Global Football Odds & Ends

Cellar-Door

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Euro tuneup, France v Cameroon,
90th minute FK.... Payet of course scores another perfectly placed goal.
 

Schnerres

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The guy can shoot freekicks like few others. But without the keeper moving to the wall-covered corner, it´s never scored. That´s a mistake a great keeper shouldn´t make too often.
 

Cellar-Door

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The guy can shoot freekicks like few others. But without the keeper moving to the wall-covered corner, it´s never scored. That´s a mistake a great keeper shouldn´t make too often.
One of the things I've noticed is there is a ton of deception on his spin of the ball, he wrongfoots keepers a lot. Also they probably have scouted and seen he likes to go up and down over the wall, he's done it a bunch of times. So I'd guess keeper saw the ball going up over the wall, misjudged the spin took a step, the ball broke, dove back too late.
 

Luis Taint

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Apr 7, 2012
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Just curious, I've never followed soccer after such a jam packed summer. Are the national players going to be dead on their asses next season?
 

DLew On Roids

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The Pine Street Inn
New Zealand earned Oceania's berth in next summer's Confederations Cup today by beating Papua New Guinea on penalties.

OFC aficionados will remember Tahiti's epic, fingernail-biting matchup with Spain in the 2013 Confed Cup. New Zealand will likely keep it closer against Germany.
 

Bosoxen

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Despite the embarrassment at the hands of Chile, Juan Carlos Osorio will not be removed as manager of Mexico (there were also murmurs that he might resign). As of right now, there will be no changes to the coaching staff but I wouldn't be surprised if he's micro managed a little more from here on out. It's pretty safe to say he over-tinkered in the Copa and needed a little more consistency with his lineups.

http://www.espnfc.us/mexico/story/2900722/juan-carlos-osorio-to-continue-as-mexico-manager
 

Cellar-Door

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Rumors kicking around that Bielsa has already been appointed the new Argentina manager.
I assume Lazio will both sue and ask FIFA for sanctions.
 

Zososoxfan

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Rumors kicking around that Bielsa has already been appointed the new Argentina manager.
I assume Lazio will both sue and ask FIFA for sanctions.
Segura, the former (?) president of AFA has already come out and said that no one has the authority to appoint a new coach. Could just be sour grapes, or you know, COMPLETE INSTITUTIONAL DYSFUNCTION grapes.
 

Zososoxfan

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New FIFA world rankings out:

1. Argentina (by a wide margin)
2. Belgium
3. Colombia
4. Germany
5. Chile
6. Portugal
7. France
8. Spain
9. Brazil
10. Italy
11. Wales
12. Uruguay
13. England
14. Mexico
15. Croatia
16. Poland
17. Ecuador
18. Switzerland
19. Turkey
20. Hungary
21. Austria
22. Iceland
23. Slovakia
24. Romania
25. USA
26. Netherlands

Compared to the ELO Rankings (updated 7/10, so I'm assuming the euro final is incorporated):

1. Argentina
2. Chile
3. Germany
4. France
5. Brazil
6. Portugal
7. Colombia
8. Italy
9. Spain
10. Netherlands
11. England
12. Mexico
13. Uruguay
14. Belgium
15. Ecuador
16. Croatia
17. Peru
18. Poland
19. Turkey
20. S. Korea
21. Switzerland
22. Costa Rica
23. Wales
24. USA
25. Bosnia and Herzegovina

With regard to the FIFA rankings:

Any methodology that has Belgium that high is flawed. Having Colombia higher than Germany is a farce. Wales at 11 is far too high. US and Netherlands are way too low. I would take both teams over Slovakia, Hungary, Iceland, Ecuador and Romania. About on par with Switzerland, Poland, and Turkey.

With respect to ELO:

Brazil at 5 is far too high. Colombia, Italy, and Spain should all be above. Not sure why the US is far behind Ecuador (way too high), Peru (ditto), Costa Rica (I'd put the US and Wales ahead of them). Otherwise, seems closer to accurate, although I would also put Mexico ahead of England.
 

teddykgb

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I just don't see how Chile can be ranked behind Argentina in any metric. They've played head to head twice now in finals and Chile have won both matches. There's obviously very little between the two teams but especially Arg 1 Chile 5 is madness to me
 

Zososoxfan

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I just don't see how Chile can be ranked behind Argentina in any metric. They've played head to head twice now in finals and Chile have won both matches. There's obviously very little between the two teams but especially Arg 1 Chile 5 is madness to me
Argentina did win their group stage matchup without Messi, but your point is well taken. FWIW, the ELO rankings have Chile just behind Argentina. Argentina is also ahead of Chile in WC qualifying, with Chile losing 3-0 to Uruguay in Montevideo, and to Argentina in Chile, whereas Argentina have only lost once to Ecuador.
 
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Also, both the ARG-CHI tournament finals went to penalties, so they are officially recorded as draws, regardless of what happened after the AET whistle blew. Argentina won their group-stage match through regular play, and also won head-to-head in a WCQ matchup in March, which is an official match (though weighted lower than Copa America of course). So Argentina is 2W-2T-0L vs Chile in the last 13 months.
 

Cellar-Door

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So more evidenec for the theory that good managers (except Allardici) don't want National team jobs.
Roberto Martinez is the new Belgium manager.
 

Titans Bastard

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The USL has begun experimenting with video replay in certain games for "game-changing events", meaning PK calls, goals, red cards, etc.

 

dirtynine

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ESPN just bought a ton of rights to future Euro national matches, including matches in the Nations League (which I think is fascinating). Here’s a primer on the Nations League idea in case it’s a bit fuzzy. Basically, all 55 (or however many) Euro national teams will organized into divisions based on their competition coefficient, and then play matches within their "leagues" on dates throughout the international calendar. It'll mostly replace ad-hoc friendlies the teams would have played anyway with something a bit more meaningful. It doesn't affect WC or Euro qualification - it's just an enhanced way to play international matches. An interesting wrinkle is that pro/rel between league groups is part of the proposal, which means teams will go up and down leagues depending on how they do. I’d love to see something like that with Concacaf+Conmebol + maybe AFC. Would give the US a few more chances to play somewhat meaningful soccer.

edit - meant AFC, not OFC.
 
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Vinho Tinto

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I'm glad that they kept the Euro. Still gives them a major tournament until they get a chance to bid on a prearranged World Cup. None of the other major properties will be up for bid in the near future, so they really needed to win this.
 

Titans Bastard

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An interesting wrinkle is that pro/rel between league groups is part of the proposal, which means teams will go up and down leagues depending on how they do. I’d love to see something like that with Concacaf+Conmebol + maybe OFC. Would give the US a few more chances to play somewhat meaningful soccer.
Until then, RIP USMNT friendly schedule, with no UEFA teams ever available on FIFA dates.
 

swiftaw

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ESPN just bought a ton of rights to future Euro national matches, including matches in the Nations League (which I think is fascinating). Here’s a primer on the Nations League idea in case it’s a bit fuzzy. Basically, all 55 (or however many) Euro national teams will organized into divisions based on their competition coefficient, and then play matches within their "leagues" on dates throughout the international calendar. It'll mostly replace ad-hoc friendlies the teams would have played anyway with something a bit more meaningful. It doesn't affect WC or Euro qualification - it's just an enhanced way to play international matches. An interesting wrinkle is that pro/rel between league groups is part of the proposal, which means teams will go up and down leagues depending on how they do. I’d love to see something like that with Concacaf+Conmebol + maybe AFC. Would give the US a few more chances to play somewhat meaningful soccer.

edit - meant AFC, not OFC.
Actually, it does impact Euro qualification. The winner of the nations league playoffs at each level will qualify for Euro 2020.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Speaking of Legendary Troll Jobs, just ran across a fun article about a con-man who pretended to be a striker for 20 years:

“Like every other soccer player, I came from a poor family, but I want to be big, have a lot of money so I could give better life conditions to my family,” Kaiser admitted in a 2011 interview with Globo, “I knew that the best way to make it happen was through soccer. I wanted to be a soccer player without having to actually play it.”
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soccers-ultimate-con-man-was-a-superstar-who-couldnt-play-the-game
 

Cellar-Door

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Putting this in global football because it's an interesting question.
So Ghana's FA president wants West Ham to send Andre Ayew to Ghana for treatment on a torn quad because: "There are many herbal medical doctors, who can use traditional medicine to cure Andre's injury in just 2 weeks."

Obviously WH aren't sending him, but it reminded me of an issue they had with Sakho who was injured at AFCON and then the Senegal doctors fucked up his treatment and made a minor injury worse, I know there have been other clubs who are unhappy with the treatment their players get at AFCON as well.

Makes me wonder if at some point clubs are going to force players to retire from Int'l football almost immediately if they are with certain federations who have incompetent medical staff. West Ham at one point straight refused to send Sakho once because they said he couldn't fly because of his back (maybe true, more likely wanted to keep Senegal's medical team from treating him) and FIFA ruled against Senegal's protest even though WH played him in a cup game soon after.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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El Salvador- Mexico is supremely entertaining right now. No bags of piss yet, but Salvadorean crowd is raking the field with laser pointers.
 

Titans Bastard

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I'm not sure where to put this exactly, but I thought it was interesting because I hadn't seen such a comprehensive side-by-side list of TV ratings on soccer games broadcast in the US from any one particular weekend.



Source
 

SoxFanInCali

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California. Duh.
This is from the AFC U16 Championships a couple weeks back. It was the last group stage game between North Korea and Uzbekistan. Both teams had already qualified for the knockout rounds prior to the game kicking off.


I mean, if you are going to fix a game, at least TRY to make it look like you aren't doing it.