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Soccer

The Three Lions face off against Denmark in a few hours. The winner will play Italy in the final. England have yet to concede a goal so they will be very difficult to beat. Denmark are also very good defensively but England have a slightly better threat up front. I predict that this game will be decided on penalties after the game finishes 1-1. This does not bode well for England as their record in penalty shootouts is not good. This Euros tournament has been pretty good from the games I've seen.

In Copa America Argentina went through to the finals after a penalty shootout. Argentina keeper was outstanding.

So the weekend will see Copa America decided between Argentina and Brazil on Saturday.

On Sunday it will be the Euros final. Italy v England/Denmark.
 
The Three Lions win 2-1 after extra time. This was a very entertaining game and both teams can certainly play. The game ebbed and flowed with England finishing the stronger of the two but the winning goal came from a controversial penalty award. I have to say Raheem Sterling is a diving little shit. Anyway, Kane took the penalty, keeper kept it out but Kane blasted the rebound in to the goal to make it 2-1. Denmark started to run out of steam and just couldn't get enough possession to create good chances. McGuire was solid at the back. So England go through to their first tournament final since 1966 I believe. Oh my !

The Three Lions v Azzurri on Sunday. hopefully it will be as good a game as today.
 
Argentina lifted the Copa America for the first time in 28 years after beating Brazil 1-0 in Brazil. Angel Di Maria scoring the only goal of the game which was a very good goal midway through the first half. The first half was a game of attrition as the tackles and the fouls came thick and fast. Not a lot of football being played. The second half was dominated by Brazil but they were unable to break through. Messi had a decent chance to score in the second half but couldn't convert. Neymar was brutalized throughout the game and he will be sore today. Poor lad was devastated at losing.
 
More penalty heartache for the Three Lions as Azzurii win the tournament after a penalty shootout when the match finished 1-1 AET. England scored first in the second minute of the game. Did that work against them ? They certainly didn’t press forward very frequently after that and struggled to get possession and pressure Italy. Pretty good game though as England held their own against a good Italian side.
 
TSwizzle said:
More penalty heartache for the Three Lions as Azzurii win the tournament after a penalty shootout when the match finished 1-1 AET. England scored first in the second minute of the game. Did that work against them ? They certainly didn’t press forward very frequently after that and struggled to get possession and pressure Italy. Pretty good game though as England held their own against a good Italian side.
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Good game!
 
I was at the gym when the Euro final was ending, and was only half watching, until there was this loud, boisterous outburst, which was when Italy's second pk guy missed. There happened to be several England fans there, apparently trying to bring their hooliganism to our placid shores, tsk. I started watching and when the third guy up for England missed, I let out an unintentionally loud laugh, while the gym was all of a sudden quiet again otherwise. I mean, that was such a bad miss, I couldn't help it. The English hooligans were silent from then on. Hard loss, it was.
 
Lionel Messi, model railroad magnate and global Football superstar of the likes of only the absolute top ten ever to play the game, like Joe Max Moore, Landon Donavon, Alexi Lala's goatee, and probably some Venezuelan.... what was I talking about?

Oh that's right, Lionel Messi, has announced that he won't be resigning with Barcelona, a team he debuted for back in 2004, before forward passing was even legal in the sport.

The repercussions to this are huge, for Jack Grealish, who was about to make with a 100 million pound transfer from Aston Villa to Man City (of which is just silly talk... unless you were in management at Liverpool, and it was considered a great investment that'd sop more debt on the franchise). With a talent like Messi, the powers that be at Man City will probably drop Grealish like a spoiled ham and start the number crunching to see just how much financial trickery they need to do in order to illegally inject enough cash into their franchise from the owner to be able to afford a football player that makes Michael Jordan's final contracts with the Chicago Bulls look much less crazy.

Certainly PSG will be in the running as well for Messi because they have promised their supporters that they'll successfully buy a Champions League title one of these days.

All I can say to Messi is Mercyside has a rich Argentinian heritage that dates back centuries and playing there would be no different than player at home in Argentina.
 
Who is responsible for Messi's Exit from Barcelona?

The best footballer in history leaves his home club. If there was ever a time to read some sports journalism, this is it. I checked out the above article and a piece in the New York Times today and it made for interesting reading. From what I can tell it boils down to the fact that Barcelona has been mismanaged and can't afford him anymore.

It was also interesting to note the lengths that La Liga went to to keep him in Spain.

It's looking like PSG, but if by some miracle he ends up in the premier league I'll definitely be renewing my DAZN subscription.
 
Spanish football is a lie. Barcelona and Real Madrid finances are terribly unfair for the rest of the league.

Messi surprises all and signs with PSG instead of Crystal Palace. I mean Crystal Palace signed Shearer for a crazy price one time, so the odds were definitely in their favor. Instead Messi goes to a terribly bloated salary team in France that failed to win their own title last season to a much lesser funded Lille.

EPL season starts this weekend with Arsenal to play EPL first timers Brentford. Last season was plagued by a plague and all sorts of weird stuff happened. Liverpool was the best team in Europe excluding one-third of the season. Manchester City are the heavy favorites because they are outspending the other top teams by like a couple million pounds. With England having officially given up on dealing with Covid and the entire nation apparently contracting it, it'll be interesting to see how the season unfolds. Especially relative to the rest of Europe and the Champions League.
 
USA bolts up the FIFA world rankings to #10! I mean, if it is a rankings list, you know it has to be accurate. The US defeated Mexico in the Gold Cup final after dismissing global powerhouses Canada (1-0), Martinque (6-1), and Haiti (1-0) in the Round Robin and then Jamaica and Qatar... again 1-0. This massive shift in momentum for the US in soccer has placed it above Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. Yeah... right?

Mexico, who lost twice recently to the US... are ranked 9th. It is nice that the US has won the Gold Cup and the Nation's Cup, but I'm still putting my bets on them making the semi-finals in the next World Cup on hold for a bit longer.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
USA bolts up the FIFA world rankings to #10! I mean, if it is a rankings list, you know it has to be accurate. The US defeated Mexico in the Gold Cup final after dismissing global powerhouses Canada (1-0), Martinque (6-1), and Haiti (1-0) in the Round Robin and then Jamaica and Qatar... again 1-0. This massive shift in momentum for the US in soccer has placed it above Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. Yeah... right?

Mexico, who lost twice recently to the US... are ranked 9th. It is nice that the US has won the Gold Cup and the Nation's Cup, but I'm still putting my bets on them making the semi-finals in the next World Cup on hold for a bit longer.
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If Martinique (pop 375,000) manages to score a goal against your national side, even in the context of a 6-1 defeat, you should automatically go second to bottom of the FIFA rankings, only above Martinique.

Shit, if you ignore women, children, and the over 35s, there's barely enough men left aged 18-35 on Martinique to make up a squad.
 
Fans in Nice lose their fucking minds... and almost in a single moment, seem to remember, for a moment, where they are, who they are, and SHIT! we aren't supposed to be here... as if the endorphin hit magically disappeared in a moment and they realize "Oh fuck, I could get banned for life doing this!"

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Om63zZN6E[/YOUTUBE]

The tale is that fans were tossing plastic water bottles at Marseille players and the Marseille players were done with it after the player to take the corner got hit in the back by one. He aimlessly throws the bottle back into the crowd. That got the home fans angry... and then another Marseille player kicks a ball into the crowd, and a small, but hardly not negligible amount of fans pour onto the pitch.

It is one of those moments when fans forget they are attending a fucking football match not anything important.

Marseille would walk out of the game. Football players should never throw or kick things into the fans... though arguably the one player may have been "trying to give the water bottle back". ;) Kicking the soccer ball was a bad idea. Of course, the refs and stadium staff did nothing regarding the throwing of stuff before the incident, so I imagine Lyon is in trouble for that. In defense of Lyon, some of their players did very well, at their own risk, of trying to keep invaders off the pitch.
 
Holy cow, Cristiano Ronaldo has signed for Manchester Utd. Even at 36 he is an exceptional athlete and football player. And streets ahead of that donkey Fred.
 
Ronaldo, the GOAT scored two goals on his return to Manchester Utd. What a player. But will he get Man Utd the premier league title? Too early to say but he’s going to make things interesting.

Lukaku, he’s a mystery to me. A more cumbersome player I have rarely seen and yet he’s a goal scoring machine. He couldn’t trap a bag of cement, his first touch is usually horrible but he’s very successful in front of goal. All the best Lukaku.
 
The wheels are coming off at Manchester United as they are beaten 0-1 at Old Trafford by Aston Villa.

But the game of the day was between Brentford and Liverpool. These two teams served up a scintillating game of end to end football. It has been a while since I enjoyed an EPL game as much as this 3-3 thriller.
 
Liverpool and Man City put on a classic today. Salah scored what will be a top ten, maybe five, or best goal of the year to go up 2-1, only to have City drive back. The game was incredible, and definitely vindication that Liverpool is back.
 
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