LDOG

UAE-Qatar, get ready for gulf war II 

Raonic would have been a much harder opponent...
 
I really need a delpo comeback now, I can't watch chumps like Pouille in GS semifinals. 
  
 

How do you know this? Is that information released? 

One of our female players signed with Olympique Lyon. The most important news for our women football ever, I think. 

^ or if the ref didn't save you with Argentina. You get those iranian referees, you win  
 
 
Just a joke. Egypt deserved to pass anyway.
 

Ouch, didn't know that.
 
But.... There is also the possibility that Angola beats us and ties with both in 4pts  if we keep losing balls in attack like today it wouldn't surprise me. 

This is the scene in Argentina..
 
Tv pública: the state channel. They show football NT matches and world cup in their main channel. However, they have a sport dedicated channel (called deportv). In that one they show documentaries or interviews about sport most of the time but also national leagues of minor sports like handball, hockey or volleyball. They broadcasted volleyball wch last year and now handball wch.  
  
ESPN: has 3 channels. Focus on american sports obviously (NBA, NFL, MLB). They also show a lot of tennis (all GS and M1000) and a lot of Rugby (Argentina NT, super rugby and European leagues). They also do the big Tours of cycling, the golf majors, big competitions of field hockey, some motosport and some obscure sports like is tradition of them. Overall, they are the channel that shows the less football here, though they have their good share of it as well.  
  
TyC Sports: used to show a lot of minor sports but now they show/talk 20 hours of football a day. Still, they show national league matches of basketball/volleyball (one per week lol). Their main thing, however, is that they do all multi-sport events (south american, panamerican and olympic games). It's their only redeeming quality these days.  
  
Fox Sports: trash. Only football all day since they have the rights for Argentina league and Copa Libertadores. Bizarrelly, in their second channel they show WWE and MMA since they have the rights for some reason.   
  
PS. Here is a list of the olympic sports that never ever get broadcasted here outside the olympics: Badminton, Table Tennis, Triathlon, Modern Pentathlon, Sailing, Taekwondo, Waterpolo, Archery, Fencing, Shooting, all winter sports except figure skating.
I don't remember a broadcast of even WCh of any these sports.

Reducing to 15 players a sport which has 11 starters and constant substitutions is simply dumb.
 
I also don't think 17 players would be optimal for a football squad with the amount of injuries and suspensions you see in that sport.
 
 
As for reductions, I always said I'm against team events of individual sports, so there I guess...
 
Maybe sailing has too many people in windsurf and laser events.

If you get out boxing and weightlifting you have tons of quotas. I can see that happening in Paris 2024

With that condition then it's very difficult for a player from Korea, Japan or Australia to win since all their best players go abroad. All winners will be from KSA, Qatar, UAE and China leagues. 

One of our female players signed with Olympique Lyon. The most important news for our women football ever, I think. 

B)  
A)  
B) just specify who decides about special dispensations.

Bahrain scored  
 
Sorry, I learned today that the curly hair player is injured and he's not playing this tournament.  
 
Syria will be the surprise then  

I lived two magical weeks at the youth olympics. An opportunity to live olympics in my country that probably won't repeat in my lifetime.
 
Other than that I found the sports year boring in general. I don't care much about the winter olympics (also didn't help that our tv didn't broadcast it for the first time in two decades) and Argentina performed TERRIBLE in all my favorite summer sports.
 
So, I'll make an average and say "satisfactory"
 
 

I absolutely hate these last week of december/first week of january.
 
I'm on vacation so I have lots of time to watch tv yet there is NOTHING interesting to watch. Only european league matches which I don't really care about and some garbage tennis tournaments.
 
Ok, back to watching series I guess...

With this set up it's easy for me to predict the teams that will go to Tokyo.
 
Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Serbia, Russia, Italy, Netherlands, USA, Dominican Republic, China, Cameroon... and Korea or Thailand.  

She's been under investigation for like 5 years already. And in various cases, not just one. 
 
And no, she doesn't have the power to kill anyone. At least not anymore.  
  
Anyway, nothing ever happens with these investigations for corruption in Argentina, they are a joke. Some previous president (Carlos Menem) was sentenced back in 2001 for corruption and he was imprisoned only for one year and in his house lol. 

Because it's a nickname and not her actual first name?  
  
Edit: whooosh

FIH released new men's world ranking after world cup:
 
1-  2-  3-  4-  5-  6-  7- / 8-  9-  10-  11-  12-  13-  14-  15-  16-  17-  18-  19-  20-   
 
Remember the ranking is important for the seeding of OQ play-offs. There will be 7 play-off matches (14 teams total).
 
Let's make a simulation of what would it look like if Australia, Argentina and Belgium win their continental ch. Japan doesn't participate ofc, and I will also
assume South Africa will reject the african quota but still participate in the play-offs.
 
Olympic play-offs draw simulation
 
Upper seeding (three matches)
 
Possible match-ups.... (seeds 1-3)    vs (seeds 12-14)     
 
Lower seeding (four matches)   
 
Possible match-ups.... (seeds 4-7)      vs (seeds 8-11)     

FIH released new men's world ranking after world cup:
 
1-  2-  3-  4-  5-  6-  7- / 8-  9-  10-  11-  12-  13-  14-  15-  16-  17-  18-  19-  20-   
 
Remember the ranking is important for the seeding of OQ play-offs. There will be 7 play-off matches (14 teams total).
 
Let's make a simulation of what would it look like if Australia, Argentina and Belgium win their continental ch. Japan doesn't participate ofc, and I will also
assume South Africa will reject the african quota but still participate in the play-offs.
 
Olympic play-offs draw simulation
 
Upper seeding (three matches)
 
Possible match-ups.... (seeds 1-3)    vs (seeds 12-14)     
 
Lower seeding (four matches)   
 
Possible match-ups.... (seeds 4-7)      vs (seeds 8-11)     

IMPORTANT
 
-Remember that still some of these teams could fail to reach the play-offs. Especially those that have to qualify through world hockey series.
 
-As you can see the biggest loser in the ranking is France, since they are forced to play bigger teams. After their great performance in WC I thought they would reach a higher ranking but I was wrong. Still, the difference with the next ranked team (China) is only 4 points. The good news for France is that China esentially won't have any opportunity to win ranking points other than the hockey series. Meanwhile France will play both hockey series and European division II championship. If they perform well in these competitions they will surpass China for sure (and remember, there is still the possibility that China fails to qualify for the play-offs at the hockey series).

Will I manage to squander 2 medals on the last day? keep tuned for this and more.

I have changed opinion about some after seeing qualifaction methods and performances...
 
Basketball men
 
Handball men
 
Handball women
 
Field hockey men
 
Field hockey women
 
Volleyball men
 
 

we just heard an interesting story about 1978 FIFA World Cup. this is about how much England and Scotland hate each other in football
 
The night before Iran-Scotland match, Iranian coach had a surprising guest in his hotel room. Ron Greenwood, England NT manager at the time (England failed to qualify for that World Cup) who came to Cordoba in Argentina to help Iranian coach about the Scotland match !!! this sounds like nothing nowadays because everybody knows everybody but remember at the time Iranian coaches were living in a cave and had no clue about European teams. after 2-3 hours meeting with Greenwood Iranian coaches decided to make a change in startling lineup because Greenwood advised them to put someone "dirty" on Scotland's star Archie Gemmill. they used someone who never played as starter to stop Gemmill. and that guy didn't just stop their star but he also scored the equalizing goal  for Iran in second half (which was Iran's first ever goal at the World Cup in history) 
 
Scotland was a very good team at the time they were even thinking about winning the Cup , they even beat the Netherlands (eventual runner up) after this but still got eliminated because of that draw against Iran.
 
the whole story came to the light here because the guy who scored that goal "Iraj Danaeifard" just passed away few days ago.

Only 10k traveled from Argentina. I would say a good other 30k were argentinians living in Europe. The rest spanish who had interest in the game.  
  
That extra time was incredibly dramatic! The 3 first goals were all beautiful and the last one absolutely epic with the river player running the ball into empty net with all boca supporters behind it.