The concept of Kazakhstan somehow being in Europe is the faulty one here. Almaty is east of Mumbai FFS
There's a club in Vladivostok who played in the Russian top flight for a while. That's slightly to the Northeast of North Korea. It's almost directly north of Hiroshima. It's 1am over there right now.
To be fair Russia is a very big country but some of it is definitely in Europe and it would be a bit weird if it were in two confederations. Kazakhstan is definitely not in Europe. You might make similar arguments about Armenia,Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey but they are at least west of the Urals. Israel is not in Europe either but I can see the political sense in them not playing say Iran in qualifiers.
I don't think that it would be any weirder than the UK being split up into different leagues. Kuban Krasnodar would have to travel nearly 10,000km to play Vladivostok FC. That's just silly. It's an 11 hour flight with a stopover or a 119 hour drive!
The weirdness would arise if Russia then said it was qualified to take part in both the European and Asian competitions (and get two shots at the World Cup). On closer examination a little bit of Kazakhstan is west of the Urals and north of the Caspian sea which probably does qualify it for being in Europe despite being predominantly to the East of all the other -stans which are definitely in Asia.
If you ever want to troll a Greek, just point out Turkey wouldn't be in UEFA if the Greeks did a better job defending Constantinople. If you really want to troll a Greek, try and shoehorn the Elgin marbles and Angela Merkel into the same conversation.
51 minutes: West Ham are cruising. It's 2-0 and the tie's getting away from Astra. 82 minutes: 10 man West Ham are holding on, having blown the lead and having Collins dismissed. 91 minutes: Bilic is sent off.
Now 3 reds in 3 games...and pissing away a two goal lead...did fat sam curse them as he waddled away?
4 reds. Their manager got sent off, too. Southampton, on the other hand, are basically through this round. 3-0.
He sure is trying to give brenda and tinkerman a fight for the first to be sacked...and trying to make fat sam look like a footballing genius
You should slaughter them. They even have to send a strong team to the 2nd leg now, having ****ed this one up so badly.
Thanks, you may get something out of visit to United as they are mixed bag at moment and Kane scored a very good goal the other night
Why is there so much analysis of pre-season games? What conclusions can be drawn from slow paced kickabouts where managers chop and change their line-ups constantly and experiment with personnel and formations? Last season Utd looked good in pre-season only to play poorly and lose 2-1 first up at home to Swansea when the PL started. Pre-season games serve two purposes for the top sides: 1. To boost revenue and 2. To boost revenue
