LDOG

So, 7 places for qualification play-offs now. Possibly 8 if South Africa gives up african quota (no african nation ranked in top 20 after them). Excluding the top ranked nations from each continent we would have this for the draw of play-offs (assuming all these nations don't fail to advance at hockey series): Pot 1 Pot 2 ( ) Pot 3 Pot 4 Pot 1 teams can only draw pot 4 teams and pot 2 only pot 3. If South Africa gives up african quota China and Italy go a tier up and one more team is allowed in (because there would be 8 quotas).

Galatasaray IMO is the weakest team in that group, I say Schalke advances (and even in 1st place above Porto). Other than that I also give edge to Ajax over Benfica and to Lyon over Hoffenheim because of experience. And watch out for Man Utd if Mourinho isn't fired soon...

Those teams aren't as weak as they seem, especially Ajax has a good team for this season.

Serbian club will finish with -20 GD...

If Malaysia wins the final the olympic play-offs will become very complex on the men's side. You may say, "but South Africa will reject african quota so problem solved". No, if they do that the african quota will go to the 2nd placed team as long as they are ranked within top 20, which Egypt is. So, let's say ARG, AUS and BEL win the other continental quotas, We will still have Netherlands, India, Germany, England, NZ, Spain, Ireland, Pakistan, Canada and France all fighting for 6 places.

What a waste of an olympic quota

Pakistan playing very bad at half time mark 0-1, please wake up. (there is YouTube livestream, finally I can watch some hockey )

More than the result i'm surprised with the fact that it was a very even game in number of shots, penalty corners, etc. Normally these upsets in hockey happen when one team misses a ton of opportunities and also the straight-to-penalties format has favored upsets last few years, but it wasn't the case today. Malaysia is usually very bad against teams ranked above them except with India, for some reason.

Typical local right winger, wave argentinian flags in protests because they "defend the republic" but then are the first ones that want out of the country

He has negative h2h against all other top 10 players except Thiem against some of them very negative.

Raonic is overall better player than both Isner and Anderson. Only thing is his body is made of glass. For he has much more chances to win GS than the other two.

The two teams that reserved players at the world cup lost the semifinals, the tactic was useless... I hope Japan wins the final because I'd love more drama for the olympic play-offs, but I'm pretty sure India will win instead.

It's sad, but you will be happy to know that Poland beat Cyprus 17-0 today (?)

Pakistan has a good coach now (they stopped putting in charge awful pakistani coaches like the past few years) and their federation is slightly more organized now. On the other hand Korea is in total decline, I wouldn't be surprised if both their teams miss the OG for the first time in over 30 years.

And finally... the day came: Ginobili retires from basketball. Euroleague, Olympic and NBA x 4 champion, NBA All-Star x2. Up there with Gasol as the most succesful non-american basketball player ever. Even though I'm not a huge basketball fan he was protagonist of some of the fondest childhood memories I have about sport. Farewell Manu

Wawrinka leading Dimitrov, easy upset prediction. Dimi is not top 10 level currently.

For me the line is drawn depending on where the athlete was developed in his/her sport. If x country didn't have anything to do with the formation as an athlete of the person in question then for me that country is feeding from the system of another country. With this criteria for example Duplantis is (or should have been) american, while someone like Mo Farah is clearly british.

[hide] First Round September 9th - September 18th, 2018 24 Nations, 4 Groups, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Nations from each Group will qualify for the Second Round Group A Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 9th 2018, h. 19:30 Italy 3 0 Japan September 12th 2018, h. 17:00 Dominican Republic 0 3 Slovenia September 12th 2018, h. 20:30 Belgium 1 3 Argentina September 13th 2018, h. 17:00 Dominican Republic 0 3 Japan September 13th 2018, h. 21:15 Italy 3 0 Belgium September 14th 2018, h. 17:00 Japan 1 3 Slovenia September 14th 2018, h. 20:30 Argentina 3 0 Dominican Republic September 15th 2018, h. 17:00 Belgium 2 3 Slovenia September 15th 2018, h. 21:15 Italy 3 2 Argentina September 16th 2018, h. 17:00 Japan 3 2 Belgium September 16th 2018, h. 21:15 Dominican Republic 0 3 Italy September 17th 2018, h. 17:00 Belgium 3 0 Dominican Republic September 17th 2018, h. 20:30 Argentina 2 3 Slovenia September 18th 2018, h. 17:00 Japan 0 3 Argentina September 18th 2018, h. 21:15 Italy 3 1 Slovenia Group B Date & Time (GMT +3) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 12th 2018, h. 14:00 France 3 0 China September 12th 2018, h. 17:00 Netherlands 0 3 Canada September 12th 2018, h. 20:30 Brazil 3 0 Egypt September 13th 2018, h. 17:00 Egypt 0 3 Canada September 13th 2018, h. 20:30 Brazil 2 3 France September 14th 2018, h. 17:00 China 3 2 Netherlands September 14th 2018, h. 20:30 France 3 0 Egypt September 15th 2018, h. 17:00 Canada 3 0 China September 15th 2018, h. 20:30 Netherlands 0 3 Brazil September 16th 2018, h. 17:00 China 3 1 Egypt September 16th 2018, h. 20:30 Netherlands 0 3 France September 17th 2018, h. 17:00 Egypt 1 3 Netherlands September 17th 2018, h. 20:30 Brazil 3 1 Canada September 18th 2018, h. 17:00 China 0 3 Brazil September 18th 2018, h. 20:30 Canada 1 3 France Group C Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 12th 2018, h. 14:00 Cameroon 2 3 Tunisia September 12th 2018, h. 17:00 Australia 0 3 Russia September 12th 2018, h. 20:30 United States 3 1 Serbia September 13th 2018, h. 17:00 Australia 0 3 United States September 13th 2018, h. 20:30 Cameroon 0 3 Serbia September 14th 2018, h. 17:00 Australia 3 1 Cameroon September 14th 2018, h. 20:30 Russia 3 0 Tunisia September 15th 2018, h. 17:00 Serbia 3 0 Tunisia September 15th 2018, h. 20:30 United States 2 3 Russia September 16th 2018, h. 17:00 Cameroon 0 3 United States September 16th 2018, h. 20:30 Serbia 3 0 Australia September 17th 2018, h. 17:00 Russia 3 0 Cameroon September 17th 2018, h. 20:30 Australia 3 1 Tunisia September 18th 2018, h. 17:00 United States 3 0 Tunisia September 18th 2018, h. 20:30 Serbia 0 3 Russia Group D Date & Time (GMT +2) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 9th 2018, h. 20:30 Bulgaria 3 0 Finland September 12th 2018, h. 17:00 Iran 3 0 Puerto Rico September 12th 2018, h. 20:30 Cuba 1 3 Poland September 13th 2018, h. 17:00 Puerto Rico 0 3 Poland September 13th 2018, h. 20:30 Iran 1 3 Bulgaria September 14th 2018, h. 17:00 Finland 3 2 Cuba September 14th 2018, h. 20:30 Bulgaria 3 0 Puerto Rico September 15th 2018, h. 17:00 Cuba 0 3 Iran September 15th 2018, h. 20:30 Poland 3 0 Finland September 16th 2018, h. 17:00 Puerto Rico 1 3 Finland September 16th 2018, h. 20:30 Cuba 0 3 Bulgaria September 17th 2018, h. 17:00 Cuba 3 0 Puerto Rico September 17th 2018, h. 20:30 Iran 2 3 Poland September 18th 2018, h. 17:00 Finland 0 3 Iran September 18th 2018, h. 20:30 Bulgaria 2 3 Poland [/hide]

I would tolerate better if it were like that, but still, something just doesn't feel right. It's an industry that works perfectly fine by itself and IOC would have to deal with the corporate interests of all those gaming companies, which could pervert everything that olympics are supposed to stand for... also, would the best esports players even care about playing for free? we don't want another football/baseball-like cashgrab at the prime sport event in the world.

Esports stream has much more views than all other channels combined lol. The sad part is that almost all people watching probably don't care about anything else in the asian games. Really hoping this isn't the future of multisport games, but money will likely say yes...

Ok, the IOC doesn't really make the rules then... I mean, FIFA can decide this by themselves, FIH allowed us to play both hockey tournaments which shouldn't be allowed to the host nation... who knows.

We have the first draw of a team sport, and it's futsal: Boys Group A - Group B - Girls Group C - Group D - Apparently Brazil rejected the girls quota last minute. Wikipedia says it was because "they chose to compete in boys futsal" but that makes no sense because in beach handball, rugby and field hockey there are some nations that will play both genders! plus, Brazil didn't qualify for any other girl team sport, so they aren't binded by the "only one team sport for each gender" rule that all countries except us have to follow. The same happened to Iran girls, is there some special rule for futsal that I don't know about?

Seems like Chile has a decent chance for a medal in an olympic event (C2 500 women).

I know that, I meant "insane" for the majority of swimmers. The drugs/inhuman training regime are starting to take their toll...

WOW what a "poor" performance from Li. It's really weird because her time in the 1500 was insane.