Was feeling all sad and empty inside watching Defoe and Lennon celebrating. But then Naughton entered the frame and I cheered up immensely.
Off Topic Bill Nicholson Arms
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Was feeling all sad and empty inside watching Defoe and Lennon celebrating. But then Naughton entered the frame and I cheered up immensely.
From the same game and suggested a bit further down on the same Tweet:
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I don't know, what about this one?
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What sort of club would be so dense as to see that miss and think it was worth loaning him in on a deal where they'd have to pay £17m for him after he played a mere ten games?
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The gift that keeps on giving..... Thanks for reminding me of that - almost a day gone by without some amusement from the Porn Palace!
I thought we had a FIFA Watch section, but can't find it. Anyway, surprised nobody picked up on their latest nutjob plan for a 48 team World Cup.
> They say there will the same number of matches to get to the final. But as we know from the desert world cup, what the competition ends up could be completely different from what was voted for (and of course the vote might be corrupt anyway!) and there is no new vote.
> The teams that go out in the first round will pay two matches. Of course many team's world cup is over after two matches, but that is of course less than they would play under the current system. So you promise world cup glory to these 18 new teams and then they get all of two matches!
> Where will the 18 new places go? Presumably to Africa and Asia. If South America get one they already get 4.5 places with 10 teams competing, so giving them another place will hardly help competition.
> With only three teams per group, the distribution of teams into groups is even more vital than with bigger groups but how will it be decided? Will there be any competition anyway as a lot more no-hopers will be included so perhaps the group stage will be nothing other than a process to eliminate the weaker team in the group.
> I haven't seen anywhere mention of how the logistics will work. Very few countries (USA?) have facilities to host 48 teams with suitable training facilities. Is this effectively saying that there can never be single country bids any more? I am not sure whether is is a good or bad thing, but the implications of this new format should be made clearer.
> 48 teams with 3 per group mean 16 groups. Surely this cannot mean 16 first round venues? As above, which single country could do that? Even if they doubled up, eight top rated venues is not easy, and that will mean six matches in each one for the first round. Surely a stadium can't host a match every day, the surface couldn't anyway, even every other day would be hard but if they could it would still take at least 12 days to complete the first round. Has anyone actually calculated out any of this?????
> What happens if all the matches end 0-0? They are almost forced to have results in each match meaning a draw (which has been a part of football forever of course) would probably not be allowed.
> They say they don't want contrived results between two teams to ensure they qualify but surely with fewer matches such collusion is even more likely!
There must be a lot more problems than this. I came up with these as I was typing!
> They say there will the same number of matches to get to the final. But as we know from the desert world cup, what the competition ends up could be completely different from what was voted for (and of course the vote might be corrupt anyway!) and there is no new vote.
> The teams that go out in the first round will pay two matches. Of course many team's world cup is over after two matches, but that is of course less than they would play under the current system. So you promise world cup glory to these 18 new teams and then they get all of two matches!
> Where will the 18 new places go? Presumably to Africa and Asia. If South America get one they already get 4.5 places with 10 teams competing, so giving them another place will hardly help competition.
> With only three teams per group, the distribution of teams into groups is even more vital than with bigger groups but how will it be decided? Will there be any competition anyway as a lot more no-hopers will be included so perhaps the group stage will be nothing other than a process to eliminate the weaker team in the group.
> I haven't seen anywhere mention of how the logistics will work. Very few countries (USA?) have facilities to host 48 teams with suitable training facilities. Is this effectively saying that there can never be single country bids any more? I am not sure whether is is a good or bad thing, but the implications of this new format should be made clearer.
> 48 teams with 3 per group mean 16 groups. Surely this cannot mean 16 first round venues? As above, which single country could do that? Even if they doubled up, eight top rated venues is not easy, and that will mean six matches in each one for the first round. Surely a stadium can't host a match every day, the surface couldn't anyway, even every other day would be hard but if they could it would still take at least 12 days to complete the first round. Has anyone actually calculated out any of this?????
> What happens if all the matches end 0-0? They are almost forced to have results in each match meaning a draw (which has been a part of football forever of course) would probably not be allowed.
> They say they don't want contrived results between two teams to ensure they qualify but surely with fewer matches such collusion is even more likely!
There must be a lot more problems than this. I came up with these as I was typing!
This looks like a lot of 'brilliant' restructures that I've experienced. You can sell just about any old **** if you've got enough cojones and the regulation number of sheep to nod and agree. Of course, most of the ideas are awful and make a bad situation worse. Fret not, these things take time to implement [I think this has 9 years before it is tried and will come on the back of playing a tournament in a country with all of the atmosphere and appeal of the moon]. The trick is not to be 'in post' when the thing goes down like The Titanic. If you're far enough in the distance you can get away 'scot free.'
The whole thing is a complete fiasco that will place hosting the tournament beyond three or four European countries and those that have oil to sell. By that time, Infantino will have been re-elected a further 2 times, at least, and will have earned enough in backhanders and pension enhancing 'gifts' to never have to care ever again. The Euro's have been expanded to the same degree. The best thing that could have happened was the FA rejecting FIFA, bag and baggage after the award of tournaments to Germany of 2006 and then Russia and The Moon. If we'd done that we wouldn't have to take part in this nonsense and pretend that there's any point to it any more.
I used to love international football and was a regular at Wembley for games. Unfortunately, now I can't see any point to it.
The whole thing is a complete fiasco that will place hosting the tournament beyond three or four European countries and those that have oil to sell. By that time, Infantino will have been re-elected a further 2 times, at least, and will have earned enough in backhanders and pension enhancing 'gifts' to never have to care ever again. The Euro's have been expanded to the same degree. The best thing that could have happened was the FA rejecting FIFA, bag and baggage after the award of tournaments to Germany of 2006 and then Russia and The Moon. If we'd done that we wouldn't have to take part in this nonsense and pretend that there's any point to it any more.
I used to love international football and was a regular at Wembley for games. Unfortunately, now I can't see any point to it.
The problem for FIFA is that they want to make the WC more "inclusive" - which means allowing more teams from Asia and Africa to qualify. Of course, their main objective will be to exploit the commercial opportunities which will eventually come from it.
They could achieve their aim by reducing the available qualification places for Europe and South America. However, we can all see the problem with that. The best teams, best players, biggest TV audiences etc come from these two continents. It would have an adverse commercial effect if leading nations like England or Argentina, for example, ended up failing to qualify, but Vietnam and Laos did. So FIFA want the best of both worlds - hence their proposal for an overbloated tournament that sounds unworkable. When India and China are qualifying regularly, their aims will have been achieved.
They could achieve their aim by reducing the available qualification places for Europe and South America. However, we can all see the problem with that. The best teams, best players, biggest TV audiences etc come from these two continents. It would have an adverse commercial effect if leading nations like England or Argentina, for example, ended up failing to qualify, but Vietnam and Laos did. So FIFA want the best of both worlds - hence their proposal for an overbloated tournament that sounds unworkable. When India and China are qualifying regularly, their aims will have been achieved.
They could be in every future turnament as perpetual hosts as the rest of the world won't be able to afford it. Okay, it'll be monsoon season in India but just fit air conditioning in the stadiums....
I lost interest in international football when someone decided it was a brilliant idea to entrust the rebuilding of our national side to Roy Hodgson. Matches tend to be boring, stale, bad-tempered affairs with an appalling standard of officialdom. The new format will price millions more fans out of attendance (despite the sticks in the ivory tower claiming otherwise) as most teams' tournament will now last a handful of days before crashing out after just 2 games. It just isn't worth the bother for most people.
FIFA have based their entire argument on the events of France 16 - emphasising the success of the likes of Iceland, NI and Wales. Problems with this argument:
1) Realistically, you will NEVER see more than 2-3 of the traditional footballing powerhouses crashing out at group stage of any given tournament - especially if you reduce the group to 2 games. The chances of 2026's quarter finals featuring Iceland, Wales, NI, Gabon, Thailand, Laos, Trinidad, Germany and Spain are too small to assign a number to. You will always have 2-3 surprise packages. You could increase capacity to 100 countries and you'd still need more powerhouses to screw up, which isn't going to happen.
2) The logic behind a 2 game group is that it will put an end to the boring, cagey affairs of the 3 game format (a valid complaint - Portugal were crowned champions of Europe off the back of 3 draws iirc), as teams will have to go all-out for the win. This is another non-starter.
Imagine a group of Italy, Iran and Burma. Whoever plays Italy first will put 11 men behind the ball, play for the draw and then go all out in their second game against the weaker side to win by a big margin and qualify on goal difference. So you'll have a exciting game in each group, but between 2 irrelevant countries who no one wants to watch.
I give up.
FIFA have based their entire argument on the events of France 16 - emphasising the success of the likes of Iceland, NI and Wales. Problems with this argument:
1) Realistically, you will NEVER see more than 2-3 of the traditional footballing powerhouses crashing out at group stage of any given tournament - especially if you reduce the group to 2 games. The chances of 2026's quarter finals featuring Iceland, Wales, NI, Gabon, Thailand, Laos, Trinidad, Germany and Spain are too small to assign a number to. You will always have 2-3 surprise packages. You could increase capacity to 100 countries and you'd still need more powerhouses to screw up, which isn't going to happen.
2) The logic behind a 2 game group is that it will put an end to the boring, cagey affairs of the 3 game format (a valid complaint - Portugal were crowned champions of Europe off the back of 3 draws iirc), as teams will have to go all-out for the win. This is another non-starter.
Imagine a group of Italy, Iran and Burma. Whoever plays Italy first will put 11 men behind the ball, play for the draw and then go all out in their second game against the weaker side to win by a big margin and qualify on goal difference. So you'll have a exciting game in each group, but between 2 irrelevant countries who no one wants to watch.
I give up.
Someone did the maths: https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/5mwf3a/oc_why_the_proposed_3team_group_stage_for_the/
About 1 in 20 chance of it being possible now. About 1 in 3 chance with the new format
FIFA don't seem to learn from their **** ups
Good link.
I think this format will be implemented with penalty shoot outs in each match, and consequently the weaker teams (and Portugal) parking the bus for the whole match and trying to win on pens.
Would have been an idea for TalkShite Drivetime to talk about this important decision on the day it happened rather than concentrating on selling our wing backs to Manchester, which they spent quite a long time on.
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What I have never understood, when FIFA or UEFA say they want more teams to qualify is ''what are the qualifying rounds in the two previous years for?
After all , once teams arrive at the ''finals'' , they play more qualifying matches in order to reach the ''final'' and hope to win it.
As it is, all teams play in the world cup The better ones progress.
In theory, all matches up to the final could be played around the world, and just the final be ''staged''. Similar to the champions league.
Alternatively all teams (100+) could turn up at a few venues and play out a competition.
After all , once teams arrive at the ''finals'' , they play more qualifying matches in order to reach the ''final'' and hope to win it.
As it is, all teams play in the world cup The better ones progress.
In theory, all matches up to the final could be played around the world, and just the final be ''staged''. Similar to the champions league.
Alternatively all teams (100+) could turn up at a few venues and play out a competition.
The current format is ridiculous too, though. I've never seen the point of the group round. Taking 48 matches to knock out 16 teams seems too many.
I think they should be more innovative and come up with other approaches for the tournament. Why not have a two or three round knock-out stage where only the winners get through to the knock-out. All losers and draws get to play a second (and third match) where again only the winners get through. If more than 32 teams get through the ones with the worst record who won in the last round get eliminated. If less than 32 get through then some get byes in the knock-out round. Would really encourage attacking football.
Graham Taylor's dead. ****.
Wasn't a good England manager, but didn't deserve the abuse that he got.
Forever remembered for that stupid documentary, but had a respectable career.
RIP, Turniphead.
Wasn't a good England manager, but didn't deserve the abuse that he got.
Forever remembered for that stupid documentary, but had a respectable career.
RIP, Turniphead.
Graham Taylor's dead. ****.
Wasn't a good England manager, but didn't deserve the abuse that he got.
Forever remembered for that stupid documentary, but had a respectable career.
RIP, Turniphead.
Anyone who could get Watford and Villa to finish second in the Top division must have had something going for him.
That was a big shock.
What he achieved with Watford was remarkable.
RIP
What he achieved with Watford was remarkable.
RIP
Wouldn't hurt,would it?,if the World Cup was based on our FA cup with qualifying games for the "small" countries like Burma,India,etc then bringing in the "league" teams like Australia,China,Korea....then to the knockout stages with the likes of France,Germany,England joining in.
Just a thought!
Just a thought!
The obvious issue there is who decides the levels of which team? After all, England would feel entitled to be treated as one of the upper tier nations - yet Sweden, Turkey and South Korea have all been in World Cup semi finals far more recently than they have so would rightly feel put out at being deemed "lesser" nations.
They could go by current results,but then if England can lose to Iceland.....I'd better cancel my thoughts for this one!
Graham Taylor's dead. ****.
Wasn't a good England manager, but didn't deserve the abuse that he got.
Forever remembered for that stupid documentary, but had a respectable career.
RIP, Turniphead.
He'll be remembered for being a thoroughly decent man who kept his dignity after suffering an appalling personal attack by the Sun newspaper.
He loved football and football people and fans. Sadly, so many of today's "stars" love money and nothing else.
The tributes to him from football people today, show how much he was respected throughout the game.
RIP