OlympicsFan

In long course your women are lightyears away from USA, Canada, Australia and China. It would be the biggest miracle in the history of sport if your women would reach that level in the foreseeable future. There are probably half a dozen other nations that are at least as good as the Netherlands. Your only swimmer who is even close to world class in the 200 free is Steenbergen. I think in Paris the absolute perfect case for the Netherlands would be 5th place in the relay + Steenbergen somehow sneaking into the individual final. At this point it is difficult to imagine the Netherlands winning more than 2 medals (2 x Kamminga) in Paris.

1) There are also black people in Argentina ... 2) Colombia and Brazil have far more visible black populations than pretty much all other southern american countries, but of course that has to do with the history of the slave trade. According to Wikipedia Brazil has the biggest "african diaspora" with 14.5 million, followed by Colombia with 4.6 million, Ecuador with 1.1 million, Venezuela with 1 million and Peru with 800k.

According to Wikipedia there are only roughly 150k afro-argentines, which is a tiny fraction of the total population. Not sure why argentina should have more black players ...

What were the odds that his penalty would land in France of all places?

Croatian fans did the same with the words of the canadian coach, so this childish behavior isn't limited to argentinian fans.

Good observation. This is why Brazil didn't stand a chance from the beginning.

Very wise words. If people wouldn't let something happen, then said thing wouldn't happen ...

Without the huge african immigrant community France would be far worse/close to irrelevant in football/basketball.

It might be closer to reality to call it an european derby. 7 of the 11 players who started for Morocco yesterday were born in Europe.

The following statistic is summing up how crazy football can be: https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/zgutfy/just_before_the_quarter_finals_big_chances Morocco only created 3 big chances in their first 4 matches (but went on to make the semifinal), Belgium on the other hand created 8 big chances in only 3 matches (and got eliminated during group stage). This tournament shows that defense wins tournaments. Teams like Germany or Belgium had tons of chances, but noone who was able to convert them. On the other hand teams like Croatia or Morocco barely had any chances, but those teams were great at converting them and also played great defense.

Great to see that our algerian friend is so happy about Morocco doing great, considering that Algeria and Morocco arent necessarily known as best friends ...

No, but i heard him ...

7 players out of the moroccon starting 11 weren't even born in Morocco ...

So now Oceania is the only continent that never made a semifinal. I don't really see Australia changing that anytime soon, but who knows ... I was sure that both Brazil and Portugal would advance. Crazy that we almost had a semifinal with only one european team. This tournaments shows how important mentality is at national team level. Morocco/Croatia with a bunch of horrible/mediocre players both beat a top 4 team.

Very weird final in women's foil. It was 6-7 and when i looked again 1 minute later it suddenly was 6-15. I hope that Ebert didn't get injured. Still a very good result for someone of her age (finishing 2nd in a competition full of grandmas).

I think Argentina has by far the most fans in Qatar. They also seem to be more enthusiastic about this cup than pretty much anyone else, so in a way they would be the most fitting champion. Too bad that it is pretty much impossible to cheer for this team. I would prefer England or Morocco to win the cup. I hope that none out of France/Argentina/Portugal wins the cup, but the odds of that happening are almost nonexistant.

Colin Heathcock now competing for the US is a massive punch in the face for german fencing. He currently is the biggest talent in men's fencing and possibly the biggest talent Germany ever produced on the men's side. He realistically could medal in Paris. I will wait with my final judgement until i found out why he switched nationalities, but what is the point of investing tons of money in young athletes if they then just switch nationalities first chance they get without paying back their "debt"?

I think it also wouldn't have been atypical for Brazil to underestimate a team like Croatia. Borna Sosa and Filip Stanisic are probably happy now that they decided to play for Croatia (instead of Germany).

5th world cup in a row where Brazil was eliminated by a european team (2006 by France, 2010 by the Netherlands, 2014 by Germany, 2018 by Belgium and 2022 by Croatia). I am surprised by this result, but i guess Brazil was a better opponent for Croatia than France for example. Croatia is playing a kind of football (very physical) that can frustrate Brazil to a point where they lose the plot. I think Argentina would be the better suited opponent for them in the next round, but now that they eliminated Brazil, they have every right to think that they can beat Argentina/Netherlands. I guess not many people thought that we could actually have a rematch of the 2018 final.

Two things many people probably don't remember: 1) She almost singlehandedly carried the german relay to a silver medal at the 2009 cross-country skiing world championships while still being 18 years old (and she also won a silver medal in the cross-country relay at the 2010 olympics). 2) At the 2013 cross-country skiing world championships she finished 4th in the 10 km freestyle race, only 0.5 seconds behind bronze, only a week after competing at the biathlon world championships. To me the biggest what-if isn't what she could have done in biathlon, but what she could have done in cross-country skiing if she would have fully focused on it. I think if she would have been norwegian, she would have focused on cross-country skiing and could have become one of the best athletes of her generation.

Maybe she focused on shooting a bit too much.

Agreed, much worse than last week. Even Hermann wasn't super quick. Frühwirt has to be gone, Hettich or Grotian should replace her.

I think Neuner and Disl as well.

Impressive work by legendary german coach Rico Groß to turn Lampic into a world beater so quickly.

Solid take ...