Comments on: What soccer team would your company be?

Martin Veitch at CIO.co.uk riffs on how certain football clubs resemble software companies, to good and painful effect.

[Martin_V]

Thanks for the kind words Matt. If the Gooners do as well as the Googlers next season you should be OK.

Best,
Martin

[jhrozek]

SCO would be FC Milwall.

"No one likes us, we don't care"

[foxcityfc]

but everybody hates Leeds United

[cvaldes1831]

Maybe Microsoft as the New York Yankees?

[Random_Walk]

Heh... good one :)

(for the joke-impaired, think about it for a minute...)

[shywolf982]

Okay, from an Italian perspective:

Microsoft has to be Juventus. Won big in their home league, did not perform too well outside, and their last winnings were stained by judiciary convictions.

[CunhaFC]

Maybe Brazil's national soccer team is the Open Source community. Lot's of talent, lacks coach, scores always...

[goodspeed8701]

I think arsenal fc

[bianconeri4ever]

Who the F is Satyam? And why are they Juventus?

[lbytesxk]

I hate google and I love Arsenal, so this whole thing sucks

[chapibol]

Microsoft=Fc Barcelona. Leaders in almost all of their respective fields of expertise. Fc Barca won their domestic league, the spanish king's cup, and the Uefa champions League. only thing left this year is the Club world cup. which Barca will play against either, brazil's Cruzeiro or Arngentina's Estudiantes.

[nycsean]

No way is MS Barca- that's an insult to the FC. MS is more like the LA Galaxy- only wins in a domestic league they control. Barca is LINUX.

[chapibol]

@nycsean
whatever dude. Linux is more like some small unkown team playing in the 2 or third division in China

[AppleSuxLeo]

Would be an ice hockey team...
Soccer is for *******.

[dzankizakon]

To 99% of people outside of the US, American sports are just lots of overweight people standing around with hands on their hips at 5 o'clock in the morning on home shopping channels.

First they show a 10 minute ad for an miracle exercise machine, then some fatsos looking at the scoreboard for 5 minutes, then again 10 minutes for a fruit blender machine ad, then 5 minutes of a short fat guy talking into an earpiece...

[dzankizakon]

Hilarious! :-)

Google would be Barca rather than Arsenal, I think. Top of the world right now, but Microsoft (Real Madrid) is in the rearview mirror.

IBM would be a Liverpool, glorious history but been second best lately.

Microsoft would be United - ruthless, a bully, rich but prefer to develop talent rather than acquire expensive players.

[sargess25]

first off, it's football (not soccer) - the guy being English has a narrow view on the football world. Lets slightly rewrite it for him

Apple: has to be Barca, glamorous team playing attractive football. The current European champions

Google: Chelsky new money, powerful and yet doomed to failure in the long term

M$: Real, the big beast, won more than anybody else - the ability to overspend anyone in the business

Adobe: Milan, strong powerful, stylish always there when the chips are down. Second best record in football

Dell: Man U, they won something and yet they're full of crap, big mouths and all

HP: Juventus, old tradition living on glory days, still a force to be reckoned with

Sony: Arsenal who? one-nillers

Toshiba: Bayern, solid no frill hard to beat

Ubuntu: Ajax, young and full of optimism gave the football world some great footballers, won less than they deserved

[dzankizakon]

Excellent analysis! ;-)

[jamesgallagher]

.. if you're going to be like that, let's refer to it correctly as Association Football then :P

[Matt Asay]

Hey, most readers on CNET are from the US so I had to call it soccer so that they'd understand. In my house, it's "football" or "futbol," the beautiful game.

[cvaldes1831]

Isn't "football" what barbarians call rugby?

[pmonks]

In response to cvaldes1831:

Soccer: A gentleman's game played by louts.
Rugby: A lout's game played by gentlemen.

[sargess25]

to pmonks:
it used to be true until recently, nowadays with eye gouging, ear biting incidents rugby has lowered its standard. Anyway the original aphorism was:

"Football a gentleman's game played by ruffians, whilst rugby is a ruffian game played by gentlemen"

[dcardozo]

well, for something like 99% of world population, football is the sport that most americans call soccer.
That's because americans call football to another sport, that is not played mainly with the feet, and that is played almost exclusively in the USA.
to Matt Asay:
I didn't know that most readers on CNET are from the US, do you have data to backup that claim, or you're just guessing?

[usfutbolr]

Nortel = Toronto Blizzard of the defunct NASL. Oh SNAP!