The Soccer Thread (Version 13) — Winter World Cup Edition

Don't diss the thousands of people coming from the Carolinas to watch MLS in Atlanta.

 

I'm sure the many fan will forgive that I didn't lump them in with Alabama and Mississippi.

 

https://www.charlottefootballclub.com/

 

I'm sorry, you need to find different abbreviations for Charlotte FC than something that is dangerously close to Clit FC

I'm currently dying reading Clit FC: Fill the Fortress.

 

You'll certainly guarantee that men can't find it.

 

I am a late convert to soccer. I hated to play it as a child because I found it frustrating, having never played long enough to get past the stage where kids were often just kicking each other in the shins or punting it far downfield. But having watched my daughter's progression through the sport, I have come to absolutely love soccer and almost everything about it. Waking up on Sunday mornings and watching full games before noon. The breathtaking skill. The running clock. The rabid fan bases. I can't get enough of it, and I once wrote columns lamenting how boring it all was, a regret.

I just finished reading "The Club: How the Premier League Became the Richest, Most Disruptive Business in Sport," and can't recommend it enough.

This year I took the plunge and adopted a rooting interest, Tottenham, and have even bought their gear and wear it proudly. They're one of the so-called Big Six, but they never win shit lol, so no one can accuse me of jumping on the bandwagon. They did qualify for the Champions League -- top four of the Premier League -- so that's been exciting.

For this WC, one of my friends created a pool and each of the 16 participants pulled two teams -- a 1 or 2 seed and a 3 or 4 seed. The buy in was $50 and the winner gets $800, second gets the runoff, etc.

I pulled France and Morocco. My daughter -- I paid for her entry because it's now a shared love -- pulled Senegal and Japan.

Regardless of who wins the 2022 World Cup, my lifelong love of the sport was born this year.

Here's hoping the U.S. beats the ayatollah off Iran tomorrow.

 

I played as a kid, in high school, for my college's club team, my younger brother was a D1 player, my child was an excellent HS player who could have played DIII had they wanted to. I love the Premier League, watch many Microville Tech games, and have been to numerous Timbers games, even though I'm not really a Timbers fan and hardly ever watch them on TV.

But the USMNT team, after 2014, has been so consistently disappointing. The 2018 qualifying was such an absolute disaster and if they don't advance on Tuesday I'll just check out for another 2-3 years before they regain my interest again. Off-year tournaments and friendlies just don't have any appeal to me.

The WC should probably be every 2 or 3 years. Four years just seems to be such a long time between events.

 

Exactly.

Soccer has never been more popular in this country.

But the US Men's National Team continues to fail us.

 

My brother is a hard-core sports fans -- Dodgers, Trojans, Lakers. Now, he would rather watch a soccer game than the NFL. But he likes Trump, too. SMH.

 

Olympics?

 

We created a pool for 8 friends/family members with an emphasis on also picking bad teams. Here are the rules.
We will do a snake draft (the 8th pick also drafts 9th, and back up the order). Each person will have 4 teams/nations.

Payouts:

• WC Winner: $100
• WC Runner up: $50
• WC 3rd place: $30
• WC 4th place $15

Other payouts, as follows:

• Worst team, based on least points (win =3 points, tie = 1 poin, loss = 0 points. Worst goal differential is tie breaker) in round robin play: $50
• 2nd worst team based on least points in RR play: $30
• Team with fastest goal to start game: $25
• Team with most total cards (yellow = 1 point; red = 2 points) in round robin play: $25
• Team with highest total goals scored in their games (offense and defense) in round robin play:$25
• Person with most teams advancing to the knockout stage: $50 - to be split if there is a tie among our group

 

The first Brazilian player to touch the ball in the buildup (Richarlison?) came from an offsides position to play the ball in his half. It was close but the right call.