Kaizero

It's my birthday today, which means we'll inevitably get hammered to bits by these cunts as the Universe will not allow me experiencing nice things.

Edinburgh and the Highlands = Dublin and the Wild Atlantic Way =

Saw a tiktok (I know, I know ) yesterday that quite effectively showcased that the European WC Qualifiers were actually the hardest WC Qualifiers of the lot with only the African WC Qualifiers getting anywhere close. It was argued that the only thing that made them appear "pointless" was the fact the biggest nations in Europe "always" waltzed through them without trouble and that for those, very few, nations – then yes, the qualifiers might feel "pointless" as they're so stacked with quality and history that without a system where more than two of the "big" nations in Europe could get drawn in the same group it'd require a massive fuck up by a "big" nation for them to miss out. However, Italy's missed out on two straight WC's and could potentially miss out on a third. Netherlands missed out as recently as the 2018 WC as well as in 2002. There's more as well but those are te ones off the top of my head, think France missed out on one of the ones in the 90s as well. All that said about the "big" nations, the real proof for the UEFA WC Qualifiers being extremely competitive reveals itself when you look at the history of qualification for the teams that aren't one of the "big" UEFA nations. Norway, for instance, have ended up inches away from qualifying for every World Cup since the WC in France '98, only managing to do so this time around due to having the most golden of all golden generations in the history of the nation representing them on the pitch. By the time WC 2034 comes around, I'd imagine Norway will have returned to normalcy as the golden generation starts hanging up their boots, making the qualifiers feel like hell on earth for Norwegians again.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRIpSR3jJZ8/

Need a 2026 version of this absolute banger:

No idea how many fingers Suds potentially has in this particular pie, but given his resume you'd imagine he'll have slipped at least a couple of digits inside any and all potential future transfers coming in. I wish it wasn't as easy to identify certain people if I were to tell the story of how I ended up with this bit of information, as it's beyond fucking weird and funny

Fairly decent source let it slip to me earlier today that we're close to signing this guy: Daniel Bassi (RW/LW) 20yo. He's mainly been used as an impact sub to take advantage of the guy's absolutely blistering pace against tired legs. Not watched him enough to say anything about his pass/cross-ability. IMO it's likely either to be used similarily by us, or to start doing what other top clubs are doing by stocking up on "cheap" players for no other reason than to sell them for profit a year or two down the line at an artificially high price point due to smaller clubs thinking that if he was almost good enough for us, they'd surely be good enough for them?

Also, apparently there's talks about banning fans in the stands from participating in activities (like whistling) that contribute towards creating dangerous levels of noise? It was briefly mentioned in a post-match interview after Galatasaray - Bodø/Glimt tonight during a discussion about the fact the noise level reached heights of 125 decibels at pitch level several times during the match and on average for the entire match had a measured average of 105 decibels, which is 20 above the legal EU decibel amount for an employee/representative of a EU registered company to be exposed to for more than five minutes without wearing hearing protection supplied free of charge by the organisation/individual(s) employing someone. Kjetil Knudsen during the match:

What people are saying (or well, complaining ) about is exactly why I, other than when we/a Norwegian team are in the CL, only care to watch Europa League/Conference League matches every now and then. I have very little interest in watching soulless global conglomerate representatives make a mockery of the sport I grew up loving by pretending like they're not soulless global conglomerate representatives so far removed from the actual sport of football that it's a disgrace most people seem to fall for their marketing Give me a Malmo FF - Dynamo Zagreb, Young Boys - Ludogorets, Mainz - Zrinjski, Sigma Olumuc - Rakow or Steua Bucuresti - Bologna fixture over a Real Madrid - Juventus fixture any day of the week. The former fixtures are exciting and you can see that for the players on the pitch, the staff on the sidelines and the supporters in the stands – the match genuinely matter and they all care. All I'd get if I put on the latter fixture would be sitting through 90+ minutes having to endure watching horrrid entitled players feign outrage on a field of grass when they don't get what they fully believe they're entitled to get from the corrupt individuals running the tournament the brands act in, snobby entitled company employees on the sidelines repeating the same cliched untrue words during their pre and post match interviews and library level silence from the thousands of tourists busy taking selfies in the stands to post on social media so they can pretend they're interesting people for their fake friends who are all doing the same as them. In fact, give me Breidablik - KuPs, Shamrock Rovers - Celje or even Lincoln Red Imps - Lech Poznan over having to endure the unfathomable torture I described above. I have no understanding for how anyone claiming to enjoy football would be choosing the scenario above over watching two actual football teams with fans that care play in a competition that for them would be a moment and experience beyond their wildest dreams to win. I hate modern football more than words could ever say. My sole refuge and excuse to myself for not giving up on football as a whole is the fact there's, for now, still international football and that we have a World Cup to look forward to happening once every four years. When time runs out for international football, which likely will happen before the end of the next decade (if not before the end of this one), I'll give up on the sport for good. There's already talks happening to allow clubs to refuse their players to go play for their country during football's regular season being pushed by FIFPro backed by UEFA to "protect players" from fatigue and injuries stemming from having to play "too many matches" in a season, with international football being the least economically lucrative matches for FIFPro and UEFA to get removed from the match schedule of the players' they represent

Really don't get the need some famous people seem to have for gassing themselves up in the comments of their social media posts with snide accounts. Is it some form of actually trying to gas themselves up? Like how people back in the day would just look at themselves in a mirror and tell themselves that they're "the best" in a useless attempt at raising their confidence? Genuinely wondering that now, given how many of these fuckers apparently do the same shit at the same time as it's not like they don't actually have plenty of brainless-fans gassing them up in their comments come what may... I mean, I'm amazed someone with the profile of Sancho doesn't have a dedicated SoMe-team in place. If he did, they'd at least spare him blushes like these by telling him that you can literally self-service buying fake comments in such detail these days you can even write the comments the bots you've ordered will write on your post(s) Idiots will be idiots, I guess. Ah well

Norway just made it 3-0 after 27 minutes against Israel, this after already having missed two penalties in the first ten minutes. Dare I say it? ᚦᛅᛏ ᚴᛁᛘᚱ ᚼᛁᛘ, ᚦᛅᛏ ᚴᛁᛘᚱ ᚼᛁᛘ, ᚠᚬᛏᚱ ᛁᚱ ᚼᛁᛘ ᚴᚬᛘᛁᚾ!

Going by the fact you tagged me in this, I assume you're already aware that I wholeheartedly disagree with the opinion stated in the post you quoted. There's no need to rehash a discussion that'll just waste people's time because it'd inevitably go nowhere, but I'll say that if it weren't for the fact VAR got implemented and brought the amount of times human error would decide a football match down to almost no "fake" results in professional football? Without it I'd have given up on the sport years ago as it was a complete joke. VAR has added another layer of drama and excitement as a spectator as well. I'll never dislike the fact we now have a much higher percentage of correct results, the fact it's headline news and the subject of nationwide debate for weeks on end when there's a fuck up is the perfect example of just how improved football is because we have it. Before VAR, there were so many blatant fuck ups from refs and linos in multiple PL matches in every round, of course that didn't become the main talking point for the pundits then, because refs fucking up all the time was the norm – now it's not, meaning it's worthy of critique as there wouldn't be any fuck ups if only the refs were better. Alas, the refs are the same as the ones that used to fuck up all the time when they had no help from VAR. It'll take time for them to become more professionalized, but now they actually have to do it as well as their complete lack of skill and professionalism shines through every time they fuck up.

Bournemouth 2 - 1 Fulham Leeds 0 - 2 Spurs Arsenal 4 - 0 West Ham Man United 2 - 1 Sunderland Chelsea 1 - 2 Liverpool Villa 3 - 0 Burnley Everton 1 - 1 Palace Newcastle 2 - 1 Forest Wolves 1 - 2 Brighton Brentford 1 - 2 Man City

I'm 99.99% sure this is as far removed from where my brain went after seeing it for the first as you could possibly get, but until that's confirmed I'll happily live in this very minor, oddly specific, fantasy concerning the activities of a historically rather non-descript Italian football team and the creative decisions of their kit designer ...

Had to check as that felt like an outrageous statement. Turns on he had a 1 per average 135 for you in CL/EL matches, which objectively inches the waste of space into "having done fairly well" territory for you in Europe, I'll be damned... Clear sign of Ragnarok around the corner, that

To be fair, before he went to Man Utd and just straight-up decided the strategy of announcing "I only have one tactic and I won't try to change anything other than which players I try to squeeze into that one tactic" to the world at large was a brilliant career move for him Up until he owned up to refusing to attempt altering his tactics for any reason he could've at least gotten somewhat away with it all when his time at Man Utd most likely is up sometime in the next international window by blaming "a club in shambles" and all that jazz. it's worked for (most) of the ones that's gone through the ringer since Sir Alex retired, so given the fact he was genuinely thought of as one of the next great managers when still at Sporting, he'd probably have landed decently enough on his feet after putting this debacle behind him. Now, though? Guy's fucked. What the fuck was he thinking (or well, not thinking more likely) when deciding to go all-in on "I don't know other tactics and can't adapt if I don't have the perfect matching players for my one very specific tactics!" All felt very -esque

Coincidentally had just gone looking for an Amorim Tactics Board GIF to post in a chat when I saw your post, and now I just have to ask you where you guys have hidden the real Ruben Amorim? Look at that guy?!?! Laughing, smiling, enjoying football?! You guys should try releasing the real Amorim instead of continuing to roll out that Meta AI Temu Knock-Off Robot you keep replacing the batteries in before each of your games, maybe you'd start playing football again? I mean... It's genuinely hard to believe that this guy actually is the very same person as in the GIFs underneath the spoiler above

I disagree, mainly 'cause that's wasn't even his best season from the last three Not to mention the fact that I chose to cut it at three most recent seasons as going further back, even if only including first team minutes in one of the top five leagues in Europe (and that nation's main national cup) + first team international minutes, Wissa's stats just get worse and worse compared to Woltemade's. i did full careers first for comparison but felt it looked unrealistically shit for Wissa when compared to Woltemade, which is when I decided to only include last three seasons + current. Now, I'm not saying Wissa's not a good striker or anything of the sort. He's a proven PL striker. I just don't understand why people for some reason believe he's ever been our 1st choice striker other than during the short period after Wissa signed for us up to when Woltemade signed. One of the players has the potential to be a generational talent up front and the other is a soon-to-be 30 year old striker with one good PL season to his name. Given that we entertain the idea of being an actual top club in Europe, seeing Wissa as anything more than a squad player feels like accepting not being one Again, just to make it clear; i'm not in any way implying Wissa is not a good striker of PL quality. I'm just asking questions about how high some people appear to be singing his praises. He's be an absolute world beater in any of our last 15+ pre-takeover squads in the PL – but that's not where we're at as a club anymore, or at least not where we should aim to be. Wissa type players that used to be players who'd be the first name on our team sheet should now be regarded as squad players, at least if we are to make our ambitions reality. Woltemade is still young and could end up fizzing out as another young, talented technical player who in the end turned out being all hype, no longetivity – but we don't know that already, and comparing the him directly with Wissa it strikes me as 100% obvious which of the two would, and should, be considered our 1st choice striker. Preferably we figure out a way that includes both of them in our starting eleven without any of them losing out on playing to their best strengths on the pitch, but in any theoretical "who'd you play if you could only play one of Woltemade or Wissa" scenario? The answer is, in my opinion, blatantly obvious without there being any need for debate.

For me, given the fact we have an oil fund worth of money (albeit one we can scarcely even use), Wissa would've been intended as the off-the-bench proven goal threat with league experience meant to replace Wilson's role as that player in past seasons. Wolte on the other hand would've been intended as the 🐀 replacement. Strand Larsen would've been the 🐀 replacement if we didn't manage to lande Wolte, whereas he'd not have been signed if we'd missed out on Wissa as they're different players at different stages of their careers meant for different roles in a team. (my opinion as I believe the backroom staff evaluated things)

Cheers! Would've 100% forgotten without this reminder in all truth At least my eventual loss still has the chance of coming from an actual choice and not from walkover like the other time(s?) i've played this Onwards we ride, victorious to the palace!

He begins his time fit for us as an option off the bench that can hopefully make his make late in games. (re: Wolf) Yes, but does people really know? I've never been on the Wissa train and saw him as a player costing far too much given his advancing age and career average output. Tons more sensible and "less likely to cause a stir if not auto-starting" players to have chosen from for us out there. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ STATS ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Nick Wolfemande Apps: 105 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎| G+M: 1 in 158 Goals: 40 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎| A+M: 1 in 423 Assists: 15 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎| ‎G+A p M: 1 in 115 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Yoane Wissa Apps: 115 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎| G+M: 1 in 216 Goals: 39 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎| A+M: 1 in 702 Assists: 12 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎| ‎G+A p M: 1 in 165 *league+cup matches from the last (3) three seasons + this season to date included. not included are potential european/international fixtures. Is it, though? Really? Wissa is 29 going on 30 and has only had one decent season in a top league. Wolfemande is 23 and already firing on all cylinders even getting used to a new league and new club. You answer your own question yourself at the end of it, in all honesty:

Breezed through 47 in no time whatsoever, but then found myself stuck on 19, 30 and 38 – which meant there were too few left to throw in the towel and not get a full house. Given the level of frustration I felt for the better part of 15 minutes wracking my head for potential teams it could be (made worse by the fact I genuinely felt like I knew the answers but for some reason couldn't utilise the "stored memory" section of my brain for long enough to make the names materialise in my mind) whilst contemplating what would be worse; giving up on life in general by using my computer screen to cave my skull in, or living on but remaining stuck in a situation my pride wouldn't let me press "get a hint"? Alas, all is well that ends well – in the end I remembered the team names and could leave the page that had the wretched quiz on it. Anyway, here's the link if any of you want to suffer for a few minutes at some point: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/football-quiz-can-you-name-these-50-clubs-from-their-badge