Football (Soccer) Thread

[FunkMonk]

I don't know how true this is but supposedly Ronaldo hasn't been to the United States in years because of these allegations?

[Josquius]

I guess it depends on how you perform at each level. If you're playing at, say, the 5th division, and you have amazing performances day in, day out, maybe you think you can cut it one or two levels about it. If you go up in level and keep performing well then maybe you can make it one more level above that, until you kind of hit a wall and assume that you've reached your ceiling. In lower leagues it's not as if there's a massive abyss of playing level between them, but at some point the difference is big enough to be difficult to overcome for most players.

I'm not so sure there is in the English system at least. Things are obviously quite different in Spain- didn't we discuss this a few months back?
These days in England there's pretty clear levels from the top of the premier league all the way down with only slight differences between them. Top Championship teams are easily the quality of bottom Premier League teams for instance.

The big difference in quality between the lower leagues and premier league players IMO tends to be less in what they can produce and more in consistency. A League 1 goal keeper can be great.... but 2, 3, 4, times a game almost guaranteed he will fuck up and make a mistake- against League 1 strikers they can fuck up at the same time and not score, against premier league strikers on the other hand whose errors tend to be more once every few games....
You do get skill differences too of course. The ability to put the ball within a certain radius of where you want to put it. But far more important than that is how often they roll a one.

For your analysis of this guy...I note he's an attacking midfielder/forward. Goals scored may not be the best measure for him as for an out and out poacher.

Coming to mind right now...I can't remember his name but I'm sure I recall a player a year or two back from a league 1 or 2 team decided to quit football altogether and go onto a normal career as he realised he was never going to crack the big time and didn't see sacrificing more years in the lower leagues with a guaranteed retirement in his 30s as worth it.

[Maladict]

Dutch national team blowing their chances of qualifying for the WC. Film at 11 


edit: nevermind, Turkey manages to squander their lead in the 97th minute

[Liep]

So now I want to see the last minutes of Portugal - Ireland

[Josquius]

I'm shocked that there are wc qualifiers going on today. The euros seem to be just a week or two ago still.

[Liep]

The team is continuing the good play from the Euros and won 2-0 over Scotland. The last goal was like seeing Laudrup passing to Sand in 1998. Damsgaard and Mæhle are quickly becoming favorites.

[Josephus]

Malta won.

[Duque de Bragança]

So now I want to see the last minutes of Portugal - Ireland

Seems pretty much on the Euro 2020 pattern. Coach is too stubborn to make changes, Fernandes sucks in the national squad as in Bernardo Silva and Fernandes can't play in the same midfield. Once João Moutinho entered, play improved.
Some good early 20 minutes with a post hit by Jota and a penalty not scored by Ronaldo, but then not much and Ireland scored on their one opportunity.
Thankfully for the Selecção, late changes and a highly motivated Ronaldo gave a hard fought victory after countless crosses and shots.
Game will be shown on a free-to-air terrestrial sports channel in France Friday night.  It was shown live on their website but the quality was not that great.

Upset of the night was Bosnia tieing with France in Strasbourg, with France playing shorthanded for most of the second half. I suppose Bosnia could have even won but they seemed happy with the result yet they are at 2 points. Ukraine at 4, which lost a great opportunity to get closer to les Bleus, by tieing again with Kazakhstan.

Josephus

Against Cyprus? That's not exactly an upset. 

[Josephus]

Josephus

Against Cyprus? That's not exactly an upset. 

Um.....Yes. It is.


Cyprus ranked 99. Malta 177.

[Threviel]

Apparently last night Spain lost it's first WC qualifier since '93 when it lost against Denmark, 66 straight games without a loss. That was a good run, let's hope nothing like it ever happens again. Ever.

[Tamas]

It's nice and sort of symbolic how (I think) Kane is calling in the team for a group hug so they can stand together in the shower of beer and missiles hurled by the Hungarian fans nazis after Sterling's goal.

https://streamable.com/1jrv5p

While there are less and less racist/thugist incidents even on the bloody Balkans, Hungary is happily regressing under Orban. It's a shame.

[Josquius]

Its amazing really how it is such a big thing in Hungary, a place with about 10 black people in the entire country. Logically they should be completely indifferent to BLM, anti-racism gestures, etc....
Alas the politics of fear and culture wars finds fertile ground in ignorant minds.

Incidentally- I noticed in one of the photos from last night a Hungarian hooligan had a t-shirt with a green cross flag on it. Whats that about? Some alternative flag to spin Hungary as christian (in the far right sense)?

[Sheilbh]

It's nice and sort of symbolic how (I think) Kane is calling in the team for a group hug so they can stand together in the shower of beer and missiles hurled by the Hungarian fans nazis after Sterling's goal.

https://streamable.com/1jrv5p

While there are less and less racist/thugist incidents even on the bloody Balkans, Hungary is happily regressing under Orban. It's a shame.

Although it may have been a piss-cup and it's unsafe in covid times I did love Declan Rice's response:





Huge boos when England players took the knee as well - and I get they're separate organisations but I sort of feel like if a country has been banned from having fans by UEFA for racist and homophobic behaviour, then that should probably also apply to FIFA games as well. I don't know - maybe that's not right but it seems strange that Hungary won't be allowed fans because of behaviour at the Euros for European games (so Nations League?), so instead FIFA will do their own investigation and own punishment for whether the fans banned for racism in a tournament literally two months ago might be racist.

[Syt]

Truly, the flowers of Hungarian manhood

[Duque de Bragança]

Josephus

Against Cyprus? That's not exactly an upset. 

Um.....Yes. It is.


Cyprus ranked 99. Malta 177.

That's true but it's a bit misleading. Cyprus is not that much a bigger team than Malta. Cyprus was able to play some tricks on bigger teams such as France or Portugal, in their home turf withs some ties
That 78 gap would be more meaningful between the 21st and 99th.