World Cup 2022 thread (football only)

[Super]

The way Bellingham ran straight over to Kane after the missed penalty. The lad is 19 ffs. So impressive in everything he does.

[italian dave]

15 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:

just hope now modric and co can overturn messis mob, keep cool and get a load of the dirty cheats sent off,  ,love to see morocco beat france too but cant see it. 

Argentina Morocco for me. 

I like watching Modric but for me he’s effective rather than take your breath away great to watch the way Messi is on his day.  

I can’t see Morocco beating France either. But then I couldn’t see them beating Spain. And I couldn’t see them beating Portugal. So, who knows. 

[2015]

47 minutes ago, Bris Red said:

What a ridiculous comment. Your mate sounds like so many other clueless clown’s that follow England.

The worst England fans are the ones who support the 'big clubs' and actively don't want to see rival players play well for England. Seeing Chelsea and Arsenal fans mock Kane for his miss are the worst ones. No wonder players have never cared about playing for England as much

[Numero Uno]

38 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Sure Raheem Sterling would have found it hilarious as well...

I think his mate should give Stand Up Comedy a go and see if he could make a living at it to be honest...........................

[Maltshoveller]

11 hours ago, Robbored said:

All people from South America are Latino - regardless of which country they’re from.

There are numerous Latino players in Europe including Portugal which is why Portuguese is spoken in Brazil whereas other S American countries speak Spanish.

Wow you learn something every day on here

I though Portuguese was spoken in Brazil due to the likes of Cabral and Vasco dea Gama

Had no idea it was to do 21st century footballers

[Super]

38 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:

just hope now modric and co can overturn messis mob, keep cool and get a load of the dirty cheats sent off,  ,love to see morocco beat france too but cant see it. 

Argentina v France would be the best final but would love to see Morocco get through.

[Lanterne Rouge]

1 minute ago, Maltshoveller said:

Wow you learn something every day on here

I though Portuguese was spoken in Brazil due to the likes of Cabral and Vasco dea Gama

Had no idea it was to do 21st century footballers

It was actually due to the treaty of Tordesillas which divided the trading world between Spain and Portugal via a line of longitude down the Atlantic. The trouble was for Spain that no-one knew the bulge in South America where Brazil is existed so it when it was found it fell on the Portuguese side.

[Port Said Red]

10 minutes ago, Maltshoveller said:

Wow you learn something every day on here

I though Portuguese was spoken in Brazil due to the likes of Cabral and Vasco dea Gama

Had no idea it was to do 21st century footballers

It's also worth noting that the Portuguese spoken in Brazil has become so entwined with the original indigenous languages, that the Portuguese and Brazilians struggle to understand each other.

I am still trying to understand why blatantly racist remarks are acceptable from a poster, as long as they make the target as vague as possible.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Port Said Red

[Red-Robbo]

Made the mistake of watching it in Shepton Mallet. Found myself surrounded by losers in blue-and-white clowns' outfits.

Precisely why Shepton is such a stronghold of Gassery, is unclear. It's nowhere near Gloucestershire. I put it down to being the most depressing town in the Mendips.

A depressing night all round. And a depressing hangover now. 

[Robbored]

53 minutes ago, Maltshoveller said:

Wow you learn something every day on here

I though Portuguese was spoken in Brazil due to the likes of Cabral and Vasco dea Gama

Had no idea it was to do 21st century footballers

There’s no need to be deliberately dim, Malt. You know precisely what I’m getting at.

[Bazooka Joe]

25 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Made the mistake of watching it in Shepton Mallet. Found myself surrounded by losers in blue-and-white clowns' outfits.

Precisely why Shepton is such a stronghold of Gassery, is unclear. It's nowhere near Gloucestershire. I put it down to being the most depressing town in the Mendips.

A depressing night all round. And a depressing hangover now. 

Probably Shepton Mallet Prison.

Like bees round a honeypot. Like flies (bluebottles) around a turd.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Bazooka Joe

[TV Tom]

38 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Made the mistake of watching it in Shepton Mallet. Found myself surrounded by losers in blue-and-white clowns' outfits.

Precisely why Shepton is such a stronghold of Gassery, is unclear. It's nowhere near Gloucestershire. I put it down to being the most depressing town in the Mendips.

A depressing night all round. And a depressing hangover now. 

How strange, has it always been the case? What numbers are we talking here

[Midred]

14 hours ago, Northern Red said:

Cretin.

Was he in the squad?

[downendcity]

4 hours ago, Tinmans Love Child said:

I'll refer you to my previous answer.  What are your thoughts on the aliens in Area 51?

Is that like the singing section?

[Red-Robbo]

3 minutes ago, harrys said:

How strange, has it always been the case? What numbers are we talking here

 They definitely outnumber City fans there.  Luckily, I located another Ciderhead, so a medley of Ashton Gate classics serenaded the mute Gasheads who, to be fair, were OK people to banter with.  They thought Barton was a reasonable although limited manager, but repulsive human being, so not too deluded. 

[Red-Robbo]

8 minutes ago, Midred said:

Was he in the squad?

Plays gridiron....

[downendcity]

2 hours ago, italian dave said:

If you venture over to the politics forum, which I know you do from time to time, you’ll know that the thing about conspiracy theories is that by their nature they can never be proved or disproved. 

But you’d surely have to say that if the objective was to ensure that England don’t/France do reach the final then awarding England two penalties is a bloody odd way of doing it. 

And if part of the plan also involved not awarding a free kick at one end of the pitch in the expectation that 40 seconds later and right down the other end of the pitch France would happen to score a goal with a peach of a strike, then they got bloody lucky. 

Walton wasn’t the only person who thought it wasn’t a foul. Personally I thought it was, but it evidently wasn’t quite as ‘nailed on’ as you’re suggesting. And even then, it’s quite feasible that the VAR Officials thought it was a foul too. But that it wasn’t sufficiently critical to the passage of play that led to the goal. That’s another explanation: one you might not agree with, but not completely impossible. 

My thoughts are that has the challenges on Sako been at the other end and on Mbappe, I am pretty certain it would have been penalised.

Similarly. Had the challenge on Kane been at the other end and on Mbappe, do we think that it even a free kick would be awarded?

I'm not necessarily thinking their is a conspiracy, but there seems little doubt that too many refs have a propensity to penalise challenges on the likes of Mbappe and Messi, whereas they do not penalise the same challenges on other teams'players.

 

[Northern Red]

2 hours ago, Super said:

The way Bellingham ran straight over to Kane after the missed penalty. The lad is 19 ffs. So impressive in everything he does.

Nailed on future captain.

[pillred]

12 hours ago, italian dave said:

Scenario 1: referee uses VAR to give himself a better view of a potential penalty call and decides with the benefit of that better view and replay that the correct decision is a penalty

Scenario 2: there’s an international/Qatari/FIFA conspiracy to ensure that certain teams reach the final and/or that England definitely don’t reach the final because no-one likes us

At the end of the day you can believe which you want, but I know which I find most convincing. 

And reaching for the conspiracy/everyone hates us excuse just because we’ve lost a big game just makes us seem like bad losers - or like ManU or Millwall fans!

When you see how overwhelmingly obvious the penalty was were you not the slightest bit surprised it was not given immediately by the ref? because me and every other person in the pub last night was. He did not look like he was going to give it and was told to look at the monitor. obviously overall there was no conspiracy against us I was shocked that he himself never gave us it immediately.

[TV Tom]

5 minutes ago, pillred said:

When you see how overwhelmingly obvious the penalty was were you not the slightest bit surprised it was not given immediately by the ref? because me and every other person in the pub last night was. He did not look like he was going to give it and was told to look at the monitor. obviously overall there was no conspiracy against us I was shocked that he himself never gave us it immediately.

Not surprised it wasn’t originally given being as players are so good at cheating, patently obvious when seeing the replay, this is why we have VAR 

[Red-Robbo]

13 minutes ago, pillred said:

When you see how overwhelmingly obvious the penalty was were you not the slightest bit surprised it was not given immediately by the ref? because me and every other person in the pub last night was. He did not look like he was going to give it and was told to look at the monitor. obviously overall there was no conspiracy against us I was shocked that he himself never gave us it immediately.

 

Yup. I don't think you can say a ref who gives you two penalties is biased. I just don't think he was very good. 

It's amazing really, when you have the entire world to draw officials from, how many absolute belters ended up reffing in this World Cup. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

Still struggling with the master stroke to substitute our most threatening player. What was he thinking?

Thats the only thing I can really find fault with. 

Sterling looked to be blowing out of his ass too. Seemed really unfit. 

[downendcity]

6 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Thats the only thing I can really find fault with. 

Sterling looked to be blowing out of his ass too. Seemed really unfit. 

You'd think he had missed a lot of training recently and was suffering the after effects of return flights back to the UK.

[MarcusX]

4 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

My mate summed it up: “bring on a bloke who’s more concerned about how many of his watches were nicked.”

Aren’t you a copper / ex copper?

Would have expected a little more empathy towards a victim of serious crime tbh

Completely agree that it was a poor sub though. It’s the first time I’ve really been critical of Southgate and can’t defend it. Mount and Sterling, then Grealish with a minute to go (albeit just because stones was injured) were poor choices considering the options we had.

[Fordy62]

1 minute ago, MarcusX said:

Aren’t you a copper / ex copper?

Would have expected a little more empathy towards a victim of serious crime tbh

Completely agree that it was a poor sub though. It’s the first time I’ve really been critical of Southgate and can’t defend it. Mount and Sterling, then Grealish with a minute to go (albeit just because stones was injured) were poor choices considering the options we had.

To be fair mate, it was a joke. But yeh, awful sub. Best player for player in the worst form in the squad. 

[BigTone]

3 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

To be fair it was tongue in cheek. But it tickled me. 

I think I'd tell him to keep his tongue out of your cheeks if I were you.

Edited December 11, 2022 by BigTone

[RedRock]

VAR needs to explain its decision-making.

If they think the foul was outside the penalty box and there was no contact on the line or in the box, then say so. If they got it wrong, admit it.

Struth, Rugby refs explain their analysis and decision-making live, off a pitch side big screen that all the spectators can see. Put your ‘big boy pants’ on football. 
 

As we can see, conspiracy theorists have a field day otherwise. There’s a risk that  football is brought into disrepute and we can’t be having that, can we football administrators? 

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, pillred said:

When you see how overwhelmingly obvious the penalty was were you not the slightest bit surprised it was not given immediately by the ref? because me and every other person in the pub last night was. He did not look like he was going to give it and was told to look at the monitor. obviously overall there was no conspiracy against us I was shocked that he himself never gave us it immediately.

I thought it looked like a pen at the time, but there were several reasons why I wasn’t entirely surprised when he didn’t initially give it.

1. He didn’t see it from the same angle I did. 

2. He’d allowed a fair amount of physical contact during the game so from the wrong viewpoint that might have looked more like a shoulder to shoulder, or less of a push.

3. I’d seen an almost identical challenge not given a few hours earlier at Rotherham.

4. I’m a Bristol City fan, so I’ve seen far more obvious ones not given! 

I’d have been shocked if he hadn’t given it after he had the opportunity to see the replay from different angles. 

[petehinton]

Perfect summation, but probably a hard to accept pill to swallow for many a fair weather. 

[italian dave]

19 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Perfect summation, but probably a hard to accept pill to swallow for many a fair weather. 

It’s a great summary, it’s hard to accept. But not entirely depressing because there’s cause for hope now, I feel. England is a good decade behind France in developing players, skills, a style,etc with the national team in mind. France started doing it in the late 1990s (when they weren’t that great at international level) but we only started a decade or so ago. And there’s plenty of evidence we’re headed in the right direction.