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Northern Ireland26218 Posts
On June 10 2025 04:35 Pandemona wrote:
Ronaldo scored 8 goals in 9 apperances in the nations league competition in which is so good lol, thats top level european international football, at 39/40!!!
How’d he do at the Euros? That’s your real top level football there, there’s another level of intensity and pressure that comes there.
He can still do a job, but would Portugal be better off playing a forward like Ramos who can actually run?
I think it can be simultaneously true that what he’s doing is very impressive at his age, but it drags teams down to persist with him in quite this manner.
He’s like 100% the perfect candidate to be used as an impact sub against tiring legs, and is an absolutely lethal finisher. I think it makes way more sense to use him in that kind of capacity
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United States10251 Posts
Australia vs Saudi Arabia tonight for a guaranteed spot in the WC. Loser goes to the next round of qualifying. Granted, either one should win their 4th round group given that Qatar is going to be their only major competition.
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Northern Ireland26218 Posts
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United States10251 Posts
Oh wait... nvm, Australia just needs to not lose 5-0 to advance automatically. If SA wins, they're still tied on points and Australia has a huge goal differential advantage.
(Currently 1-0 to SA as of typing, Australia has a 6 GD advantage so even 4-0 would mean they're tied on GD and Australia has 7 more goals scored).
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51506 Posts
with the 48 team format it'd be a disaster if australia didn't qualify
(that being said italy didn't make two world cups in a row so anything can happen lol)
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Norway28724 Posts
Pretty decent chance for 3 
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At least England will join me now on the Tuchel hate ^^
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On June 11 2025 14:58 sharkie wrote:
At least England will join me now on the Tuchel hate ^^
Southgate was significantly better.
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On June 11 2025 14:58 sharkie wrote:
At least England will join me now on the Tuchel hate ^^
I was initially disappointed with the way England played in the last two games but, after some reflection, I'm fucking furious.
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Hes one of the biggest frauds of the last few years imo. He is so arrogant but delivers so little
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Northern Ireland26218 Posts
On June 11 2025 16:43 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2025 14:58 sharkie wrote:
At least England will join me now on the Tuchel hate ^^ I was initially disappointed with the way England played in the last two games but, after some reflection, I'm fucking furious.
I’m just confused.
Tuchel’s doing the kind of things I’d expect a Southgate type to do. You’re at a low ebb, your job is to rebuild and improve the oculture, you’ve got some time to do this without much expectation. That was Southgate’s initial remit. He ended up exceeding expectations, but that was the gig.
Tuchel’s remit is that England are almost there, that they need a higher calibre of coach to get over that line and that coach doesn’t have much time.
Whatever Tuchel’s trying, it might work but I’m not sure it can in the timeframe available. It feels that the FA have kinda botched this a bit. Get Tuchel in immediately and he has more time, or stick with Carsley the continuity candidate.
I think whoever the coach is, they’re always going to have certain problems. Qualifying group is too easy, and you’re not involved in the top pot of the Nations League. You can try to cram in a friendly against a decent side, but it’s been a long season, and some have the club World Cup upcoming.
Not a good start though that’s for sure!
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United States10251 Posts
England, Italy, USA, even Belgium all vying for team that is going to fail to meet expectations. USA looks fucking awful right now.
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On June 11 2025 22:39 FlaShFTW wrote:
England, Italy, USA, even Belgium all vying for team that is going to fail to meet expectations. USA looks fucking awful right now.
yeah but Italy, USA and Belgium are all far away from teams full of world class.
England is having tons of it
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United States10251 Posts
On June 11 2025 22:44 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2025 22:39 FlaShFTW wrote:
England, Italy, USA, even Belgium all vying for team that is going to fail to meet expectations. USA looks fucking awful right now. yeah but Italy, USA and Belgium are all far away from teams full of world class. England is having tons of it
Italy and Belgium should be much better than what theyre currently doing. I can somewhat give USA a pass but the USAMNT needs to wake the fuck up.
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Norway28724 Posts
Norway was fkn awesome against Italy to be fair. I mean, first time in history Italy concedes 3 goals in a single half of any EC/WC qualification, so they obviously can't be happy with it, but this was also definitely the best half - and probably the best game - I've ever seen from Norway, and I've watched basically every match they've played for the past 30 years. Italy also plagued by injuries and their defensive line in particular was far inferior to well.. perhaps every back 4 they've fielded at least as long as I've been alive (41 years), probably longer.
Honestly, I think Norway is going to win the first 7 games (home vs Israel, Estonia and Moldova remaining), have 21/21 points before playing vs Italy on away field in the final game, and our GD is going to be significantly better than theirs, so even if they win every match leading up to that, it'll basically be a given that Norway takes #1. Italy has to qualify from playoffs.
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United States10251 Posts
Yeah Norway definitely looks strong, so it's not entirely Italy's fault. But you would normally consider them a European powerhouse but they've significantly fallen from their perch after their Euros win. I'm excited for Norway at the WC (assuming they make it)
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Northern Ireland26218 Posts
On June 12 2025 06:04 FlaShFTW wrote:
Yeah Norway definitely looks strong, so it's not entirely Italy's fault. But you would normally consider them a European powerhouse but they've significantly fallen from their perch after their Euros win. I'm excited for Norway at the WC (assuming they make it)
Italy haven’t been great for a while to be fair. Both pre and post-Mancini.
If they weren’t well, Italy but were say, Croatia I think the perception would be that a great generation peaked and now we’re back to something like normal service.
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United States10251 Posts
So I guess Wirtz is now double confirmed by Joyce, but the fee went down from the reported 127.5m pounds by Fabrizio to 100+16m pounds by Joyce. Great bit of business there to cut down the fee honestly, and brings Wirtz in line with the other 100m pound signings like Rice and Caicedo. He's going to be electric.
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On June 10 2025 21:27 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2025 04:35 Pandemona wrote:
Ronaldo scored 8 goals in 9 apperances in the nations league competition in which is so good lol, thats top level european international football, at 39/40!!! How’d he do at the Euros? That’s your real top level football there, there’s another level of intensity and pressure that comes there. He can still do a job, but would Portugal be better off playing a forward like Ramos who can actually run? I think it can be simultaneously true that what he’s doing is very impressive at his age, but it drags teams down to persist with him in quite this manner. He’s like 100% the perfect candidate to be used as an impact sub against tiring legs, and is an absolutely lethal finisher. I think it makes way more sense to use him in that kind of capacity
That was why i asked if sharkie watched the game. Granted his goal was good but the rest of the game he was as usual like playing with one less.
He no longer runs, has no real threat in corners anymore and insists on taking every free kick available. Team played better when he was subbed.
He was incapable of receiving a ball all game when we recovered and tried to use him as the first pass to hold rotate and pass or to first time pass to the running mid fielders. So everytime that was attempted was a gift possession to Spain. And a lot more issues but what can i do when i read he was great...
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The thing I like about Wirtz' transfer is that he actually seemed to consider options, listen to the teams and the role they were planning for him and then picked the one with the most convincing plan. It could be just PR talk or whatever, but I still like the idea and it seems pretty level headed to me.
Not a single touch of football has taken place, but I like how lukewarm and drama-free this has been so far. Surely Bayern got snubbed a bit, but even that part has seemed pretty mild and reasonable given the stakes.
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EPT
