Marten

Concacaf's rules regarding eligibility of nations is less strict than FIFA's, hence why non-independent overseas territories like Guadeloupe & Bonaire are Concacaf members but not FIFA members. Both territories are officially an integral part of France & The Netherlands respectively, so should they produce a world class player, they'd end up playing for the "parent nation".

There is no chance we'll even get close to clinching the title now. Should we still have been challenging at this point, more of an effort would have been made to finish on time. When we were still challenging, we had a home game v Forfar United moved to Station Park for example just to get it played. Next season we'll have 20 clubs with Montrose Roselea joining. It's an awkward number, 38 league games is quite a bit for this level, but nobody fancies going back to 10 team leagues either.

Royale Union Saint-Gilloise 2-1 KV Mechelen Sunday 19th March A bit late with uploading this, but I'm still catching up after coming home from my holiday. I visited this game in Brussels in the Belgian top flight. The last time I've been here, Union were in the third tier, now they're second in the top tier and in the quarter finals of the Europa League, some change there! It's a stunning stadium, the beautiful front is an official monument, which means it's protected and can't be demolished thankfully. There is terracing opposite the main stand, where the ultras are. The game started with a surprise early goal for the visitors. But after that the hosts didn't give anything away and ultimately deserved their win. A very good day out, definitely recommended if you're ever in Brussels.

Yeah, they're now unbeaten against Ajax for 4 games, quite a feat.

I wonder what happened with FWE recently, last week already 9-0 against Broughty. And yesterday the main talking point in the social club after the game is how many big chances we wasted, especially in the first half where at least 3 sitters were missed, we could easily have been 5-0 up at HT, but it was only 1-0. The second half was much better in that sense. But with how weak FWE were it makes me wonder what happened.

Feyenoord suddenly got quite close to the title. They were 3 points ahead of Ajax but won 2-1 away against them in "The Classic" the week before the international break. This weekend Ajax dropped points again: 0-0 away against Go Ahead Eagles, while Feyenoord won their derby away against Sparta 3-1. AZ drew 1-1 at home to Heerenveen and PSV beat NEC 3-0. That means that Feyenoord are now 8 points ahead of both Ajax and PSV and 10 ahead of AZ with 7 games to go. Ajax, PSV and AZ seem to have to fight for 2nd (CL qualifying) & 3rd.

Not Scotland, but this non-league club in Slovakia doesn't just have a railway close to the ground, they have one running THROUGH the ground.

Also, let's not forget that Cumbernauld United have been around for ages. Fans of non-league football in Cumbernauld often already go there.

I used to play football, not a very high level at all admittedly, but the bit in bold was exactly how things were managed with us. And from what I know from others who play(ed) the game part-time (from high level to low), that's pretty much standard at every club.

Spot on

Considering the likes of Che Dail like to just say how many B-team games players played, let's have a look at the Dutch team (starting 11 & subs) that played in the World Cup QF in which they took the eventual world champions all the way to penalties and where they played in their development. Noppert: straight from Heerenveen youth system to senior squad, no B-team games Timber: 2 seasons Ajax B, then first team Van Dijk: straight from Groningen youth system to senior squad, no B-team games Ake: moved to Chelsea at 15, loaned out to Reading, Watford & Bournemouth Gakpo: 2 seasons PSV B, then first team De Roon: straight from Sparta youth system to senior squad, no B-team games Blind: loaned out to FC Groningen, then to Ajax first team Frenkie De Jong: straight from Willem II youth system to first team, only then bought by Ajax and first put in B-team Dumfries: developed in non-league, then turned professional by moving to Sparta Bergwijn: 2 seasons PSV B, then first team Depay: straight from PSV youth system to senior squad, no B-team games Luuk de Jong: straight from De Graafschap youth system to senior squad, no B-team games Berghuis: loaned out to VVV Venlo, then to AZ first team Lang: Ajax B, 2 loans & to Club Bruges first team Weghorst: developed in non-league, then turned professional by moving to Emmen Koopmeiners: 1 season AZ B, then first team So that makes 6 players going straight from the youth team to the senior team, 4 who went to a B-team first, 3 who developed on loans, 2 coming through non-league and 1 with a combination of B-team & loans. They aren't statistics that anyone can really draw any conclusions from as it's quite a mix. Nobody can tell if those 5 with considerable B-team experience wouldn't have developed without it, like by going out on loan. But 5 out of 16 players is hardly a ringing endorsement of the system either.

I was actually considering going to this game as a neutral. But for that price... f*ck that.

Plus if you replace the OF B-teams with say Linlithgow Rose & Auchinleck Talbot, I can bet attendances would go up instead of down as both are well-supported clubs.

Unless they try to get accepted to replace Montrose Roselea in the NRJFA Premier and pressure will be on the HL to accept promotion from them should they win the league?

Overall I think it's a good podcast, but I was surprised with them saying that indeed. Let's not forget that this is the same Ian Maxwell who saw it as a "done deal" that the ERJFA & WRJFA would join the pyramid as they were back in (I think) 2019.

And if you were to fill your allocation, you'll just get blamed of being gloryhunters who don't turn up at regular games. You can never win...

I was there yesterday, good day out but I can imagine why you guys are frustrated with your lack of firing power up front. Your defending was excellent, conceding a penalty for a handball is one of these things that just happens in football, but other than that and that weird scramble right at the end you gave nothing away, but you never looked like winning either because you were not strong enough up front. Good day out for me and if the Cowdenbeath fans I spoke to on the train on my way back are here on P&B: it was nice meeting you!

Gala Fairydean Rovers 1-1 Cowdenbeath My last ground in the Lowland League and I saved the best 'till last. What a wonderful old stand. The game was close, it was very clear that finishing is the main issue for Cowdenbeath. About 30 minutes in the hosts took the lead through a penalty, late on in the first half the visitors equalised. Cowdenbeath were defending very well and didn't let Gala go through, but they lacked the fire power up front. Gala Fairydean Rovers is very friendly club, there was a good atmosphere and I had a lovely chat with some Cowdenbeath fans on the train back after the game. Good day out all together.

Nah, we failed in our bid for 2018 as we're not corrupt enough.

Yeah, back in 2002. Thank f*ck that didn't happen. In Dutch non-league the situation is reversed, B-teams don't play in the league but they play in the cups. So at non-league level, it still occasionally happens that a club play against their own B-team. When I played non-league football in The Netherlands I played in one such game. Trust me, it's a game nobody enjoys...

Or back to claiming "it works in the Netherlands", despite the fact that after 2014, we missed 2 tournaments and were papped out of Euro 2020 by the first decent team we played (Czech Republic). Ok, we got to the QF in Qatar and took the eventual world champions all the way to penalties, but that makes a grand total of 1 good performance against a strong side in a World Cup / Euro game including qualifiers since 2014 as our run to get to the QF was ridiculously easy. Plus, people also forget to mention that out of the 34 pro clubs, 22 never even bothered with a B-team in the pyramid, and a few more pulled theirs out as it didn't give the desired effect. Amongst the clubs who never bothered was Feyenoord, who have the 2nd strongest academy in the country behind Ajax. So even the different top academies don't agree with each other on the effect of B-teams. So yeah, it's a massive success there.

Can't see that happen now everyone is in the pyramid.

Brilliant, so not the success there people claim it was.

The Dutch cup once had PSV colts v PSV... Thankfully the colts got removed from the cup, but unfortunately they are still in the league. In terms of this plan, get it in the bin and put fire to the bin, then kick the burnt out bin far into the deepest part of the ocean that there is no chance of it ever getting back. Absolutely atrocious stuff.

It seems like young ultras are suddenly popping up all over our league. We suddenly have them, away against Blairgowrie our and Blair's young ultras tried to outdo each other. The rest of the spectators were wondering what was going on.