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

They don’t play baseball. So baseball caps don’t exist over there. And they save their bowlers for formal occasions.

 

Baseball caps are on sale at the souvenir stands of every rugby and soccer team in France. Even actual American baseball caps are frequently seen there. Of course, they have more sun than England.

 

I'm watching NF-SOU right now and it's raining. A few dad caps in the crowd, but mostly just a bunch of wet rats looking forlorn.

Weirdos. Wear a cap.

 

I was joking.

 

My club's continued existence in the Premier League ...

 

**Heavy sigh**

 

He’s just making sure his great-great-great grandchildren are taken care of financially.

Seriously, I hope his team sucks.

 

The scuttlebutt I've heard so far is linking him with Al Hilal. If that's true, he'll be trotted around the whole continent as Hilal regularly wins trophies and makes deep runs into the Asian Champions League.

 

Up the Cobblers! (I have a distant cousin in Scotland who played for them for several years so adopted them as my lower-level club.)

 

Messi is already playing for a state run Middle East team so it’s not like he’s only making moral choices. He’s won everything at this point and it’s not like he’s going to be the savior of MLS, so I don’t care if he grabs the massive bag.

 

Is there a short story about what has gone on in Champions League to this point? Seems like a weird group of teams left.

 

A lot of it comes down to the draw. Once they get to the round of 16, the only seeding is that all eight ties feature a group-winner against a non-group winner and that teams from the same country and same group can't be drawn together.

That stipulation led to PSG getting drawn against Bayern in the first knockout round, in which PSG didn't score a goal in 180 minutes and ate shit. Again. That also led to Benfica and Club Brugge, probably the two weakest teams in both pots, being drawn against each other.

When they got down to the quarterfinal eight, the three remaining Italian teams (and Benfica) were on the same half of the draw, which meant that Inter is 90 minutes away from a Champions League final after playing two Portuguese sides (Porto, Benfica) and their cross-town rivals in the knockout, which is kind of hilarious because they got out of a group with Bayern and Barca.

Meanwhile on the other half of the draw, Man City wiped out two of the three remaining Bundesliga entries, RB Leipzig and Bayern, while Chelsea took care of Borussia Dortmund just before their current faceplant. It remains to be seen if City will actually win this time or if Real Madrid will do Real Madrid shit. I'm kind of betting on the latter, but damn, Erling Haaland is unplayable.

As long as they give so many slots to the big clubs and draw it randomly, there are going to be lumpy years. There was a Madrid derby in the knockout rounds in four consecutive years from 2014-17.

Speaking of Italian teams, there's still a chance we could have all-Serie A Europa League final between Juve and Roma, though Juve is playing 55-time Europa League champs Sevilla, so probably not.

For the real sickos, West Ham United are still in the semifinals of the Europa Conference League, which start tomorrow at the Olympic Stadium against AZ (the other side is Fiorentina, which is owned by an American and got a lengthy 60 Minutes profile back in March, against Basel).