[Soccer] Lets talk soccer

The most memorable example of (male) footballers crying in my mind is the 1999 Champion's League final. Manchester United beat Bayern Munich by scoring two late goals, despite Bayern leading for most of the game and honestly being the better team overall. After the second goal and the final whistle there were several Bayern players left lying face down on the pitch, sobbing.
 
My brother had tickets to go to the Champions League finals with a big customer of his.
Then he traded jobs, becoming CEO for another company than where he was working.
So that customer is no longer a customer of his, and he doesn't really know any of his new customers well enough to take them along.
So somehow he's decided he's taking me. And since he already paid for tickets and hotel and transportation...It's all good.

The first soccer match I'll ever watch live (except for, like, 10-to-15 year old cousins and such) and it's the Champions League finals Liverpool - Real. Sounds like a plan :aaah: :csi::aaah:
 
My brother had tickets to go to the Champions League finals with a big customer of his.
Then he traded jobs, becoming CEO for another company than where he was working.
So that customer is no longer a customer of his, and he doesn't really know any of his new customers well enough to take them along.
So somehow he's decided he's taking me. And since he already paid for tickets and hotel and transportation...It's all good.

The first soccer match I'll ever watch live (except for, like, 10-to-15 year old cousins and such) and it's the Champions League finals Liverpool - Real. Sounds like a plan :aaah: :csi::aaah:
I am seething with jealously.
 
Aston Villa had one job, to beat one of the richest clubs in the world who have some of the best players in the world and are managed by one of the best managers in the world, and they couldn't even do that right.
 
Disney will pull it off. They’ll switch the places of the teams and add a dog to the roster
I think Leicester's title-winning season would be a better candidate for a Disney movie, with Mahrez replaced by a dog.

Why Mahrez? Because then the dog could be portrayed running up and down the flank with lots of time on the ball.
 
In the latest Fuck UEFA news the total number of tickets they've made available for wheelchair users at the Champions League final this weekend is 93. The Stad de France which is hosting the final has space for 550 wheelchair users. What are they doing with the other 457 spaces that tickets aren't being sold for? :mad:
 
Amount available in total, or amount being sold?
I mean, I'm perfectly willing to believe UEFA are just that big of a bunch of dicks, but I know that easily half of the stadium isn't for sale because it goes directly to sponsors. Heck, I've heard it said that FedEx alone had almost 5000 seats reserved. So I could see the other 457 being set aside for sponsors? Or replaced with regular seats that'll make them more money, of course.
 
Amount available in total, or amount being sold?
I mean, I'm perfectly willing to believe UEFA are just that big of a bunch of dicks, but I know that easily half of the stadium isn't for sale because it goes directly to sponsors. Heck, I've heard it said that FedEx alone had almost 5000 seats reserved. So I could see the other 457 being set aside for sponsors? Or replaced with regular seats that'll make them more money, of course.
I believe it's amount being sold. However Liverpool & Real are each getting 19,618 tickets with another 12,000 on general sale so that's 51,236 tickets to supporters at a 75,000 capacity stadium.

In comparison the club's are getting 38 wheelchair tickets each, with I assume the remaining 17 going on general sale. Even if the other 457 are going to sponsors why would that be so lopsided? I did see a quote where UEFA blamed the short preparation time due to the final initially due to be held in Russia for the poor wheelchair allocation suggesting that these tickets aren't going to sponsors - or at least not sponsors that are actually in wheelchairs.
 
If I'm not mistaken, wheelchair seating is basically an empty space with a view of the pitch, which the wheelchair user can park their wheelchair in. I suspect it would be rather easy to install some chairs there and turn them into more seats that can be sold. Therefore I wonder if UEFA or whoever intends to put some chairs there and then sell or give away those wheelchair spaces to able-bodied people.
 
Nottingham Forest wins promotion to the Premier League on a goal by Levi Colwill.

Unfortunately, Levi Colwill played for Huddersfield, their opponent.

(EDIT: I had to clarify it for myself: Colwill was on loan to Huddersfield from - of all teams - Chelsea.)
 
The Full Draw for Qatar 2022:
  • Group A: Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, Netherlands
  • Group B: England, Iran, USA, Wales
  • Group C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland
  • Group D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia
  • Group E: Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan
  • Group F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia
  • Group G: Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon
  • Group H: Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea
 
15 players have threatened to resign from the Spanish women's national team unless the head coach is fired. They claim his tenure is actively harming both their emotional state & their health.

The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) is very much siding with the coach telling the players they need to "accept their mistake and ask for forgiveness" under threat of never being considered for international selection again.

If 15 players are collectively saying they'd rather not play than play for that specific coach then something somewhere has gone seriously wrong & that needs to be looked at rather than this knee jerk how dare they question the coach reaction the RFEF have got going here.
 
Yeah, 15 out of a selection of some thirty-ish is....significant. It's "only" the women so in Spain it'll pretty much get ignored, but can you imagine what it'd do on the men's side (the one Spanish people care about)? It'd be a national scandal.
 
I have a confession. Every time I see a news article about Lewandowski my brain automatically reads "Lewinsky" and I get the mental image of Monica Lewinsky doing stuff like playing for Barcelona and scoring goals and winning awards.
 
I would if it were anywhere else. I’m not even going to watch this year.
Compared to the normal pre-championship atmosphere it really doesn't live around here. Fan villages, big group large screen viewings, etc are getting canceled left and right.
Part of it is Belgium not expecting any great result this time, but even that aside... There's just no interest. It's in winter, it's in QTR, it's... I dunno. Very weird.
Can't say I mind though... FIFA deserves to see how much they screwed up. The "fans" in QTR aren't exactly a glowing recommendation, either.
 
I watched the opening and the first game. It was so and so. I learned that Morgan Freeman has a prostetic hand?

The game was not really good. The "fans" left after the first half with Qatar behind two goals. Shows how enthusiastic they are.
 
I’ll watch teams I’m interested in watching. Saw the disallowed goal and the first goal today before getting on the road. I’m curious when the ass will fall off this thing and the QTR “police” do something that outrages the world.
 
Ecuador won and I see too many people that thinks that their lives have somewhat improved because of this. I mean, you can be proud for your national team, but I feel that many think that this is a lot more important than it really is.
 
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