The General Football Thread

Roberto Mancini has quit the Italy job to become the new manager of Saudi Arabia.

 

They would have if he hadn't shouted loudly that it was the case and bragged about it. He deserves jail for that bit of stupidity alone.

 

Him and the others involved plus assets seized as products of crime. If found guilty of course.

 

Mike Dean declined to use VAR to save a fellow referee from 'grief' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66612570

 

Interested to see how Tom defends this

 

Why would you assume I would defend it? It's inexcusable.

 

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It would be funny if the men had won a Euros and made the WC final.

 

Don't be picky, it is funny.

 

Neymar made to sweat for his £2.5m a week

 

There is a clarification below about how this isn’t from the Saudi league or the Asian Champions league. They are due to play Mumbai City in about a month

 

Not sure if anyone is following the saga with the Spanish women's team manager, but it may be the most bizarre I've ever seen. Brief synopsis: a lot of the players hated him, and refused to play for him. The Spanish FA backed him anyway, and consequently they went to the WWC missing more than a dozen regulars. They massively overperformed expectations and won the whole thing. The president of the Spanish FA (utterly inappropriately, to the extent that there is now a police investigation) kissed one of the players on the lips in the celebration. The manager publicly backed the president (who had previously refused to fire him). Fresh off the greatest accomplishment in their history, 81 players including the entirety of the winning World Cup squad are refused to play so long as the two of them remain in charge.

Those two idiots were handed the greatest redemption arc possible by their players, and somehow managed to nuke the rebuilt bridges from orbit. Truly incredible work.

 

Very much been following it, yes. And it's about time, frankly, that the core of Spain was hauled up a little bit on the misogyny front (they may get to racism one day soon too, with any luck...)

 

Been playing Walking football for 5 years. It’s like slower five aside. Although it is supposed to be for less mobile blokes over 50, it’s been hijacked by fitter blokes, like me, who can still run, not sprint. One group I go to is run by North Riding FA, so doesn’t have age limit. Ages vary from 30’s to upper 70’s. Still competitive, with frank discussions about who is running, usually everyone, except goalies. Nobody seems to be able to agree on a definite set of rules, so varies from week to week and group to group. Like all groups of old blokes there are some you get on with better than others. Definitely good for physical and mental well being.

 

At first I thought it was making a mountain out of molehill (I mean we all know Europeans are weird kissy people, don’t we ), but then a lot of other stuff began to crawl out of the woodwork.
And don’t forget that the woman concerned (apologies as I will have to look her name up) was threatened with court action for lying when everyone could see the video

 

This is interesting as I like the idea of walking football but I don't want to walk around the pitch. Jogging football sounds more my thing...

 

My experience of old blokes football may differ from others, but it’s worth giving it ago. I’ve tried out a few different groups, some are too competitive, some are a bit cliquey but you soon find one that suits you. The risk of injury puts some people off but at my age I’d rather pull a muscle at WF than tripping over my slippers.

 

Just an update on WF competitiveness. Wasn’t there last due to holiday in Devon. The meeting started with an update on last weeks ‘incident’. Apparently a couple of OAPs had a standoff. A punch/slap was thrown. Still got it!

 

Everton currently losing 1-0 to the bottom of League 2 - Doncaster, having only made 4 changes to the side which lost to Wolves at the weekend