In rare good news, the Colombian rebels have released Luis Diaz’s father.
I cannot imagine what he and his family have been through the last couple of days. Terrific news.
Prederick wrote:Continuing a trend in this thread, that video is not available in my location, which should be a penalty against the rights holder, so yes.
Not available here either! I should get a VPN that'll connect to Portugal, or Post dodgy Reddit links instead
However, that was "Onana flattening Kaladjik" levels of wrong.
Thanks for the "dodgy" link. Didn't know there were also country restrictions in twitter videos.
Yet another game decided by VAR and not matters on the pitch. It's getting ridiculous now, it needs to go.
Meanwhile, Ajax's Worst Season Ever continues.
Meanwhile, Ajax's Worst Season Ever continues.
Odds on Ten Haag being back at Ajax before the end of the season?
It's been around a bit, but in the annals of incredibly petty, immature, absolutely hilarious sh*thousery, Alianza Lima has produced an all-timer.
Call it what you like, Alianza Lima produced a glorious segment for our Fun and Games in South America department after losing out to Universitario for the Peruvian league title on Wednesday night. Following a 1-1 draw away in the first leg against their city rivals, Alianza were confident of clinching glory in the return game as the clásico title playoff concluded. But goals from Edison Flores and Horacio Calcaterra would ultimately consign them to a 3-1 aggregate defeat.
Handshakes all round at the final whistle, then, and a guard of honour for the newly-crowned champions if the hosts were feeling generous? A crate of lager and a few stories from the season shared together in the changing room? Tremendously, not a bit of it. The moment the referee blew the final whistle, sparking celebrations among the Universitario players after sealing the club’s first title since 2013, the stadium was plunged into darkness. Not quite complete darkness: the LED advertising boards, displaying a Peruvian non-profit educational organisation, were still shining brightly, but still. Unexpectedly decent reach for their marketing today, mind.
Anyway, if Alianza’s intention was to deny their foes the limelight in their moment of glory, it has backfired in the most spectacular way. Social media abomination Twixxer sent clips properly viral just like the good old pre-Elon days, and there are millions of people who had barely heard of Universitario now aware of their success, while also tipping a hat in the direction of Alianza’s sh1thousery levels. It wasn’t all plain sailing in the Peruvian capital, however, with clashes in the aftermath between rival fans.
Unsavoury scenes aside, though, the lights incident remains a very funny moment. The question remains: was it premeditated or an instinctive act of petulance by the person with access to the Matute’s fusebox? A communication from Liga 1 claimed that due to the “power outage” it was agreed for safety reasons to cancel the post-match presentation ceremony. Those festivities have been moved to Sunday afternoon and will now take place at Estadio Monumental, the home of Universitario. So not only have the new champions enjoyed this title at their bitter rivals, they also get to lift the trophy in their own stadium and prolong the title party until the weekend at the earliest. ¡Salud!
I'm ashamed to say this but my own team Benfica did the same a few years ago to the main rivals Porto when they won a game at the Benfica stadium confirming them as league winners. Lights were turned off and the sprinklers were turned on. Nevertheless, the Porto players had a party and celebrated by taking showers.
Spurs still proving they can out Spurs everyone despite their improvement under Postecoglou.
Manchester United still just about getting away with it.
Everton and Palace happy in the knowledge they’re much better than the 3 promoted teams.
Edit. Eddie Howe’s future also suddenly looking more uncertain.
I'm not surprised about Spurs. Injuries plus the red cards from the previous game. Not a deep bench. It was expected, but they almost made it.
Meanwhile, had a quick look on the fixtures. 4 all in the Chelsea x Man. City. Must have been quite a game.
Meanwhile, had a quick look on the fixtures. 4 all in the Chelsea x Man. City. Must have been quite a game.
From what I’ve just listened to, I’ll very definitely be settling down in front of Match of the Day 2 in a while, beers in hand!
Chelsea x Man. City was wild.
Player of the Game for Man City vs Chelsea was the rain. All of the post-goal kneeslides were fantastic because of the work the rain had put in.
Didn't realize Thiago Silva is thirty-nine.
Also, credit to Haaland, scoring with his actual taint.
I swear to God, the single greatest thing EDSBS did for me (none of you probably know that person/site, since it's about American college football) was convincing me that the best way to enjoy sports is to take it seriously, but also DO NOT take it seriously.
In other news:
Troy Lesesne is fired by the Red Bulls. His replacement will be their 20th coach in 29 seasons
MLS football, day by day, inches towards being more in line with European football. Now all the Red Bulls need is for their owner to be indicted by INTERPOL for something.
Troy Lesesne is fired by the Red Bulls. His replacement will be their 20th coach in 29 seasonsMLS football, day by day, inches towards being more in line with European football. Now all the Red Bulls need is for their owner to be indicted by INTERPOL for something.
Too bad, he did a decent job dragging a foundering club into the post-season, and even winning a match.
I don't think our "owner" has been indicted, but he is a relatively young billionaire playboy so that has to count for something.
Hayes to depart Chelsea, in talks to coach USWNT - sources
The U.S. Soccer Federation is in advanced talks with Chelsea women's manager Emma Hayes to be the next manager of the U.S. women's national team, sources confirmed to ESPN.
Chelsea coach Emma Hayes is to leave the club at the end of the Women's Super League (WSL) season "to pursue a new opportunity outside the WSL and club football," the club announced in a statement following a 6-0 thrashing of Aston Villa on Saturday.
Now THAT is an ambitious, exciting hire.
If you have access to BBC2, through fair means or foul, don't forget to tune in at 19:45 GMT/UTC to watch the FA Cup first round replay between League 1 Charlton Athletic and Isthmian League (South East) Cray Valley Paper Mills.
The Millers held Charlton to a 1-1 draw in the first game at Charlton, earning the chance to bring the game back to the cauldron of the Badgers Sports Ground - a stadium that seats up to 100 people!
Turn right at the signs for Slimming World. If you reach Bexley Professional Dog Trainers you've gone too far.
FA Cup first round replay between League 1 Charlton Athletic and Isthmian League (South East) Cray Valley Paper Mills.
This has not gone well for Cray Valley Paper Mills.
They made it to half time at 1-1 and there's an argument that Charlton should have perhaps been reduced to ten men.... but now it's 4-1 to Charlton after an hour.
6-1 at the end... Game of two halves.
Dear MLS:
Listen, I know you want to make the league "unique," somehow, but the Best-of-3 idea is stupid. Please don't try to force Game 7's into soccer.
MLS’s bloated, neverending playoff format has been a failure
I see the vision, but nah, bruh.
Eighteen teams (nine from each conference) entered this season’s expanded postseason, up from 14 the season before. In total, 62% of MLS’s 29 teams made the playoffs, prompting complaints that the bar had been lowered too much. The NBA is the only other big North American sports league to admit a comparable number of teams into its postseason, but at least the NBA boasts quality throughout. There are stars on every team. Did MLS fans really need to see more of Charlotte FC or the San Jose Earthquakes this season?
There are bigger problems with the new format, though. The creation of a new best-of-three series between the wildcard round and the conference semi-finals caused confusion, not just among fans, but players too. “We’ve seen it a lot in the first games, the away teams go down two goals, and it’s like we have to prepare for the next game,” said the New York Red Bulls’ John Tolkin. “It’s not like goals matter any more.”
In the best-of-three format, the highest-seeded team hosted the first and third matches – if the series got that far. Penalty shootouts were used to decide drawn matches with no aggregate scoreline kept. Tolkin’s comments, which were widely echoed, related to the latter quirk and the fact winning and losing was binary. This was new for MLS and not something seen elsewhere in soccer. It was an alien concept.
It was thought that losing teams would preserve energy late in matches, and maybe even withdraw key players, in preparation for the next game. It didn’t matter how badly they lost, just that they lost. The fear was that some matches would become uncompetitive blowouts. The reality, however, wasn’t quite so stark.
There were a number of Game One goal-fests. Not because losing teams gave up, though, but because teams that fell behind were motivated to fight back, not limit the damage. Matches opened up. The lack of an aggregate scoreline liberated teams and helped to build excitement.
Even the ties settled over two matches had their moments – see the chaos in the FC Cincinnati-New York Red Bulls series. Every team played at least once in front of their own fans. Rivalries built from one match to the next.
MLS has long attempted to bridge the gap between the American sporting landscape and the global traditions of soccer. This year’s best-of-three series reflected that compromise, but questions over the extra strain it places on players are valid. After 34 regular season games, Leagues Cup, Campeones Cup, US Open Cup and the Concacaf Champions League, did MLS really need to add even more fixtures to the schedule? Aren’t players already at breaking point?
More fixtures meant more inventory for MLS to offer Apple as part of the landmark $2.5bn deal reached last year. A cynic would suggest MLS bulked up its schedule, not to create the best product on the pitch, but to attract the biggest offer for its broadcast rights. This wasn’t a great starting point for devising a strong playoff format.
Fans may be more willing to embrace the new format if it doesn’t give them such whiplash from one round to the next. An eighth or ninth seed has to play a single-game elimination wildcard round before entering the best-of-three stage. After that it’s back to the single-game elimination format for the conference semi-finals, finals and MLS Cup final.
An international break smack bang in the middle of the postseason hasn’t helped either. Any momentum built over the first two phases of the playoffs will be completely gone by the time the conference semi-finals start on 25 November, 13 days after the first round finished. And that’s in addition to the 22 days between the end of the league’s regular season and the final match of the opening round of the playoffs. By the time the next round rolls around, 35 days after the conclusion of the regular season, fans might need a recap – like you get before a new season of a Netflix show – to bring them back up to speed.
With San Diego FC entering as MLS’s 30th franchise in 2025 and further expansion (Las Vegas and Phoenix have been mentioned as future franchises) on the cards beyond that, the playoff format will almost certainly be tweaked again and again in the coming years.
Experimentation is baked into MLS, but the league must do more to look after the most important part of its season.
Exclusive: Saudi oil giant Aramco set to become major Fifa sponsor.
Comes after Saudi Arabia confirmed as only bid for 2034 World Cup.
Well, this all is definitely on the level.
I think what annoys me about this is how brazen it is, because they know we can't/won't do anything about it.
Everton receive immediate 10 point penalty.
This might be the season where there are three teams bad enough to still finish below Everten.
Everton receive immediate 10 point penalty.
This might be the season where there are three teams bad enough to still finish below Everten.
By my calculations that means Manchester City should be getting deducted about 400 points from their 115 breaches.
Everton receive immediate 10 point penalty.
This might be the season where there are three teams bad enough to still finish below Everton.
Everton are in the awkward position of not being big enough for the league to really care what happens, but also big enough that punishing us “sends a message“ to the Sky Six.
I look forward to the rules being changed immediately after we are docked points.
So I guess I'm starting that clock now (though I wouldn't be surprised if the rules change doesn't happen until either after we are either safe this season in spite of the league's shenanigans or after we go into administration after dropping to the Championship).
Edit to add: if the precedent is a single breach of PSL guidelines merits a ten point deduction, Manchester City would be lucky to even remain in the Manchester Amateur Sunday Football League - though of course nothing of consequence will happen to them.
England took 64 minutes to get a shot on target against Malta in a game that was so tedious I gave Man of the Match to Trent Alexander Arnold for running into Marcus Rashford and forcing Rashford to go off.
If he'd done it 40 minutes earlier and also run into Henderson I would have given him a Knighthood.
It was a routine match against very sub par Opposition. It’ll do. There’s nothing else to say.
The man is the Maradona of sh*thousery.
Mr Bismarck wrote:Everton receive immediate 10 point penalty.
This might be the season where there are three teams bad enough to still finish below Everten.
By my calculations that means Manchester City should be getting deducted about 400 points from their 115 breaches.
A more conspiratorially-minded person might say this will end in a City v. Al-Nassr Super League after all.
By my calculations that means Manchester City should be getting deducted about 400 points from their 115 breaches.
As a Liverpool supporter, I'd be willing to listen to offers to bargain it down to 2 points retroactively for each of the 2018/19 and 2021/2022 seasons ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sorbicol wrote:By my calculations that means Manchester City should be getting deducted about 400 points from their 115 breaches.
As a Liverpool supporter, I'd be willing to listen to offers to bargain it down to 2 points retroactively for each of the 2018/19 and 2021/2022 seasons ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They don’t need points deductions, they need to be stripped of all their titles and Cup victories, and then relegated down to the 2nd division, as per Rangers in Scotland and Juventus in Italy.
It is the only punishment you can give the likes of City and - potentially - Chelsea that has meaning. Of course the people to suffer the most are the fans, but there’s nothing else you can do to either City or Chelsea that they won’t just brush off.
It’ll accelerate the formation of a Superleague though.
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