Thagard

Hair fetishism was almost put to oblivion but Sjoeke Nuesken misses the penalty.

Yes, unfortunately Poland has to improve in order to be able to stand a chance against tough opponents as they met here. But there is hope and I guess you will qualify to Euro more often, even if the qualifier against Austria was very hard worked for. To make a comparison, the actual difference between Sweden and Poland is similar to that between Poland and Romania.

Psychology has a big effect on sport nowadays. Poland manages to keep somewhat head over the water with Germany and sinks while meeting Sweden. Netherlands lost big to good teams this year, for example against Germany. Some people might have seen this coming. Oh, and the earth spinning quicker is taking us BC instead of further in time?

Incredibly weak performance from the Netherlands. Unfortunately, I guess they are as good as eliminated in this group of death.

No surprises so far. Morocco v Zambia was a though fought match. I think Morocco will beat Senegal with less effort.

Yeah, Spain is having lots of fun at this tournament.

You developing a romantic interest? You Spock? Hope you're not angry. I always liked couscous. And being a fan of Mostaganem football team for a few years now.

Incredible how much unbalance between groups A and D. Group D is the group of death.

Oh, mea culpa. Ronaldo didn't make it temporarily to Al Hilal.

Up to this moment it seems Ronaldo enjoyed more happy days in his old days than Messi. Let's see if this tournament gives a boost to any of them, or puts them on a trajectory towards retirement.

"Make Middle East Great Again!" Now, I am sure I don't have to point to the person who said this. But, still a question arises. When was the Middle East Great? In times of Herod the Great? Or was it with Cyrus the Great? Cause I'm pretty sure that moment couldn't have been that fatidic day of October 10th in Karbala.

Happy Earth Day!

Letexier and his VAR team just made a chaos out of Saint Etienne vs Lyon.

It's sometimes difficult for the referees these days with all the new things implemented lately, VAR included. While trying to let the match flow as much as possible, and give an imposant image on the same time, now you must also think on decisions related to VAR. I understand refereeing became more difficult than it used to be. On another note, I'd like to see Arsenal win the final against Inter.

Apparently, they didn't enter because of financial reasons. Info on the Wikipedia page of the event.

Greenland absent...

I am sorry. I know what you're going through. I lost my father in autumn 2023 and his condition deteriorated since spring. He had days when he was not conscient of what was happening to him, followed by normal days of perfection lucidity, when he would talk with you for hours. So basically different problems but still suffering and our struggle to cope seeing him suffer. You gotta be tough and hoping things will better, if they can and that he doesn't suffer much.

Saudi Arabia - China 0-0 at half time. A re-enactment of the famous Battle of Talas River of 751, which was won by the Arabs, but without other consequences. Interestingly, Saudis could win today too as China was reduced to 10 after the horrible attack of no.11 Lin on Kaddish, who had to be substituted due to head injury.

What happened with the 29 minutes interruption in Iran Vs UAE 1st half? Have they never played on Nowruz before or is this a start of a new tradition?

Vivianne Miedema scores a brace to give Manchester City an unlikely advantage over Chelsea into the Champions League quarter finals second leg. The difference was made after the break with none of the Chelsea stars as Lucy Bronze, Lauren James or Mayra Ramirez able to counter on the board.

No, you are right. I usually watch Concacaf football competitions and as this commentary was somewhat similar to ones of lady commentators from the Caribbean, I made that connection LOL. Nice performance from Poland.

I thought she was American. They tend to miss pronounce names.

Joy Beune of Netherlands takes gold over veteran Czech Martina Sablikova with another talented young Dutch, Merel Conijn who settles for bronze.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rUZ4tzOlI Day 1 starts tonight with men's 5000 meters and women's 3000 meters, both races being won by Dutch athletes last year. Will Netherlands crown again, this time on Norwegian track? Later we get the men and women team sprint races.

Italian football had its share of shocking surprises this season, some that maybe you would not see years ago. So after Internazionale beating Lazio 6-0 away earlier in the season, yesterday it was Atalanta Bergamo's time to put 4 unanswered goals in Torino over Juventus. Taking the post to a more close theme towards LA 2028, given the birthdate of the scorers last night, I'd say Retegui and Lookman would have chance to make one of the over 23 players in the squad, of course if their teams qualify.