Romelu Lukaku

brehme1989 said:

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Post of the Year

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rfU said:

Del Pero and Inzaghi definitely didnt get on. Were Ibra and Adriano hugging and laughing in trainings? Pretty sure Ibra didnt like anyone

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Actually, the first thing Ibra said when he met the president after his signing was a demand for Adriano to stay in the club because he wanted to play with him.

Shark said:

You bring up exceptions and paint them as the norm. Literally just a year ago the bad atmosphere in the locker room became public and we were forced to fight for 4th place until the final match day.

How anyone could be against good team atmosphere and fans appreciating it is beyond me.

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As Brehme said it's importance is being overstated. The examples I gave were of players who despised each other. I could argue what happened last season wasn't the norm and was a very extreme case. In any case it feels like FIF is somehow using these bromance moments to justify Kaku's price tag... "he's such a good team mate, everyone loves him, he speaks 5 languages" etc



That's not what he's here for. And it's arguable whether or not it helps. A lot of players keep it professionals as I'm sure you do at your work.

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dax21 said:

Actually, the first thing Ibra said when he met the president after his signing was a demand for Adriano to stay in the club because he wanted to play with him.

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Of course, play with the best. But I'm almost certain Ibra didn't have these bromance moments. Not many anyway. Guy has ice in his veins.

rfU said:

As Brehme said it's importance is being overstated. The examples I gave were of players who despised each other. I could argue what happened last season wasn't the norm and was a very extreme case. In any case it feels like FIF is somehow using these bromance moments to justify Kaku's price tag... "he's such a good team mate, everyone loves him, he speaks 5 languages" etc

That's not what he's here for. And it's arguable whether or not it helps. A lot of players keep it professionals as I'm sure you do at your work.

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Of course, play with the best. But I'm almost certain Ibra didn't have these bromance moments. Not many anyway. Guy has ice in his veins.

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Could be some are overselling it, but I think you're under-selling it.

Don't know how familiar with NBA basketball people are around here, but I grew up in Sacramento, CA, USA. Home of the Sacramento Kings. In the 2001-02 season they were on the verge of a title, and in fact should've won the title if not for the (now well-documented) referee manipulation of game 6 of that year's western conference finals. Up to that point they had been beating the Lakers convincingly, despite the fact that the Lakers had the two best players on the floor, and just objectively had the more talented roster. Among Sacramento's core was a whining, locker-room-disrupting primadonna who couldn't win to save his life in Washington and was dragged kicking and screaming to Sacramento (Webber), a center who was perceived as already past-it when the Kings acquired him (Divac), small-forward who supposedly couldn't defend to save his life (Stojakovic), a shooting guard who had never won any individual accolades and was considered entirely average before he came to Sacramento (Christie), and Mike Bibby, who was probably the only guy in the starting lineup without a real mark against him. That team became the all-time model for team chemistry and camaraderie, and they were absolutely the best team in the league that year. That chemistry and camaraderie transformed everyone into being much, much better than they ever were before. Watched that team for 50+ games per year and I promise they wouldn't have gotten to where they got to if they just "acted professional".

Let's not be like the Sacramento Kings

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Lui said:

Let's not be like the Sacramento Kings

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Actually we were like Sacramento Kings after 2011.

Post- Divac and then Full-Divac. I continue to upset that the kings didnt win one during those years.

este19 said:

Could be some are overselling it, but I think you're under-selling it.

Don't know how familiar with NBA basketball people are around here, but I grew up in Sacramento, CA, USA. Home of the Sacramento Kings. In the 2001-02 season they were on the verge of a title, and in fact should've won the title if not for the (now well-documented) referee manipulation of game 6 of that year's western conference finals. Up to that point they had been beating the Lakers convincingly, despite the fact that the Lakers had the two best players on the floor, and just objectively had the more talented roster. Among Sacramento's core was a whining, locker-room-disrupting primadonna who couldn't win to save his life in Washington and was dragged kicking and screaming to Sacramento (Webber), a center who was perceived as already past-it when the Kings acquired him (Divac), small-forward who supposedly couldn't defend to save his life (Stojakovic), a shooting guard who had never won any individual accolades and was considered entirely average before he came to Sacramento (Christie), and Mike Bibby, who was probably the only guy in the starting lineup without a real mark against him. That team became the all-time model for team chemistry and camaraderie, and they were absolutely the best team in the league that year. That chemistry and camaraderie transformed everyone into being much, much better than they ever were before. Watched that team for 50+ games per year and I promise they wouldn't have gotten to where they got to if they just "acted professional".

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White Choclate...



Should've added for Bibby the pressure of replacing fan favorite Jason Williams so early in his career. Kings were the epitome of team basketball and in many ways the precursor to today's Warriors. One of if not the best basketball team to watch any era....

But how many chips did they win with all that chemistry and camaraderie? Harsh but facts. I'd take the cut throat / asshole basketball of Jordan, Bryant and Isaiah Thomas over "lets hold hands and prance around" basketball any day. Guess it's just a preference. Even Warriors had to recruit KD even though he didn't fit their team basketball with his iso game and he won them two chips.


Keeping it strictly business....


Some of the stuff Kobe said on and off camera about his team mates

brehme1989 said:

According to social media, Icardi had good relations with pretty much everyone except Brozovic and Perisic. But there was the incident where Icardi let Perisic have the penalty kick which was cute and a sign of fondness. Or wasn't it? I'm confused.

No one is against good team atmosphere. It's just overstated. You can be okay with bad relationships in the locker room as long as you can contain it. We didn't contain ours because Nainggolan opened his big mouth and Wanda appeared on a weekly show that stirred shit up. Even if nothing happened with the players, the media would just make something up until it became an issue. They wrote that Brozovic fucked Wanda before that anyway so it's not like she needed Tiki Taka

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It’s better to have a team without Icardi than with Icardi. Bye :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

rfU said:

Should've added for Bibby the pressure of replacing fan favorite Jason Williams so early in his career. Kings were the epitome of team basketball and in many ways the precursor to today's Warriors. One of if not the best basketball team to watch any era....

But how many chips did they win with all that chemistry and camaraderie? Harsh but facts. I'd take the cut throat / asshole basketball of Jordan, Bryant and Isaiah Thomas over "lets hold hands and prance around" basketball any day. Guess it's just a preference. Even Warriors had to recruit KD even though he didn't fit their team basketball with his iso game and he won them two chips.

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To me this misses the point though. I'm not saying chemistry and camaraderie are a replacement for talent... I'm saying they can elevate a team to a level they weren't capable of without them. Based on talent, the Kings shouldn't have been better than the Lakers, and yet they were. The Lakers needed Dick Bavetta (referee) to fix the game for them to win, even with the superior talent.

In other words, let not just completely dismiss that our team looks happy and that they now seem to enjoy each other's company. There were an awful lot of people on here who were (are?) doom-and-gloom about replacing Icardi with Lukaku, and yet here we are at the top of the table halfway through the season. Of course his goals matter the most, but I do think Lukaku's positive effect on the team atmosphere compared to Icardi contributes at least a little to our success. That's all I'm saying.

You list Jordan/Bryant/Isaiah as "cut throat / asshole basketball". Hakeem, Wilt, and Magic weren't that. And I'd take those three guys over your three.

Edit: Unrelated, but I had an appreciation for White Chocolate too, haha. Bibby was clearly the right move for the Kings, but I feel like a lot of folks thought Williams would flame out on the Grizzlies. I was really, really impressed at what a steady, veteran presence he became over the latter half of his career, achieving awesome assist-to-TO ratios. He really proved his doubters wrong.

I think alot of posters have read too much into the link and the specific photographs I mentioned on the previous pages in relation to Lukaku. The only reason I made that post is that seeing the players together smiling, laughing and enjoying themselves is such a welcome change to past years. And the best part about it is that with Conte at the helm and the troublemakers gone (at least for the time being), we are in the news for all the right reasons, namely our football and the fact that we are challenging Juventus as opposed to all the bullshit we endured last season in relation to divisions in the squad, tensions between the Philosopher and Icardi and Wanda stirring the pot every week on Tiki-Taka.

The only thing I will say about the players being friends vs players being paid professionals debate is that Lukaku himself raised it following our last game by saying that him and Martinez are friends on and off the pitch and that they work hard to set each other up. Apparently, they live in the same building and are great mates off the pitch. Surely, that kind of relationship can only help the team because they are playing for their teammates as opposed to playing for themselves. If you are not convinced, all you have to do is think about Icardi and Perisic and how there were occasions last season when they clearly played for themselves despite the fact that in some games, there were times when one or the other was in a better position on the pitch and they refused to make a pass or even acknowledge the existence of the other. If that is what being "professional" means then I am all for players being mates and working for the team.

este19 said:

You list Jordan/Bryant/Isaiah as "cut throat / asshole basketball". Hakeem, Wilt, and Magic weren't that. And I'd take those three guys over your three.

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13 rings to 9 though.

Puma said:

If you are not convinced, all you have to do is think about Icardi and Perisic and how there were occasions last season when they clearly played for themselves despite the fact that in some games, there were times when one or the other was in a better position on the pitch and they refused to make a pass or even acknowledge the existence of the other. If that is what being "professional" means then I am all for players being mates and working for the team.

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Of course if the choice was "hugging it" out versus Icardi and Perishits bullshit then I would chose the former BUT the Icardi/Perishit drama was a very extreme and unique case and was by no means "Professional". We talk Icardi but funny no one mentions the close friendship between Icardi and Maxi Lopez and how that ended. Has Kaku introduced his girl to Toro yet?

IMO keeping it strictly business in professional sports is the way to go. This way we won't get issues like Asado clan versus everyone else during the post-Treble era. What matters is showing respect to your fellow team mates and manager giving your all in games. Kaku and Toro living in the same apartment building or having dinners together after games or whether they finish each other's sentences, sure, it helps but it isn't highly important.

rfU said:

13 rings to 9 though.

Of course if the choice was "hugging it" out versus Icardi and Perishits bullshit then I would chose the former BUT the Icardi/Perishit drama was a very extreme and unique case and was by no means "Professional". We talk Icardi but funny no one mentions the close friendship between Icardi and Maxi Lopez and how that ended. Has Kaku introduced his girl to Toro yet?

IMO keeping it strictly business in professional sports is the way to go. This way we won't get issues like Asado clan versus everyone else during the post-Treble era. What matters is showing respect to your fellow team mates and manager giving your all in games. Kaku and Toro living in the same apartment building or having dinners together after games or whether they finish each other's sentences, sure, it helps but it isn't highly important.

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13 to 9 means nothing

and the second line, whats that got to do with anything? Not every friendship will turn into an Icardi Wanda Love Triangle soap opera.

If they are friends thats besides the point, Lautaro said he was friends with Icardi but i am sure if he choose he would have preferred to start over him. If you and a friend are playing on the same team i am sure it will help the team, how important that is or how much impact that would have is relative though because there are 9 other players playing on that team as well.

As with every relationship, it doesn't matter if it's love or hate, the strongest the relation the more harm will come if it is deteriorated. Both belong to the "passion" category and that's what is strong, not the love or hate. It can be twisted from love to hate and from hate to love in a jiffy. That's why you usually cannot forgive someone you had positive feelings for after they did something towards you which you consider terrible. [For a sports related documentary, Once Brothers from ESPN seems like a very good example].

The Icardi-Perisic saga started as the main duo and they seemed to have a deep appreciation for each other. Which is exactly why this escalated a lot. One side blamed the other for the piss poor performances, as if they couldn't just agree that playing with Nagatomo, Santon, Ranocchia and Felipe Melo was their biggest problem instead of each other. They were never really friends but you could see they had chemistry.

Have you ever played football or any sport with friends and some random guys? The norm is to yell at your friends and those who you are closer to than the random guys, even if they make sillier errors. Sure, you're friends so you think each other won't care after the game is over, but at some point you may accidentally reach a boiling point and you'll stop wanting to play with your friends. You are always harsher and more sincere with people you feel closer to.

Cases that involve off the pitch shit like Wanda (I wonder what Crespo thinks now ) are outliers and obviously have nothing to do with anything discussed about team chemistry and players getting along.
Another example is Ronaldo. He wasn't really a close friend with anyone at Inter other than a select few who he hanged out with, mostly Italians or whatever Brazilians we had during that time (includes Vampeta :alone: ). Like Ventola and Vieri in particular. But everyone liked him, even the Argentineans loved the guy. His work rate was shit, he was injured for like 2 years, but you won't hear anyone question his personality or professionalism. And I don't think he even cared that much that Julio Cesar married his girl, except maybe for that derby goal against us and the irony is that he even wanted to return whilst Julio Cesar was around. This is just too rare even for football players who live in their own small world sometimes.

All in all, it's not bad to see players forming friendships. In fact, it's a very nice sign for a club that intends to keep both around. But let's not overdo it and say that it's better to have this than not, how this is a sign of great team atmosphere [Perisic and Brozovic were also close last season, why weren't we praising that?] or how it enables the team to play better or whatever else has been written or will be written about this.

It's a side effect of working with some people. Some people are easy to speak to, some others are very sociable, some others are just loners that don't care about other people's feelings or even their own, some others are ambitious and/or pretentious, some are opportunists, some others are just naive and some others are just around for the ride. I've said it repeatedly. Professional football is not far different from a camp for people in their 20s. With their own money, own places and very few restrictions. And then you have the veterans. If they dictate the locker room and they're still good enough, you can see wonderful things (Mourinho's Inter, Milan in the mid 2000s with their CL runs etc), if it's just a couple of them amongst boys, they'll just be pissed off and won't perform well. Especially if they are brought from somewhere else. This is why squad building is not an easy task. You can easily say I want these 11 players to start and these 10 players to complete the roster, but that's just what you see every Sunday. A football club is a daily workplace like everything else and most of the time these people are free to express whatever they want as they aren't in school with a teacher for 10 hours a day. They barely have 3 hours of sessions where a coach dictates things per day. The rest of the day, they're having group spa treatment, pedicures, play video games, goof around or just play football where talking to each other is obviously not frowned upon... So from a club's perspective, players being too friendly may also be disadvantageous at some points because they could be less focused on their work during the week.

As long as they don't fall in love with each other and then break up, the drama...

K.I. said:

13 to 9 means nothing

and the second line, whats that got to do with anything? Not every friendship will turn into an Icardi Wanda Love Triangle soap opera.

If they are friends thats besides the point, Lautaro said he was friends with Icardi but i am sure if he choose he would have preferred to start over him. If you and a friend are playing on the same team i am sure it will help the team, how important that is or how much impact that would have is relative though because there are 9 other players playing on that team as well.

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Think about how many more rings it would be if the goat did not retire in his prime twice!!!
Also it s not like jordan was an a hole to everybody there s multiple dudes on that Bulls team he s still very close friends with. To me those players were not neccesarly a-holes but they are guys that will do everything to win. And if they feel like your not doing your part they ll call you out. I mean it s well documented that jordan and rodman did not like eachother but they both knew what they bring to the floor so there were little problems on the field.
Also i d argue a player of the class of Jordan has to have a bit of an asshole attitude how else are you gonna take over a game and be like i m gonna win this for us? First of true professionals put personal feelings aside when they re on the field cause all that counts is winning.

Honestly i d rather have a a-hole whos gonna put the team on his back when it matters most(Jordan/kobe) than having a unselfish player that is loved by everybody but because of that also does not take over games like he could if he was more selfish.

Imho only true a-hole move jordan made was keeping Thomas out of that Dream team.

I wasn't taking about Jordans impact on the bulls, i was taking how he compared the mentioned players by comparing their rings.

I didn't expect to come to Lukaku's thread only to find a long ass discussion about basketball...

Sacramento were the last NBA team I woke up for in 3 am to watch.