I agree Woodie that Kane isn't a player for the future. Perhaps he is a player for two seasons, but he is not the type of player that you buy in order to build a squad of the future around him. I didn't even know that Manchester United is among the interested clubs now. The last rumor I heard was all about Bayern and that there is something going on behind the scenes, but Bayern would never pay the transfer fee that Tottenham asked for. I thin when Manchester City wanted him they asked for something around 150 million, which is way too much.

If Kane goes away from Tottenham I don't even know whether he'd be interested in joining Manchester United. He also has a pretty well paying contract with Tottenham. It won't be easy to find another club willing to pay the signing fee and the salary he is asking.

Yes, Neymar was even 222 million if I recall that correctly. It was absurd to be honest when I first heard about, but today it is already normality. The money Ronaldo is earning, or the signing money for Mbappe's contract extension, which is not 100% public, but numbers can be found ranging from 100 million to even 206 million Swiss Francs as I just read.

At first when I read that Firmino is probably leaving Liverpool, I thought that he would be a good offender for Bayern Munich just for a season or two and then perhaps as a back up when they find a new one. But since Bayern then extended the contract with Choupo-Moting, it was obvious that it is not going to happen. Though I think he would have fit well into the Bayern team with his technique and his attitude to work hard on the pitch.

€140M sounds like a lot but how often did we think that the amounts paid for transfers can't be real anymore? In this market nothing is surprising anymore and it depends on which club wants Osimhen. If it is a club like PSG they would pay whatever it takes. PSG is actually a good example because they have demand at the end of the season. They could need someone like Osimhen I think. But nobody knows what his personal preferences are besides money. Manchester City has Haaland. It could even be Liverpool since Firmino is leaving in Summer.

I don't think that failing to qualify for the last World Cup says anything about their chances for the upcoming Uefa Euro 2024. There are a couple of examples where one tournament was a disaster even during the qualification and then the tournament afterwards the team performed very well. I would have to look it up but I remember that those situations have happened before.

The Nations League is a bad predictor for the future performance. The Nations League is often used to test players, usually nobody takes it as serious as the World Cup and the Euro and I agree with that. The Nations League is often boring to watch.

Do you think that Potter can still be saved? I think a change is already in the works, but won't be done during the season. Maybe if he wins the Champions League he can stay, but I think that would be much more than a sensation if that happens. If they don't play in the Champions League next season that is also an awful start for the new Chelsea investors. They thought they'll come to the Premier League, pump hundreds of millions of money into the club and then just conquer the league. Now they found out that it is a bit more complicated than that.

I doubt that this is just a question of age. Many of those players are of high calibre and cost a lot of money. There is a certain minimum they should be able to deliver. That is how the business works.

The problem I see is that Graham Potter has almost zero stability when it comes to the starting squads. Sometimes it looks as if he rolls the dice. He has by far the most active players in the league along with Nottingham Forest. Countless transfers, players that played yesterday are gone tomorrow. Some not even sitting on the bench when the started the last game and so on.

He needs to find a formation he trusts in and go from there. If you change five or more positions almost every game I think that can't work out very well.

Why is it just the World Cups? Wouldn't you agree that a team that wins one or even two consecutive EURO tournaments probably also is a pretty strong team?

Even though when France lost against Argentina I still believe that they are the strongest team in Europe and probably in the whole world. You can still lose even when you are stronger on paper. Argentina lost against Saudi Arabia but that doesn't mean anything. Germany will have to change lots of things before they can be counted into the circle of the strongest contenders for the EURO title. Since the cup will be in Germany they will be extra motivated, but they will still need a higher quality in the team.

I think it was key to get rid of Ronaldo because that leaves room for other players to develop. Ronaldo wants to take the penalties, the free kicks, the everything that a player would like to do. If you are a talented, rising young player you get mad at some point when there is this one guy who demands everyone else to play just for him and accept everything he wants and says. I guess ten Haag realized that and decided to change it. That was quite brave because it came to quite the showdown between him and Ronaldo and it could have gone either way if he didn't have the success he then had with the team when Ronaldo didn't play. Well done.

As you are mentioning Thomas Tuchel here, it just came to my mind what could be going on next season when one of the coaches like Klopp or Simeone gets sacked. Liverpool would be looking for a coach, Madrid might be looking for a coach and even Atletico might be looking for a coach. We may see a lot of back and forth between the clubs and the available coaches. Unless Ancelotti wins the Champions League, I don't think he will remain the coach of Real Madrid for another season. Zidane is also available as far as I know.

Liverpool had a very balanced offense when Mane was still there with Salah scoring the most goals, but all the others also scored frequently. Now individually they still have an amazing offense, but it seems as if they aren't playing together as well as the offense they used to have before Mane left.

Sometimes one player leaving a perfectly running system can slow everything down and that seems to be the case at Liverpool for the time being.

That is not a new trend. It is very standard for players who are at the end of their career and want to make big money for a last time. Just see how many players went to China or Japan when they didn't have salary caps. Iniesta plays for Vissel Kobe or Hulk played for Shanghai. Xavi played for al-Sadd for even four years. Nothing new about it and not to forget how many stars went to the MLS. Ibrahimovic, Henry etc. It is all about the money.

I think it is because soccer has become more and more of an international sport and players are highly mobile these days. The team of Senegal is a great example of that. They have a relatively high number of superstars playing for European top clubs. Due to that they have the experience on the pitch to play under the highest pressure. The number of South American and African players playing for top European teams has significantly increased over the last decades at least as per my perception. I have no statistics at hand right now, but my guess would be that that is the case.

I think the trend of teams other than the typical favorites competing stronger and stronger will continue in the future. Scouting is so strong and global, when there is an African or American or etc. player, it won't go unnoticed anymore. These players will be supported and promoted very early on and can then give back to their national teams later on. The competition will even out even more in the future.

This could turn into an interesting legal case I believe. Think about it, usually some players do have clauses implemented in their contracts that if something like this happens, they have the right to unilaterally cancel the contract and leave the club. I wonder though if all of those players have such clauses? But Manchester City also is a different kind of beast. Most clubs would probably have to sell most of their top starts when they get relegated to the second division. Since Manchester City is filthy rich, they might be able to buffer the problem quite a bit. The big problem is that I assume the financial fair play rules also apply to the Championship league? If that is the case the players would either voluntarily have to forego salary in order to help the club comply with the rules, or they would indeed have to leave the club.

Now my question is, do you guys really, really think that a club like Manchester City would be punished so hard that it could mean the end of this era? There is only one good reason that might indeed happen and that is because Juventus already got a severe punishment as well and if it turns out that Manchester City's behavior was even way worse, then that might be the end at least for a couple of years. It will be particularly hard to make a comeback when indeed the financial fair play rules are now enforced even harder.

Soccer left aside, at least we can see that the world is able to cooperate during such times no matter what. Solidarity is there even between Turkey and Greece. It is devastating that it happened at all and it is also devastating that it first needs such an event in order for the presidents of two countries to communicate again and leave their military shenanigans aside.

For whatever it's worth, it is once more necessary to show the biggest solidarity possible. The earthquake was insane and now the weather is shit and cold as well. Couldn't get any worse right now. At least it seems that a lot of countries can offer professional help.

Chelsea should also take into consideration that Manchester City is now once more under investigation because of violation of financial fair play rules or whatever those rules are called in the premier league. However, shouldn't there be some limit anyway? If you realize that 300 million didn't take you anyway and you go and put in another 200 million and it doesn't work, which we might find out soon, the problems are probably more of a structural thing. Something just doesn't work out. 

Given that Osimhen just turned 24 and imagine he also wins trophies on top of being the Serie A top scorer, I am sure he is going to cost any club more than 100 million pounds. His contract runs until 2025, which gives Napoli a nice edge for upcoming negotiations.

I wonder whether there is some easy conclusion to be drawn that the player was addicted. We don't know his bankroll and maybe he doesn't even bother because he has billions, but if it was a substantial amount for that person, would it ever make sense to place a bet of that size at all? Saying that this person wanted to play it safe would only apply if that amount of $1.4 million is within his perfect bankroll management range. Otherwise, if someone is seeking the kick in putting up $1.4 million for the chance of winning $11,200, I would think that there is some loss of control at play because nobody would care winning $11,200 in exchange for risking over a million. 

That's a crazy story either way and as you already put it, there is no such thing as a 100% safe bet ever unless you are hedging somehow. But this one ended with way more than a punch in the face...

Well, alt coins keep us busy researching right? New technologies coming up, new features, all the stuff you can change about Bitcoin or add to it. Alt coins essentially are the playing field for innovators and researchers. New stuff is tried out and you can see how it is received by the market. They are necessary to ultimately also improve Bitcoin. You could always implement successful and important new features into Bitcoin as well.

The question is what does OP mean by best future? Is that question solely referring to return on investment from today's point of view or is he referring to global adoption and resilience against external attacks of all kinds? Bitcoin has a bright future, maybe not so much anymore from an investment point of view. There are probably popping up coins that do a 100x or whatever. But Bitcoin will have its place for sure.

What? $30000? Are you sure you are talking about the right numbers here? I know that if you used Uniswap the fee was indeed three figures, but it never hit $30000! Imagine you want to make a transaction and face such a fee, Ethereum would be dead by now. I am not saying that the fees weren't already high enough, but $30000 is again a bit different.

Maybe what's also speaking in favor of Ethereum at this point is that there will soon be a fully rolled out staking function. I think that is going to create some more momentum for Ethereum and also an option to create a passive income source. Bitcoin is always a safe haven if you look at it from a long-term perspective.