heywoodu

It's odd, I feel more like a relieve at seeing the best (or most goal-based hyped, at least) about to say their goodbye

@konig I received a question from my mother and now I'm also curious because now I can't NOT see it anymore What's with those hand gestures almost every single Argentinian fan makes non-stop while singing or cheering? Like throwing something away with one hand, but most of the time they do so with a completely emotionless look on their face, like it's some sort of obligated move. I've been thinking "what on earth is that?!" since I received the question (three matches ago ) and now I really want to know.

Croatia gets a corner stolen from them after a nice attack.

Livakovic basically jumped straight into Alvarez

THAT is how you take a penalty. Damn.

Yeah ok, that's a penalty. Also a truly superb pass to get there.

True, although I generally don't have much of a problem with the stadium sports being held in a larger city somewhere in the 'area'.

Wow, this is actually a rare proposal that makes quite some sense. Especially the minimum climate conditions and existing infrastructure. Winter Olympics in largely green areas with zero prior infrastructure (and so most likely also not a lot of stuff happening after the Olympics) are....well, not great.

And we've started. The schedule is really fantastic, with almost every individual distance being paired men-women. As in, the 50m fly women is followed by the 50m fly men, the 100m back women is followed by the 100m back men. This should be done at every championships, it makes the schedule actually look like it has order instead of the usual swimming championships chaos

Just read it here as well now. Advantage of your country being out before the semi's, at least you can cheer for your referees

Confirmed? Hmm, that leaves Makkelie and the Polish guy as main favourites for the final?

Bye bye

And more related to the World Cup: what's the referee situation? I know Orsato will do Argentina - Croatia, and Makkelie is still in the pool of referees that's left (but no specific assignment yet), but who else are left? Oh and Lahoz is sent home, unsurprisingly.

And the Antilles To relate this to sports: Antilles you mostly see in athletics or baseball, while Suriname you see significantly more in things like kickboxing, where the world was dominated for years by Suriname-Dutch athletes like Tyrone Spong, Ernesto Hoost, Remy Bonjasky etc. In football...there isn't really anything specific, as far as it's important (which it of course isn't).

This feels like there's a luge game where you can't change the name of the player, so you're listed as 'You'

Sure, that's good, but at least make the abbreviation less...you know, the same as others World Aquatics Federation would be better.

Schouten, shorttrack team, De Groot and Otter. As for the men, I'm doubting between Verstappen and Lavreysen. Verstappen's performances without a doubt have way more impact, but Lavreysen is better for the medal counter, so hard to make a choice there.

I don't know, WA is a good federation, but personally I prefer WA over WA, although WA is not a bad one neither.

What was the problem with that? The referee in NED - ARG was honestly awful, but at least he was not really favouring any specific side. He just seemed to lose control after giving a first yellow and then gave everyone and their mother yellows for whatever

There was not a lot of directness in this specific case though Coach was asked if he has a plan for player X, and he simply makes an observation about player X. Not 'he is not good', or 'he is bad', just an observation about someone's playing style. It's nothing more than what goalkeeper Noppert said after the match against USA, when being asked about playing Messi next: "He's great, but for me he's still just a player who's shots I have to stop." There is hardly a world imaginable where that is provocative Oh well, I guess tiptoeing around everything annoys people here, while getting to the point annoys people in other places, it is what it is and a bit of fuel to the fire of a rivalry (even if only one side sees it as fuel) is never bad in any sport. The end of this match would not have been so tense and full of passion if it was NED against, say, Sweden

Ah, I see. So in reality it's not provoking, but mostly people choose to see it that way? I guess it's also part of wanting something to 'fight' against, it's often easier (and more fun) to be playing an 'enemy', even if needing to twist meanings a bit to make the other team the enemy

Is it also part of the football culture to twist the words of coaches? Like with Van Gaal, who said nothing special or weird at all ("We trained a lot on penalties, so I'm confident if it gets to that" and "Messi isn't usually very present in defending, so yes, of course we have a plan, like we do for every opponent"), and this nothing special or weird or provocative or aggressive was apparently somehow turned into 'a big provocation'?

Huh, I thought that was a third brother, until now I realize the person we in the Netherlands all know as 'Nordin Amrabat' is this Noureddine Amrabat

[hide] Knockout Stage December 3rd - December 18th, 2022 4 Nations, The Winners of each Semfinal will qualify for the Final. The Losers of each Semifinal will play the Third-Place Match. Semifinals Date & Time (GMT +3) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 13th 2022, h. 22:00 Argentina 0 1 Croatia December 14th 2022, h. 22:00 France 1 2 Morocco [/hide]

Dear lord, THAT is how you don't take a penalty.