Yeah, he’s a madman! But our own Antonio Rüdiger also likes a little trash talk from time to time…
If someone likes reading devastating critiques of incompetent performers as much as I do, even when they are unknown to me, they could enjoy this:
Yes, I also like reading devastating critiques of restaurants, books, movies… as long as they are acerbic and caustic.
Am I right to assume the booing and jeering of the Iranian national anthem would have come from Iranian’s living in the US who are supporting the team but hating on the regime?
Me too. An enjoyable read.
Alexi Lalas commentary is just like they way he played: Boorish and with brute force. There’s no finesse with Lalas.
Lalas is unpleasant and should be gone immediately, but a kind of cottage industry has sprung up around dunking on him. I guess it gets the clicks.
Probably, they’ve also been trying (sometimes successfully sometimes less so) to smuggle in lion flags.
How is that just not a yellow.
Belgium had been dominating the second half, and the Iranian goalie has been magnificent in keeping them scoreless. Now a dubious red card has given Iran a big advantage.
On replay looks more DOGSO.
As an aside, I’m glad that we don’t have such an unwieldy acronym for that. We just call it “Notbremse”, “emergency brake”.
What the German language being known for, of course, is a lack of “unwieldiness”.
Belgium, the No. 10 ranked nation in the world, has just drawn to two underdogs.
1-1 Egypt, 0-0 Iran.
ChatGPT tells me that never have all six games in a group competition ended in draws.
Group G, which has Belgium, Iran, New Zealand, and Egypt, is halfway there. I will be rooting for a draw in the New Zealand/Egypt game tonight.
If a group finishes with all draws AND all teams score the same number of goals, what’s the tie breaker? There’s no KFTM in group play, so do they draw straws/lots? Highest bribe advances? Steel cage death match?
Fair play (yellow and red cards), followed by FIFA ranking.
ETA: Which makes Belgium’s red card potentially extremely impactful.
Jingoistic Americans would be my bet, with some exiled Iranians.
“Ultimo hombre” (Last man) in Spanish
So, how did Iran play? did they went toe to toe with Belgium or did they use the understandable tactic of “Park the bus and Allah as number nine”?
They pretty much packed the defensive area and their goalie played magnificently. Until the red card, then they got more aggressive on offense.
Belgium had many more scoring chances than Iran, and they controlled the ball far longer.