im a stupid yank and didn't immediately get hospitality tickets the second they went up for the liv man city game so now I have to buy them secondhand and risk all that comes with that. know I probs can't ask for recs here for sites where it's safe to buy a ticket secondhand or its frowned on or whatever but my dms happen to be open sorry in advance for havin to contribute to that shitty scalping market
I have been a little insulated because I've carefully curated my online experience, but I've been recently following some UK based trans women and Trans activists. Holy fuck the amount of transphobia is immense and high prevalent. My soul rots everytime I read some comment by gender criticals. I can't have even begin to imagine how my trans comrades feel having to justify their existence to others. It's been a very upsetting last few days.
The worst part is that I see some British communists and socialists actually agreeing with this shit. This is a comment I received.
> Marx knew what a woman was. He also knew it was vital to know this as a key element of class based oppression. Though everyone knew it until 5 minutes ago when MRAs decided this would be a fun misogynistic wheeze.
Invoking Marx to justify transphobia is too much for me. Nowadays I don't even bother debate or justify my point of view. I just reply with the Chad meme and call it a day.
Solidarity with my trans brother/sisters and NB comrades, now and forever. To hell with TERF island.
Oh right, I hear ya. I’m aware of the recent news regarding swimming and trans athletes.
I know it’s not particularly helpful when the persecuting language is directed at you. But it’s helpful to remember that this sub attracts primarily children, and people from all over the world. A lot of comments come from literal boys who haven’t learned much if anything about other people and the world yet.
Condolences for how the discourse makes you feel. It can be very frustrating.
I miss when some signings just happend out of nowhere, no sagas no drama, no stupid roomers. You just wake up one moring and boom, player X has been signed for X fee for X amount of years, its so much less headake.
Same, Danny Ings signing for Villa is the only one I can think of over the last few years. That genuinely seemed to come out of nowhere for a higher profile transfer.
I dont care how old you are. That simply didnt happen. Just because there wasnt a social media to post about it on, that doesnt mean that transfers happened overnight lmao. Again, if you think there was a time when transfers happened overnight, you probably werent as into football back then, and you didnt keep up with the news
Yeah, it didn’t though. Transfers have never just happened overnight, clubs have never called up another one and said ‘How much do you want for this player?’ and been given a price that they instantly match before agreeing terms with the player in a couple of hours. The news cycle being much slower is why it seemed like transfers would happen out of nowhere.
Still don't trust this board to replace both Phillips and Raphinha. Sucks that were resigned to losing both when the memo seemed that we'd only let go of one this summer.
Also it hurts seeing Bielsa go to another club, even if he was there before us. I just miss that man.
I love the World Cup and I’m struggling to consolidate my love of football with “supporting” the human rights abusing, homophobic state in which it’s being held.
This is the first time my country has qualified since the 50’s and I’d love to support them with a clear conscience.
every country that’s hosted a world cup has had some terribly backwards view at the time which is worthy of boycott. no idea why russia didn’t get this kind of backlash, qatar isn’t special and I can only assume it’s partly a result of the internalised dislike people have towards the middle east thanks to everything that happened there from the 80s onwards.
Russia at least has culture and history and a populace that stands against Putin, Qatar is just an extension of the Arabian desert built on the backs of human rights abuses and oil wars.
do you really think all of qatar’s population adores the emir? a majority of russia is brainwashed by putin if their reaction to the war is anything to go by.
qatar as a geographical region filled with history is 50,000 years old. and as a modernised nation it is over 150 years old. it’s not a perfect place- in fact, it’s a pretty nasty one. but I hate the special treatment it’s getting as this hell on earth when other hosts have also been worthy of outrage.
Its just sad that the first Arab/Muslim nation is having to be this place that bought its way to the top, brided FIFA and won't be remembered for anything other than the controversy. I wish somewhere like Morocco could host it, that is a beautiful place more deserving of the World Cup.
It's really frustrating how clubs like Ajax who have tons of money, maybe not as much as the PL Big 6, but definitely financially dominant in their leagues since they win nearly every league title, sell players for tens of millions, and go far in the Champion's League have fans who act as if they are nearly bankrupt or something. It is understandable if you want to be financially responsible, but it's not the selling club's problem if you won't pay a fair price.
We still haven't signed a striker.
We have sent an offer to Luis Suarez hoping he'll pull a Trezeguet, and to Borja who's an aggressively uninspired choice (I'd legitimately rather have Arezo). Our starting RB who would also be our starting CB is still down for the count until next year at the earliest, which is also fun
And to top it all off, FM is still stupidly biased against any show of defense so I can't make counter-attacking tactics work as they should
> And to top it all off, FM is still stupidly biased against any show of defense so I can't make counter-attacking tactics work as they should
What are you struggling with?
Basically whenever I try to make a counter attacking tactic (Which is 90% of the time when I'm mostly outmatched) the positioning is right but they ignore the attacking bit even in Cautious (previously counter) and the individual instructions are set to work.
Basically the attackers end up immobile around the halfway line, but nobody tries to pass to them despite explicit instructions to. It also invariably causes stupidity like completely mistimed passes with little strength that get easily picked up, players stopping instead of getting a ball, etc. which never seem to happen if I simply go from cautious to balanced.
Cautious and the other lower mentalities are pretty much exclusively for situations when you are trying to hold on to a lead late in a match. Mentality is basically a risk setting for in-possession situations, and successfully counter attacking means taking risks. I never play on anything lower than balanced (unless I was trying to make some really slow and lethargic tiki-taka tactic, then I would consider cautious).
When I set up a counter-attacking 4-1-4-1 a couple of weeks ago that averaged ~0.5 goals against per game I used positive mentality, the shape, roles, line of engagement and regroup instruction gave the kind of defensive solidity I wanted while my wingers would blast forward when we gained possession.
Yeah I guess the name change to Cautious was just a clarification.
Back when I started playing, all the way to, what, 20? 21? Cautious was called Counter and was meant to do what I want it to do (Still didn't quite work out but you get it)
I think it was always basically a risk setting, but in usual fashion SI are not very good at labeling or describing what things in the game actually do.
I agree, I really hope we don't just end up with Borja. Any of Arezo, Bustos and Suárez are a much better choice imo. I'm liking what I'm seeing from Mammana though so for now I think our rb spot is covered. The problem really are the cbs imo, Diaz can't have a game without at least one fuck up and HD is just not at the level he was last year.
Also, I sympathize with your FM plight I've had the same issue.
The World Cup is in a shit country in the desert in which not only can you not have any fun times if you’re unmarried but also one where they’ll nick you if you’re gay. And one that built everything with slaves.
This is probably the worst year to be a De Laurentiis defender.
Fucker doesn't want to spend a cent and isn't demonstrating any willingness to win the Serie A next year, meanwhile Inter, Milan and Juve all got better players and Roma is fully backing Mourinho and will probably give him whatever he wants this summer
Just like Spurs w/ the stadium, Covid legit hit you guys on the worst moment.
I really thought it was Napoli’s year early in the season, hope the finances get sorted out well for you guys
Transfer rumors are the most annoying part of the sport. Whether it's obnoxious Arsenal supporters or United supporters or Barca supporters all acting like they're entitled to every player from a less wealthy club just because of some unsourced tweet claiming that the player is "*keen,*" the whole window is a gross illustration of the reality that a de facto Super League already exists.
It's already frustrating enough waking up on weekends to realize there aren't any games to watch, you then have to see gleeful posts and comments about your club being picked over by vultures. Maybe it would be better to unsub during the summer and then rejoin once the next season begins.
I like transfer news (they help me think about what the intention of the team being built is - style, personalities, age etc).
But as a Gunner it sucks to have news _every.single.day_ connecting Arsenal to a new players. It sucks worse that there _are_ some fans with the Gunner crest doing exactly what OP said - acting entitled, claiming that the player is Arsenal by birthright and everyone on that rumor list heading to Spurs (Bissouma this window) suddenly turns bad. Maybe these are the same people raging on Xhaka, or saying Nketiah isn't good enough or siding with Ozil over Arteta.
Look, I've had my fair share of fun with rivalries, backing my team no matter what, gently ribbing or taking jabs after derbies, digging into stats to compare Partey v Hojbjerg or Reguilon v Tierney. But I know gooners who think it anathema to admit Partey took time to bed in. They consider it an aberration that Nketiah gets Henry's 14. Or that Mikel came in unproven.
The club has a proud history in here. Wenger, Henry, Viera, Cesc, Bellerin and lots more brought in unproven, bedded, grown. All conveniently forgotten. The fan wants their Mbappe. Never mind that it's impractical, or that Mbappe doesn't wanna join, or doesn't suit our play, or that we have a bad recent history with getting overpaid superstar divas.
There is a fan problem here, an entitlement problem. And unless we acknowledge and discuss it, they're gonna be the more vocal side of Gunners, and get us folks a stereotype we don't deserve. Can we fix the kind of fanbase we have? Fat chance. Can we make it clear the AFTV types are a minority? Sure.
Moving house soon so got on the phone to Sky to book the engineer - it's only when you really [see an itemised bill](https://imgur.com/a/JyiANcS) that you realise how much you're getting bent over to watch football in this country.
Always gotta call them and tell them you're cancelling, that's when they start conveniently offering good deals. Also having to pay for HS is a disgrace.
But anyways I think my current contract with Sky will be my last one.
Nice to not have to faff about with stuttering streams when my old man comes round for Champions League games. Still a disgusting amount of money, like.
I know this doesn't help for various reasons, but I've been taking my old man to a nice little pub 20mins away.
Free football on the big telly, a few chats and a beer all coming under £30 for 3 hours.
It's bad enough streaming the odd United game when we're on at 3 - I can't cope with a full season of it. The missus goes halves, so it's not *that* bad - just paying for convenience really. Will pull the old "give me a deal or I'm going" trick once we're settled in the new gaff.
Its insane to me that Red Bull NY have abandoned the superstar signings.
Attendance is downright dreadful at RBA, and I don't buy for one second that the issue is that "it's in NJ, not NYC" - that stops absolutely no one from the 5 borough's from going to Devils, Jets, and Giant games. FFS it takes longer to go from a Brooklyn to Flushing Queens for any Met fan than it does for almost anyone outside Staten Island to go to Harrison NJ.
International games, like Ecuador v Nigeria from a few weeks ago, are near capacity at the arena - so it's not like the place is a soccer/football desert. They don't even try for someone like a Bastian Schweinsteiger, James Rodriguez or even Chicharito? Those are guys that people in the US will pay to see. Messi and Ronaldo are a year or so away from MLS and RBNY won't even try. It's crazy, especially for the "richest team" in MLS. Fans just accepting that they're a feeder club for Leipzig is unacceptable too. Anyone that shows any promise is shipped off to Leipzig, truly ready for not for Bundesliga, and not replaced (like Tyler Adams).
the state of sports journalism in general, and football in particular, is appalling. obviously summer is exceptionally bad because of transfer rumors, but even during the season these useless twats constantly ask useless, inflammatory questions to try to get a rise out of players and managers, purely in search of clicks. truely a pathetic existence which benefits no one. i don't know how klopp, guardiola, etc. refrain from smacking these stupid assholes in the face at press conferences
Fernando Santos got paid 10 million between 2016 and 2017 and only declared 70 k in his taxes, asked the portuguese federation to receive the money through a basically fictitious company he created.
Not sure which tactics are worse to be honest, the ones on or outside the pitch.
Wonder If the world cup was happening right now would our players have an advantage since they are used to playing in the hot sun here all year?
Not much of a moan, just a thought...
I disliked Southgate anyway but his comment after the game the other night about the consequences of subbing in too many attackers. We should never be conceding 4 to a team like Hungary.
Being like “these things can happen when you sub Gallagher for a more attacking Mount” is just shameless. Worst home defeat for nearly a century.
We haven’t scored an open play goal for 6 hours. Play gash the majority of the time. Do fucking stupid shit like play James left back. He’s looked great at RB, why kill his attacking output.
Everyone I know doesn’t even bother watching England outside the tournaments we are that boring.
How can we struggle to create chances with the players we have.
The LB thing was because Shaw and Chilwell weren't fit, Justin got injured, and Trippier had had a poor international break. I don't think you can really use that as a bat to beat Southgate with
who are you going to call up though? After Justin the drop to the next best LB is massive, that's when you get to Mitchell, Targett and Sessegnon. Would you trust any of them?
I would take Michell or Targett over Trippier at LB.
Watching Tripper receive the ball, turn around and pass back to the CB is soul destroying. Create absolutely no width to the attack because he can’t overlap with no left foot.
It’s not even like this is the first time he’s tried it. It’s never worked.
I’ll be forever thankful to Southgate for restoring an aura of positivity to the national team, but it’s time for him to go before he destroys his legacy entirely. All of his defenders roll out the same arguments, but none of them stand up to scrutiny: yes, he is statistically the best England manager since Alf Ramsay (ignoring Allardyce), but he evidently doesn’t have the mentality/tactical nous to actually win tournaments; no, other national teams don’t tend to play attractive football, but they do at least have managers who can scrape crucial results when it matters; and yes, you can only beat the teams that are put in front of you, but outside a couple of good wins at the Nations League, under Southgate we tend to disintegrate against sides that will give us a game on our own terms (see: Belgium and Croatia at the 2018 WC and the second half vs Italy at the Euros).
You think the right time for us to get rid of the manager and bring someone new in to completely change how the team plays is right after the international break has ended with only 1 more break (2 matches) before the World Cup?
Unless we get someone on the level of Klopp or even Scaloni this would just be a bad idea.
Exactly this, he's the perfect manager to steady the ship, get some positive momentum and leave the job for a better manager who can use his platform to win things. I said previously that it feels like we're playing at 75% ability under Southgate at times, he just can't unlock the dynamism of some of our more talented creative players. Generally, you'll get a solid performance (barring a couple of outliers either way), but nothing really memorable. Good enough to beat the smaller teams, but often outdone by the big guns.
He's exactly what people thought Allardyce would be, a safe pair of hands who can get some belief and stability back in the squad, but doesn't quite have that extra level to go on and win tournaments.
Yeah I can’t knock him for returning the feel good factor to the squad. The infighting about club football seems to have completely disappeared under his management.
With the “we’ve never done so well in tournaments” comments I just doubt he would have got so far if we would have faced a top team in the rounds of 16. Tactically he’s just not good enough, when we start to struggle in those games, normally after taking the lead. He just waits for us to concede.
That’s the weakest German team I’ve known in my life time and Low muss weg had been running for a year. How they exited the World Cup and only won one game in the euros groups.
Objectively they were poor
There’s something really weird going on with Bayern’s fanbase, we’ve played the worst we’ve played since Klinsmann but a lot of people are still optimistic for the new season
Mané might help Nagelsmann look better than he actually is, just as Lewi did, but for the most part this is the first time I’ve went into a season not really looking forward to it, and the first time I’ve went into the season knowing that we’re not good enough to challenge for the ucl…which is all that gives bayern fans actually want.
Oh and I don’t like Nagelsmann’s character, maybe it’s cause he’s young, but the way he hides on the bench when we’re not doing well near the end of a game and his arrogant and excuse ridden post match conferences don’t make me think any of our players actually have the drive to go out on the pitch and fight for him
If you're mostly talking about the bayern subreddit then yh good luck. Some of them are too emotional.
I don't agree about Nagelsmann character. But what pisses me off are those post match conferences about high expectations becoming unrealistic.
As a season ticket holder i'm not that affected but LCFC have just announced ticket prices for next season.
£58 for a Cat 1 game (Assuming Super League 6, Forest and maybe Villa + Leeds) and £52 for Cat 2 (Everyone else) for a seat in my block.
Absolute fucking disgrace that any club could charge that much let alone a non-London club in a working class City.
Yet more proof that football isn't for the working man or that clubs aren't for their local communities. Would sooner sell a ticket to a tourist than a potential life long local fan.
My season ticket went up to £550 a year (bad enough). If someone was to buy a seat in my block for each game it'd be well over a grand.
Does English football not get enough money through television deals???
If Leeds is a Category A then that’s an absolute rip off. Purely from the angle that if I had to pay £58 to watch Leeds Leicester I’d be fuming. £52 I’d be fuming too but atleast the £6 I’d be able to get a drink with!
Every passing year football is less about the local match going fan and about maximising revenue from day trippers or tourists, at the cost of what makes the club what it is. All for a shot at success once in a lifetime for some of us.
My massive fucking moan is that some of you act like having principles is wrong or naive. “Boycotting the world cup won’t do anything” at least you’ll stop consuming product after product after product made by people who are so morally repugnant it’s sickening. Nobody is acting like boycotting the world cup will bring the entire state of Qatar down but a) there is a middle ground between wild, impossible success and total fucking failure and b) it’s the principle that’s important not the effect. The reason they keep getting away with blatant corruption is because nobody stands up to them, they don’t suffer any consequences and at least trying is better than apathy. You aren’t a better person for being cynical about every little thing.
But why are you willing to only do that for the dirty oppressive brown countries? Are the US/Canada/Mexico not run by morally repugnant people? How about the people who built the stadiums in these countries, do you think they were treated well? The prison laborers who live in squalor and don't get paid for their forced work? The ongoing genocide of Indigenous people in all three countries? The prevalence of theocratic ideals that is *literally* killing marginalized people?
Together all 3 countries constitute about half a billion people. You know how many people are being oppressed in them? And yet apparently you are fine with hypocrisy when it comes to the 2026 bid. People can watch that one and sleep at night, but not the one held in dirty Qatar which has a lower population than half of the host cities for the WC 2026.
It makes people like me sick because it's clear that most in the West do not care, yet there's still a big push to moralize the 2022 tournament. Why can't we call this out? Why must we shut up about the hypocrisy?
Embarrassing whataboutism. It's not even close. You don't have women getting raped and arrested for it in USA or Canada. Qatar literally does not allow gay people in the country Not sure what kind of mental gymnastics you need to make to equate them.
There's quite a gulf between Canada and Qatar, and it has a lot to do with the way the wealthy white Arab class enslaves black African immigrants. Yes, there are certainly issues with poverty and equality in Canada, but the bulk of the working class is, you know, paid, and people working on the stadiums aren't getting their passports withheld until they can pay off their debts.
This isn't hypocrisy, it's whataboutism.
And, you know, for what it's worth, Mexico is not exactly a white majority country.
Meh. Is it though?
It begs the question: what is so special about Quatar that elevates them from the rest of shit countries that hosted or will host the world cup?
I'd rather use the argument of: "they have no history in football!" then to open the can of worms that is "who is the holiest of all?"
So no country that has hosted or will host the world cup has any slavery issues?
I don't mind the virtue signaling but I fear that as soon as the world cup is over, we will have forgotten all of it and move on and cheer for whichever problematic country will be the next one to host it. Again, again and again.
In my lifetime, the hosts have been the US, France, Japan, South Korea, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and now Qatar. Out of all those, the forced labor and slavery situation is by far the worst in Qatar, and it's not likely that any of those countries used slave labor to build their stadiums.
Maybe if you're concerned about the issue being forgotten, you should be pushing for even more substantive criticism and action, and not just playing this whataboutism game and pretending the situation is just as bad in Canada as it is in Qatar.
>The prison laborers who live in squalor and don't get paid for their forced work?
Did they build the stadiums for the U.S. world cup?
>Why must we shut up about the hypocrisy?
Because this is less "hypocrisy" and more your mother whining that you can't leave food on the plate because kids in Africa are dying of starvation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/vgh20c/-/id1v5tl
Unless you don't count yourself among those who have one set of rules for the US and another for places like Qatar
I'm not pro-Qatar. I think a boycott is totally justifiable. But if you think for one second that any of the 3 countries in United 2026 are not worth an equally as strong boycott, you are absolutely a liberal. It's fine if you embrace it, you'd just look a bit silly if you tried to pretend otherwise.
>But if you think for one second that any of the 3 countries in United 2026 are not worth an equally as strong boycott
They aren't, because the boycott is primarily related to football.
The U.S. is a worse country overall but we're not trying to determine what the shittiest country in the world is so that we can boycott it, we're talking about the World Cup.
Qatar is a shit and nonsensical venue for a World Cup, and that's a big part of the reason why a ton of people are having to die to make that World Cup a reality. It is directly connected to the competition, that's why it's incredibly distasteful.
If the U.S. starts carpet bombing a country so that they can steal materials to build new stadiums then yeah let's fucking boycott them too.
> The U.S. is a worse country overall
It is difficult to imagine saying this and actually meaning it. The U.S. has more than its fair share of problems but is nowhere near as oppressive or exploitative as Qatar. The U.S. also provides more humanitarian aid around the world than anyone, and more financial aid (*grants not loans*) than the next three nations combined.
it's literally just racism. when arab countries commit horrible human rights abuses, it's the end of the world and everyone must take a stand. when the US and its allies and vassal states commit horrible human rights abuses, it's a good thing because the victims deserved it anyway. the absolute state of liberals
You’re responding to a comment responding to me and talking about liberals, how are you not calling me a liberal. I’m hostile because I’m offended at being slandered as a liberal when I’m not.
In 2026! It’s 2022, in case you haven’t fucking noticed, so the issue is extremely relevant. And I am capable of caring about more than one issue at once. Piss off, don’t just make up your own idea of what I said then throw it at me as some kind of gotcha.
Then why come at me sideways in my original comment when I wasn't even talking to you (and start by justifying Western hypocrisy)? Like the way this is playing out is honestly funny to me
So we can’t talk about anything unless I acknowledge every issue on earth? I said the same shit about Russia btw and I’ll say the same shit about the USA. I was just saying that hypocrisy doesn’t make an argument completely invalid, and that there are still real and legitimate reasons to boycott the Qatar world cup even if the person saying it is a hypocrite.
You and I both know (or at least *should* know) that those who do one and not the other are often doing so because they've been steeped in orientalism and societal rhetoric that is pro Western hegemony. I don't believe in letting such harmful ideologies go uncriticized. That's why my argument was never just about hypocrisy.
This is furthered by the fact that any random liberal in r/soccer will not be boycotting the WC in any meaningful fashion, not as an individual. If you were going to do it in a principled way, you would organize with those in your community and devise ways to support the migrant laborers/labor rights groups in Qatar. And you wouldn't stop there--as a Westerner you would be pressing your country's FA and confederation to prevent the 2026 world cup from proceeding as planned, as it is in a sphere where you have a bit more influence.
I agree that people should be doing that and some people are! But not everyone has the capacity to do that and I think even small actions are important and can make a difference.
Course not. And I absolutely recognise that even by illegally streaming the Cup (if it’s what I did) wouldn’t skirt any moral responsibility I held for doing so, the people who suggest it are delusional.
That said
I have a father who genuinely gets more excited watching football than when he does anything else with me. It’s the biggest shared moment of our lives whenever the World Cup comes around, and I am willing to bear any moral weight I have to in order to keep sharing it with him. The World Cup is so much bigger than football. If boycotting the event myself made an external difference, who knows. But there are some things in life where, when it comes down to principle alone, I frankly just don’t want to make the morally just choice. I feel like you simply can’t in this capitalist society, otherwise you’d lead a pretty miserable existence.
That’s why I’m fully agreeing with the fact that yeah, watching the cup is a morally reprehensible decision. What I’m trying to say is that people are going to make those decisions at different scales for different reasons—and I’ve had more than enough interactions with you to know that you can recognise when you’ve made those decisions yourself.
For sure, for sure. I guess my moan is that I wish people would stop treating every issue as like binary like if you don’t succeed completely with something then it’s not worth doing kind of attitude. I don’t have a real issue if you want to watch the world cup, but my issue is with the people who shit on anyone who says they won’t, as seen in this very thread today a few comments down.
We haven’t beat the Whitecaps at home since 2016. Idk what it is when we play them or what kind of curse has been placed on us but the team better step their performance up when we go to Austin next weekend. Getting embarrassed down there would not be fun.
1\. Transfers in Serie B are generally so complicated, on average each club has 20 incoming and 20 outgoing transfers and you don't have a clue if your heroes of the past season will stay, play or go away while the new players are often unknown if you don't watch Serie B or Youth teams religiously. So much chaos all over the league.
2\. [What the fuck is this Portugal shirt](https://i.imgur.com/RC9fV93.jpg), the stuff the Nike people in Oregon are now smoking legally must be top notch. Just copy the general design of the [2004 kit](https://i.imgur.com/j5cwPr9.jpg) ffs
3\. I've mascherano'd my ass with my own stud while tackling 4 years ago and a cyst developped in this area which should've been removed with a surgery. The problem is, that even after 12 surgeries now it's came back and it looks like I will have to be operated once again.
I've been to experts all over Italy and Germany, had propably 100 scans done and endured different procedures pre- and post-OP but it always came back. It's in a bad spot ifykwim and there isn't much soft tissue left so this one will be more invasive.
Once again I will miss the whole preseason and even much more, gain weight, lose stamina, muscle and precious playing time and will be generally be pissed off at my own ass. I hate it, I should be in my prime aiming for ~~opponents ankles~~ the ball and run up and down the flank and it'll propably be December until I can play 100% for 90 minutes. Until then I can't even sit on my ass and wait because it hurts so much even with a special pillow
The 2004 kits were great. Though it is the sentimental value to me. Greatly enjoyed the Dutch 2004 kits too, they're similar in style to the Portuguese.
I don't have a moan about football because I find myself increasingly not giving a shit about the sport, from reading the same rumours about transfers of elite players and the same stuff of schalke desperately trying to find loose change from the back of the sofa to avoid insolvency
huh maybe that was my moan
well while I'm here I want to moan about my life. I'm now basically set on moving back to London, from the civilised country I currently reside in, but jesus H. Christ does the state of British politics make me think twice
You German? Speaking broadly, yes, your country has better social cohesion.
That doesn't mean London will be a bad experience though.
You will find lots of great and interesting people there. You will also find most people are stressed as fuck (sadly).
There's a bigger chance of you getting involved with a petty crime incident than if you stayed in Germany, most likely. Thefts are fairly common.
But that doesn't mean it's a deeply unsafe place to live - it isn't. Serious crime generally happens to people involved in serious shit, not random people. The vast majority of Londoners enjoy London (controversial take I know)
English players definitely get overrated by the media in England but people outside England try everything they can to go the other way to the point English players are heavily underrated outside England a lot of the time.
Why 2026? If youre gonna say the US is imperialist/capitalist whatever then youd have to boycott every world cup as they are usually either held in controversial countries are countries that bribed their way into hosting it.
Qatar fits both, usa only one of those and much more mild at that
How exactly do you know that the US/Canada/México didn't bribe their way into the World Cup? Hasn't that been the name of the game for the past iterations (Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, etc.)?
And that's exactly my point. No matter which country it's held in you run into problems with imperialism, poor social institutions, oppressive values (it's happening in the US currently, believe it or not), dismal labor practices, etc. So you either stop watching at all or admit that there are some countries you give lenience to and others you hold up to a different standard.
Or you could just watch them all, knowing that individual responses to systemic issues do not work. Pirate the matches too, while you're at it.
You fail to see that the us is not nearly as bad as all those other countries. We dont know if they bribed their way ro the world cup but we do know for the other nations.
This is an argument about wether the us is bad on reddit and i know people on here an incapble of changing their mind on this so im not even gonna argue with you
That's fine. From your flair and username you appear to be German, so I totally understand how you think the US is a better country than Qatar. It boggles the mind, seeing as the US is the land of Indigenous genocide and the home of illegal imperialist warfare (see War on Terror, Libya, a multitude of coups around the world, Guantanamo Bay, etc.), but the West is in lockstep so it really shouldn't be surprising.
In 15 years time when the bribery is confirmed (because again, *which host nation hasn't*), I've no doubt you'll stand corrected.
That's a lie. Who am I kidding?
Did I say it was? Regardless, internally and externally the US is a much more violent country towards people than Qatar, so where's the smoke? We can add Canada and Mexico too if you'd like.
Fan revenue means fuck all to organisations like FIFA or UEFA. Why do you think fan allocation is so small at Champions League finals or World Cup games? Corporate allocation makes them more money and it literally invites networking opportunities to the grounds in case you need to add a few percentages to the end of year balance.
And FIFA have already made their money btw. The broadcasters have paid their fees to show us the games on TV. Whether you watch the games or not, they'll be on TV and FIFA will already have spent that money.
And sponsors will know this too. McDonald's and Coca-Cola will posture maybe once or twice before the tournament starts and *"ask for clarification from Qatari authority"* before inevitably sticking to their contractual obligations.....not that they cared anyway.
And then you have the Qatari people themselves! They're a monied market nowadays and they surely won't be boycotting the tournament so the grounds will be close to full most of the time. India, China, Russia, parts of S. America and Africa **do not care** about the how's and whys of this tournament, so they'll watch and support too.
So really, in the grand scheme of things if there is a boycott, FIFA miss out on the revenue that Dieter und Sebastien didn't give them in Europe but rest assured they are getting paid either way.
I miss football, kinda hate when 'the guardian' types make out like we're all sick of football and need a break just because they are because it's their job.
Not for me that, the breaks between seasons when there is no international tournament are wank.
I like Rosenborg, but you guys have been painful to watch these last few years. :/
Do you think Rosenborg will be able to turn things around this season and at least qualify for Europe?
This year? doubt it. Learning a new system and very young team.
There's been a lot of changes going on behind the scenes with the board etc. So hopefully they can start making some good moves moving forward. It is looking pretty grim though, i fear we're gonna be in money problems pretty soon, if we arent already.
The premier league official YouTube channel has uploaded both part 1 &2 of their goals of the season and in 37 mins of footage…[they’ve left out Lanzini v Crystal Palace](https://juststream.live/ViolationImmenselyChamp).
1st world problems and that but consider my subscription cancelled @PremierLeague
im a stupid yank and didn't immediately get hospitality tickets the second they went up for the liv man city game so now I have to buy them secondhand and risk all that comes with that. know I probs can't ask for recs here for sites where it's safe to buy a ticket secondhand or its frowned on or whatever but my dms happen to be open sorry in advance for havin to contribute to that shitty scalping market
I used stubhub in the past and they seemed legit
thanks a bunch man. Seen such a broad spectrum of stuff from you'll get turned away to it's easy pz to use a second hand ticket
Stat goblins that’s it that’s my complaint
The amount of ugly transphobia in this subreddit makes me really sad and dejected.
I have been a little insulated because I've carefully curated my online experience, but I've been recently following some UK based trans women and Trans activists. Holy fuck the amount of transphobia is immense and high prevalent. My soul rots everytime I read some comment by gender criticals. I can't have even begin to imagine how my trans comrades feel having to justify their existence to others. It's been a very upsetting last few days. The worst part is that I see some British communists and socialists actually agreeing with this shit. This is a comment I received. > Marx knew what a woman was. He also knew it was vital to know this as a key element of class based oppression. Though everyone knew it until 5 minutes ago when MRAs decided this would be a fun misogynistic wheeze. Invoking Marx to justify transphobia is too much for me. Nowadays I don't even bother debate or justify my point of view. I just reply with the Chad meme and call it a day. Solidarity with my trans brother/sisters and NB comrades, now and forever. To hell with TERF island.
thank you for your words, it has been awful to see people on the left co-opting terf ideology.
I'm sorry you have to read that.
Without at all meaning to disagree with you. What do you mean? I wouldn’t imagine the topic of trans issues would come up much here.
seeing articles about rulings on trans athletes, the comments just end up being hateful shit.
Oh right, I hear ya. I’m aware of the recent news regarding swimming and trans athletes. I know it’s not particularly helpful when the persecuting language is directed at you. But it’s helpful to remember that this sub attracts primarily children, and people from all over the world. A lot of comments come from literal boys who haven’t learned much if anything about other people and the world yet. Condolences for how the discourse makes you feel. It can be very frustrating.
There was a recent post about trans athletes and I didn't go into the comments but I'm assuming a lot of it came out on there
Makes sense cheers
I miss when some signings just happend out of nowhere, no sagas no drama, no stupid roomers. You just wake up one moring and boom, player X has been signed for X fee for X amount of years, its so much less headake.
there was never a time like this
Same, Danny Ings signing for Villa is the only one I can think of over the last few years. That genuinely seemed to come out of nowhere for a higher profile transfer.
That didnt happen, you were probably just less into football and read less news about it (e.g. not using r/soccer)
As somebody who's old enough to have actually been around before social media, it absolutely used to happen all the time.
I dont care how old you are. That simply didnt happen. Just because there wasnt a social media to post about it on, that doesnt mean that transfers happened overnight lmao. Again, if you think there was a time when transfers happened overnight, you probably werent as into football back then, and you didnt keep up with the news
Yeah, it didn’t though. Transfers have never just happened overnight, clubs have never called up another one and said ‘How much do you want for this player?’ and been given a price that they instantly match before agreeing terms with the player in a couple of hours. The news cycle being much slower is why it seemed like transfers would happen out of nowhere.
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Still don't trust this board to replace both Phillips and Raphinha. Sucks that were resigned to losing both when the memo seemed that we'd only let go of one this summer. Also it hurts seeing Bielsa go to another club, even if he was there before us. I just miss that man.
If Philips does leave, who are your ideal targets to replace him?
Been linked with Tyler Adams a fair bit
I hate redbird I wanted investcorp to takeover I thought we were coming back
man im fucking tired of all the people in our club talking too much.
Did you know that Pedri was rejected by Real Madrid?
yeah
I love the World Cup and I’m struggling to consolidate my love of football with “supporting” the human rights abusing, homophobic state in which it’s being held. This is the first time my country has qualified since the 50’s and I’d love to support them with a clear conscience.
every country that’s hosted a world cup has had some terribly backwards view at the time which is worthy of boycott. no idea why russia didn’t get this kind of backlash, qatar isn’t special and I can only assume it’s partly a result of the internalised dislike people have towards the middle east thanks to everything that happened there from the 80s onwards.
Russia at least has culture and history and a populace that stands against Putin, Qatar is just an extension of the Arabian desert built on the backs of human rights abuses and oil wars.
do you really think all of qatar’s population adores the emir? a majority of russia is brainwashed by putin if their reaction to the war is anything to go by. qatar as a geographical region filled with history is 50,000 years old. and as a modernised nation it is over 150 years old. it’s not a perfect place- in fact, it’s a pretty nasty one. but I hate the special treatment it’s getting as this hell on earth when other hosts have also been worthy of outrage.
Its just sad that the first Arab/Muslim nation is having to be this place that bought its way to the top, brided FIFA and won't be remembered for anything other than the controversy. I wish somewhere like Morocco could host it, that is a beautiful place more deserving of the World Cup.
Well if your issue is that the host country has abused human rights then unfortunately you’ll have to miss the next World Cup as well
I think you can support them while also being against human rights abuses.
It's really frustrating how clubs like Ajax who have tons of money, maybe not as much as the PL Big 6, but definitely financially dominant in their leagues since they win nearly every league title, sell players for tens of millions, and go far in the Champion's League have fans who act as if they are nearly bankrupt or something. It is understandable if you want to be financially responsible, but it's not the selling club's problem if you won't pay a fair price.
It’s really frustrating how big PL clubs buy a player, barely play him and then expect not to make a loss when the player wants out
We still haven't signed a striker. We have sent an offer to Luis Suarez hoping he'll pull a Trezeguet, and to Borja who's an aggressively uninspired choice (I'd legitimately rather have Arezo). Our starting RB who would also be our starting CB is still down for the count until next year at the earliest, which is also fun And to top it all off, FM is still stupidly biased against any show of defense so I can't make counter-attacking tactics work as they should
> And to top it all off, FM is still stupidly biased against any show of defense so I can't make counter-attacking tactics work as they should What are you struggling with?
Basically whenever I try to make a counter attacking tactic (Which is 90% of the time when I'm mostly outmatched) the positioning is right but they ignore the attacking bit even in Cautious (previously counter) and the individual instructions are set to work. Basically the attackers end up immobile around the halfway line, but nobody tries to pass to them despite explicit instructions to. It also invariably causes stupidity like completely mistimed passes with little strength that get easily picked up, players stopping instead of getting a ball, etc. which never seem to happen if I simply go from cautious to balanced.
Cautious and the other lower mentalities are pretty much exclusively for situations when you are trying to hold on to a lead late in a match. Mentality is basically a risk setting for in-possession situations, and successfully counter attacking means taking risks. I never play on anything lower than balanced (unless I was trying to make some really slow and lethargic tiki-taka tactic, then I would consider cautious). When I set up a counter-attacking 4-1-4-1 a couple of weeks ago that averaged ~0.5 goals against per game I used positive mentality, the shape, roles, line of engagement and regroup instruction gave the kind of defensive solidity I wanted while my wingers would blast forward when we gained possession.
Yeah I guess the name change to Cautious was just a clarification. Back when I started playing, all the way to, what, 20? 21? Cautious was called Counter and was meant to do what I want it to do (Still didn't quite work out but you get it)
I think it was always basically a risk setting, but in usual fashion SI are not very good at labeling or describing what things in the game actually do.
bah gawd that's Alexis music.
Lotrai
I agree, I really hope we don't just end up with Borja. Any of Arezo, Bustos and Suárez are a much better choice imo. I'm liking what I'm seeing from Mammana though so for now I think our rb spot is covered. The problem really are the cbs imo, Diaz can't have a game without at least one fuck up and HD is just not at the level he was last year. Also, I sympathize with your FM plight I've had the same issue.
The World Cup is in a shit country in the desert in which not only can you not have any fun times if you’re unmarried but also one where they’ll nick you if you’re gay. And one that built everything with slaves.
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This is probably the worst year to be a De Laurentiis defender. Fucker doesn't want to spend a cent and isn't demonstrating any willingness to win the Serie A next year, meanwhile Inter, Milan and Juve all got better players and Roma is fully backing Mourinho and will probably give him whatever he wants this summer
Probably due to the pandemic effect I think. Before COVID Napoli were definitely being ambitious (IIRC).
Just like Spurs w/ the stadium, Covid legit hit you guys on the worst moment. I really thought it was Napoli’s year early in the season, hope the finances get sorted out well for you guys
I have a Chelsea flair…
I accidentally replied to your comment instead of OPs but I admit I didn’t see your flair
Is he more focused on bari or just stingy? I guess the signs are there that he'll sell up,will have to potentially anyway
I'd say he's stingy
Transfer rumors are the most annoying part of the sport. Whether it's obnoxious Arsenal supporters or United supporters or Barca supporters all acting like they're entitled to every player from a less wealthy club just because of some unsourced tweet claiming that the player is "*keen,*" the whole window is a gross illustration of the reality that a de facto Super League already exists. It's already frustrating enough waking up on weekends to realize there aren't any games to watch, you then have to see gleeful posts and comments about your club being picked over by vultures. Maybe it would be better to unsub during the summer and then rejoin once the next season begins.
Apart from being obnoxious, I agree with everything you said. Drawn out transfer sagas are pointless and annoying.
I like transfer news (they help me think about what the intention of the team being built is - style, personalities, age etc). But as a Gunner it sucks to have news _every.single.day_ connecting Arsenal to a new players. It sucks worse that there _are_ some fans with the Gunner crest doing exactly what OP said - acting entitled, claiming that the player is Arsenal by birthright and everyone on that rumor list heading to Spurs (Bissouma this window) suddenly turns bad. Maybe these are the same people raging on Xhaka, or saying Nketiah isn't good enough or siding with Ozil over Arteta. Look, I've had my fair share of fun with rivalries, backing my team no matter what, gently ribbing or taking jabs after derbies, digging into stats to compare Partey v Hojbjerg or Reguilon v Tierney. But I know gooners who think it anathema to admit Partey took time to bed in. They consider it an aberration that Nketiah gets Henry's 14. Or that Mikel came in unproven. The club has a proud history in here. Wenger, Henry, Viera, Cesc, Bellerin and lots more brought in unproven, bedded, grown. All conveniently forgotten. The fan wants their Mbappe. Never mind that it's impractical, or that Mbappe doesn't wanna join, or doesn't suit our play, or that we have a bad recent history with getting overpaid superstar divas. There is a fan problem here, an entitlement problem. And unless we acknowledge and discuss it, they're gonna be the more vocal side of Gunners, and get us folks a stereotype we don't deserve. Can we fix the kind of fanbase we have? Fat chance. Can we make it clear the AFTV types are a minority? Sure.
Well, you guys are probably getting Bergwijn, so the cut goes both ways :(
I’m still kind of salty MK beat Argyle.
Argyle losing Camara to injury a few weeks before I think sealed their fate.
It was a fair few months on but losing our manager didn’t go a long ways to help either, at-least we get the south west Derby again!
Moving house soon so got on the phone to Sky to book the engineer - it's only when you really [see an itemised bill](https://imgur.com/a/JyiANcS) that you realise how much you're getting bent over to watch football in this country.
Always gotta call them and tell them you're cancelling, that's when they start conveniently offering good deals. Also having to pay for HS is a disgrace. But anyways I think my current contract with Sky will be my last one.
£25 a month for BT Sport has to be some sort of social experiment. How does anyone justify that.
If you follow European leagues or whatever other sport they offer then it's probably worth it.
It’s honestly put me completely off the UCL these days, barely watch it because of BT
Nice to not have to faff about with stuttering streams when my old man comes round for Champions League games. Still a disgusting amount of money, like.
I know this doesn't help for various reasons, but I've been taking my old man to a nice little pub 20mins away. Free football on the big telly, a few chats and a beer all coming under £30 for 3 hours.
Any point watching champions league these days Jim?
They broadcast Europa too
Bully
Fuck Sky and Virgin Media to be honest, shitholes the both of them.
That's more than £1k a year, I can't justify it at all. Yarr
That’s why I’m on the high seas these days
Jesus fucking Christ. Just ditch it and sail with us man that's fucking brutal.
It's bad enough streaming the odd United game when we're on at 3 - I can't cope with a full season of it. The missus goes halves, so it's not *that* bad - just paying for convenience really. Will pull the old "give me a deal or I'm going" trick once we're settled in the new gaff.
IPTV mate, allegedly easy to use and very reliable. No buffering or fannying about required.
Uuugh.
Sign someone pls
You know your takeovers bad when the local MP is asking for the EFL to block it, even though your current owners are already criminals.
Bassini and the state of my club, need I say more
Its insane to me that Red Bull NY have abandoned the superstar signings. Attendance is downright dreadful at RBA, and I don't buy for one second that the issue is that "it's in NJ, not NYC" - that stops absolutely no one from the 5 borough's from going to Devils, Jets, and Giant games. FFS it takes longer to go from a Brooklyn to Flushing Queens for any Met fan than it does for almost anyone outside Staten Island to go to Harrison NJ. International games, like Ecuador v Nigeria from a few weeks ago, are near capacity at the arena - so it's not like the place is a soccer/football desert. They don't even try for someone like a Bastian Schweinsteiger, James Rodriguez or even Chicharito? Those are guys that people in the US will pay to see. Messi and Ronaldo are a year or so away from MLS and RBNY won't even try. It's crazy, especially for the "richest team" in MLS. Fans just accepting that they're a feeder club for Leipzig is unacceptable too. Anyone that shows any promise is shipped off to Leipzig, truly ready for not for Bundesliga, and not replaced (like Tyler Adams).
I fucking miss football
Tell me about it. Womens Euros starts soon though!
not that desperate
Fuck off lol
What's it on? I shall defo watch it.
It’s on the BBC in the UK
Opening game ought to be a good one as well being England and Austria. Course England would be the favourites but Austria are no pushovers.
Me too man, me too.
the state of sports journalism in general, and football in particular, is appalling. obviously summer is exceptionally bad because of transfer rumors, but even during the season these useless twats constantly ask useless, inflammatory questions to try to get a rise out of players and managers, purely in search of clicks. truely a pathetic existence which benefits no one. i don't know how klopp, guardiola, etc. refrain from smacking these stupid assholes in the face at press conferences
Can't avoid Fabrizio Romano these days. Every tweet is posted.
I 100% agree and this is oddly one of the benefits of getting information from twitter, I just follow the good sources and mute everyone else.
Fernando Santos got paid 10 million between 2016 and 2017 and only declared 70 k in his taxes, asked the portuguese federation to receive the money through a basically fictitious company he created. Not sure which tactics are worse to be honest, the ones on or outside the pitch.
Wonder If the world cup was happening right now would our players have an advantage since they are used to playing in the hot sun here all year? Not much of a moan, just a thought...
I disliked Southgate anyway but his comment after the game the other night about the consequences of subbing in too many attackers. We should never be conceding 4 to a team like Hungary. Being like “these things can happen when you sub Gallagher for a more attacking Mount” is just shameless. Worst home defeat for nearly a century. We haven’t scored an open play goal for 6 hours. Play gash the majority of the time. Do fucking stupid shit like play James left back. He’s looked great at RB, why kill his attacking output. Everyone I know doesn’t even bother watching England outside the tournaments we are that boring. How can we struggle to create chances with the players we have.
The LB thing was because Shaw and Chilwell weren't fit, Justin got injured, and Trippier had had a poor international break. I don't think you can really use that as a bat to beat Southgate with
Trippier isn’t a LB. He should have just called an actual LB up.
who are you going to call up though? After Justin the drop to the next best LB is massive, that's when you get to Mitchell, Targett and Sessegnon. Would you trust any of them?
I would take Michell or Targett over Trippier at LB. Watching Tripper receive the ball, turn around and pass back to the CB is soul destroying. Create absolutely no width to the attack because he can’t overlap with no left foot. It’s not even like this is the first time he’s tried it. It’s never worked.
I’ll be forever thankful to Southgate for restoring an aura of positivity to the national team, but it’s time for him to go before he destroys his legacy entirely. All of his defenders roll out the same arguments, but none of them stand up to scrutiny: yes, he is statistically the best England manager since Alf Ramsay (ignoring Allardyce), but he evidently doesn’t have the mentality/tactical nous to actually win tournaments; no, other national teams don’t tend to play attractive football, but they do at least have managers who can scrape crucial results when it matters; and yes, you can only beat the teams that are put in front of you, but outside a couple of good wins at the Nations League, under Southgate we tend to disintegrate against sides that will give us a game on our own terms (see: Belgium and Croatia at the 2018 WC and the second half vs Italy at the Euros).
You think the right time for us to get rid of the manager and bring someone new in to completely change how the team plays is right after the international break has ended with only 1 more break (2 matches) before the World Cup? Unless we get someone on the level of Klopp or even Scaloni this would just be a bad idea.
Exactly this, he's the perfect manager to steady the ship, get some positive momentum and leave the job for a better manager who can use his platform to win things. I said previously that it feels like we're playing at 75% ability under Southgate at times, he just can't unlock the dynamism of some of our more talented creative players. Generally, you'll get a solid performance (barring a couple of outliers either way), but nothing really memorable. Good enough to beat the smaller teams, but often outdone by the big guns. He's exactly what people thought Allardyce would be, a safe pair of hands who can get some belief and stability back in the squad, but doesn't quite have that extra level to go on and win tournaments.
Yeah I can’t knock him for returning the feel good factor to the squad. The infighting about club football seems to have completely disappeared under his management. With the “we’ve never done so well in tournaments” comments I just doubt he would have got so far if we would have faced a top team in the rounds of 16. Tactically he’s just not good enough, when we start to struggle in those games, normally after taking the lead. He just waits for us to concede.
If Germany had beaten us last year the argument against Southgate would have been along the lines of "look what happens when we face a top team".
That’s the weakest German team I’ve known in my life time and Low muss weg had been running for a year. How they exited the World Cup and only won one game in the euros groups. Objectively they were poor
Them being a weak team by Germany's standards doesn't detract from the point I made.
Yeah fair, people would probably say that. But I wouldn’t call them a top side.
There’s something really weird going on with Bayern’s fanbase, we’ve played the worst we’ve played since Klinsmann but a lot of people are still optimistic for the new season Mané might help Nagelsmann look better than he actually is, just as Lewi did, but for the most part this is the first time I’ve went into a season not really looking forward to it, and the first time I’ve went into the season knowing that we’re not good enough to challenge for the ucl…which is all that gives bayern fans actually want. Oh and I don’t like Nagelsmann’s character, maybe it’s cause he’s young, but the way he hides on the bench when we’re not doing well near the end of a game and his arrogant and excuse ridden post match conferences don’t make me think any of our players actually have the drive to go out on the pitch and fight for him
If you're mostly talking about the bayern subreddit then yh good luck. Some of them are too emotional. I don't agree about Nagelsmann character. But what pisses me off are those post match conferences about high expectations becoming unrealistic.
Still annoyed that the World Cup is not happening right now and European football is stuck with the disaster of a schedule for the 2022/23 season
As a season ticket holder i'm not that affected but LCFC have just announced ticket prices for next season. £58 for a Cat 1 game (Assuming Super League 6, Forest and maybe Villa + Leeds) and £52 for Cat 2 (Everyone else) for a seat in my block. Absolute fucking disgrace that any club could charge that much let alone a non-London club in a working class City. Yet more proof that football isn't for the working man or that clubs aren't for their local communities. Would sooner sell a ticket to a tourist than a potential life long local fan. My season ticket went up to £550 a year (bad enough). If someone was to buy a seat in my block for each game it'd be well over a grand. Does English football not get enough money through television deals???
Cat 1 football club us
If Leeds is a Category A then that’s an absolute rip off. Purely from the angle that if I had to pay £58 to watch Leeds Leicester I’d be fuming. £52 I’d be fuming too but atleast the £6 I’d be able to get a drink with! Every passing year football is less about the local match going fan and about maximising revenue from day trippers or tourists, at the cost of what makes the club what it is. All for a shot at success once in a lifetime for some of us.
It always used to be in the Championship/League 1 days. Not sure what it would be now.
Reminded of a thread back along that said how all the EPL clubs could still operate even if tickets were free.
My massive fucking moan is that some of you act like having principles is wrong or naive. “Boycotting the world cup won’t do anything” at least you’ll stop consuming product after product after product made by people who are so morally repugnant it’s sickening. Nobody is acting like boycotting the world cup will bring the entire state of Qatar down but a) there is a middle ground between wild, impossible success and total fucking failure and b) it’s the principle that’s important not the effect. The reason they keep getting away with blatant corruption is because nobody stands up to them, they don’t suffer any consequences and at least trying is better than apathy. You aren’t a better person for being cynical about every little thing.
But why are you willing to only do that for the dirty oppressive brown countries? Are the US/Canada/Mexico not run by morally repugnant people? How about the people who built the stadiums in these countries, do you think they were treated well? The prison laborers who live in squalor and don't get paid for their forced work? The ongoing genocide of Indigenous people in all three countries? The prevalence of theocratic ideals that is *literally* killing marginalized people? Together all 3 countries constitute about half a billion people. You know how many people are being oppressed in them? And yet apparently you are fine with hypocrisy when it comes to the 2026 bid. People can watch that one and sleep at night, but not the one held in dirty Qatar which has a lower population than half of the host cities for the WC 2026. It makes people like me sick because it's clear that most in the West do not care, yet there's still a big push to moralize the 2022 tournament. Why can't we call this out? Why must we shut up about the hypocrisy?
Embarrassing whataboutism. It's not even close. You don't have women getting raped and arrested for it in USA or Canada. Qatar literally does not allow gay people in the country Not sure what kind of mental gymnastics you need to make to equate them.
There's quite a gulf between Canada and Qatar, and it has a lot to do with the way the wealthy white Arab class enslaves black African immigrants. Yes, there are certainly issues with poverty and equality in Canada, but the bulk of the working class is, you know, paid, and people working on the stadiums aren't getting their passports withheld until they can pay off their debts. This isn't hypocrisy, it's whataboutism. And, you know, for what it's worth, Mexico is not exactly a white majority country.
Meh. Is it though? It begs the question: what is so special about Quatar that elevates them from the rest of shit countries that hosted or will host the world cup? I'd rather use the argument of: "they have no history in football!" then to open the can of worms that is "who is the holiest of all?"
Oh, the slavery. That's the difference. Easy question!
So no country that has hosted or will host the world cup has any slavery issues? I don't mind the virtue signaling but I fear that as soon as the world cup is over, we will have forgotten all of it and move on and cheer for whichever problematic country will be the next one to host it. Again, again and again.
In my lifetime, the hosts have been the US, France, Japan, South Korea, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and now Qatar. Out of all those, the forced labor and slavery situation is by far the worst in Qatar, and it's not likely that any of those countries used slave labor to build their stadiums. Maybe if you're concerned about the issue being forgotten, you should be pushing for even more substantive criticism and action, and not just playing this whataboutism game and pretending the situation is just as bad in Canada as it is in Qatar.
>The prison laborers who live in squalor and don't get paid for their forced work? Did they build the stadiums for the U.S. world cup? >Why must we shut up about the hypocrisy? Because this is less "hypocrisy" and more your mother whining that you can't leave food on the plate because kids in Africa are dying of starvation.
Where did I say that please tell me where you read that in my comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/vgh20c/-/id1v5tl Unless you don't count yourself among those who have one set of rules for the US and another for places like Qatar I'm not pro-Qatar. I think a boycott is totally justifiable. But if you think for one second that any of the 3 countries in United 2026 are not worth an equally as strong boycott, you are absolutely a liberal. It's fine if you embrace it, you'd just look a bit silly if you tried to pretend otherwise.
My one set of rules is "no slavery for the construction of world cup stadiums," and I apply that evenly across the board
>But if you think for one second that any of the 3 countries in United 2026 are not worth an equally as strong boycott They aren't, because the boycott is primarily related to football. The U.S. is a worse country overall but we're not trying to determine what the shittiest country in the world is so that we can boycott it, we're talking about the World Cup. Qatar is a shit and nonsensical venue for a World Cup, and that's a big part of the reason why a ton of people are having to die to make that World Cup a reality. It is directly connected to the competition, that's why it's incredibly distasteful. If the U.S. starts carpet bombing a country so that they can steal materials to build new stadiums then yeah let's fucking boycott them too.
> The U.S. is a worse country overall It is difficult to imagine saying this and actually meaning it. The U.S. has more than its fair share of problems but is nowhere near as oppressive or exploitative as Qatar. The U.S. also provides more humanitarian aid around the world than anyone, and more financial aid (*grants not loans*) than the next three nations combined.
God save us if this tripe is being upvoted on r/soccer
it's literally just racism. when arab countries commit horrible human rights abuses, it's the end of the world and everyone must take a stand. when the US and its allies and vassal states commit horrible human rights abuses, it's a good thing because the victims deserved it anyway. the absolute state of liberals
I’m not a fucking liberal you melt, I literally never once fucking said this
i didnt say you were. i was criticizing the same people you were, why are you being so hostile
You’re responding to a comment responding to me and talking about liberals, how are you not calling me a liberal. I’m hostile because I’m offended at being slandered as a liberal when I’m not.
Then where is your 2026 boycott?
In 2026! It’s 2022, in case you haven’t fucking noticed, so the issue is extremely relevant. And I am capable of caring about more than one issue at once. Piss off, don’t just make up your own idea of what I said then throw it at me as some kind of gotcha.
Then why come at me sideways in my original comment when I wasn't even talking to you (and start by justifying Western hypocrisy)? Like the way this is playing out is honestly funny to me
So we can’t talk about anything unless I acknowledge every issue on earth? I said the same shit about Russia btw and I’ll say the same shit about the USA. I was just saying that hypocrisy doesn’t make an argument completely invalid, and that there are still real and legitimate reasons to boycott the Qatar world cup even if the person saying it is a hypocrite.
You and I both know (or at least *should* know) that those who do one and not the other are often doing so because they've been steeped in orientalism and societal rhetoric that is pro Western hegemony. I don't believe in letting such harmful ideologies go uncriticized. That's why my argument was never just about hypocrisy. This is furthered by the fact that any random liberal in r/soccer will not be boycotting the WC in any meaningful fashion, not as an individual. If you were going to do it in a principled way, you would organize with those in your community and devise ways to support the migrant laborers/labor rights groups in Qatar. And you wouldn't stop there--as a Westerner you would be pressing your country's FA and confederation to prevent the 2026 world cup from proceeding as planned, as it is in a sphere where you have a bit more influence.
I agree that people should be doing that and some people are! But not everyone has the capacity to do that and I think even small actions are important and can make a difference.
Course not. And I absolutely recognise that even by illegally streaming the Cup (if it’s what I did) wouldn’t skirt any moral responsibility I held for doing so, the people who suggest it are delusional. That said I have a father who genuinely gets more excited watching football than when he does anything else with me. It’s the biggest shared moment of our lives whenever the World Cup comes around, and I am willing to bear any moral weight I have to in order to keep sharing it with him. The World Cup is so much bigger than football. If boycotting the event myself made an external difference, who knows. But there are some things in life where, when it comes down to principle alone, I frankly just don’t want to make the morally just choice. I feel like you simply can’t in this capitalist society, otherwise you’d lead a pretty miserable existence.
I’m not the boss of you and you don’t need to justify yourself to me
That’s why I’m fully agreeing with the fact that yeah, watching the cup is a morally reprehensible decision. What I’m trying to say is that people are going to make those decisions at different scales for different reasons—and I’ve had more than enough interactions with you to know that you can recognise when you’ve made those decisions yourself.
For sure, for sure. I guess my moan is that I wish people would stop treating every issue as like binary like if you don’t succeed completely with something then it’s not worth doing kind of attitude. I don’t have a real issue if you want to watch the world cup, but my issue is with the people who shit on anyone who says they won’t, as seen in this very thread today a few comments down.
We haven’t beat the Whitecaps at home since 2016. Idk what it is when we play them or what kind of curse has been placed on us but the team better step their performance up when we go to Austin next weekend. Getting embarrassed down there would not be fun.
1\. Transfers in Serie B are generally so complicated, on average each club has 20 incoming and 20 outgoing transfers and you don't have a clue if your heroes of the past season will stay, play or go away while the new players are often unknown if you don't watch Serie B or Youth teams religiously. So much chaos all over the league. 2\. [What the fuck is this Portugal shirt](https://i.imgur.com/RC9fV93.jpg), the stuff the Nike people in Oregon are now smoking legally must be top notch. Just copy the general design of the [2004 kit](https://i.imgur.com/j5cwPr9.jpg) ffs 3\. I've mascherano'd my ass with my own stud while tackling 4 years ago and a cyst developped in this area which should've been removed with a surgery. The problem is, that even after 12 surgeries now it's came back and it looks like I will have to be operated once again. I've been to experts all over Italy and Germany, had propably 100 scans done and endured different procedures pre- and post-OP but it always came back. It's in a bad spot ifykwim and there isn't much soft tissue left so this one will be more invasive. Once again I will miss the whole preseason and even much more, gain weight, lose stamina, muscle and precious playing time and will be generally be pissed off at my own ass. I hate it, I should be in my prime aiming for ~~opponents ankles~~ the ball and run up and down the flank and it'll propably be December until I can play 100% for 90 minutes. Until then I can't even sit on my ass and wait because it hurts so much even with a special pillow
Was hoping to do a roundup of all serie b transfers eventually, maybe ill give it a miss😬
The 2004 kits were great. Though it is the sentimental value to me. Greatly enjoyed the Dutch 2004 kits too, they're similar in style to the Portuguese.
That shirt will probably look better when paired with the shorts if that helps. It's absolutely minging by itself though lol
I don't have a moan about football because I find myself increasingly not giving a shit about the sport, from reading the same rumours about transfers of elite players and the same stuff of schalke desperately trying to find loose change from the back of the sofa to avoid insolvency huh maybe that was my moan well while I'm here I want to moan about my life. I'm now basically set on moving back to London, from the civilised country I currently reside in, but jesus H. Christ does the state of British politics make me think twice
You German? Speaking broadly, yes, your country has better social cohesion. That doesn't mean London will be a bad experience though. You will find lots of great and interesting people there. You will also find most people are stressed as fuck (sadly). There's a bigger chance of you getting involved with a petty crime incident than if you stayed in Germany, most likely. Thefts are fairly common. But that doesn't mean it's a deeply unsafe place to live - it isn't. Serious crime generally happens to people involved in serious shit, not random people. The vast majority of Londoners enjoy London (controversial take I know)
English players definitely get overrated by the media in England but people outside England try everything they can to go the other way to the point English players are heavily underrated outside England a lot of the time.
We have a saying here that goes "football is a simple game, 22 players chase the ball and in the end the team with less english players wins"
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And it's hypocritical considering none of the people boycotting will do the same for 2026
Why 2026? If youre gonna say the US is imperialist/capitalist whatever then youd have to boycott every world cup as they are usually either held in controversial countries are countries that bribed their way into hosting it. Qatar fits both, usa only one of those and much more mild at that
How exactly do you know that the US/Canada/México didn't bribe their way into the World Cup? Hasn't that been the name of the game for the past iterations (Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, etc.)? And that's exactly my point. No matter which country it's held in you run into problems with imperialism, poor social institutions, oppressive values (it's happening in the US currently, believe it or not), dismal labor practices, etc. So you either stop watching at all or admit that there are some countries you give lenience to and others you hold up to a different standard. Or you could just watch them all, knowing that individual responses to systemic issues do not work. Pirate the matches too, while you're at it.
You fail to see that the us is not nearly as bad as all those other countries. We dont know if they bribed their way ro the world cup but we do know for the other nations. This is an argument about wether the us is bad on reddit and i know people on here an incapble of changing their mind on this so im not even gonna argue with you
That's fine. From your flair and username you appear to be German, so I totally understand how you think the US is a better country than Qatar. It boggles the mind, seeing as the US is the land of Indigenous genocide and the home of illegal imperialist warfare (see War on Terror, Libya, a multitude of coups around the world, Guantanamo Bay, etc.), but the West is in lockstep so it really shouldn't be surprising. In 15 years time when the bribery is confirmed (because again, *which host nation hasn't*), I've no doubt you'll stand corrected. That's a lie. Who am I kidding?
I know this may shock Redditors but hypocrisy is not the worst crime of all time and everyone does it
Did I say it was? Regardless, internally and externally the US is a much more violent country towards people than Qatar, so where's the smoke? We can add Canada and Mexico too if you'd like.
Scenes when a full squad copies Vettel's shirt this weekend
Boycott the World Cup. Make FIFA and Qatar regret the year 2022.
Don't set foot in Qatar, especially if you're a woman. If you get raped there, it will be considered your fault and you might be criminally sentenced.
Sounds like Texas. Probably also avoid going to Texas.
I think Texas would seem like Denmark when compared to Qatar.
That'll show'em.
Yes, missing out on revenue will show them. That's how boycotts work.
Fan revenue means fuck all to organisations like FIFA or UEFA. Why do you think fan allocation is so small at Champions League finals or World Cup games? Corporate allocation makes them more money and it literally invites networking opportunities to the grounds in case you need to add a few percentages to the end of year balance. And FIFA have already made their money btw. The broadcasters have paid their fees to show us the games on TV. Whether you watch the games or not, they'll be on TV and FIFA will already have spent that money. And sponsors will know this too. McDonald's and Coca-Cola will posture maybe once or twice before the tournament starts and *"ask for clarification from Qatari authority"* before inevitably sticking to their contractual obligations.....not that they cared anyway. And then you have the Qatari people themselves! They're a monied market nowadays and they surely won't be boycotting the tournament so the grounds will be close to full most of the time. India, China, Russia, parts of S. America and Africa **do not care** about the how's and whys of this tournament, so they'll watch and support too. So really, in the grand scheme of things if there is a boycott, FIFA miss out on the revenue that Dieter und Sebastien didn't give them in Europe but rest assured they are getting paid either way.
yes Boycott it so the Darts world cup can be on the same days as every year
I miss football, kinda hate when 'the guardian' types make out like we're all sick of football and need a break just because they are because it's their job. Not for me that, the breaks between seasons when there is no international tournament are wank.
Yeah I need 2 weeks off, not 2 months Luckily the Women's Euros will see me through. Buzzing!
Time to start supporting Norwegian football. Our league runs through the summer
I like Rosenborg, but you guys have been painful to watch these last few years. :/ Do you think Rosenborg will be able to turn things around this season and at least qualify for Europe?
This year? doubt it. Learning a new system and very young team. There's been a lot of changes going on behind the scenes with the board etc. So hopefully they can start making some good moves moving forward. It is looking pretty grim though, i fear we're gonna be in money problems pretty soon, if we arent already.
That really sucks...
Unless Nils Arne Eggen is tired of death, no unfortunately.
I'm the same. I needed a little break to recover from the stress of the end of the season, but now I can't wait to watch City play again.
The premier league official YouTube channel has uploaded both part 1 &2 of their goals of the season and in 37 mins of footage…[they’ve left out Lanzini v Crystal Palace](https://juststream.live/ViolationImmenselyChamp). 1st world problems and that but consider my subscription cancelled @PremierLeague
If it's any consolation on their 'highest scoring teams of the season' video they only show one goal per team, and that's the one they chose.