Barstool’s Weekend Soccer Preview – The “2017-18 Recap + FA Cup Band-Aid” Edition

Sam's Army5/19/2018 2:30 AM

Sam’s Safe Space For Soccer Stoolies

Hi Haters™,

First things first, as most of you probably know JSB zigged one way and Barstool zagged another this week, which is too bad because she – aside from being a good person and a hard worker (who has been waking up at like 4am for the better part of a year now) – was one of only a handful people around here who was proudly out of the closet as a true blue jogo bonito fan. So nothing but the best to her and I’m sure she will go on to do good things, hopefully in the world of soccer where this country needs more people out banging the drum… even if they are actually Canadian.

As for what that means for soccer around here, especially in light of Puty’s World Cup looming in less than a month, I’m not quite sure yet. The one thing I can say is that if you want more coverage (even if you hate my guts), let ‘em know on social media. The one thing about Barstool is that if there is an appetite for content, then content shall be supplied. Whether it’s hockey or football or baseball or fashion or movies… if you want it, Barstool will provide it.

Regardless, I’ve already started doing the legwork on some preview blogs, along with some others that will help stimulate your sports boners in the run up to The Big Dance, and you can be damn sure I’ll be grinding my dick off during the tournament to bring you daily posts and the like. We are all in the same boat, after all, of being heartbroken about the USA not being present, but there is no point in letting that unfortunate fact ruin what is nevertheless the greatest sports spectacle on earth.

So that’s what is on the near and present horizon. Before we get to that though let’s not forget that, while the EPL’s regular season has been rode hard and put away wet (by Man City), there are still some extremely important games to be played over the course of the next couple weekends to determine who lifts various trophies and what teams will be playing in next season’s Premier League. PLUS – as an extra special bonus (free of charge!) – I put together a quick and dirty recap of the season that was (including grades for my preseason predictions) so we can all laugh and what a moron I am.

Good times! Let’s get to it…

***********************************

2017-18 EPL RECAP

After the dust settled and results from 380 games had been tabulated, this is what the final table came out looking like:

Note: An entire summer of balls dangling on your head. Dang. You hate to see that.

***

PRESEASON PREDICTION – FINAL GRADES

This is the part of the proceedings where everybody gets to point and laugh at my dumb brain…

Champion
Prediction – Man City
Result – Man City
Grade – A… it may seem obvious now but the odds for City and United (and to a lesser extent returning champions Chelsea) were in the same ballpark coming into the season, and a lot of people jumped on the United bandwagon after they came out HOT in the first couple of weeks. Blind squirrel found a nut! (Warning: it’s downhill from here.)

Relegated Clubs
Prediction – Burnley, Huddersfield and Palace
Results – Swansea, Stoke and Dead Brom
Grade – F… Sheesh. Oh for three is bad, but Burnley (quietly) playing out of its mind and snagging seventh makes it look even worse. On the other hand Huddersfield survived by the skin of its teeth and Palace didn’t win a game until roughly Christmas so there’s that. Which is nice.

Golden Boot
Prediction – Romelu Lukaku edging out Kane
Result – Salah edging out Kane
Grade – B-… Lukaku was in contention early but faded (bad) late, not helped by The Soccer Succubus’ staid offensive “strategy”… Salah, on the other hand, was on another level this season and kudos to him.

Player of the Year
Prediction – Dele Alli
Result – Mo Salah
Grade – D… No excuses. Just a bad, bad prediction. Salah, Kevin De Bruyne and Harry Kane were all in the running for player of the year around the halfway point but Daddy Puff’s incredible second half (assisted by Kane’s injuries and KDB’s shrinkage in big games) made this one an easy call. As for Dele, old boy stunk up the joint for the first half of the season before turning it on a bit in the last few months… but still, woof, ya boy is taking a lap (or two) for that call.

Best young player
Prediction – Everton’s Jordan Pickford
Result – Leroy Sane
Grade – B… Pickford had a solid season but a lack of quality and cohesiveness (not to mention goals) from his team weighed him down. Sane was a beast for most of the season (save for a couple horrible performances in big games), and the consistency is why I’d go with him other the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold who (along with Andrew Robertson) came out of nowhere in the latter portion of the year and may have been the difference in helping Liverpool reach the Champions League final.

Biggest bust (new transfer)
Prediction – Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata
Result – Morata started strong but faded worse than Barbaro.
Grade – A-… a striker who can’t score – yikes

FA Cup winner
Prediction – Chelsea
Result – Chelsea vs United on Saturday
Grade – B+ (could be upgraded to A depending on this week’s result)

***

CLOSING THOUGHTS

A few final thoughts off the top of my head (literally) on the season and where clubs stand heading into 2018-19:

City – best team in the league and perhaps in the world over the course of the year (Barcelona obviously have a claim as well)… but extremely un-clutch. Laying massive eggs in back-to-back Champions league games against Liverpool (who rightly deserve a lot of the credit) really put a damper on what was still an impressive performance. Pep says he doesn’t expect to spend much this summer, which is understandable considering the billions spent last season.

United – Soccer Succubus strikes again… rarely has second place felt so icky. Tough to argue with the end result but the way they went about it given the amount of talent on the field was disappointing to say the least. In typical Mourinho form though, and despite their entertainment-free style, they could still grab some silverware. Basically the anti-Tottenham when you really think about it. Jozay is gonna wanna go big (or go home) this summer because next season is his third with the club, meaning there’s a 97% chance it will be his last, which should make for an interesting transfer window given how many big names the Red Devils have been tied to (especially with more money than god and little qualms with spending it… unlike some clubs… speaking of which)

Spurs – Another solid but trophy-less campaign. (Imagine that!?) A few guys already have one foot out the door – *cough* Toby *cough* – but assuming that Poch manages to keep (most of) the team together this summer, next year is shaping up to be a bit of a make-or-break one as far as the club’s nucleus is concerned.

Liverpool – What a difference a few months (and the world’s most expensive defender) make. Some people were legitimately calling for Klopp’s head last fall, and somewhat understandably so given how many points they lost thanks to embarrassing defense. But they put things together down the stretch in a BIG way and head into next season sitting pretty with one of the most dangerous attack forces around… assuming guys like Loris Karius, Dejan Lovren and the wing backs can remain in something near their current form.

Chelsea – Lotta question marks this offseason. Looking back, letting Diego Costa walk out the door was the beginning of the end for Conte, who can’t wait to gtfo after Saturday’s game. Club needs to find a new manager and do whatever it takes to lock Eden Hazard into a new deal. And yet after a pretty shitty season and a squad in serious tumult, they might still win more trophies than Spurs. Sucks to suck (in different ways).

Arsenal – QUESTION MARKS GALORE. Nightmare season all around. Need a new manager, new goalkeeper, new defense and some new midfielders… other than that they are looking just fine though.

Burnley – Sam Dyche and this no-nonsense group of players are not getting nearly enough credit for an incredible season. Do I fear for what will happen when they face the rigors of Europa next fall? Yes, yes I do. But who cares. For now they should enjoy the hell out of it.

Everton – Basically the same as Arsenal except they also need some strikers. They quietly poached PSV’s technical director though, and adding Marco Silva to replace Big Sam would be a pretty damn sexy start to the offseason.

Lester – Honestly, not sure if the honeymoon period will ever officially be over for the Foxes after the ridiculousness of 2015-16… but expectations will quietly begin creeping up on them at some point. Maybe not next season, but soon.

Newcastle – HELL of a season. Keeping Rafa should be numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the club’s to-do list. Might be a tough ask though.

Palace – Could end up selling high on Willy Zaha, and can’t say I’d blame them. That said, they will need to put the money to good use because without him they would be playing in the Championship next season.

Bournemouth – Blissful mediocrity for the Cherries. Can’t argue with it.

West Ham – Embarrassing brush with relegation means the entire club needs an overhaul. Too many veterans with not enough in the tank.

Watford – Club is bit of an enigma, sometimes looking like they could compete for Europa but failing the consistency test in a big way. Firing Marco Silva was Dumb with a capital D. On the plus side, they are better resourced than many of the other clubs near the bottom of the table.

Brighton – Showed spine down the stretch but would need to find one or more N’Golo Kante-like diamonds in the rough not to be in the same position next season.

Huddersfield – See above.

Southampton – Too much talent to be relegated and yet lucky to stay up. Club needs to rethink what it wants to be this summer, and should be able to retool using a combination of its youth system and Liverpool money.

Swansea, Stoke and Dead Brom –

***

THE WEEKEND AHEAD

Thankfully the EPL season being over doesn’t mean the fun stops. There are all sorts of entertaining and/or high-stakes games still on tap, most of which are completely self-contained in their importance, so I’m throwing them together in one grab bag section rather than doing it country by country.

***

FA CUP FINAL

Chelsea [+185]
United [+160]
Draw [+200]

Neither team will go into the summer feeling very good about how the 2017-18 season went down, but winning a trophy is one helluva band-aid.

“Attractive” or “entertaining” are unlikely words that will be used to describe this fixture in the Sunday morning papers. In fact, a scoreless draw after 90 minutes makes almost too much damn sense given Jozay’s natural conservativeness and Conte’s obsession with playing Alvaro Morata.

Game will likely be won or lost in midfield where the Red Devils exposed Chelsea in their last meeting in February. Conte will likely try to counter by giving Hazard and/or Willian marching orders not to stray quite as far forward, which only increases the odds of a rather staid game.

For the record, the more I talk about this being a boring low-scoring affair, the greater the chances it ends up being a 4-3 goal-fest. So I’ll take one for the team on this one. United to win 1-0.

Jozay to the haters

THE RICHEST GAME IN SOCCER™

Fulhamerica [+125]
Aston Villa [+210]
Draw [+220]

One game for all the marbles – and by marbles I mean the millions upon millions of dollars (roughly $230 million give or take a few shekels) that comes with playing in the most moneyed league in the world. Fulham and Villa were clearly the third and fourth best teams all season, respectively, so in a certain sense they belong here after a long, grueling season. Both teams can score and both have competent defenses, so no strange asymmetries to speak of. Fulham has some bigger names – Ryan Sessegnon in particularly is linked to just about every (London) club under the sun – and I think, when all is said and done, has the better team overall. Fulham to win 2-1.

If you don’t have at least a little soft spot in your heart for Fulham then you must be new here — literally

(DFB) GERMAN CUP FINAL

Bayern [-415]
Eintracht [+850]
Draw [+525]

Bayern just got taken out behind the woodshed – at home no less – by Stuttgart, losing 1-4, so perhaps Frankfurt has a shot in this, right? Nah, probably not. Der (Other) Mannschaft had absolutely nothing to play for last weekend and it showed but unless the opponent is Real Madrid they ain’t losing. Bayern to win 3-0.

ITALIAN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE BATTLE ROYALE

Lazio [+140]
Inter [+185]
Draw [+245]

Simple as it gets right here. Inter needs to win to qualify for Champions League. Lazio just needs a draw, and is at home. Lazio has been a breath of fresh air for anybody who has watched Italian soccer this season. Their open, attacking style is precisely what you don’t think of when someone says “Serie A”. An interesting subplot to the game involves the race for the Golden Boot as Lazio’s Ciro Immobile (29 goals) leads Inter’s Mauro Icardi by one. Honestly, I’m just hoping for a fun game (and got a good feeling about it) but I’ll say 2-2 draw (aka a big “win” for Lazio).