The title of the thread is stolen from Glen Wheldon's preview of this year's Eurovision, which. on the whole, was pretty fun this year – let's hope a little of that magic, charm, and occasional ridiculousness will carry over to this contest as well! A secondary goal for this thread is to get some Team Norway partisan to present us with a cogent argument for rhyming "grandma" with "banana."
I am sorry I am not the much awaited Norway partisan (just a primarily Japan's one and, by the point of view of this thread, a partisan of my own country, Italy), but I appreciate the idea of breathing new life into the Rivalry Forum. Of course, it can happen the case that you try to breath new life into a corpse, but since yesterday I was watching a John Cleese's live-show in a theater in my town (Milan), I can say I am not deflated by black humour and I've learnt that dead bodies can be funny!
Sounds like you need a laugh, and I'm sure we all could these days, so to put a smile on everyone's faces (and make sure everyone's caught up), here's a link to the offending "grandma/banana" content. I'm not sure how much blacker humor gets than this. (The most insidious part is that it's catchy and one will be unwillingly humming it for a while.)
John Cleese vs. Subwoolfer, hmm, I'm going to have to give that one to England I think! Meanwhile, football. In general I try not to pay attention to FIFA, but it seems Sweden got themselves ranked #2 in the world (Sweden!). I got a bad feeling about this.
It is a bit worrying, but the team have done a very good job at not winning with more than needed (just a small a slip-up against Georgia). So they are not a favorite at betting companies nor experts in spite of being highest rqnked and unbeaten for a long time. So they should be in a good positon to go far before the pressure of being the expected winner catch up to them.
The Guadian's article about Team Sweden is calling Carloline Seger their "All-Time Hero", which is probably making more than one person I know do a spit-take, for completely different reasons. It is somehow cosmically comforting to hear that the betting sites are being sensible (I am being quite serious). Edit: Aha, were you talking about this post from Upstairs? A two-way tie for fourth? Probably taking into account that Gerhardsson carries the Curse of Bälinge.
I had not seen that post but it seems to be based on the same compilation of odds tha t read. A two-way for fifth actually. Well, Bäliinge under two year with Gerhardsson got two 3rd places in Damallsvenskan . During all the rest of their existence their best result in Damalsvenskan is IIRC three 5th places. So I do think of him more as the antidote to the Curse of Bälinge than affected by it.
What is it with Norway and weird ass songs about wolves? I mean, I adore Seger, but uh ... Yeah. I've read in a few articles now that said Graham Hansen and Hegerberg -- both born in 1995 -- wanted to be soccer role models for girls because [deeeeeep, calming breath] there were none when they were growing up. Apparently, Graham Hansen didn't know there even was a women's national team until she was 14. Oh, hey, look at that, it's time for my xanax.
Y'ALL. Let's not forget to celebrate one of the most, if not THE most amazing, magical, perfect, wondrous, absolutely ********ing delightful part of the Euros. No USWNT.
Righty-ho, what deeds of great daring-do will England get up to tonight against Northern Ireland? "The Battle of the Brexiters" But I'm looking forward to Austria v Norway, mostly to see how Coach Sjögren handles both himself and his team tonight -- he was, by all appearances, an absolute disgrace in the last game. He should have ripped out a handful of his own hair at the very least.
Well, they're about to not advance past the group stage of the Euros - AGAIN - under him, so perhaps someone at NFF will stop trying to solve the world's soccer problems and maybe focus on their women's coaching problem instead. At any rate, Austria's saved us the crushing embarrassment of playing Germany, so there's that.
Hey, this is the rivalry forum: you should bask in Schadenfreude! Oh my, this board has become all sugary and sweet!
See, the problem in this particular case is – as much as we might as Swedes want to pile on Norway – as much the they are the Historical Enemy – as much as we mock their whey cheese that burns so hot it melts highway tunnels carved in granite – actually I admit I rather like the stuff on hot toast – now I'm hungry – where was I? oh yes – the problem is, in this case, that coach Martin Sjögren is Swedish, and a longtime fixture in Damallsvenskan, having coached as Linköping and LdB Malmö. Rumor has it that Swedes are saying it's embarrassing. Edit: No, I didn't see any better or more engaged behavior from him tonight. But yes, there's no doubt it's a norskt superfiasko.
This is ridiculous. A few months ago I was pretty happy to hear that Russia had been replaced by Portugal, but the latter looked really good versus Netherlands and I am worried about this. "Ingen Seger ikväll"* is not how the newspapers have decided to write their headlines, thankfully, but it is true that she is not going to play tonight. Let's hope for a Caroline-less 'seger' anyway! * "No Victory tonight"
Before this Euro I didn't know "seger" meant "victory" in Sweden. Interesting omen for Caroline Seger's family name. Can Seger also be any kind of first name in Swedish, or you just recur to Viktoria and similar?
Team Sweden at least looked the more relaxed of the two teams during the anthems – I'm glad someone is relaxed – it ain't me.
No, it is just a family name. And it is one of the 'military names' enforced on the soldiers when Sweden went to a semi-pro army in the 17th century and the military couldn't handle all the farmer/peasant sons that just had a patronymics and a first name. .
Heresy #1 to explain the current situation (4-0 to Sweden at the 73rd): It is possible that Sweden, Netherlands, and Switzerland are all roughly equally good.
Sweden's stadium starts blasting ABBA after the game; did Angeldal beg to cut her post-game interview short so that she can go and sing along? ("Gimme gimme gimme", for the terminally curious.)