This story has the bizarre financial pettiness of an LoI story.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...layers-if-lose
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This story has the bizarre financial pettiness of an LoI story.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...layers-if-lose
You gotta hand it to these Russians, some balls on them all the same. Not content with God knows what on the front doors of former spies they had nothing to do with, and the 'what chemical weapons ? ' in Syria, state level organised drugs programs for their athletes, and a minister for sport who lauded the manhood of their steroid fed thugs in France and a hand in The Donald somehow ending up in the White House, they now give us a captive dancing bear presenting a football to the ref before a game.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43783325
This is actually from 1978, but I only heard about it today.
When France played Hungary in the 1978 world cup, there was a misunderstanding about kits and both teams turned up with their white kit, which meant that viewers on black and white tvs would have found it impossible to tell them apart. So they had to scrabble around for a kit, eventually procuring one from local Argentinean club Kimberley. There were only 14 shirts, and they didn't have any numbers on them. While Kimberley didn't object to numbers being ironed on, they wanted it kept simple, with numbers 1-14 (rather than based on the squad numbers of the French players starting the game).
As a result, France took the field in green and white striped shirt. They still had their blue shorts on, and as these were numbered also, there was a mismatch between shorts and shirt number in some cases (if the original squad number was outside 1-14).
In the end, despite the fuss, France won 3-1.
https://www.dreamteamfc.com/c/wp-con...50&quality=100
I'm sure most people have seen this already, but thought I'd put it here anyway.
Newcastle Jets' Riley McGree scores an incredible quasi-scorpion kick to equalise against Melbourne City in the A-League semi-final, Newcastle went on to win the match 2-1 and book their place in the A-League Grand final against Melbourne Victory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4WSO5m6qDo
A result just in from the Estonian Cup semi-final -
Flora Tallinn 9-3 Flora Tallinn U21s
Score was 3-0 after 6 minutes.
The 21s actually beat a top-flight side 7-3 in the quarters. Flora's U19s also entered, but were knocked out in the second round. So Flora Tallinn had three teams in the first round.
27-0 was the biggest score this year, with a top-flight side being drawn against a regional side (seventh tier and below); that has to be Sunday league level. Another regional side was beaten 18-2 by a fifth-division team. The round of 32 saw a top-flight side win 16-0 against a sixth-tier side.
The competition actually straddles two seasons. Estonia operates a summer season for the league, but a winter season for the Cup. The first round draw is made on the day of the Cup final and played two weeks later. And while the round of 16 - the third round - was in August 2017, the quarters were in April 2018.
During this time - pre-season - holders Infonet Tallinn basically folded and merged with another top-flight team, Levadia Tallinn, who lost to Cork in Europe last season. Both were in the quarter-final draw so to fill the gap, Infonet's third team - the second team had already been knocked out by the firsts 7-0 in the first round - got let into the Cup from the fourth tier. They lost 6-0.
The Estonian Cup is fantastic; it's on my football bucket list to take in an early-round match some year.
Sporting "fans" invade clubs training facility, dressing rooms, attack players after what was apparently a difficult season: https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2018...heir-own-fans/
They drew blood on the guy whose scored 34 goals this season!
Wow.
They finished third, losing just four league games all season, none at home. They're in the Cup final, won the League Cup, lost 2-1 to Atlético Madrid in the Europa League quarter-finals, having drawn at home to Juventus and lost 1-0 at home against Barcelona in the Champions League groups.
Crap season alright.
Their average crowd is more than 11 of the teams in the division got through the gates all season.
If it wasn't just random yobs, there's been some kind of dispute between the players and owners this season, which culminated in an embarrassing spat after they exited the Europa League. It seems there's a perception they aren't pulling their weight, regardless of, you know, little things like winning trophies, scoring 34 goals in a season and regularly competing at high levels of European tournaments.
Also from the headlines today, Argentine Football Association's primer for journalists travelling to Russia includes a section on how to successfully chat-up Russian women, hastily removed (by hand) when it started being mocked on social media: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44137979
Edit: Deadspin has a translation. You'd expect it to be some kind of satirical send-up but it's bizarrely straightforward: https://deadspin.com/argentina-fa-pu...-on-1826070754
Wasn't sure where to put this: Captain of the Indian national team records message asking for more support after only a few thousand show up for their most recent home fixture.
India must have the biggest imbalance in terms of national team support to population.Quote:
"To all of you, who have lost hope or don't have any hope in Indian football, we request you to come and watch us in the stadium.
"It's not fun to criticise and abuse on internet. Come to the stadium, scream at us, shout at us."
British town council informs football fans they are "not welcome" in letter later acknowledged as "could have been worded better": https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45205626
Algerian football is so bent theirs an understood price list for various kinds of preferential officiating, described as "corruption a la carte":https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45549805
Exeter played West Ham U-21 team in the Checkatrade Cup a couple of days ago. Due to a floodlight failure, there was a delay, and when the game resumed, at the end of the half, the 4th official signalled for 27 minutes' additional time.
I wonder what's the longest amount of additional time there has been. I'm also surprised that the ref didn't stop the watch when he took the players off, and just restart it when the game restarted.
Wow. I remember 15 minutes being played in a friendly at the Bowl when one of our players went off on a spinal board - but the officials just let play go on until the break; there wasn't a board raised with "15" on it.
Might have been different if it wasn't a friendly of course.
The 17 weirdest club crests in the world, according to Four-Four-Two
Won by a (Northern) Irish team.
Some absolute crackers in there.
That reminds me of this article on weird football-related Wikipedia pages, specfically #2 on defunct North American teams like the "Utah Freez" and the "Myrtle Beach Seadawgs": https://thesetpieces.com/features/ci...kipedia-pages/
Thought it was the deadpan recitation of Rio Ferdinand's prank show that made me smile the most.
Marcelo Brozovic of Inter Milan last night showing the way forward for defending 'under the wall' free kicks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X94TDDmDgqA
14 year old scores in Paraguay's 'Superclasico' between Cerro Porteno and Olimpia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSVW9ytJpOg
Bloody heck.
Wiki says his grandfather was playing in the league in the 80s
Clearly trying to ape the LOI's #greatestleague shtick, Bundesliga Twitter jokingly offer the league title to Borussia Monchengladbach if they can get 50 million retweets: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46345448
I did quite like RB Leipzeig's rejoinder.