football thread No11

[Takhisis]

First round of CONMEBOL qualifiers. The qualification tournament has ten teams playing in a double round-robin format. The first six qualify for the expanded world cup directly and the 7th team will enter an intercontinental play-off.

All of this is due to UEFA's mania for not giving up WC spots and instead just inflating the tournament so that again you might get a third-placed team with as few as one or two points go through to the knockout stages. *Sigh*

So, anyway:
Argentina 1 - 0 Ecuador (Messi became his country's highest scorer in World Cup qualifying matches and joint top overall with one Luis Suárez)
Brazil 5 - 1 Bolivia
Uruguay 3 - 1 Chile
Colombia 1 - 0 Venezuela
Paraguay 0 - 0 Peru

Ecuador were docked three points for this qualification cycle for fielding an ineligible player in the previous one.

 

[AdrienIer]

First round of CONMEBOL qualifiers. The qualification tournament has ten teams playing in a double round-robin format. The first six qualify for the expanded world cup directly and the 7th team will enter an intercontinental play-off.

All of this is due to UEFA's mania for not giving up WC spots and instead just inflating the tournament so that again you might get a third-placed team with as few as one or two points go through to the knockout stages. *Sigh*

South America used to give 40-50% of its countries a place at the WC, and now it's 60-70%, but the UEFA is the baddy, yeah...

Note : In almost all cases the UEFA is bad, just not always the only problem in world football. Last WC 8 out of europe's 13 got out of the group stage, when SA was 2/4 with the 5th losing its playoff.
Note 2 : Despite what I just said about the ratios, it's good that europe got so few added spots in the new WC format. Africa needed them badly for example, and even though the WC qualifiers in europe are brutal for some good teams it's not as bad as Africa's qualifiers.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

A true 'World Cup' would have an appropriate number of slots for each confederation based on the number of members. The World Cup as it is is just 'Europe and South America and the Rest' Cup.

 

[Takhisis]

South America used to give 40-50% of its countries a place at the WC, and now it's 60-70%, but the UEFA is the baddy, yeah...

Oh no, I'm not making it exclusive to UEFA, no.
South America's CONMEBOL is an incredibly corrupt and self-serving organisation, but it being handed out extra berths comes simply from FIFA upholding the existing power structure instead of reassigning berths. A 32-team World cup worked in terms of organisation. 48 teams, with the return of the nefarious ‘best third-placed’ is yet another vision of FIFA's incredible corruption which already saw it de facto endorse Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia and 2014 invasion of Ukraine by giving it a World Cup anyway and giving it to Qatar for 2022.

Back in 1950, with most of Asia and Africa (and the Caribbean) still owned by European powers there was still a varnish of legitimacy on legal terms.
Nowadays, either one of Africa and Asia have more land surface and population than Europe and UEFA still gets a ridiculous amount of berths.

And, by the way, more or less everyone here thinks that the new amount of berths makes the tournament a joke. It's a screw-up by FIFA.

------------------------

Oh hey, Rubiales has resigned.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

And Bellingham's form finally falters. Also, what a comeback by Barcelona, 3 goals in the last 10 minutes, even more impressive considering they conceded an early goal and then conceded again in the 75th

 

[Grendeldef]

Currently without a proper TV service for football so I'm somewhat limited to CL & only been watching few EPL games per week but it seems somehow more interesting than in the past few seasons especially if Citizens in mentally excluded. I assume this at least partly because Klopp's Pool 2.0 is making some sense on the pitch again.
The saddest part in football is the inevitable Saudi presense everywhere and mostly I wish their league will be a huge f up but a tiny bit of me wishes modest success so everyone will get an invitation to embassy. I never thought that I'd miss the days when FIFA was the epicentre of radiating misery in football.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

4th-placed Brighton lose 6-1 to 3rd-placed Aston Villa, this is shaping up to potentially be quite a season

 

[Grendeldef]

Yup & I'm already sad I didn't bother to watch that. Villa & Brighton can apparently do very weird & hopefully wonderful things on regular bases. It'd cool to have access to de Zerbi's thoughts during the game. As an aperitive for the evening game I'll be watching Amrabat & co for starters.

To no one's surprise the ref is blind or Amrabat's use of hand to pass/clear the ball is just clever use of game mechanics. I'm increasingly supportive to measure taxing EPL transfers a bit to make the refereeing at least tolerable. The current situation is only slightly better than human rights in North Korea.

 

[Grendeldef]

That evening game went well - PGMOL had to issue yet another apology and this time they didn't even have time for tea after the game before the statement was made. It's getting beyond ridiculous and Klopp might get properly pissed if the missing three points will make a difference in the end and especially so if Tottenham is involved.
Maybe they should draw lots before the game and give keys to the VAR-room to a spectator - it can't get worse. In a cup game between lower league teams they had to recruit a ref from stands and everyone seem to agree that he was the best they had had for ages.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Just learnt that Sheffield United's manager is surnamed 'Heckingbottom'.

Also, Jude you thing of beauty ... I don't recall seeing an all-out all-rounder performance like Bellingham's against Girona, knocking and tackling at one end like a veteran defender, assisting a goal with a Modric-esque outside foot pass, rushing to the goal from the halfline, he was all over the place

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Great comeback by Atletico.
Hopefully we can have a three-horse race in La Liga this season, maybe four with Girona?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

VAR audio released from Liverpool's disallowed goal by Luis Diaz in defeat at Spurs

Luis Diazs goal for Liverpool at Tottenham was mistakenly disallowed by the officials; VAR failed to overturn an incorrect offside call after believing the on-field decision had been to award the goal; PGMOL admitted VAR officials Darren England and Dan Cook failed to act

www.skysports.com

Diaz was flagged offside after scoring but replays showed he was actually onside.

But Darren England, the VAR, mistakenly believed the on-field decision had been to award the goal, leading him to tell Simon Hooper, the referee, that the check was complete.

Once England and the assistant VAR Dan Cook were alerted to their mistake by the replay operator when the goal wasn't awarded, they repeatedly said they could not intervene as the game had restarted.

 

[Takhisis]

FIFA's splurge continues. Since it owes so many favours to anybody and everybody (and Infantino needs to secure his re-election) then the next World Cup after the one in the US is set to have three inaugural matches (??) hosted one each by Argentina, Uruguay… and Paraguay!? and then move to Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Each one of those six countries would qualify automatically as hosts, so I wonder whether they'd scale back on CONMEBOL's 6½ berths or maybe just have the three one-match hosts qualify anyway and have the other seven teams fight to avoid the one indirect (playoff) qualification spot.

Or we could just make it a 64-team World Cup. Or have multiple group stages. Or…



The idea was to have South America host it again (and it's the freaking centenary of the competition!) but the UEFA/CAF bid would not be denied and that's six votes. Paraguay is there simply because the head of CONMEBOL has been Paraguayan for decades so the organisation's HQ is there.
Also it seems that the next WC after that would have to go to Asia/Oceania so why wouldn't Saudi Arabia buy that as well?

 

[Grendeldef]

Starting the games also in SA FIFA can skip their proper hosting turn in favour of Asia so some nice chop chop country like Saudi Arabia can welcome everyone sooner to some nice party in their embassies.

On the other if one feels a bit down & out there's always the chance watch yesterday's Slovenia - Finland game and immediately feel better as the Finns apparently have it way worse. I've seen some truly bad performances before but it's impossible to tell if/when I last saw something worse.

Also there're interesting new universal constants in the makes in England.

a) ManU will be drawn as the host of their FA/League cup game unless it'll be played on neutral ground
b) if there's a 12.30 Saturday game after an international break Liverpool will take part and prolly start playing in matching slippers

I assume the TV companies dictate who'll play in that noon game but it's getting ridiculous while ManU streak seems just a bit too lucky. I'd still change the system to alternate home & away games whenever possible but EPL is not known for their pioneer attitude in respect to changing rules.

 

[Takhisis]

It's qualifiers week. A weird week.

Argentina manages to play about as well without Messi on the pitch as it does without him. Scotland manages to qualify for the Euros! Brazil manages to not-defeat Venezuela for the first time in its history.

Also, the winning machine masquerading as Manchester City Football Club apparently lost one game in a row and started an apparently irreparable decline, what's the world coming to?

 

[Takhisis]

Eliminatorias!

Argentina 1 - 0 Paraguay
Brazil 1 - 1 Venezuela
Bolivia 1 - 2 Ecuador
Chile 2 - 0 Peru
Colombia 2 - 2 Uruguay

Peru 0 - 2 Argentina
Uruguay 2 - 0 Brazil
Paraguay 1 - 0 Bolivia
Ecuador 0 - 0 Colombia
Venezuela 3 - 0 Chile

Argentina continues to refuse to concede and has won four out of four matches.
Uruguay (!!!) is actually the highest-scoring team in the tournament so far. Finally broke the unwinning streak against Brazil that stretched back to July 2001.
Brazil has not-won in a double date for the first time in years. They have lost their first qualifier match since October 2015.
Bolivia continues to not win. A last-gasp defeat against Ecuador was followed by giving the Paraguayans their first victory in the tournament.
Chile, meanwhile, remains completely erratic. Ecuador is also meh.
Venezuela is suddenly the surprise of the era.
Colombia is unbeaten: one victory, the rest draws. They screwed up a penalty kick but also had two goals disallowed.
Peru remains at near-bottom, only outdone by an unexpectedly dismal Bolivia.
Ecuador's getting over its 3-point penalty already.

More worrying is the injury suffered by Neymar. Brazil completely collapsed in terms of football after his exit and it looks to be far worse than the random mis-step that cameras showed as the apparent moment of injury seemed at the time.

Next November it's a double-derby date here: Argentina-Uruguay and then Brazil-Argentina. Right after the continental final between Boca Juniors and Fluminense, for greater morbidity.

Argentina - 12 points
Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela - 7 points
Colombia - 6 points
Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile - 4 points
Peru - 1 point
Bolivia - 0 points

 

[Grendeldef]

At this point I think it's 50-50 whether Neymar actually returns to competitive football. Most here seem to be even more sceptical especially since the rumours started that next to no one who moved there in the summer is happy playing in the Chop Chop league. Even a massive paycheck has diminishing returns and career-breaking injury could be a face saving exit strategy. Pogba took another route trying to get back to the top and that failed miserably not that the Saudis are likely to show any interest in what flows in one's veins unless one is visibly drunk at the embassy party...

The SA table at this point looks quite interesting and it would even more so if the cut were a bit more tight.

 

[Takhisis]

^I've amended the table, but yes, there's still seven teams within three points of each other and the collectively-bottom three are four points away from outright elimination.

Neymar's injury seems to be broken ligaments. Ouch. :/

 

[Takhisis]

Inter 7 - 1 Santos At least Pelé wasn't alive to see Santos in the relegation zone. The Portoalegrians are now 5 points clear of their Paulist rivals.


Flamengo - Vasco da Gama featuring at least one dead, four other wounded and forty arrested after a fight involving guns, knives and sticks before the match at the train station near the Maracanã. The match was played anyway, of course.

 

[W|M]

Flamengo - Vasco da Gama featuring at least one dead, four other wounded and forty arrested after a fight involving guns, knives and sticks before the match at the train station near the Maracanã. The match was played anyway, of course.

it was at a train station on the same line but halfway across the city