The Soccer Thread (Version 8)

Cheers, Bob. Didn't last three months in South Wales.

 

Unreal. A panic move to bring him in and a panic move to fire him. The Brits seemed to love using him as a punching bag and it would have been nice to shove it in their face if he was able to keep the Swans up.

 

Man, that's some BS.

 

Disappointing -- really had Sigurdsson and a bunch of meat puppets, and the defending meat puppets were rotten at that. As a fan of another American-owned Premiership club that was an obvious sinking ship (Aston Villa), Bradley sounded like an American version of Remi Garde from the beginning. To make a weak American football comparison -- hiring Bradley was the equivalent of running a draw on 3rd-and-10 in hopes you could catch the defense off guard.

I hope he can regroup at some second-division club somewhere and then make another run at a top European league in a couple years. I wouldn't make it the Premier League, though. The crap he got over stuff like "road games" and "PKs" was utter bullshit. Maybe somewhere like Spain or Germany?

 

Giroud's goal on Saturday was unreal.

 

Caught the replay of it. It was nuts. The goalie basically admitted he didn't make a great effort on the ball because he thought there was no way that shot was going in the way Giroud kicked it.

 

What's funny is that Mkhitaryan had a similar goal on Boxing Day (albeit on an uncalled offsides) but this was even better.

 

Are you ready for a 48-team World Cup in 2026? Burkina Faso is so in now.

I'm certain 2026 will be here, too. Which, by the way, is whatever centennial 250 years represent.

EDIT: Done deal. Unanimous vote.

Money-grabbing Fifa render the World Cup irrelevant with its 48-team absurdity

 

So, pretty much if you don't qualify for the WC starting in 2026 then you're either the Faroe Islands or you're firing your coach.

 

So, is that 6 teams for CONCACAF? Gives the Hex a new meaning.

 

I wonder if we'll see a CONCACAF-CONMEBOL merger after the success of the Copa America last summer. Currently, 5-6 CONMEBOL teams and 3-4 CONCACAF teams get in. Together they can negotiate to get, say, 14 spots in the expanded field, without having to compete in playoffs with other federations, and play a Euro-style tournament with groups.

 

You get more teams, you get more teams, every tournament gets more teams!

Report: Gold Cup to expand to 16 teams in 2019