All the hand-wringing in the media about our 2-1 loss to Liverpool is pretty daft. It was a pre-season friendly. It doesn't mean anything. And trying to discern much from it is kind of futile.

[–] nuggsy 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean, winning is good, but to go all out to win in a friendly is daft, at least to me.

I always saw friendlies as a way to gain some match fitness heading into the season, blood new players, gain some team cohesion, test out youngsters and differing tactics.

You can still use it as a means of finding ways to improve and there is a place for criticism, but being overly critical of a pre-season friendly seems odd to me.

[–] hangonasecond 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm aware this absolutely not the same thing but in league of legends eSports, at international tournaments the teams in the tournament often practise against each other in the lead up to and during the tournament.

Pretty notoriously, the teams that do the best in these practise matches essentially never win. Grand final matchups where one team has 100% record against the other in "scrims" only to get completely demolished in the final.

My point is, practise is wasted if you don't lose it to try things that might result in losing.

[–] nuggsy 2 points 3 months ago

I think that's kinda common for other eSports as well, like CSGO/CS2.

[–] sensiblepuffin 5 points 3 months ago

You don't make league predictions based on friendlies
Slot is new and thus there's less tape on him
Both sides were playing plenty of kids

[–] MHPengwingz 4 points 3 months ago

Yeah people need to chill. I mean we effed up spectacularly against Yanited last preseason (saw it live too)....and look how we effed them up during the season. All of our pieces aren't even in place yet.