football thread No11

[Takhisis]

champions have had to qualify for the following world cup since france's terrible performance in 2002

My point exactly, you person whose avatar and username strangely resemble those of an old poster on this site.

 

[W|M]

the postcount also bears a slight resemblance

 

[Takhisis]

*peers closely at it* Oh yes, it's the same size!

Also, the point about automatic qualification (for hosts) still stands. South Africa in 2010 started the tradition of not getting past the group stage, Brazil in 2014 gave us spectacular ridiculousness, Russia in 2018 was a travesty, Qatar this year got 0 points.

And in three years it will be Mexico, Canada and the U.S. of A.! We shall see how they fare then.

 

[Takhisis]

I am now reading about Spain's football execs complaining about FIFA's disregard for club competitions, etc. (mostly the awful 32-team Club World Cup garbage) but, uhm, didn't la Liga invent its own super-expanded supercup? An already pointless competition that got even worse with its latest expansion? They could have reinstated the League Cup instead, which might have made sense.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh! Gianni Infantino has been re-elected unopposed as head of FIFA until 2027, when the elections will be held right after cash from the even larger World Cup is to be handed out again.

Meanwhile, on Monday in Bolivia a referee decided to award 42 minutes to the second half and send two of Blooming's players off in a victory for Palmaflor, a club presided by none other than Evo Morales. This happened with a playing field flooded by a torrential rain.
The entire refereeing squad has been suspended already, but… the result still stands.

 

[thetrooper]

A measly three goals today for the washed up Norwegian. At this pace Nunez the killer will pass him by the end of May.

Spoiler :

 

[Takhisis]

A measly three goals today for the washed up Norwegian.

Shamefur dispray. Other players all scored three goals, too!

 

[thetrooper]

Bloody united greased the refs again. Disgusting.

 

[Takhisis]

Wow. Every time I happen to glance at a match that involves Urited it changes. I was channel surfing and saw Fulham was winning and then they wasted ages on a penalty claim. And, just as a couple of weeks ago, as soon as I switched channels things went completely <checks technical dictionary> bananas.

 

[Snerk]

Aaaaaaaaand Haaland injured and out of the upcoming EURO qualifier games.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Russia in 2018 was a travesty

How were Russia in 2018 a travesty? They had a jolly good run

 

[Takhisis]

Aaaaaaaaand Haaland injured and out of the upcoming EURO qualifier games.

Trolololo, o-ho-ho-ho-ho! O-ho-ho-ho-ho! Trololllo-lolllo-lolllo-lolllo-looo!

How were Russia in 2018 a travesty? They had a jolly good run

First we had the obvious bribery in assigning hosting status (admitted to by none other than Sepp Blatter himself) and also the fact that in spite of UEFA's garbage about friendship between European nations™ the invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 Russia's bribery weighed more. And the world's approval of Russia's sportswashing is one of the factors behind today's ongoing massacre in Ukraine.

On the footballing side we got a mediocre Russian team that was handed an easy group (again Blatter admitted to FIFA fixing making the sorting ‘not random’), got a bit of help against Egypt to qualify in second place, engaged in a bit of doping here and there and managed to drag out matches to penalty kickouts. Won two games out of five and shouldn't have left the group stage.

 

[thetrooper]

Aaaaaaaaand Haaland injured and out of the upcoming EURO qualifier games.

Like a bolt from the blue. Right?

 

[Snerk]

Like a bolt from the blue. Right?

Indeed. So shocking.

 

[Takhisis]

Argentina finally breaks its winless three-month run with a victory against Panama.

 

[thetrooper]

Easy win for Espagna. Especially if you get to play with 12 guys against 11.

 

[thetrooper]

Easy win for Espagna. Especially if you get to play with 12 guys against 11.

So, it seems that Spain dressed a French guy. Is that allowed?

 

[Takhisis]

Judging by recent similar shenanigans in CONMEBOL, UEFA could simply decide that no punishment is due this qualy cycle and then apply a three-point deduction in the next one, which, frankly, could be for the World Cup in 2026 or for the 2028 Euros.

Or wait until Spain's qualified in the group stages of the next Nations League cycle and dock three points from its group table standings and make Spain qualify in second place instead of third.

 

[Snerk]

Easy win for Espagna. Especially if you get to play with 12 guys against 11.

Yeah the ref was ridiculous. For ~70 mins they did give them a run for their money though, even without Haaland. But the rest was business as usual.

 

[thetrooper]

el oh el @Norway