Football (Soccer) Thread

[Duque de Bragança]

Surprise, surprise ! Netherlands 2 Qatar 0
Still 30 minutes to play.

[Valmy]

Surprise, surprise ! Netherlands 2 Qatar 0
Still 30 minutes to play.

And people gave us shit for hosting in 1994.

Shockingly (not shockingly) Qatar is the shittiest host of all time. At least South Africa did itself proud despite not advancing.

[Duque de Bragança]

Surprise, surprise ! Netherlands 2 Qatar 0
Still 30 minutes to play.

And people give us shit for hosting in 1994.

Shockingly (not shockingly) Qatar is the shittiest host of all time. At least South Africa did itself proud despite not advancing.

Fixed! 

Don't worry, the whataboutist brigade is still using WC USA 1994 as an example, along with the USA North American 2026 tournament as countries with no football culture to speak of (save Mexico).

PS: to be fair, I think I remember people around 2002 or before using that kind of line vs Japan (Ségolènes? of a special kind) or Korea.

[HVC]

Come on Iran! Not because i like them or anything, i just think it'd be funny. And if wales could win by 6 goals that'd be good too.

[Valmy]

Fixed! 

Don't worry, the whataboutist brigade is still using WC USA 1994 as an example, along with the USA North American 2026 tournament as countries with no football culture to speak of (save Mexico).

Fuck Mexico, we beat their ass in qualifications and in the WC in 2002. And we are going to advance by beating Iran today. Lumping us in with Qatar is a bunch of bullshit. Sure we might not be Brazil or anything but come on.

[Valmy]

Come on Iran! Not because i like them or anything, i just think it'd be funny. And if wales could win by 6 goals that'd be good too.

It would be very unfunny!

[HVC]

Come on Iran! Not because i like them or anything, i just think it'd be funny. And if wales could win by 6 goals that'd be good too.

It would be very unfunny!

One of the teams I wanted is though now, now it's time for schadenfreude

[Valmy]

One of the teams I wanted is though now, now it's time for schadenfreude

After our ultimate humiliation in 2018, haven't we suffered enough?

[HVC]

One of the teams I wanted is though now, now it's time for schadenfreude

After our ultimate humiliation in 2018, haven't we suffered enough?

As a Leafs fan I have no sympathy for others humiliation 

[Valmy]

Well that's fair.

[Duque de Bragança]

Fuck Mexico, we beat their ass in qualifications and in the WC in 2002. And we are going to advance by beating Iran today.

Qualifications are one thing, the tournament is another one.
Mexicans are crazy about football, have a stronger domestic league (Liga MX) than the US/Canada one, and are regulars in World Cup, hosted two world Cups including possibly the best one (1970 with Brazil's best team ever) and a somewhat decent one (Le Monde dug up some old articles about the controversy back then and I have some vague memories of organisation problems). Those are some criteria used, sometimes.

Naturally, the US as a place to visit is better than Wahhabi land, despite the in God we trust (some whataboutists stressed when the US federation removed the Allah/islamic republic part of the Iranian flag). The beer at stadia might be piss, but at least it's not banned, and you can get better stuff elsewhere.

Mexico benefits and suffers indirectly with the low competitiveness of CONCACAF with too many qualification spots granted by FIFA to get their share of the very important North American money market. That mercantile logic led them to a Wahhabi world cup.

Currently, their team seems to be at a low point, from what I saw of their games. Admittedly, I watched much less of this Wahhabi Cup than a real major football tournament.

As for the game today, let the football gods decide. I can't decide if Iran winning is more of a benefit for the regime or not, despite the courageous standing of players earlier.

Lumping us in with Qatar is a bunch of bullshit. Sure we might not be Brazil or anything but come on.

Indeed, it goes or should go without saying. Starting by the infra-structure is ready so no huge costs, though travels  would be a problem compared to an event in an European country or Japan. Uruguay can't organise World Cups anymore, but South American would not be that bad, assuming some other country wants to go broke à la Brazil 2014 (Olympics for added effect).
Qatar organises all games in a tiny environment but given supporters have to pay to stay more than 24 hours in the country, the even is a disaster for the carbon footprint.

Whataboutism has an interesting equivalent in French, not 100 % identical, i.e noyer le poisson. Obviously, noyer le poisson in a desert land is a new low. 

[Duque de Bragança]

Other game of the afternoon:

Senegal 2 Ecuador 1

Senegal in the round of 16

Better game to watch than Netherlands Qatar, for sure.

[Barrister]

Surprise, surprise ! Netherlands 2 Qatar 0
Still 30 minutes to play.

And people give us shit for hosting in 1994.

Shockingly (not shockingly) Qatar is the shittiest host of all time. At least South Africa did itself proud despite not advancing.

Fixed! 

Don't worry, the whataboutist brigade is still using WC USA 1994 as an example, along with the USA North American 2026 tournament as countries with no football culture to speak of (save Mexico).

PS: to be fair, I think I remember people around 2002 or before using that kind of line vs Japan (Ségolènes? of a special kind) or Korea.

Because I'm old enough to remember 1994... soccer in North America (excluding Mexico) is in a totally different place in 2022 compared to 1994.  Canada/US has a thriving professional league, which did not exist in 1994.  US national team has performed quite well, regularly qualifying for the WC and advancing several times in the last 30 years.  Canada might be the weakest link, but even there we now have our own national league and our men's team qualified for the WC this year without any host country guarantee.

[Valmy]

MLS was created as a direct result of the 1994 World Cup. It probably wouldn't exist, or would have been created much later, if it wasn't for that.

The whole period from Mexico 1986 until 1994 was a desperate attempt to convince us all that soccer wasn't foreign and lame and to a big extent it succeeded. By 1995 there was such a thing as American soccer fandom and it has only grown until today.

[The Larch]

It used to have a big reputation for being quite boring and overly defensive.

Update your references, the era of Catenaccio is long gone. Currently Serie A is going through the spell with the most goals scored in modern times by far.

I'm particularly fascinated to see Atalanta and Napoli up there. They used to be pretty meh.

Again, update your references. Atalanta have been qualifying for European competition for each of the last 5 seasons, including three seasons in which they finished 3rd in the league. Napoli have been qualifying for European competitions for the last 12 seasons in a row, including four seasons in which they were Serie A runners-up.