The Fire suuuuuck, so what other Soccer, Football, Fútbol are you watching?

You could call it energy. It sucks when you see 2-3 guys out there that don't belong injuries or not.

 

Tuning into the USL Championship Eastern Conference Final. Only 4 teams left, Pittsburgh v Rhode Island in the East (kick off at 5:30) and New Mexico v Tulsa in the West (kick off at 7:30) Pittsburgh hasn't really scored a single goal in the run of play in any playoff game so I'm not expecting a high scoring affair. They just defended and got to penalties so far (while somehow outshooting their opponents). Time will tell....

 

Whether they are starters, backup or end of the bench, and whatever you want to call it, it has been missing and is good to see. Not really commenting on anything else.

 

Min 72 Balogun scores and USA lead 2-1. Reyna has goal and assist.

 

Reyna answered a bunch of questions tonight.

 

Min 82- It has been a “ no blood,no foul” type of game but evenly called. Looking like a pinball game.
Afraid things might heat up shortly.

 

Massive brawl at min 91. Throw-in to US resulted in wrestling match between Gomez and Freeman. Just when I thought they were going to avoid it. Both benches jumped in, about 50 players, coaches,etc. waiting for officials to unravel this.

 

Freeman got a yellow, a PAR bench player a red-only cards issued. Unbelievable!!
Punches thrown all over the place!! Hope that is final decision on cards for US.
USA 2 -PAR 1

 

Meanwhile I just sat through a dull 0-0 first half with only two yellow card against Rhode Island. I await video of said brawl to emerge on the social medias?

 

They were careful to show only a little of it on tv and announcers talked about it only minimally but it was a good one! I hope to see more of it.
Mostly played 3-4-2-1 tonight. That formation needs a lot of offense (and running ) from the two wingbacks. Tonight it was Dest ( looked good) and Arfsten.

 

Pittsburgh finally scores in the 54th minute. 1-0

 

Now Ybarra gets his second yellow and Rhode Island down to 10 men. Lots of time left but not good for the bad guys. Hell Rhode Island isn't even an ISLAND!

 

Ireland/Hungary World Cup Qualifier.

 

https://x.com/irelandfootball/status/1990089184443330589

https://x.com/rtesport/status/1990091420540022810

 

Holy shit.

 

Norway into the World Cup. The team from soon to be adopted home country (I wish) are back in the World Cup after a 28 year absence.

Norway crushed Italy 4-1 in the final World Cup Qualifier for both teams.
They scored the final goal with the last kick of the match.
Worst Italian loss in Milan in decades.

Italy loses out on qualification, once again. They are heading to the playoffs, once again. It will be interesting to see who they play in the March playoffs.

Norway end qualifying with a perfect record of 8-0-0, 24 points and a staggering +32 goal difference (all while not playing Gibs or San Marino or Liechtenstein or any of the other "not-countries" in Europe. They did get to kick around Estonia and Moldova, though.)

Erling Haaland just destroyed Italy in the second half. Two goals in five minutes.
He has scored in 11 straight international matches.
He has scored multiple goals in his last four matches.

He has 58 goals in 48 International appearances.
He has 17 goals in international matches in the past 12 months.

He has scored in every World Cup Qualifier this go around. 16 goals in 8 matches overall.

If only he did not play for Man City!

 

In NWSL playoffs (amazing how I watch when the matches are on "free" TV, this time ABC),
Gotham puts in the only goal of the match in 90+6 minute.

Orlando had a terrific shot on a header, but a brilliant save from the Gotham keeper saves it.

After defeating KC last week, the No. 8 seed into the Final.

 

Italy were already effectively guaranteed the playoff. They would have had to have beaten Norway by I think 10 goals to qualify directly. The game was essentially a glorified friendly.

 

Minimum of 9, I believe.

Yep and that means they lost, again.

"Glorified friendly?!?"

 

The game was meaningless. You know this and so did everyone else so why are you arguing?

 

Who's arguing? I never even brought it up, other than Italy losing, again.

I was talking about Norway, who booked their place in the World Cup, officially.

 

Not sure why BigSoccer didn't load these....but I'd encourage the regulars to check these out..."it's why the game is played"

 

Your unintelligible quote with the addition of punctuation implies disagreement. It is tough to tell because the punctuation is inside the quote so I’m actually not sure who you were quoting since it wasn’t me.

 

USMNT vs Uruguay at 6pm Central
https://www.si.com/soccer/usmnt-2026-world-cup-schedule-potential-opponents-venues

 

USA vs URU 0-0 min12. 9 different starters for US.