2022/23 Soccer Thread: Finals Week(s)

In Football Manager Sweden would have lost today.

Yup. Ooooooof for Belgium.

Zinchenko to Arsenal is finally done.

I actually like that signing, so I don't hate everything Arsenal does!

Mr Bismarck wrote:

In Football Manager Sweden would have lost today.

More of this today with France playing the Sweden role. In the first half they're winning XG 1.76 to 0.03.

Without Stefanie van der Gragt this is 2-0 already.

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And then van Domselaar with just a really great save from the very last action of the game to keep it 0-0 and send it to extra time.

The Dutch have come into the game a lot more in the second half, but France still made the better chances.

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van der Gragt clearance #1
van der Gragt clearance #2 (survived the VAR check because her hands were tucked in)
Cascarino hits the post
That van Domselaar save

The French have the lead and I'm not sure the Dutch have looked like scoring all night.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

The French have the lead and I'm not sure the Dutch have looked like scoring all night.

Tbf I'm not sure how it took the French that long, they should have being like 4 up by the end of the first half.

Excited for tomorrow, but I had no idea England's record against Sweden was that bad.

Always like a goal that hits the camera behind the net.

Beth MOBEad?

IT'S COMING HOME

What have I just seen!?

RUSSO!

Oh my word!

Hedvig Lindahl might be playing her penultimate NT game here.

Tough choice of photo, but the thread hero has been updated.

Prederick wrote:

IT'S COMING HOME

Football's coming home!

The boys have a WHOLE LOT to live up to this fall.

Inter Miami about to offer Sarina Wiegman a job.

Honestly, I can't imagine anything more perfect than, for Football to finally Come Home, England having to overcome Zee Germans to do it.

England was good enough to crush Sweden, so they can definitely do it, but gracious, that Germany team is good.

EDIT:

Da Beeb wrote:

Did Germany win the Euros?

1984: No
1987: No
1989: Yes
1991: Yes
1993: No
1995: Yes
1997: Yes
2001: Yes
2005: Yes
2009: Yes
2013: Yes
2017: No
2022: Maybe

We are just over a week away from the beginning of the new season, so I'd like to celebrate it by putting together my predictions for the 2022/23 season, based on a small amount of research and the knowledge that it'll be funny to see how wrong I get it.

So, in order of "most f*cked" to "Manchester City"

20 - Bournemouth
19 - Southampton
18 - Nottingham Forest
17 - Fulham
16 - Leeds
15 - Brighton
14 - Everton
13 - Brentford
12 - Crystal Palace
11 - Wolves
10 - Aston Villa
9 - Leicester
8 - West Ham
7 - Newcastle
6 - Arsenal
5 - ManU
4 - Chelsea
3 - Tottenham
2 - Liverpool
1 - Man City

Unrelated to anything, I had a call today from a gentleman wanting to sell me something who turned out to be a City supporter. I told him the joke online is that there are no City supporters, and he told me that the joke in Manchester is that there are no United fans in Manchester. We both agreed that US Man U fans were scum. A lovely chat.

I also needled him a tad about how Tottenham swept City last season.

Right of Passage this evening - I took Mini-Sorb to her first Newcastle game, a friendly against Atalanta. It wasn’t the best game unfortunately, but she enjoyed the experience. 40,000 in attendance, a Chris Wood penalty settled the game.

Now that y'all got loadsamoney and should be genuinely disappointed with anything less than a Top 10 finish (arguably, a European place), taking a child to a Newcastle game is no longer abuse, in my eyes.

In related news, the not-a-friendly-but-kind-of-a-friendly curtain raiser is tomorrow afternoon!

Yeah,Top-10 is my expectations for Newcastle this season. I think getting into Europe is asking for too much from a side still playing Shelvey and with Wilson/Wood up top. Good news is that Elliott Anderson should have an opportunity to get some minutes.

I think Wilson is an excellent striker. He's just injured all the time - that's the problem.

Newcastle apparently had a bid for James Maddison turned down today. If that transfer goes through eventually, it'll certainly bolster the midfield.

After a sh*tty preseason for Nunez, it's Haaland with the bad misses today. LET THE "BANTZ" BEGIN

Anyway, nice for Liverpool, again, everyone else is playing for 3rd.

Darwin Nunez 1 - 0 Erling Haaland.

At least, the result of you read any of the English Tabloids in the Community Shield this afternoon.

Liverpool worthy 3-1 winners in the end. I think Haaland will have had his ‘Premier League defenders are pretty good’ wake up call, but then not every defender in the EPL is Virgil Van Dijk. I thought all the new team members for both sides had a good run out and a good showing. Grealish however is being exposed for what he is - very good midfielder who’s nowhere near World Class. I think he’s in for a long season.

Then again, it could be a meaningless game that has far too much symbolism riding on it. Maybe.

Having only seen the highlights, Haaland could've had at least two today. He didn't dominate or anything (obviously) but I think he'll be just fine. The only thing Pep needs to figure out is, from what I've seen of him at Dortmund, Haaland likes to run onto the ball, and City might need to tweak their style a tad to get the best out of him.

Prederick wrote:

Having only seen the highlights, Haaland could've had at least two today. He didn't dominate or anything (obviously) but I think he'll be just fine. The only thing Pep needs to figure out is, from what I've seen of him at Dortmund, Haaland likes to run onto the ball, and City might need to tweak their style a tad to get the best out of him.

Thanks to the lack of highlight package here - you can rewatch the whole game instead - I'm doing that rewatch. Liverpool much the better team throughout to be honest. Nunez is clearly going to add some dynamism to Liverpool's front line where the Mane-Firmino-Salah triumvirate just maybe just going a little stale and predictable. Especially with Diaz on the other side.

As for City - it looks like it hasn't quite gelled yet. I thought Haaland was "trying to hard" but was also getting quite frustrate that the Liverpool defenders - for the most part - held him off. Yes he had those 2 chances but he really didn't create a lot else - or have his team mates do it for him. Still some work required. He'll bully the lesser teams though.