To me it seems each group has a favourite, be it big or small, and second is wiiiiiiide open unless you are in group B, in which case shit out of luck Morocco and Iran.
@DaPrince84 why has my homie iwobi got to play fecking Nigeria again? It seems u always play Argentina
The only time we didn't play Argentina was 1998 (we didn't qualify for the 2006 World Cup) It's a joke at this point. And Iwobi is playing for Nigeria over because he wants to win the World Cup.
Come on you Hornets! Edit: they were robbed in the final minute of injury time. Dier with a clear handball in the box. Should've been a PK. Oh well, spurs drop two points.
Damn! Citeh with another last-minute come from behind victory. But this time it wasn't Sterling it was Silva. It does appear that they are on a serious mission this year. About to set the all-time English winning streak record. But that could just prove to be United's motivation to beat them in a week.
"Klinnsman eyes Australia WC Coaching gig" is the headline doing the rounds this week. Please. Dear god no. Please.
Playing on the Oz tracks is a different thing. NZ often gets exposed over there. I wish could sit on the sofa for 5 days and watch a test match!
Benevento finally break their duck today. First point in 15 games. Over the once mighty Milan. And with a dramatic 95' header by their keeper! They're goin down, but now their fans will have at least one moment to celebrate this season.
Living that life now as I recover from injury. The negative is because they are evening matches, it doesn't start until 1:30pm as opposed to starting around 11.
Some get away ("we uhhh almost signed him uhhh but...") and some are forced out because Arsenal is trash at spotting and developing talent.
For lack of a better place to put this. And sorry for the length... Mark Clattenburg's astonishing interview admission on Men in Blazers 12/2/17: http://soccer.nbcsports.com/2017/12...ormer-pl-ref-mark-clattenburg-joins-the-show/ (discussion begins at 09:38) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05q3bwx (discussion begins at 49:05) I must say that when he left the EPL for Saudi, near the peak of his game, it raised my eyebrow. But maybe he just wanted to cash in... OK. Then he popped up at NBC last month (he's signed some contract w/ them?) and said some odd things, while sounding a bit ego-maniacal. Then today I heard a snip of his MiB comments... Holy cow! Amongst other things, he says that during the crucial Chelsea-Spurs match of 2015, which ended up giving Leicester the title, that he: * Knew it was "theatre" so... * He made a game plan to let things go and not send anyone off... * So that Spurs could NOT blame him when they lost the title * And the newspapers couldn't write any anti-Clattenburg headlines * "If I'd played by the book, Spurs would've been down to 7-8 players and probably lost"... "I allowed them to self-destruct" * And Diego Costa would've been sent off too * When Chelsea equalized "I'd never felt an atmosphere like that because they'd stopped the enemy from winning title" * "I Helped the game", and "I added to the theatre" * "People (in England) love a tackle... they don't want it punished" OK, we've all seen refs have pre-determined styles for games, tighter or looser. And how hard it must be for the players to guess which way the ref is going to be... on any given day, or any given half! But I can't ever recall a top ref so honestly admitting how they manipulate or control the game. Certainly not someone who was arguably the best ref in the world at a moment in time. I used to put him at the top of the heap, the ref who I'd have most confidence in if he was on our match. But now? Whoa! Is he shooting his reputation in the foot? He compared his job to being a pop star, in front of all those fans. That is exactly NOT what you want a ref to be feeling or focusing on. It's not all about you Mark! The guys on BBC 5Live just slag him off: Wrighty, Steve Claridge & ex-ref Dermott Gallagher. Claridge, who I've found to be astute, said what my initial reaction was to Clattenburg playing god: "What if his game plan had backfired, and Spurs had won because he'd let them continue with a full team?" Ay yay yay! Still we all admit that he was a very very good ref.
I think Clattenburg has a fair point. Imo, the issue is more with the rules of the game than with the officials. Because 2 yellows = red players are allowed to get away with stuff. If you increase it to 3 yellows = red then the ref has more flexibility to call the game by the rules from the start. It's also a consequence of goals being scarce, so anything a ref does to affect a goal is magnified. In basketball it's easier for the result to even out the refereeing and the quality of play because there are so many more opportunities to score.
3 yellow = red... hmm, is that a thing? Has that ever been proposed seriously? I'm not so sure it would change a whole lot, except maybe increase the amount of violence against the opposition you could get away with before really hurting your own team.
What it would mean is that you could actually card people early in the match without it completely changing the tenor of the game. It would also mean that the refs wouldn't need to let stuff go in order to keep the game "fair". Just cracking down on time wasting would be a worthwhile benefit, imo.
They are coming to Europa for a reason. Not even a team like Dortmund is a sure thing. We would smash CSKA Moscow, Celtic, it is seriously only Athletico and maybe Napoli if they don't make it that we should worry about.
It's definitely a gauntlet now. It can still be done though. But generally I agree, it just became a meat grinder.