IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah I was kinda half-watching it. Thought US were totally dominant in the first half and the Dutch keeper made some decent saves. Second half Dutch started a bit better and looked like they might make a game of it but then the penalty killed them. After that they had to chase and kept leaving themselves open - only good goalkeeping and bad finishing prevented it being more.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Glad I didnt bother putting time aside to watch it live given those accounts. Cant have been duller than the champs league final tho, a game I foolishly did make a big effort to watch. Great, competitive finals are few and far between.
 

luka

Well-known member
It was better than champions league final yeah. Somewhat. That was uniquely dispiriting.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It was better than champions league final yeah. Somewhat. That was uniquely dispiriting.
I guess it's not necessarily the final that makes the tournament... World Cup final was decent. Maybe it was always a bit one-sided though, for a truly great game I think you need lots of action (goals) and good skills and stuff (great goals) and ideally you want it to swing back and forth and finish 5-4 but not cos of shitty schoolboy level defending.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm all for women playing football (I'm a modern man don't you know) but I absolutely cannot tolerate a version of football in which AMERICANS are the best.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
And that is exactly why women's football needs to be more popular - to bring a permanent halt to this disgraceful state of affairs.

On boring finals: I think most great tournaments need the final to at least offer intrigue as to who might win, even if the quality is not so great. Not sure when the last classic final was though, in the biggest tournaments - maybe 2006 for the World Cup, and the Champions' League had a pretty good run of finals from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah, like all right-thinking people I wanted the US to lose every game. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though in that I think the other 7 quarter-finalists were all European. In fairness the US ARE the best team but they're not totally out of sight, England could have beaten them if the luck had gone the other way. I'm not saying that they should have done but it wasn't a total impossibility. And with a bit of luck it's gonna keep growing in Europe.
What's this campaign for equal pay about though? I don't understand it or missed the argument or something. I mean PSG pay Neymar a billion pounds a week, they aint gonna pay it to Rapinoe but how is that FIFA's fault? I must have misunderstood but what is it that they actually want?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I think it's only the national team payments that the campaign for equal pay is concerned with. As you say, clubs as commercial entities can pay what they like. Also, argument is that US men's team is way less successful (in games and in commercial terms), yet team members still get paid more than the women's team.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ah ok, for the world cup and such? Women play 90 minutes so... it's not like tennis, I hate the best of three set games, very little wriggle room for comebacks or whatever.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
So Griezmann has gone to Barca but there is an argument. Barca waited until his buy-out clause went down to 120m but Atletico are claiming that the agreement to sign was made earlier when the clause was still at 200m and so they are suing them for the balance.... hmmm. If anyone else wants him from Barcelona then they just have to meet his new buy-out clause of 800m euros.
Also there is a rumour that Neymar is going back to Barcelona. He does kinda need to get his career back on track but is that the way to do it?
 

version

Well-known member
An investigation into Juventus ultras led to the discovery of an arsenal of weapons, including a ground-to-air missile, in the hands of Neo-Nazi extremists.

The Digos section of the police in Turin announced the raid this morning, leading to the arrest of three people, including 50-year-old Fabio Del Bergiolo, a former border security inspector who had been a candidate for the Senate in 2001.

The investigation began when Neo-Fascist banners from the notorious Juventus ultras group Drughi were found in the skinhead Legio Subalpina centre in Turin and eventually led to an extraordinary arsenal of high-power weaponry.

This included multiple automatic rifles, guns, armour-piercing bullets and even a ground-to-air missile currently used by the army in Qatar.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Transfer fees are bonkers. How can Everton sign Moise Kean, one of the best young strikers in the world, for £29m when people Ive never heard of are going for £40m. Incomprehensible. Dont understand why a bigger team didn't get him either. Big coup for Everton tho.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
Transfer fees are bonkers. How can Everton sign Moise Kean, one of the best young strikers in the world, for £29m when people Ive never heard of are going for £40m. Incomprehensible. Dont understand why a bigger team didn't get him either. Big coup for Everton tho.
Seems like it could be (ought to be) a really good signing. Maybe Luiz to Arsenal could work out too. I don't see anyone being anywhere near the level of Liverpool or City though so it's kinda a battle for the Euro positions.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Holy crap I hope that Kean, Luiz etc can achieve something, because if the first weekend is anything to go by, the next few seasons risk being incredibly boring if the established order isn't shaken up. A 5-0 City away destruction of West Ham doesn't bode well for competitiveness, especially, as West Ham were being talked up pre-season. It's beginning to feel like La Liga.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Holy crap I hope that Kean, Luiz etc can achieve something, because if the first weekend is anything to go by, the next few seasons risk being incredibly boring if the established order isn't shaken up. A 5-0 City away destruction of West Ham doesn't bode well for competitiveness, especially, as West Ham were being talked up pre-season. It's beginning to feel like La Liga.
It's not there yet - La Liga been won something like eight of the last ten by Barcelona. Juventus champs 8 in a row, same Bayern, PSG.... Premiership has at least had a few different winners over the last years. There's always a danger that will come to an end though so I hope that somehow City don't win. If Liverpool win then that would be a new name on it... for the last twenty years anyway.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
It's not there yet - La Liga been won something like eight of the last ten by Barcelona. Juventus champs 8 in a row, same Bayern, PSG.... Premiership has at least had a few different winners over the last years. There's always a danger that will come to an end though so I hope that somehow City don't win. If Liverpool win then that would be a new name on it... for the last twenty years anyway.

Very true....I guess i meant more in the ridiculous gap between 1st and 10th (if that was West Ham's position last season). Same vibe as the cup final, which was just a travesty in a way I can't remember ever seeing before
 

version

Well-known member
Juventus had won seven consecutive league titles and four consecutive domestic doubles BEFORE they signed Ronaldo. The rest of Serie A must have been throwing their hands up when they saw the transfer go through.
 
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