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Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
If anyone loves posing for photos, it's him.

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Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
As a Liverfail fan, I...

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

Jose posted:

Maybe I'd feel differently if Arsenal were good

Sums the post up, really :)

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

Modus Trollens posted:

Tons of teams bomb out of the NFL (and MLB and NBA tbh) every year because they're full of over confident twats that can't play as a team. For example the jets in football this year, the red sox in baseball and the heat in basketball.

Also, he's comparing a league game with a quarter final.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

Jose posted:

It also states that the video was fake as well

Haha, I assume it was one of those virals Villa released a couple of seasons back where players were knocking the groundsman off his lawnmower and fixing lights outside the stadium by belting balls at them?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

T. Fine posted:

if you want to find the biggest twats on your clubs various discussion forums please locate any "kit/fashion experts"

Can you post the kit he was talking about?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

T. Fine posted:

Keep in mind every single thing in that thread is a mock-up and he's just a massive twat

Haha, certainly seems like it.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Wrong thread, I think.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Good of Lampard to give his old clothes to charity shops...

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

euroboy posted:

Tomas Rosicky got the nickname "Little Mozart" at Borussia Dortmund.

Speaking of nicknames, John Barnes was apparently known as "Tarmac" when he joined Liverpool, because he was "the black Heighway"

It was a different time...

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
I hope he doesn't get away with calling UEFA and FIFA corrupt buttholes.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

Wario Tifo posted:

lol who gave Luis Suarez an account?

:golfclap:

As for "players wanting the manager sacked", I remember Pat Dolan (useless fat gently caress pundit for Setanta) claiming the same thing a few seasons back, except it was Gerrard and Carragher wanting Rafa sacked. You lot complain about BBC/ITV pundits, but he's the worst I've ever seen.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

Jose posted:

Andy Carroll's former agent was on twitter last night:

He does it all the time, usually aimed at Allardyce and Phil Gartside. It's funny, but he seems like a complete moron.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

I got as far as...

quote:

LeBron James would be an elite striker.

...and that was enough

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

Spangly A posted:

one day someone is going to offer him that contract he wants and he's going to be the new That German Bloke Who Was Crap But Fast

Walcott's English, mate.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
That's pretty funny, but would you be arsed?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

quote:

Soccer Is Ruining America

Soccer is running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people as if they can do no wrong. Every kid is a winner, and nobody is ever left behind, no matter how many times they watch the ball going the other way. Whether the dumbing down of America or soccer came first is hard to say, but soccer is clearly an important means by which American energy, drive and competitiveness are being undermined to the point of no return.


What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring to watch? (Bowling and golf come to mind, but the sound of crashing pins and the sight of the well-attired strolling on perfectly kept greens are at least inherently pleasurable activities.) The linear, two-dimensional action of soccer is like the rocking of a boat but without any storm and while the boat has not even left the dock. Think of two posses pursuing their prey in opposite directions without any bullets in their guns. Soccer is the fluoridation of the American sporting scene.

For those who think I jest, let me put forth four points, which is more points than most fans will see in a week of games—and more points than most soccer players have scored since their pee-wee days.

1) Any sport that limits you to using your feet, with the occasional bang of the head, has something very wrong with it. Indeed, soccer is a liberal's dream of tragedy: It creates an egalitarian playing field by rigorously enforcing a uniform disability. Anthropologists commonly define man according to his use of hands. We have the thumb, an opposable digit that God gave us to distinguish us from animals that walk on all fours. The thumb lets us do things like throw baseballs and fold our hands in prayer. We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with his feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone's face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, "Trick or Treat, smell my hands"? Did Jesus wash his disciples' hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God's wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.

2) Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up. Take baseball, for example. When I was a kid, baseball was the most popular sport precisely because it was so demanding. Even its language was intimidating, with bases, bats, strikes and outs. Striding up to the plate gave each of us a chance to act like we were starring in a Western movie, and tapping the bat to the plate gave us our first experience with inventing self-indulgent personal rituals. The boy chosen to be the pitcher was inevitably the first kid on the team to reach puberty, and he threw a hard ball right at you.

Thus, you had to face the fear of disfigurement as well as the statistical probability of striking out. The spectacle of your failure was so public that it was like having all of your friends invited to your home to watch your dad forcing you to eat your vegetables. We also spent a lot of time in the outfield chanting, "Hey batter batter!" as if we were Buddhist monks on steroids. Our chanting was compensatory behavior, a way of making the time go by, which is surely why at soccer games today it is the parents who do all of the yelling.

3) Everyone knows that soccer is a foreign invasion, but few people know exactly what is wrong with that. More than having to do with its origin, soccer is a European sport because it is all about death and despair. Americans would never invent a sport where the better you get the less you score. Even the way most games end, in sudden death, suggests something of an old-fashioned duel. How could anyone enjoy a game where so much energy results in so little advantage, and which typically ends with a penalty kick out, as if it is the audience that needs to be put out of its misery? Shootouts are such an anticlimax to the game and are so unpredictable that the teams might as well flip a coin to see who wins—indeed, they might as well flip the coin before the game, and not play at all.

4) And then there is the question of sex. I know my daughter will kick me when she reads this, but soccer is a game for girls. Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football. Soccer penalizes shoving and burns countless calories, and the margins of victory are almost always too narrow to afford any gloating. As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power.

Let me conclude on a note of despair appropriate to my topic. There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running. It is as relentless as it is easy, and it is as tiring to play as it is tedious to watch. The real tragedy is that soccer is a foreign invasion, but it is not a plot to overthrow America. For those inclined toward paranoia, it would be easy to blame soccer's success on the political left, which, after all, worked for years to bring European decadence and despair to America. The left tried to make existentialism, Marxism, poststructuralism, and deconstructionism fashionable in order to weaken the clarity, pragmatism and drive of American culture. What the left could not accomplish through these intellectual fads, one might suspect, they are trying to accomplish through sport.

Yet this suspicion would be mistaken. Soccer is of foreign origin, that is certainly true, but its promotion and implementation are thoroughly domestic. Soccer is a self-inflicted wound. Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Conservative suburban families, the backbone of America, have turned to soccer in droves. Baseball is too intimidating, football too brutal, and basketball takes too much time to develop the required skills. American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and television are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting.

I should know. I am an overworked teacher, with books to read and books to write, and before I put in a video for the kids to watch while I work in the evenings, they need to have spent some of their energy. Otherwise, they want to play with me! Last year all three of my kids were on three different soccer teams at the same time. My daughter is on a traveling team, and she is quite good. I had to sign a form that said, among other things, I would not do anything embarrassing to her or the team during the game. I told the coach I could not sign it. She was perplexed and worried. "Why not," she asked? "Are you one of those parents who yells at their kids? "Not at all," I replied, "I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end." That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful sport. Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.

Link.

He makes some good points. I hadn't considered that we have opposable thumbs for praying.

Admittedly I don't know much about US Newspapers, but shouldn't the WSJ be better than this?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

TyChan posted:

The Wall Street Journal is a Murdoch-owned publication now.

So's the Times though, and you wouldn't expect to see poo poo like that in there. Is it often that bad? I always assumed it was one of the better US papers.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

TyChan posted:

The Wall Street Journal has always been pretty arch-conservative in a way you expect any champion of big finance to be. The articles have gotten even more ridiculously provocative and bombastic ever since Murdoch took over, though.

Were you expecting it to be more like the Economist? I don't think it's ever been like that.

I think I just expected it to be better, not sure why :)

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Yeah, while there's lots of things can be laid at the feet of lots of people, Aquilani's not one of them. He's just a signing that didn't work out for no reason that makes sense. It happens.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Haha, it's the use of "of" instead of "have" that annoys me most about that...

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
idgi?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
I don't know why you posted it in this thread.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
That first one's great.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
In fairness, an actual play clock does make sense. The ball's only in play for around 60mins on average, I think, making the few minutes added at the end pretty meaningless.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

thehappyprince posted:

Wouldn't be surprised if it was more tbh

Yeah, I remember hearing the figures before and at times it was only a half. Can't find it online, though.

Tsaedje posted:

Throw-ins, goal kicks, setting up for set pieces, etc. are all just as much a part of playing the game of football as the kicking and running. Stoppage time is to make up for injuries, players walking on and off the pitch for substitutions and the like (fights!) which aren't. It's pretty simple to understand.

So why is time wasting an offense?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
What's wrong with that one?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Aside from the first line it's fine and even then, a lot of fans think the media hates their club.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Hahaha, only an American would think "acting classy" is a bad thing.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

quote:

big #mcfc fan. indian. dyslexia sufferor. favourit playors - cumpenny, agwero & tevez.

The dyslexia sufferor bit made me feel bad for laughing, but cumpenny papered over that crack...

Mickolution fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Oct 4, 2012

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
When did Rafa start managing Milan?

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Yeah, that's absolutely fine and true.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Hhahaha, @tonypooless.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Hahaha, wrong thread.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Fair point...

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Wrong thread, that's amazing.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Hahaha, "what is...tifo?"

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Not defending her but that seems to be how a lot of Americans think with relation to football. Look at all the jizzing that's done over mediocre US players who come over to Europe.

Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards

I'm drawing a blank, what tune is this to?

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Mickolution
Oct 1, 2005

Ballers...I put numbers on the boards
Hahaha, brilliant.

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