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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
Fun stat I came across, apparently Erling Haaland has scored in every World Cup game, including qualifiers. Absolutely bonkers.
Still wearing my England hat as I only tend to do in international football tournaments, so hope they can make it through, but if they don’t, Norway in the semis would be pretty cool as consolation!
I’d like to see Portugal do the business tonight, nothing against Spain but they’ve won a hell of a lot in the relatively recent pass so I’m backing the underdog.
I don’t think Portugal will mind, the squads aren’t a million miles apart but one is carrying a 42 year old who can barely move and one is not. And if Yamal properly fires, nobody on the pitch has his combination of ability to beat a man and break lines, and consistent productivity br it passing or shooting
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
Obviously shitty but quite funny that FIFA denied making that Balogun decision due to outside political pressure and Trump just casually came out in a news conference and said he did exactly that
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On July 07 2026 00:24 WombaT wrote:
Obviously shitty but quite funny that FIFA denied making that Balogun decision due to outside political pressure and Trump just casually came out in a news conference and said he did exactly that
His comments are also mindnumbingly stupid. "How do you penalize him for a game that has not been played yet?" We have gotten to the point where you cannot invent satire which is more absurd than reality.
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On July 07 2026 00:24 WombaT wrote:
Obviously shitty but quite funny that FIFA denied making that Balogun decision due to outside political pressure and Trump just casually came out in a news conference and said he did exactly that
Yeah, its not surprising to me that Trump doesn't understand the situation FIFA are in.
He's emblematic of an ultra wealthy elite that believes that they should get to choose the winners in any situation. Its so ingrained into the Trump psyche that he can't even understand why anyone would think anything different.
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
It’s unbelievable. It’s disgraceful, a complete farce. The only player in World Cup history who’s had a red card commuted was Garrincha, and in the 60s a suspension for a red wasn’t an automatic piece of censure (as per one of my prior links)
In the wider scheme of life, trivial but within this context a complete fucking joke.
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United States10504 Posts
On July 06 2026 16:55 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2026 16:52 GTR wrote:
probably wrong of me to laugh at the fact jordan henderson got both a yellow card and an injury without playing one single minute of the game I know its pretty funny, except actual footballers who may have had a chance of actually playing missed out on the World Cup so we could have him as a cheerleader, and now he can't even do that. *Still bitter about Gibbs-White being left out* lol
I can't believe he actually straight up broke his arm. Crazy injury because he slipped over the ad board.
The whole Balogun thing is such a farce. If they had come out and simply said: this red card should not have been awarded or was mistakenly awarded when given the context of the rest of the tournament for several red card challenges not being given and the "new standard" of reffing in the World Cup, I think we would (mostly) accept it.
However, the whole thing is bullshit. Suspension of a red card is effectively unprecedented, and the fact that there's been 0 transparency of the process and the Belgium team had asked for one and then FIFA said: ok you start your appeals process but we don't give you information to help you file the appeal, good luck. It's so clearly corruption and Infantino and Trump/sponsors being in bed with each other. FIFA and USA continue to fall into lower lows each day.
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On July 07 2026 00:32 justanothertownie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2026 00:24 WombaT wrote:
Obviously shitty but quite funny that FIFA denied making that Balogun decision due to outside political pressure and Trump just casually came out in a news conference and said he did exactly that His comments are also mindnumbingly stupid. "How do you penalize him for a game that has not been played yet?" We have gotten to the point where you cannot invent satire which is more absurd than reality.
lmao, but it's hardly surprising that his understanding of football would be on the exact same level as his understanding of economics, geopolitics, healthcare, etc. You couldn't find a person on the street that knows less than him about any topic if you tried.
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On July 07 2026 01:53 FlaShFTW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2026 16:55 Jockmcplop wrote:On July 06 2026 16:52 GTR wrote:
probably wrong of me to laugh at the fact jordan henderson got both a yellow card and an injury without playing one single minute of the game I know its pretty funny, except actual footballers who may have had a chance of actually playing missed out on the World Cup so we could have him as a cheerleader, and now he can't even do that. *Still bitter about Gibbs-White being left out* lol I can't believe he actually straight up broke his arm. Crazy injury because he slipped over the ad board. The whole Balogun thing is such a farce. If they had come out and simply said: this red card should not have been awarded or was mistakenly awarded when given the context of the rest of the tournament for several red card challenges not being given and the "new standard" of reffing in the World Cup, I think we would (mostly) accept it. However, the whole thing is bullshit. Suspension of a red card is effectively unprecedented, and the fact that there's been 0 transparency of the process and the Belgium team had asked for one and then FIFA said: ok you start your appeals process but we don't give you information to help you file the appeal, good luck. It's so clearly corruption and Infantino and Trump/sponsors being in bed with each other. FIFA and USA continue to fall into lower lows each day.
It goes even further as explained here:
https://talksport.com/football/world-cup/4393937/folarin-balogun-ban-appeal-fifa-decision-usmnt-belgium/
Basically Belgium asked FIFA to explain to them the reasons behind the decision.
FIFA, instead of doing this, created an appeal on behalf of Belgium.
Great, you might think, they are saving time.
The thing is, for an appeal to be valid, FIFA must first have sent Belgium a document explaining the reasons for their decision, which they declined to do in favour of creating this appeal - which is instantly made invalid by the fact that they never explained themselves.
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Norway28850 Posts
On July 06 2026 23:13 WombaT wrote:
Fun stat I came across, apparently Erling Haaland has scored in every World Cup game, including qualifiers. Absolutely bonkers.
Still wearing my England hat as I only tend to do in international football tournaments, so hope they can make it through, but if they don’t, Norway in the semis would be pretty cool as consolation!
I’d like to see Portugal do the business tonight, nothing against Spain but they’ve won a hell of a lot in the relatively recent pass so I’m backing the underdog.
I don’t think Portugal will mind, the squads aren’t a million miles apart but one is carrying a 42 year old who can barely move and one is not. And if Yamal properly fires, nobody on the pitch has his combination of ability to beat a man and break lines, and consistent productivity br it passing or shooting
Lol that he has scored in every game isn't the bonkers part. The bonkers part is 23 goals in 12 games.
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if poch wants to protect any respect he might have in the football world he needs to bench balogun and keep him benched.
i dont see why he should throw away his integrity for trump when hes not gonna be the usnt manager forever anyway
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All FIFA needed to do was to say: starting today we will forgive wrongly given red cards and stop giving meaningless suspensions when the referee screwed up. So many of us in football want this.
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Belgium, please kill the US and you will be reincarnated as a lotus flower.
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It feels so weird England not being the bad guys for once.
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wow exciting start Spain vs Portugal
HOLY shit this is such a good football game
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Glad that Portugal stepped up a bit. And even though there are almost equal chances spain was still on top for most of the game/ball which is not surprising but scary.
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Spain overall better yes but Portugal had the better chances imo
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On July 07 2026 04:56 sharkie wrote:
Spain overall better yes but Portugal had the better chances imo
Very close game, both teams have great players and a plan. Too bad both defences and GKs are amazing as well.
CR7 is not amazing, but isn't making a complete fool of himself either. It seems like je genunley wants to do his part for the team
Edit: What are those Spanish forwards up to? So little will to make runs into the box. Oyarzabal har looked terrible after missing a great chance early.
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Oof 91st min goal is pain but it is what it is.
Congrats to Spain.
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turned out to be pretty predictably boring tbh.
spain obviously play their typical low risk possession football and with ronaldo i thought portugal werent gonna come out guns blazing either. coinflip game pretty much
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Norway28850 Posts
Portugal's best chances happened in the overtime of overtime.
Quality game, but not the most exciting, was hoping for extra time. Spain deserved winners and look really good obviously, but I hope we get France from that side.
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EPT
