Lets Talk Football

I'm side-eyeing the Armas move mostly because he flopped at NY Red Bulls (my hometown club) and then flopped even harder at Toronto (to be fair, in the middle of a pandemic and dealing with related challenges, like playing all of their matches away from home). But it's true that being part of the backroom staff is different from being in charge, so maybe that's just Armas's level.

But as a Spurs fan I'm obligated to hope that Rangnick faceplants and departs in shame (with a healthy payout, of course), as I bask in the glorious memories of, er, our 2008 League Cup trophy.

Fulham-Blackpool is in a break because of a medical emergency in the stands. This is at least the third such incident I can recall this season (not counting, for example, Christian Eriksen's cardiac arrest last summer), and it certainly appears to be happening more frequently lately. My irresponsible speculation here is that Covid-related heart issues are responsible, even though obviously there's not enough data here to back that up.

In more positive news, Josh Sargent will never score a better goal than , especially if it helps keep Norwich up (though it probably won't).

Oh good for him. (Every time I've seen him play he's had an absolute mare in front of goal...)

But yeah, think Norwich probably doomed. (Newcastle ideally more doomed though )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

I'd be thrilled to see Newcastle go down, given their ownership, but I do think they'll buy enough to stay up.

Sargent is hard worker, but I'm not sure Norwich is the right place for him (or he for them) at this stage in his career. That's a fantastic memory for him to have at least.

Sure is a good one!

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Liverpool got Luis Diaz for 45M, a bargain, that guy is going to destroy everything he comes across, very humble, a team player, very confident, when he arrived he run as fast attacking and defending, I knew right away he had something there, I never imagined Sérgio Conceição would transform him the way he did. When I saw Champion League matches against Liverpool and Manchester City and what he did, I knew he was going to be sold.

I imagine a lot of folks at Chelsea are looking for the exit door with great haste.

I find the indignation of some of the fans both funny and sad. This isn't new. They've known (or should have/been in denial) from the start that this was the case and now there's the cry of 'it's not fair on the fans'? Wow.

You've had 20 years of 'unearned' success, seen some great players and won everything. And then, there's even better news. This isn't the end. No the new owner probably won't fund the club like Roman did, but then, most owners don't do that, but you'll still be signing top players, still in the top competitions (perhaps with the odd season missing out but that happened with Roman too) and still expecting to win things, because you're going to benefit from the heights that money raised you to.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

WE ARE GOING TO THE WORLD CUP BABY


64 years

BBC News - World Cup play-off final: Wales edge Ukraine 1-0 to end 64-year World Cup wait
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60869800

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Yes, it was great to see, @ScarletLion. I was really pleased for you guys.

Wowser, that’s wonderful for the Welsh. Maybe you’ll get to play against England.

We will. They're in the same group as us! Along with Iran and USA.

Populations of our World Cup group teams:

USA - 331m
Iran - 89.9m
England - 56.1m
Wales - 3.3m

Yeah, it's an 'easy' but shitty group for England. On the one hand, they're the best team in that group by far and pretty much any other of the other seeded teams would be happy with it. On the other, having another home nation in there makes it a lot more difficult for us than it would any of those other seeds. Wales aren't a good team, but they are hard to beat (take a look at the scores, they rarely get beaten by more than a goal or two) and Bale is a match winner. The US will always be up for taking on England and have a decent young team. I don't know about Iran, but it's another country we have, shall we say 'history' with and I'd expect that without an early goal it'll be 11 men behind the ball. Something no team likes but England struggle to beat because of our reliance on speed. Someonelike Grealish will be vital in a game like that and Southgate, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to care for him.

Also, you can be fairly sure we'll make it more difficult for ourselves than we need to. Southgate doesn't help either in that respect. He's too safe and takes too long to make changes or press home an advantage. I'm not talking about going gung ho, but with the players that England have we should be more on the front foot than we are. His way has got us to the latter stages of the last two major tournaments (though with an unexpectedly easy ride) but against the big tests it almost always fails and, IMO, a quicker minded manager in those last two defeats could've/should've won both.

Yes, that will be a fun match to watch. I root for England, but secretly want the USA to win. Love their enthusiasm & great sporting spirit.

Refresh my memory: where is this all taking place this time? Why do I want to say Qatar of all places?

You're right, @Stirchley , it is in Qatar because, well, bribery really. It starts in November because, and you're not going to believe this, after winning the bid, FIFA discovered that it's quite hot in the desert in the summer, so they shifted it to November so as not to, well, kill the players really. So it's going to happen mid-season for most European clubs.

Huge article in the Times about this yesterday. Not just to kill the players, the spectators too. They’ve built one place where each individual seat has a/c vents.

So who do you fancy for a winner this time? Who won last time? Can’t remember.

France won last time and it could be them again, but I doubt it. If it's not one of the usual suspects though, I'll be stunned.

Argentina and Brazil are always fancied, but this year they both really look good and I'd expect both to make the semi's (I've not looked at the route for anyone so they could meet before then) unless they have a really off day. Back to back world cups are incredibly difficult and I wonder if the French defence and keeper are good enough to do it again. I also don't rate their coach (he coached them to victory at the last world cup but that team was more than talented enough to win with an average coach) so that's another mark against them.

Germany are the ones to watch though, for me. It might be a bit too soon, but they're coming on gangbusters and, as every English person knows, you never look past the Germans. Outside of them you have Belgium's last chance to win something with the very talented team they've had for the last 10 years. But it probably is a bridge too far now, especially with the aforementioned teams above them or Spain who have a good team but no cutting edge. Lastly England, it won't be (we'll go out to the first decent team we play as we always do) but we're a top 10 nation, so have to be mentioned, especially as Italy aren't there.

So, to answer your question, Brazil or Argentina. The time feel right and the narrative is there to be written as either Messi finally gets a World Cup and is totally taken to the hearts of the Argentine people like Maradona is, or Neymar fullfils his destiny and wins a World Cup for Brazil has been predicted/expected he would since he was about 16.

⬆️ Italy is not playing this year?