Two days from the opening game, and the sale of beer has been banned at grounds...
That's a hell of an influential pull to outdo Budweiser here.
The Guardian does its part for World Cup obsessives everywhere by doing a brief write-up on every single player in the tournament: https://www.theguardian.com/football...-match-ratings
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Two days from the opening game, and the sale of beer has been banned at grounds...
That's a hell of an influential pull to outdo Budweiser here.
Football sold its Soul giving the World Cup to Qatar and Russian was nearly as bad before that ! !
30 Pieces of Silver for Football’s Soul ! !
Budweiser execs will be foaming at the mouth.
You can't spell failure without FAI
That's a lot of money Budweiser will presumably now insist they don't have to pay FIFA. Is Qatar going to make that up? God knows they've spent astronomical money on everything so far, what's another 75 million?
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Budweiser presumably getting a massive payout and of course a heap of publicity to compensate then for the trauma.
Tallaght Stadium Regular
And for the lemonade drinkers.
From 1 minute 48 seconds if you are short of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9YXuvLfECk
Marca are reporting that several Ecuador players have been offered millions in bribes to lose the opener against Qatar...
Will be very interesting to see what sort of crowd there is for that match. The ground holds 60k, but the 2019 World Athletics Championships (also held in Qatar) had really poor crowds.
That story seems to have come from one unreliable source and spread,the thread in the link below shows how these can gain traction with little proof…..
https://mobile.twitter.com/marcowenj...02904554807296
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Interesting. I had presumed Marca was a vaguely reliable source...
The source is based in Bahrain which wouldn’t be the best of friends with Qatar,his Twitter page seems to be dedicated solely to discrediting anything to do with the World Cup,which is fair enough but I wouldn’t trust him as a source for this story….
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
It's hard to find sports reporting sites these days that have the kind of integrity to prevent that kind of reporting (as in, basing sensational headlines off the tweet of some rando). They don't make money otherwise.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Dreadful World Cup opener, the worst since I was old enough to appreciate a Finals. Disappointed that the Asian Champions looked so woeful, without a shot on target and looking like deer in the headlights throughout. Most interesting thing about the game was that weird VAR call at the start, where Qatar were saved by their goalies incompetence. Ecuador looked good, but who wouldn't?
Amazing seeing the empty seats after half time. Most Qataris either don't care or don't want to be associated with failure. Just a sad spectacle throughout.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Interesting that the attendance was announced as 67,372, but the official capacity of the ground was only 60k! Though I see it held 63k at the Arab Games in December.
The cynic in me reckons a lot of free tickets were given out to ensure a full house for the hosts on opening night, but at 2-0 down - and completely out of their depth - it was easy to leave.
I suspect there's going to be Euro 96-levels of empty seats at some games.
Just the 14 minutes' injury time at the end of the first half of England v Iran. England 3-0 up and looking decent. Iran's sub keeper in nets after a clash of heads saw the first choice taken off
Not sure the first choice keeper would have made any difference!
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