...::[The Footy Desk]::... (Part 2)

[Eutyphro]

I'm still recovering from one of the most ridiculous offside calls I have ever seen in my life to be honest.

[Cordohen]

France got f*cked over with too many injured players to count. Pogba, Kanté, Benzema are obviously the worst losses for us (Maignan, Nkunku and Kimbembe are pretty annoying too). It's incredible that most of these injuries happened only a couple days (if not hours) before the tournament's kick-off. And we still don't know for sure if Varane is fit enough to play the whole tournament. Feels like fate wants the Champions' Curse to continue.

 

Our midfield is inexperienced, our defence very uncertain. Deschamps is going back to the 2018 system with 4 defenders and Giroud at the front.

 

Anyway, that opening game was kinda sh*t. It was expected, but the atmosphere in the stands was really depressing. Looking forward to Netherlands v Senegal though. Even if Mané is out, it's still promising.

[Jason]

Yea the quality of the game was garbage but f*cking hell the atmosphere was shocking for a World Cup opener, the Ecuadorians and the quite obviously paid group of fans were the only ones making noise. The stadium emptied massively as the match went on.

 

This WC is gonna have drama stories every day, I think. The fan experience looks dogsh*t.

[TheSantader25]

It's coming home innit?

Edited November 21, 2022 by TheSantader25

[smokeless6]

14 minutes ago, TheSantader25 said:

It's coming home innit?

 

Was there ever a doubt?

 

82% of the ball in the first half. Unstoppable.

[Jason]

Can't wait for the English to once again wind everyone up by singing Three Lions as all the non-English fans once again completely misunderstand the point of the song and assume it's just the English being arrogant.

[smokeless6]

Good result for England, and that was WITH Maquire on the pitch

 

With so many questions heading in to the tournament this is a confidence-building result. Job done.

[TheSantader25]

Holland play good football but the lack of a killer goal scorer up front is really going to hurt them this tournament. Van Gaal should bring on Luuk de GOAT in the second half.

Edited November 21, 2022 by TheSantader25

[Eutyphro]

Van Gaal built us into a counter team, because that is our only chance to do well against the big teams, but we're in a group where we are favorites and teams leave us the ball, so that's the difficulty we are in I think. I also don't like de Ligt in a back three, but Timber has not been good recently, so I understand the choice. De Ligt is a world class centerback, but in a back three I find him poor.

[TheSantader25]

21 minutes ago, Eutyphro said:

Van Gaal built us into a counter team, because that is our only chance to do well against the big teams, but we're in a group where we are favorites and teams leave us the ball, so that's the difficulty we are in I think. I also don't like de Ligt in a back three, but Timber has not been good recently, so I understand the choice. De Ligt is a world class centerback, but in a back three I find him poor.

I prefer de Vrij in a back three. He's played plenty in a back 3 at Inter. 

 

Also this is the first world cup where I see so many empty seats everywhere. The atmosphere f*cking sucks.

Edited November 21, 2022 by TheSantader25

[Donald Lov]

Holy sh*t, the Saudis are wildin...

[Shyabang Shyabang]

Saudi Arabia equalized and then beat Argentina/Messi!! - the Argentina that hasn't lost a game for three years!!

[TheSantader25]

Genius from Saudi Arabia manager to play a high line. This Argentina has no pace up front to exploit a high line and this is exactly how you defend against them.

[Cordohen]

Crazy and heroic performance from the Arabians. That second KSA goal was beautiful. Great coaching from Hervé Renard too, very underrated manager.

 

First surprise of the tournament. Now I hope that if France qualifies, we don't end up with Argentina again, lol. We're already playing Australia and Denmark again from 2018, we want new opponents ffs 

[Jason]

Now that was a game where it felt like a World Cup.

 

Argentina should've put it to bed in the first half but they couldn't stay onside and in the second half they were no where to be seen. Saudi Arabia's gameplan was a bit iffy in the first half but eventually worked out in the end, just shows you once again what is possible with a great team work ethic and spirit.

 

Feels like another tournament where pre-tournament I hear about how good Argentina are and then they turn up at the WC and the plan is just to give Messi the ball and hope he can win the game single handedly. That alone can't win a WC these days.

[Eutyphro]

Also doesn't help that the manager they have is a nobody who got appointed cause he won Copa America, a tournament Argentina have 50% chance of winning if they reach their level. A coach who was assistant of someone who was a mega flop as Argentina national coach, Sampaoli. And with di Maria, Messi and Papu Gomez you also have too much old guys up front. You need more youth and energy I think. Also doesn't help that some of the defenders seemed to massively flop this game. All in all seems my prediction of South American teams being prone to flopping is holding up but we'll see. I missed this game, but I'm having a lot of fun watching some of these games though.

For us the Dutch it was a tough game yesterday but in the end a nice Frenkie assist made the difference so it's all good. I definitely think van Gaal will change some things next game.

[Donald Lov]

2 hours ago, Eutyphro said:

Also doesn't help that the manager they have is a nobody who got appointed cause he won Copa America, a tournament Argentina have 50% chance of winning if they reach their level. A coach who was assistant of someone who was a mega flop as Argentina national coach, Sampaoli.

He hadn't lost a single game for 3.5 years(and he also won Copa America three years after his appointment, for the first time in 30 years)

[Eutyphro]

If you look at the teams they played, they are almost exclusively teams along the lines of Paraguay, Bolivia etc, teams Argentina should never lose to. He has a lightweight CV for a coach. He's objectively inexperienced, and there is no denying this. He's been given the job as caretaker with no real experience to legitimize the position. He had zero experience as a head coach. It's good for us (the Netherlands) though if Argentina flops because they were estimated to be a potential tough opponent for us in the quarterfinals.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Eutyphro

[Mexicola9302]

Anybody else is annoyed by the whole "OneLove" armband discussions in media?

Spoiler

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/21/football/onelove-armband-qatar-2022-world-cup-spt-intl/index.html

 

A world cup should be about the sport itself, and not annoying politics IMO.

 

I mean seriously here on german news channels, there are "breaking news" newstickers about that topic, i just can't stand it anymore, how political really everything is. 🤮

Edited November 22, 2022 by Mexicola9302

[Cordohen]

41 minutes ago, Mexicola9302 said:

Anybody else is annoyed by the whole "OneLove" armband discussions in media?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/21/football/onelove-armband-qatar-2022-world-cup-spt-intl/index.html

 

A world cup should be about the sport itself, and not annoying politics IMO.

 

I mean seriously here on german news channels, there are "breaking news" newstickers about that topic, i just can't stand it anymore, how political really everything is. 🤮

 

Football and World Cups were always linked to politics, but I agree this kind of crap is annoying and medias – instead of focusing on the game/football itself – just love to overdramatize on such non-sporting details.

 

Anyway, French players are made of butter. We lost yet again one of our key players at the back, and even though Théo Hernadez is great, we now don't have any substitute left for the back left spot. The start was horrible and we have lots of stuff to adjust in our defence (damn I miss Varane and Umtiti) but thankfully we were good at the front, especially in the second half.

 

I think Denmark will be our first real test.

[Jason]

If I were to say that football should be used as a way to unite the world together no one would bat an eyelid I imagine, but that's literally the point of the entire "OneLove" stuff.

 

The use of the word politics in the issue is a little... shady as well. Being openly gay or trans isn't a political issue, people opposing it is the issue.

 

To describe the situation in another way, there are thousands of professional footballers in England. Statistically it's likely that there's at least one gay footballer per team. The amount of openly gay professional footballers in the UK? One. There should be hundreds. The reason for that is because the culture around men's football makes it incredibly dangerous to come out as gay. This shouldn't be a thing, a person should be comfortable coming out as gay, it shouldn't be an issue, but it is. And part of the reason why it is still a problem is because the powers that be enable homophobia/transphobia by hosting events in countries where homosexuality is illegal - punishable by death, in some cases.

 

The reality is that when you invite the world of sport to your country you invite their culture and way of life, they are not invaders, they are guests coming because you asked them to come. 

 

It's a problem throughout the world of sport where the governing bodies of sport are exploiting the fact that there's extremely few openly gay athletes (especially men) which makes it very easy for them to take the oil money and turn a blind eye to the fact that they'll very likely have athletes attending whose existence is illegal in said countries.

 

The countries involved with the OneLove armband tried for months and months to open dialogue with Fifa about it and got nothing, until hours before kick off where they were threatened with bans if they wore it. Just like how for months/years alcohol was to be available at the grounds, until they pulled that last minute. Just like how for months/years they said people could wear rainbow clothing and they wouldn't be approached, only to be getting approached and told to remove it once the event starts.

 

The governing body of the most popular sport in the world is literally corrupt and that is a genuine straight up fact, but nah, no one wants to make a fuss about that. Players wanna wear a rainbow armband, though? Riots.

 

So nah, sorry, but I'm not having that line of thinking. Enjoy the matches, there's nothing wrong with that, but don't dismiss real and serious issues with the sport, the event and Fifa.

[Jason]

In other news:

 

https://www.manutd.com/en/news/detail/man-utd-announces-process-to-explore-strategic-alternatives-to-enhance-club-growth

 

Manchester United Football Club is up for sale.

 

That is not a joke.

 

Jim Ratcliffe, a US consortium or a state are basically the only realistic pickings.

 

It's not great pickings really... Ratcliffe will be the favourite but his ownership of Nice hasn't been great according to fans, it sounds like he doesn't have much clue on how to run a club. US consortiums might literally just end up being another set of owners playing football manager with no idea what they're doing.

 

Going to be an interesting few months for us.

[Mexicola9302]

Quatar should have never been allowed to be the host country of the football worldcup. I mean seriously, they could have also moved the WC to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan or any other of "these" countries seriously, it would have been the same crap.

 

The WC in the USA, Canada and Mexico will be so much better, that is for sure.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Mexicola9302
typo

[Jason]

Just now, Mexicola9302 said:

Quatar should have never been allowed to be the host country of the football worldcup. I mean seriously, they could have also moved the WC to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Aghanistan, Pakistan or any other of "these" countries seriously, it would have been the same crap.

 

The WC in the USA, Canada and Mexico will be so much better, that is for sure.

 

The 2018 WC should have been the USA and the 2022 should have been England (or Spain/Port I think it was?). Those countries had the best bids but they went for Qatar in this very recent trend of hosting the WC in countries in countries with no infrastructure for it to supposedly grow the sport in those countries. Now I'm not at all against the idea that a world cup should be hosted in the Middle East, it's a world cup, and I'm not against a world cup being used to ignite interest in the sport in countries where it's not as big as others.

 

But we all know the reasons that Russia and Qatar got the WC was because of corruption, it's a literal established fact. Even the people involved (Blatter and co) have admitted it. People are happy to just gloss over that and instead kick up a fuss over rainbow clothing and armbands, it's... pathetic IMO.

 

And yea, the next World Cup is going to be incredible, of that I have no doubt. The sport is growing a lot in the US and Canada and I bet we'll see packed and amazing stadiums, fanzones, etc. None of this people not being able to get water in the middle of a f*cking desert stuff. 

[TheSantader25]

There's a lot of interest for football in the middle east but they chose one of the worst f*cking countries there as a host. Morocco is not in middle east but a joint bid with them and Egypt(middle eastern country)as an example would be much nicer.

 

Heck I even prefer Saudi Arabia as hosts. Qatar is such a small country and they have not created a nice welcoming atmosphere for the fans to come. So far it's been the worst World Cup I've seen at when it comes to atmosphere.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by TheSantader25

[Jason]

9 minutes ago, TheSantader25 said:

Heck I even prefer Saudi Arabia as hosts. Qatar is such a small country and they have not created a nice welcoming atmosphere for the fans to come. So far it's been the worst World Cup I've seen at when it comes to atmosphere.

 

If we're to ignore all the pre-WC stuff and just judge them during the WC all they had to do was tolerate the culture and way of life of the countries they were inviting for a month. Accept everyone, let people wear the rainbow stuff, have beer in the stadiums, embrace the party, etc, and they'd have been able to ride it out and it'd be fine. Just for one single month. But nope, they couldn't do that, so they've churned up the mud and them (and Fifa, whose boss is a c*nt bending over the knee of these f*cks) are now surprise pikachu faced about having to deal with all of the horror stories coming out of the WC.

 

It's not a case of people trying to do things that they knew going in that was legal in their home country but illegal in Qatar (an issue in its self, WC hosts shouldn't put people in that position) it's also a case of Fifa and Qatar either telling people things are okay only for them not to be okay the moment the WC starts, or ignoring attempts at dialogue over issues until the WC starts and then threatening to ban players.

 

Fifa and Qatar have been misleading or flat out lying to people and then hoping the spectacle of the WC will suddenly make everyone go quiet. It the 1900's anymore, people expect better.

[Shyabang Shyabang]

Things we get to see on live news...

 

 

[Mexicola9302]

WTF Germany VS Japan is at 14:00 CET in the afternoon today, and not in the evening, damn this is annoying. Gotta buy myself 2-3 beers for the match, it will feel weird drinking beer in the afternoon already lol. But yeah i always drink beer while WC matches of my country, it's one of these bad habits of mine.  

[Shyabang Shyabang]

That must've woke Germany up.

[Mexicola9302]

I got a bad feeling about the german team somehow, it's just not what it used to be anymore.

 

 

Edit: UGGGGGGGH  

Edited November 23, 2022 by Mexicola9302