then it was sandbox time and I forgot. Inspired by watching Hungary 6 England 3 - that game alone would be great to watch and liveblog together, I think.

yah i was thinking of the average prem player and still think steven warnock would be good, altho now he is getting attention for being bad

ok let's make it him, the whole point isn't to get into some interminable debate about the platonic form of the world's most mediocre £20k a week fitba player

Close personal friend of ILF's own Chris, iirc.

the 6-3 exists on tape? I had no idea.

The entire match is, predictably, on youtube. The quality's not great, but I've watched worse streams.

I vaguely recall discussion of 'average Prem. player' but can't remember what the point of it was.

Think at some point before the Euros we should try to predict this summer's Arshavin (breakout performance by unheralded player followed by big-money move and mostly disappointing next few years).

stephen ward

Nasri?

accompanying the 'average prem player' thread - choose some random 16 year old youth team player with v mild hype, follow his career closely for the next twenty years.

Could be a short thread though. Unless we all pick a different random kid from next year's intake and get competitive about it; last-man-playing-EPL or first-in-prison is the winner.

Is that not what the identifying child prodigies thread is for?

After reading the political compass threads I'm wondering how hard it would be to put together a footballing compass encapsulating skill, aggression, tactics, history, tradition, finance, savagery, etc. like "where would you fall on the Stoke > Barcelona aka Xavi > Rory Delap axis?").

Football is clearly more complex than politics though, we'd need some kind of multidimensional tool.

Ohhh I like that idea! We need some next level 3D compass tbh

Wouldn't we ever?! Maybe we could get Delap to design us one.

(incredible idea btw, not that I've read the political compass thread)

how about next season we pick a team for us all to get behind and watch (other than spurs) from a league we all find interesting but don't know enough about? like a brazilian team or if st. pauli get promoted or something

and actually watch them week in week out

i mean tbh come this stage of a season i'm usually p. jaded bout watchin anyone but spurs, idk is that the norm

maybe it is because i am p jaded bout watchin my own team

i hadn't considered that, i feel thoughtless now

imo, ilf should try this with wigan btwn now and may, i think they've good things coming.

Wigan will only bring you pain. If ever there was a "deserved more out of the game but..." team it's them, because of Gary Caldwell, mostly.

yeah i get enough ennui as is. i was thinking someone fun like santos or udinese.

Udinese fits the bill for 'cult club' too, but promises years of anguish ahead if we get attached. Also my grandad was based in Udine after the war, I feel some kind of bond there already. Only kinship with Santos is I once knew a guy whose car was stolen there.

ILF book club anyone? There's been occasional talk round these parts about Fever Pitch. In a fit of laziness I couldn't be bothered hunting for my copy and have ordered another.

I kind of refuse to read Fever Pitch but it could be a good idea. I got Pele's autobiog for £2 the other day to sit on my shelf forever.

dunphy's 'only a game?' is required tbrr

should ilf write articles on weird little specifities y/n

Of course. What would we do with them?

just a bit of fun

Unless they're good/strange enough for run of play or suchlike, i'm no expert there tho

keane book would be potentially hilarious too. v keen to read the dunphy book. i'd be in for this, football books are as mindless a form of escape as watching the game.

we already wrote a better keane book imo

Haven't read Fever Pitch for years, would read again for ILF Book Club, I think. I'd be up for this in any case.

I wouldnt mind taking part but a bit snowed under with college work atm

good books about football ive read

garrincha's bio
declan lynch's italia 90 book
cascarino's bio
the dunphy one

liked all of these, tho' a couple only for comedy value

john foot 'calcio'
szymanki 'soccernomics'
maradona autobio
j wilson 'inverting the pyramid'
kuper 'football men'
paul merson autobio
d winner 'brilliant orange'
n warnock autobio
r reng 'a life too short' (robert enke bio)

Also Rafa's Champions Lge Dreams but I think I may well be alone there. Plus the secret footballer book is okay I guess and just started La Roja book about Spanish football. I only really read when I'm at work so the choice is limited by what we stock.

jesus y'all read a lot about football, it's like you never heard of robert jordan

sure, the brother of that perma-tanned Crystal Palace ex - chairman right?

What's the Enke book like?

Excellent. Understandably not wholly centred on football, although there's a cameo by Louis van Gaal in which he surprises absolutely no-one.

I woke up from an actual ILF dream at 3:30 last night.

I was part of an ILF five-a-sides dream team taking on last year's Man City. Me, LG, Darragh, Michael B, I can't recall the fifth - may have been an Irish lads' team with me as ringer, idk.

Anyway we took a shock lead when a Yaya Toure shot rebounded off the wall behind our goal and bounced all the way to the other end into their stripy, handball-style goal. Dunno if Hart managed to get a hand to it or not.

Then LG and Dzeko both had to nip off for an hour to an appointment of some kind, leaving it four v four. Two City subs came on to make up the numbers - David Silva and Scott Baio iirc - except darragh simply wouldn't countenance taking on a ringer.

So the problem was there were now six City players on the pitch, and two would have to leave. Silva and Scotty Baio were quite happy to trot back off, but at this point Mancini comes wading in, demanding to remove their two worst players and berating them loudly in turn; with chaotic, fighty results. At which point I woke up.

:D that's truly demented

I dreamed I was playing football last night as well, except that's because I really am playing football today, representing (don't giggle) Drowned In Sound

one of those dreams where you run towards the ball but although your feet are moving you remain fixed to the spot, as someone else closes in and steals away possession :(

shame the dream didnt follow lg and dzeko's rendezvous tbh... maybe on a hornier nite

who are dis' opposition today btw? hoping it's like british gas or someone

We're playing a team called Dragon FT, which is worrying. Usually they're called Deportivo Beer or such

Wonder if an ILF slash thread is a good Idea for ILF, expand our demographic

just to be clear, I was in no way prefiguring a slash thread, nor to my knowledge was last night's episode heading anywhere in that direction

if they had mancini there who did we have on the touchline?

Ech, that's a point. I didn't see, but as the game was clearly taking place in my old school gym (since demolished) I'm guessing it'd've been my old PE teacher.

and there was me expecting phaseofplay off rawk

Good thing you guys didn't have to deal with Dzeko in my absence.

clever run it was, drew him right out of position

there ought to be a dis xi match report delivered with all the breathless enthusiasm of a my vitriol reunion show review

that reads sarcastically but you should remember that is exactly what a vitriol reunion show review on dis would read like

ought to read like

will have read like

It finished 3-3. I started on the bench but after 20 minutes or so I came on as a defensive midfielder that had the remit of preventing attacks and shifting the ball around the field to the more experienced ball-players. It was my first game for 6 months after knee injury and I was widely considered to have played well in the holding role.

j4g13r mascherano

did you yomp?

this season i am trying to pay more attention to fullbacks and defensive midfielders apart from the rare ones like chivu or adriano correia who i rep because they are 'fitba players' rather than 'game lads'

I did not yomp (hit a rasper just wide in the warm-up!). I played with an almost psychotic determination to pass the ball to the nearest man in space along the floor. I also tackled fairly, made some crucial interceptions and did not give away a single foul. These things endeared me to my team.

It's quite an easy position to play, you just have to watch the game and see where space is developing, and then charge into that space.

I also played the last three minutes at centre-back, which I'd never done before. No goal was conceded in this period.

My DM inspiration is Charlton's Jordan Cousins, who is absurdly composed & skilful for a 20 year-old. He'll Premiership in a year or so

the cuntish glee of the egregious verb

an inadvertent super ilxer, too

haha true

you just have to watch the game and see where space is developing, and then charge into that space = this reminds of kafka's fable about the mouse, with the english team's defensive midfielder as the mouse and xavi, schweinsteiger etc as the cat (every space invaded creating another space to play triangles through)

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LittFabl.shtml

very pertinent. well, I won't deny I couldn't stop *everything* coming through. that is the lot of the defensive midfielder, especially the lone defensive midfielder. actually my slowness might have helped me at times - less charging, more shifting, persuading, coaxing

at the very height of the game it becomes one of the most cognitively demanding positions, and some of the best exponents have reached their peak maybe five years later than is the average for other positions -- carrick last year, makalélé at 33/34, marcos senna at 32

ah but the very height of the game isn't a sunday rank-amateur faffabout

it's an easy position for me to play because not much is expected of me beyond getting stuck in, holding position and playing simple passes

the rest of the pitch is too chaotic and unpredictable at this level for me to have any ambitions beyond this

carrick, senna etc - what is that if not composure and effort, magnified and refined?

right because if you leave spaces, they can be obvious but nobody has the technique to exploit them

the paradox of the position, at the lowest level along with fullback it's the most generic position, at the highest level it becomes very specialized

The second goal was assisted by the opposition midfielder who advanced towards me - I made the mistake of running at him, so he bodyswerved and then played a nice throughball beyond a static central defensive pair - so I guess even at this level there must be room for consideration and momentary poise

I'd like to think that I played it well though, not being tempted to advance with a couple of safe exceptions, and always looking to retain possession ahead of hoofing it. Needs a certain...pedantry

schneiderlin for example is a born dm, wanyama is someone who has the physical qualities and workrate of sort of ideal dm but has no real aptitude for it and he was probably played there originally because when he failed to track runners it caused fewer problems than when he made the same errors playing at centre back

schneiderlin/cork were superlative last season. presumably wanyama is a slight upgrade on cork

just got depremiershipped

*just depremiershipped

some shit ink this game, lallana's torso scrawl upstaged by some truly vile crap from that remedial boruc

I started on the bench but after 20 minutes or so I came on as a defensive midfielder that had the remit of preventing attacks and shifting the ball around the field to the more experienced ball-players. It was my first game for 6 months after knee injury and I was widely considered to have played well in the holding role.

― check yr poptimism (imago), Sunday, 6 October 2013 22:34 (54 minutes ago) Bookmark

dis appreciate 65minutesofstatic iirc

oh my gosh, just googled :D

rtc with the hammerblow there

can't work out whether boruc's navel appropriation is worse than his neck descender, probably...not?

http://i.imgur.com/1SmGlNf.jpg

cornrows
class
culture

composure
competence
Cousins

yeah i was gis-ing cousins after lj's last rave rvw, he does seem to take an unfortunate photo the lad

speaking as a lapsed fellow countryman i kinda love boruc for surely being the most polish pole that ever did attain fame

cousins is gonna fuck barton's shit up. only a month and a half bruv

we need photographic evidence of boruc in a park with a zywiec and around half of his extended family before you can make brash claims like that

extended famming is more of a romanian flex but otherwise otm

http://i.imgur.com/saN1zZy.jpg

well, the male half xp

utter ledgernds in that photo. wait that's henri lansbury isn't it. ha

the author of the arsenal gentleman twitter must have contemplating drinking a pint of ladunum when sir lansbury was cast among the champo oiks

@ArsenalGent

One is forever blowing bubbles.

167 Retweets

what happened to the last charlton midfielder bradley something you were repping for last season

He's had a couple of brilliant games against Leicester & Watford doing his Duracell Bunny thing, but at other times he's looked entirely vapid in possession, apt to give it away with frightening regularity. At his best he's insanely annoying to play against