Look right or left away from the camera during a photo. We did this in high school too. I’d be interested to hear the true origin.
Pretty great triple header of Liga Nos action on Gol TV today starting at 10 with 6 of the top 10 in action against each other. The highlight is likely to be the 1230 match between Benfica and (Pedro Santos’s former club) Braga at a sold out Estadio de Luz. Rui Vitoria is on the hot seat and you have to imagine Benfica needs all 3 here or more questions are asked and their title challenge all but over.
And Benfica puts in their best performance of 2018 with a 6-2 thrashing. Did not expect that at all. We may have a title race in Portugal after all...
And in a shocker if a result Guimares holds on to defeat Sporting 1-0 in front of a ridiculously happy crowd in Guimares. Maybe one of the most exciting and hotly contested games in all of Europe this week. You could see what it meant to the fans and players to get one over on one of the "big 3." Sporting won this same fixture in Guimares 5-0 last season. With the results, Benfica leaps from 4th to 2nd and sits only 4 points behind Porto. Braga down to third and Sporting 4th. What a day of Liga Nos. Much needed after the my domestic club plunged itself into crisis with an awful coaching hire and Roma fell to 10th in Serie A. Long live Liga Nos!!!
A very good and historic round 18 of Serie A was ruined yesterday again by racist idiots. This shit never ends in Italy. First to the games. Juve actually could only manage a draw vs Atalanta needing to summon Ronaldo from the bench to rescue a point. This opened the door for Napoli to cut the gap at the top to 6 points, but they fell 1-0 to Inter at the San Siro and finished the game with 9 men (more on this later). The race for the fourth and final Champions League spot is still tight with 9 teams between 4th and 12th within 6 points of one another (and yes, Roma is in that mess currently sitting 7th). Now to the idiots. Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly has been sem-regularly targeted with racist abuse and chants by opposing fans for pretty much the duration of his time in Italy. This happened again in Milan yesterday. Napoli brought this to the referees attention at least 3 times. Announcements were made at the stadium to stop with the chants and abuse. Now there is a rule in Serie A that after these warnings and announcements that the referee should stop abandon the game. He did not. And to make matters worse after giving Koulibaly a questionable yellow card in the 85th minute the referee brandished a 2nd yellow when Koulibaly sarcastically applauded his decision, sending him off. Post match, Ancellotti was furious stating he regrets not taking his team off the pitch after the racial abuse did not stop, and he hit out at the referee for being a coward. Meanwhile in the streets before and afterwards there were reports of 4 Napoli fans being stabbed, and one Inter fan being struck by a van and later dying at the hospital. The FIGC did there normal ceremonial brow furrowing and hand wringing and and talked about possibly suspending this weekends matches. But this is Italy, so of course that is only just talk, and the matches will go on. What's worse is that there will likely be little punishment if any for the referee who did not follow protocol or Inter Milan and their fans for this abuse. I recall an instance 2 seasons ago when Lazio captain Senad Lulic hit out against then Roma defender Antonio Ruddiger with racist slurs. Lulic was suspended for 3 weeks, two of which came during that year's winter break so he only missed one game. I would say that it's incredible that this keeps happening in Italy, but that would be ignoring the facts. There is a toxic culture in Italy, it's an extremely racist country, and so of course that permeates to the fans as well. It's just disgusting that these worms get to breathe the same oxygen as good people, and more disgusting that the FIGC never takes sufficient steps to put a stop to this inside and outside the stadiums. Forza Italia, or something.
UPDATE: Inter will be forced to play two games behind closed doors vs Benevento (Coppa Italia) and Sassuolo. They Curva Nord will also be suspended for an additional game vs Bologna on February 3rd. And finally, Empoli is not selling tickets to Inter fans for this weekends game in Tuscany. Meanwhile, Koulibaly is also banned for two matches, the same as Inter fans, for being the subject of racial abuse and sarcastically clapping at the referee. Italy, man. What a mess.
The first part is a good start. Don't like the last part. But a red card is an automatic suspension, isn't it?
It is. It's just silly. Napoli should appeal the red card. First because the original yellow was extremely questionable. Second because the ref lacked the composure to deal with the situation. Koulibaly is a pretty reserved personality on the field. The ref needs to have the composure to look at the situation and realize perhaps Koulibaly's sarcastic clap after the yellow was brought on in part by suffering racial abuse for 80 minutes and seeing neither the ref nor Inter gain control of the situation to stop it. I'm mostly frustrated that he is receiving equal punishment as Inter's fans.
Extremely unfortunate that a pretty exciting day of soccer across the board in Italy was overshadowed by this bigoted act. Also, that is trash that he will be essentially serving the same suspension as the "fans" who have no rightful place on this earth.
Two thoughts: - How on earth does a suspension count bye weeks? 3 weeks should mean 3 matchdays, not 3 calendar weeks! - Do you think the ref may have not followed protocol because he supports those taunting Koulibaly?
Because the FIGC is stupid and incompetent. It's certainly possible. There are racist shitheads everywhere and I am sure some referee. I think it's mostly a combination of the fact that he was too cowardly to suspend it in front of a full San Siro, and the just ingrained north versus south prejudice that allows stuff like this to always happen to Napoli. If it's not racial slurs hauled at Koulibaly it's territorial insults hurled at Napoli players and fans. This always happens and since all the power and money is in the North in Italian football nothing ever changes.
That's a fair point.... Inter's always gotten breaks from them. There was the time that a 7-1 loss was annulled when an Inter striker was allegedly hit in the head with an empty Coke can.
Today in Italy, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, "Bonucci was booed by the Milan fans, is that racism? Healthy teasing among fans is not to be considered racism." This is why this will continue to be a problem in Italy for years to come.....
That Juve-Samp game was, well, interesting. I'm still not 100% sure about the VAR.... Calls may have been correct, but that was a game decided by the officiating.
It’s shocking how much better Man U is with Mourinho gone. I can’t see him getting another big job again at an elite club (unless Florentine Perez is hell bent on bringing him back to Madrid, which would be madness IMO).