Ode to the beautiful game... (Soccer)

Indeed. And today I saw that the GK coach of the USWNT has left for the same position with Houston Dynamo of MLS. Awkward timing for U.S. Soccer, but with Dynamo forming a new staff, this was now or never for the GK coach.
 
Congratulations to Australia on winning the Asian Cup! :cheer2: And the CAF will be looking into punishing the Tunisian team for attacking the ref after their loss to Equitorial Guinea. But the refereeing does sound iffy at best...
 
That ref in question has been banned for six months and the Tunisian team has been fined $50,000.
 
Interesting doubleheader yesterday with both the USA Men's and Women's teams playing friendlies on the same day. Problem is, two decidedly different results. The men using young MLS players best a game Panamanian squad. The country is starting to see what us LA Galaxy fans have been seeing in Gyasi Zardes. He has mad skills, and is a big time up and comer.

On the other hand, the Women got handled by a very good French side. In particular the French women dominated midfield, not allow the Americans to build any attack. The USA got a few chances going over the top, Alex Morgan is finally back from injury and got on the end of a few of those. But ultimate the USA didn't threaten much.

And now I am officially very worried about this Women's team going into the World Cup. :wall:
 
Ghana and Ivory Coast had to decide the Africa Cup finale with a pentalty shoot out. It ended 8:9, each team shot 11! :D (and I was very happy that Eurosport wasn't the only channel showing the slalom run of the men's combined ;) )
 
UGH, the USWNT beat England 1-0, but it was decidedly unimpressive. I don't know what's going on with this team, but they desperately needs a boot in the butt.
 
Yikes, does anyone take women's football seriously? As a huge long-term football fan and a woman, in my opinion it's very painful to watch.

On a side note, my team Bayern Munich will win the Champions League this year. It's bound to happen!
 
LOL After what they did to Hamburg I would say the chances are fairly good, but they are having a bit of a hard time beating Shaktar.
 
Oh dear we lost to Swansea and have slipped to fourth. :( But I guess we can't win 'em all. It was only our 2nd loss scne November so all in all Man U has done really well. I just want to stay in the top four and make it back to Europe.
 
And RVP is on crutches Buzz.

And Matic loses his mind, gets redcarded and Chelsea gets a draw instead of the Win against Burnley.
 
Hopefully it is just a sprained ankle and he'll be back in a couple weeks. I had a bunch of sprains in over the years and the longest lasted six months while the shortest lasted about two weeks. So we'll see. I'm not worried however.
 
Oh dear god... Looks like it will be a November to December winter World Cup in 2022.
 
PHEW! Thank you Mr. Rooney! :respec: I just want to make it back to the CL next season but we're not out of the woods yet!
 
Buzz said:
Oh dear god... Looks like it will be a November to December winter World Cup in 2022.
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I wonder if they thought that through. There seem to be more disdvantages to that than advantages and the European clubs are more than upset about it. I don't like the rule that clubs have the right to not release their players (I think, generally, a world cup/playing for your home country should be more important than the country's league) but I would like them to do that, just to show those morons at FIFA how stupid they were to give it to Qatar in the first place. If the major players from Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, France, Brazil, and Argentina were tied up in their respective leagues there would be quite a few players missing. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has the guts to do that.
 
I see FIFA as the biggest criminal gang on earth, and I am sure they do not care if moving the WC to November is a good decision or not. But I still hope against hope that public opinion will prevail and the WC will be moved to somewhere else.
 
They would care though if they lost money and moving the World Cup to November/December might just result in that. The North American market is already difficult enough, they are just about to have a foot in the door there. The next World Cup is in Russia, which already has a significant time difference in a bad way. The time difference to Qatar is either the same or an hour more, one way or the other, it doesn't help and putting the World Cup during football season helps even less.

I also doubt that it's a good time regarding Christmas shopping/holiday sells. There would be little time for stores to have memorabilia connected to the new World Champion ready for Christmas and I'm sure there are several people who will have done their Christmas shopping by the time they do.

I'm also wondering about travel - I think there were several people who combined a vacation with the world cup last year, I'm not so sure many would do the same with Qatar to begin with and at that date probably even less. Children don't have vacations anywhere in Europe at the time so dad's won't be able to take their sons on a world cup trip. I'm sure there are other aspects as well.
 
ballettmaus said:
I'm also wondering about travel - I think there were several people who combined a vacation with the world cup last year, I'm not so sure many would do the same with Qatar to begin with and at that date probably even less. Children don't have vacations anywhere in Europe at the time so dad's won't be able to take their sons on a world cup trip. I'm sure there are other aspects as well.
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I am one of those people. We went to South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014 because those were places we wanted to visit at some point any way, and it was an ideal time because my sons were on school vacation. Neither circumstance is true for Qatar. Students in the US don't have vacations then either and in fact would be studying hard for semester finals before Christmas. Plus, both Thanksgiving (end of November in US) and Christmas are traditionally celebrated with family gatherings at home rather than overseas vacations. I don't know how much FIFA officials care about the US market since our team isn't likely to be in contention to win; however, I believe we were #1 for non host ticket sales in both 2010 and 2014, so they should.
 
alexikeguchi said:
I don't know how much FIFA officials care about the US market since our team isn't likely to be in contention to win; however, I believe we were #1 for non host ticket sales in both 2010 and 2014, so they should.
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Not only that, I also think that the more publicity, the more likely kids are to get excited about it and get into the sport. The more kids play, the better the chances of getting better players and the better the players, the better a chance at getting better results. Better results most likely mean more merchandise sold. And even all steps in between are likely to result in an increase of sales.
However, I think the US market is still somewhat fragile, so I'm not sure they can afford making it so little accessible for the US.
 
There mere fact that FIFA is switching the 2022 to a Nov/Dec date pretty much confirms that Qatar had no business being awarded the WC in the first place. The new dates screw up every league in the World (save MLS) and is going to cause havoc with the television rights in the USA. While it's much less of an issue around the world, having the WC go up against the NFL and College Football will kill the audience in America. And Fox had to be pissed about that. So what happens? FIFA gives the 2026 WC television rights to Fox for a song, because FIFA really didn't want to go hauled into an American court and have their dirty laundry aired.

Corrupt is too mild a word for FIFA.
 
Well, in a surprise, the USWNT won their 10th Algarve Cup today, beating France 2-0. Christen Press had an awesome goal, gathering the ball at midfield and dribbling right through the French center backs and slotted it home. This has to be the best performance of the year for the USWNT.

And say what you want about her, but Hope Solo is the best keeper in the world. The team plays so much better when she's on the pitch.
 
Oh heavens to Betsy! Is it ever tight between 2nd 3rd & 4th! And 5th place Liverpool isn't down and out either. Can't remember ever being this nervous during the end of the EPL season. LOL
 
Buzz said:
Oh heavens to Betsy! Is it ever tight between 2nd 3rd & 4th! And 5th place Liverpool isn't down and out either. Can't remember ever being this nervous during the end of the EPL season. LOL
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Yep, looks like there'll still be plenty of suspense left once World Cup season ends for all the winter sports and I have time to follow the EPL weekend mornings again. :cheer2:
 
I just read that the World Cup final in 2022 in Qatar will be played on December 18th. The Sunday before Christmas. Fifa seems to want to lose spectators, live spectators and TV spectators and they also seem not to want to make a lot of money from that World Cup. I know allegations have been denied but how much did Qatar pay to host the World Cup because this is already ridiculous.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-20/qatar-world-cup-will-be-played-in-winter/6334160
 
At present I am just resigned to the inevitable. My only consolation is that all those businesses and leagues who stands to lose money will sue the pants off FIFA. And in the words of John Oliver, "I hope Qatar paid for the World Cup or else this decision makes no sense".
 
I have no idea how they think (or don't think, more accurately because they sure do anything but that) that is going to work - the leagues usually end well before a world cup starts and I think each national team has 6 weeks of training camp before the cup. Every player is in the middle of their respective leagues six weeks before the world cup starts and the players are still getting shape.
Does the FIFA think that the leagues will adjust their schedules that year to suit their needs? That would be a huge mess but if the leagues are doing that then the leagues are plain stupid because they clearly have the power here.
 
There you go, Buzz! Now there's a little breathing room for MU. Mata's second goal from Di Maria's cross was a beauty.
 
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