LDOG

Leon made all the difference. Without his serves in key moments Poland doesn't win today.   

He rests out with Canada but plays today. 

The men's volleyball roster is stronger than I expected, I think they are favorite for gold now.

Here's our song:

33 minutes ago, hckošice said:

and by the way, why exactly Paraguay ?

 

I keep thinking about it and I can nott find a single reason why. It is like someone threw a blind dart at the map and hit somewhere next to Asuncion

Because Conmebol HQ is in Paraguay and its president is almost always a paraguayan. They have a lot of political power. It's pretty telling that Chile doesn't get any game despite they were in the south american bid too.

This is:  

1. Stupid.

2. Humilliating (we're being given "scraps" by the europeans).  

3. Logistically a nightmare for our teams cuz it will worsen our chances to perform in the competition.

20 minutes ago, Laraja said:

Modern Pentathlon

Boxing

Sport Climbing

Equestrian Dressage

Equestrian Jumping

Equestrian Eventing

Handball

Field Hockey

Shooting

Diving

Water Polo

Surfing

Artistic Swimming

Breaking

Archery

Tennis

Sailing

 

I think those are the sports which give direct quotas... Please, correct me if I forgot any

So, continental gymnastics qualifier will not take place here as it was said months ago?

Could someone tell me which sports award quotas for Paris (other than some team sports and athletics/swimming)?

5 hours ago, Josh said:

 

 

Men’s Field Hockey: 

 

Women’s Field Hockey: 

 

 

So, we'll have 13 team tournaments in hockey? 

32 minutes ago, Josh said:

@LDOG don’t worry Argentina is safe for a World Rankings quota. 

I know that, it's besides the point.

I'm angry cuz I can't believe I saw this team give up 38 points from errors. 

Why do all canadian players "scratch" the ball when they serve and how it can possibly be this effective in disrupting reception?

I can't stand one more fucking serve error. 

9 minutes ago, rybak said:

Who have the biggest chance for quota here?  or  ?

India is 10 times better than anyone here but they also sometimes drop the ball in a mind-boggling way so you can never say they'll win 100% sure.

 defeated  10-2.  

Biggest score in history. 

Some random predictions: 

- Brazil will lose to at least one of GER, IRI and CUB (but probably still qualify). 

- Turkey will beat at least one of JPN, SLO or SER. 

- China won't win more than one match.

 will be 7th. 

Half of the 33 golds from 2019 are basically impossible to win again.

I don't even see how to reach 20. 

I'm in.

France played the main team (they shouldn't have) while Namibia rested players for Uruguay.

3 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Sadly certain parts of the world are basically permanent wasp nests. Sometimes it cools down for a bit, but there's always going to be whatever that kicks the nest and the whole thing blows up again, be that with actual war or non-stop bitching between countries (especially the whole big line between roughly Morocco east towards Turkey or so).

 

And now the Poland vs Ukraine bitching contest, nobody really cares about what the presidents of the countries say (especially now, because the international eyes are still firmly on Ukraine vs Russia and not on it's neighbours), but it does fill up a bit of space in the news broadcasts, so there we go.

"International eyes" = western europe/USA, who bitch all the time about stuff only they care about but since they are powerful we're all supposed to pretend it's the most important thing in the world.

27 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

Good god ...

 

To describe your "analysis" (didn't know that you were a close follower of german football, where did you get your expertise?) with "absurd" would be underselling it. You said that the main reason was the lack of quality and i brought up Morroco + Argentina (current world champion) + Croatia (finished 3rd at the world cup) to prove that you can easily contend for the title or at least make the semifinal with less quality than Germany has. When you say something like "Germany usually had its star players ..." i have to assume that you are either trying to troll or just have zero understanding of german football and still somehow feel qualified to give your opinion. Germany pretty much never had the most amount of talent, they always relied on "german mentality" and great teamwork. When they reached the final in 2002 or 3rd place in 2006 they had a bunch of nobodies that outperformed teams with tons of stars (France, Brazil, England, Portugal).

 

The players that started the last world cup final for Argentina played for the following clubs:

2 x Benfica

2 x Atletico

Brighton

Lyon

Aston Villa

Juventus

Tottenham

City (Alvarez was mostly a bench player for City if i remember correctly)

PSG

 

Only 2 of their starting players played for top 10 clubs and one of them (Alvarez) wasn't even a starter (if i remember correctly).

 

The players that started the 3rd place match for Croatia at the last world cup played for the following clubs:

3 x Zagreb

Bayern (Stanisic was lightyears away from being a regular for Bayern)

Leipzig

Tottenham

Rennes

Chelsea

Real

Hoffenheim

Split

 

Only Gvardiol, Modric and Kovacic would have (maybe, not sure if Kovacic would have started over guys like Kimmich/Goretzka/Gündogan) started for Germany.

 

Alvarez is a substitute sometimes only because Haaland is in the same team, he starts for almost every other club in the world.  

I do wonder which are those "top 10 clubs" you mention though.  

I'm guessing Bayern, Madrid, Barcelona, City, United, Liverpool, Arsenal, I guess you're including Chelsea and PSG and? 

The lack of quality in defense is appalling.  

Even the only good defender (Rudiger) looked like a scarecrow in the 3rd goal.   

But maybe they were trying to get the coach fired, who knows.

4 minutes ago, mrv86 said:

Oh come on! England was the toughest rival IMO, so the team should be able to concentrate in defeating the “weak” Chilean and Samoan squads, and go for a decider against Japan.

England had a red card 2 minutes into the match... 

The most embarassing performance of all time. Should just withdraw from the competition today.

I wouldn't write off anyone this time. Paraguay, Peru and Chile are very weak. Venezuela will 100% have a better campaign than the last time (for a variety of reasons). 

The top 5 are clear. There's a big distance in my view. 

 defeated  

They also won vs  (12th in WR) but lost to  and  

We have the best entry time in W 800, 1500 and 4th best in 400? I'm hopeful now.