First in 28 years for Scotland.
Football’s coming home
Spain just qualified with a 2 - 2 against Turkey, the first two goals they have conceded during this qualifying, winning every single match until today. So yes, I guess that comes close to roaring. We’ll see whether they can carry this momentum to North America next summer.
Compare that to Germany, who also won 5 of their 6 games, only losing 0-2 to Slovakia in the first game and only conceding one more goal in the following 5 games. But except for the last and decisive 6-0 over Slovakia, all games we played shite, and we don’t know where we stand.
I was in a meeting for the entirely of the second half of the Scotland-Denmark match. Seems I missed an absolute cracker.
As someone who was a football mad teenager in the 1980s, and then missed the whole of the 1990s because I moved to a godforsaken football deser, I feel like I’ve been waiting for this for decades.
That was the greatest Scotland match I’ve ever seen and the three best Scotland goals I’ve ever seen (Gemmill was before my time).
We were so poor for so long (and Denmark were so good, and even with ten men were all over us for long periods) but in the last 10 minutes of regular time we remembered what we could do if we tried. So yes, the greatest match, three superb goals, moments to live for.
Whisper: “that was Norway, not Denmark”
Dammit. I was hoping it was still a general Scandinavian mishmash, but no.
Last year the US men’s team was eliminated in the Copa America tournament by Uruguay, 1-0. Last night in a friendly, the US team crushed Uruguay 5-1, scoring 4 first-half goals. Before the game, Uruguay was 15th in the FIFA rankings, while USA was 16th. A big win for USA, 3 days after defeating Paraguay 2-1.
You only say that because you finally won the last one!
As corrupt as it likes, huh? Top this selfie if you can:
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Cristiano Ronaldo as a personal present from the murderer MBS, with Mafiantino and Elmo. How could you top that?
Oh, I see. Wasn’t that difficult. Hm.
What worries me is that corrupt (pseudo?)-dictators have in the past made their countries win the World Cup, by hook or by crook (see Mussolini, and (maybe?) Videla), the levels of hook and crook required to make the U.S. win this one would be orders of magnitude greater (Italy and Argentina had competitive teams) but if Infantino and Trump really put their hearts to it I’m sure they can surpass any previous corruption record…
Funnily enough, I think the potential wave of sponsor lawsuits might put Infantino off that. But in the long run it just depends on who slips him enough cash, so I can’t rule it out.
I remember South Korea beating Italy (much glee), then Spain (oh jammer!) to finally succumb to Germany (there the powers that be lost their nerve, thank Godott). The refereeing was unblievable, and yes, I had the same thought. Again and again. We shall see.
When Mussolini was in power, the World Cup was just 16 teams. It will be much harder for FIFA to rig the United States as the winner when there are 47 other competitors in the field.
And given Trump’s blabbermouth reputation, I don’t think FIFA would trust Trump to keep such a scheme secret. They might fear he would rant on Truth Social to the effect of, “We had an AGREEMENT, referees!!! How could you make those calls against us during the USA vs. Germany game!?”
I have the utmost faith in Trump and Infantino’s corruption skillz against a pisser like Benito.
This could be more of a problem, but nothing that FIFA could not ignore with the right number of trucks full of benjamins…
The only way a corrupt ref helps America beat a country like Argentina is if the ref gives Argentina five red cards and sends them off the field.
Of course we’ll win, we’ll just deport all the other teams for being foreigners and win by forfeit.
Will they let the Haitian team in? They will eat all the cats and dogs…
Hmm if you were handicapping teams like you handicap players in chess, what would England/France/Spain need to give up for it to be 50/50 with the US? 1.5 players? That is 11v10 for the first half and then 11v9 for the second.