soccer soccer soccer

[bukie]

Matt Turner with his first PL clean sheet for Nottingham,  as they win at Chelsea for the first time in 20 years  notable also as the only clean sheet of today's PL play thus far 

[UMFan83]

Wow Everton got a point. Throw a parade on the Merseyside

[stitchface]

Spain's coach fired weeks after winning world cup. Apparently they don't have a mechanism to fire Rubiales? Told you so moment for the players. What an unbelievable story.

[stitchface]

Didn't watch the game but sounds like Berhalter was quickly able to reinstall offensive ineptitude?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

15 hours ago, stitchface said:

Didn't watch the game but sounds like Berhalter was quickly able to reinstall offensive ineptitude?

I went to the game, boy does USSF really not care about attendance with those prices.  From my amateur eye it looked like Uzbekistan was playing a very compact but not super deep defensive block.  Things got static because Ream, Richards, and LDLT/Tessman had little interest in trying to thread line breaking passes, and the front three didn't have much interest in trying to stretch the back line for balls over the top, so it was a lot of wide triangles in tight spaces.  Given Berhalter's previous approach to friendlies(he does not care one bit about results) I wouldn't be surprised if that was intentional given the opponent.

[wolf stansson]

I think Ream is cooked. Uzbekistan is extremely solid defensively under their manager, and we know we don’t really have a midfield that breaks down low blocks easily without Gio. Balo is rusty. Lots of reasons to take the result and move on without a ton of scrutiny, but yes, it was very Berhalterian in the lack of attacking fluidity.

[wolf stansson]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:00 PM, wolf stansson said:

Looks like it. He’s so good at breaking into teams, I have no doubt he can get back into the regular 

wes is undefeated at winning over managers.

 Absolutely driving Juve today.

[wolf stansson]

Pepi and Chucky Lozano both wanted to take a penalty. Rico alphas him, Chucky looks at the bench and the manager waves him off. Chucky makes an all time cope face. Rico slots it. Chucky doubles down on the obvious cope face. I love this sport. I love Ric Pepi.

[wvcbxl]

On 9/19/2023 at 2:32 PM, wolf stansson said:

Pepi and Chucky Lozano both wanted to take a penalty. Rico alphas him, Chucky looks at the bench and the manager waves him off. Chucky makes an all time cope face. Rico slots it. Chucky doubles down on the obvious cope face. I love this sport. I love Ric Pepi.

To be fair, Lozano did go over to congratulate him after he scored the penalty (but I admit the body language was entertaining to watch on television)

[wvcbxl]

Excellent run by the Lazio goalkeeper to head in the equalizer in stoppage time at Athletico Madrid.

[wolf stansson]

36 minutes ago, wvcbxl said:

Excellent run by the Lazio goalkeeper to head in the equalizer in stoppage time at Athletico Madrid.

In. Sane. A giant yellow blur making an unmarked run through the heart of the box. Perfect header.

[JHBulls]

Real Madrid needing a last minute winning against Union Berlin was something I was not expecting to see this morning as I imagined they would have had the game won early in the second half, such is the difference in quality between the sides. Jude Bellingham has started like a house on fire with his new club. 
Bayern Munich beating Manchester United was the result I fully expected, if not the score. Bayern need to stabilise the defence and United needs to fix a whole lot more than that. 
Arsenal had a good result on their return to the competition. 
 

11 hours ago, wvcbxl said:

Excellent run by the Lazio goalkeeper to head in the equalizer in stoppage time at Athletico Madrid.

It’s always pretty exciting when you see goalkeepers score goals. Just seeing a keeper going up for a corner in a non-knockout stage match is excellent to see. I love that sort of positivity. 

[wvcbxl]

File under "why I love soccer traditions": this evening, for the first time since 1969, the "Zwanzederby" will be played in the top flight of Belgian soccer between Union (est. 1897) en RWDM (est. 1895 as Daring), the two clubs in Brussels with a fanbase in the city itself (Anderlecht doens't count since their fanbase comes from outside of Brussels).

The name Zwanzederby derives from a theatre play from 1938 in which two families try to cancel a planned wedding when they find out their in-laws support the "other" team.

Picture from a 1930's game at Dudenpark (to this day still the home of Union and looking more or less the same as in the picture - the main stand has landmark status)

[JHBulls]

 

Pretty wild stuff if Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay host one match each and automatically qualify for the 2030 World Cup as hosts. What would the Conmebol qualification section even look like? Six nations are guaranteed a spot with the new 48 team World Cup. So for 2030, 6 automatically qualify in a 7 team qualification section and with the three hosts, 9 South American nations will be guaranteed to be at the 2030 World Cup.
Not to mention a 7th nation could qualify via the playoffs, so all 10 South American nations could be involved at the 2030 World Cup. 

[soccer10k]

I assume they’ll take away one or two of the qualification spots. So instead of 6 of 7, it will be 4 of 7.  Just another example for why the 48 team Cup is stupid.

[wvcbxl]

Fun and (Euro) games for the Mac Allister family at Anfield today with Alexis (Liverpool) facing his brother Kevin (Union St Gilles)

[soccer10k]

Didn’t think about this until I read it today, but with the ridiculousness of the 2030 World Cup being hosted in 3 continents, that means 2034 can only be hosted in North America or Asia. North America obviously has 2026 so they’re probably out. That leaves Asia. I’m sure it was a pure coincidence but mere hours after the 2030 announcement, Saudi Arabia announced their solo bid for the 2034 World Cup and FIFA proceeded to give the other Asian countries until the end of October to submit their bids.

[wolf stansson]

Great so we’re getting another winter World Cup because it will be 130 Fahrenheit during the summer. Awesome.

[JHBulls]

On 10/5/2023 at 2:11 PM, soccer10k said:

I assume they’ll take away one or two of the qualification spots. So instead of 6 of 7, it will be 4 of 7.  Just another example for why the 48 team Cup is stupid.

Yeah, I was incorrect. With 3 hosts from South America, Conmebol will have 3.5 qualification spots. So still 6 or 7 spots at the World Cup as they would have received without the 3 host nations.
 

On 10/7/2023 at 3:14 AM, soccer10k said:

Didn’t think about this until I read it today, but with the ridiculousness of the 2030 World Cup being hosted in 3 continents, that means 2034 can only be hosted in North America or Asia. North America obviously has 2026 so they’re probably out. That leaves Asia. I’m sure it was a pure coincidence but mere hours after the 2030 announcement, Saudi Arabia announced their solo bid for the 2034 World Cup and FIFA proceeded to give the other Asian countries until the end of October to submit their bids.

Apparently Australia are on the same timeline to register their bid. It would be interesting to see if Australia and New Zealand team up. The Women’s World Cup was a fantastic tournament, so it would be nice to see the Men’s World Cup in this part of the world. 

And yes, so stupid having the tournament in 3 continents. I can understand USA/Canada/Mexico as they are neighbouring countries but different continents seems like an idea only FIFA could drum up. 

Edited October 8, 2023 by JHBulls

[Tim]

21 hours ago, JHBulls said:

Yeah, I was incorrect. With 3 hosts from South America, Conmebol will have 3.5 qualification spots. So still 6 or 7 spots at the World Cup as they would have received without the 3 host nations.
 

Apparently Australia are on the same timeline to register their bid. It would be interesting to see if Australia and New Zealand team up. The Women’s World Cup was a fantastic tournament, so it would be nice to see the Men’s World Cup in this part of the world. 

And yes, so stupid having the tournament in 3 continents. I can understand USA/Canada/Mexico as they are neighbouring countries but different continents seems like an idea only FIFA could drum up. 

Well...the countries in two of those continents are really close. The center point of Morocco is a whole lot closer to Madrid than Mexico city is to Canada

[Tim]

Sweet Mary Jesus...what have I done?

I'm now subscribed to the soccer thread because I couldn't let a geography note go by

[JHBulls]

2 minutes ago, Tim said:

Well...the countries in two of those continents are really close. The center point of Morocco is a whole lot closer to Madrid than Mexico city is to Canada

Okay, fair point, six host nations is pretty nuts though. 

[JHBulls]

4 minutes ago, Tim said:

Sweet Mary Jesus...what have I done?

I'm now subscribed to the soccer thread because I couldn't let a geography note go by

Had I just looked at a map of the world, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. Sorry. 😞

[soccer10k]

43 minutes ago, JHBulls said:

Okay, fair point, six host nations is pretty nuts though. 

Yeah, had they just scrapped the South America portion, this wouldn’t be a big deal at all.

[JHBulls]

38 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

Yeah, had they just scrapped the South America portion, this wouldn’t be a big deal at all.

I think it would be pretty rough on Conmebol if they would be ruled out of hosting the 2038 World Cup just because they are hosting 3 matches in 2030. But that’s a long bloody time away lol.

Edited October 8, 2023 by JHBulls