In Scotland, my beloved Hearts passed a big test today. I have real hope that my lifelong wait for a title north of the border is going to come to an end this year.
I started supporting Hearts and Arsenal at age 8 or 9 in Pakistan just because of their cool names. Well that and everyone around me backing Liverpool, Manchester United, Aberdeen or the old firm. My second team was and is Wolves. I was a bloodthirsty little git!
Holy moly, could this be a great season for you!
Oh, never mind…
Actually if Tottenham survive as a result of Wolves being so poor, I will be very happy. I never want to see Tottenham relegated.
And Barca wins La Liga in a 2-0 against Real with two beautiful goals. I don’t really hate many teams, but Real I hate the most, those pretentious pricks with a god complex, that’s why I’m glad about this humiliation.
Barça has just beaten Real Madrid and are therefore champions in the Spanish Liga. Ninja’d by @EinsteinsHund but I have more to add:
So after 264 official games against each other, the result so far is 164 wins for Real Madrid (447 goals), 164 wins for Barça (438 goals) and 52 draws. (cite in Spanish with detailed match types and categories).
Regarding Liga games alone it is 80 wins for Madrid (309 goals), 77 wins for Barça (312 goals) and 35 draws.
After Bayern beat them in the UCL I enjoyed a brief moment of Schadenfreude by checking out their Reddit sub. Since then, Reddit occasionally cues that sub up again, and let me tell you, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Their fans are constantly bickering and squabbling, and it’s a delight.
As an afterthought to the Barca-Real game: I only read today that Hansi Flick’s father had died just hours before the game, and that both teams played with black ribbons and a minute of silence was held before the game in remembrance. That must have been very tough for Flick.
VAR continues to be a blight on the game:
True words “If you look at something for long enough you’ll find something to give”
One hand pulling him down from behind, another arm across his neck on his arm. I have no problem with this call, but it sure took a long time.
And if it wasn’t that I’m sure they could go back a few minutes more and found something…
VAR was supposed to eliminate uncertainty and debates about officiating, it hasn’t done that, but hey! at least now you get to wait for 4 minutes to see if your team scored 
Eh, we aren’t going to agree. For more than three decades I’ve watched an endless stream of guesswork by referees of varying quality, and at least now I can see it and judge for myself…with obvious fouls like a clear handball in the box getting picked up.
Part of that might be growing up on NFL games where there are already long pauses in the action…association football still feels fast to me.
After having seen many times that Barça got eliminated in important games because of faulty decisions I really hope that some day soon they will get VAR to work properly. Because it is a good idea, and there is too much at stake. It’s a shame they are doing it badly.
Of course they are. FIFA and UEFA, what do you expect? It’s a wonder it isn’t even worse.
I think that’s our main point of contention yes, I prefer wrong decisions made quickly to maybe-less-wrong-but-there’s-no-guarantee-and-it-opens-a-whole-can-of-worms-too decisions that take a lot of time.
I simply feel that being able to celebrate a goal immediately is more important that whatever VAR provides, the tradeoff is not worth it for me.
I feel like it’s not a good idea, I supported it originally but after seeing it in action I can’t support it anymore, let’s go back to the old style until FIFA is no longer corrupt…
I won’t let you off the hook that easily!
I was going to say “the heat death of the universe” but that was too soon.
I still believe VAR would be a good idea, like liberal parliamentary democracy, if done right. Alas! The heat death of the universe does not sound like a bad idea either.
Can we agree on a cold beer as an intermediate goal? At least it is attainable.
I feel like VAR is implemented pretty well in the Bundesliga. They have a semi-automated offside system and an emphasis on obvious calls. And they’re a lot faster, though there’s still room to improve.
So Frodo is complaining about the slowest VAR decision that was taken this whole season. It was just a consequencial one. Which may be the reason it took so long.
Do you by chance also have a statistic for those leagues for how often a VAR call was the wrong decision?