Football (Soccer) Thread

[HVC]

Looks like José is going to Real Madrid. Taking some Benfica coaches with him.

[Norgy]

I have to hand it to the man, he's had a long successful career in big clubs and big leagues. The system, however, has stayed virtually unchanged.

[Zoupa]

What's the most plausible explanation, a league wide conspiracy against the spurs, or the fact the suck so much they can't even manage to flop in the box?

I mean... Arsenal did not get a red card and have not conceded a penalty this season. It gets to a point.

[Josquius]

A grand active conspiracy is silly of course, but I do think its a worthy topic of study if there could be some unconscious bias at play for why some teams seem to get more positive decisions than others.
Wouldn't seem too out there to be that refs would be more wary of giving unfavourable decisions to successful teams than those already failing.

[Norgy]

VAR was put in place for that not too happen. I mean, there are more referees than players soon.

I have watched most Forest matches this season, and I noticed Igor Jesus very rarely getting a free kick, even when completely clattered by bigger defenders. I think the refs have him down as a Latino dive artist. Which he isn't.
I am sure there are several other examples in different clubs.

[Sheilbh]

This is barely a football post - football's there but to hang something else off it.

It feels like we're going through a bit of a second wave of Beatlemania recently with Get Back, the upcoming Sam Mendes biopics, some really good recent books on the Beatles (I think Tom Holland's also doing a book on the 60s which I imagine will spend a lot of time on them) and Sir Paul McCartney releasing an album largely about his youth/growing up in Liverpool (including a song with Ringo). I think there's probably a sense that it's likely his last album. So in all that I the England squad announcement video a lot (although very New York focused):

But it all feels very nice. It sort of reminds me of the outpouring after Bowie died when we kind of reaalised collectively just how good he was - it's just we're realising it before McCartney and Starr are gone which is nice. A bit like Bowie the Beatles (and especially Paul) have kind of gone through the cycle of being huge, then a little bit dated to maybe a bit naff (especially Paul) and then just background music back to realising/appreciating how good they were.

Separately The Bus on Netflix about the 2010 French strike is fantastic. Strongly, strongly recommend it.