Segun Oluwaniyi

So, keepers now should cede an extra yard and stand behind the line to placate the idiocy of VAR? Maybe instead of this we can stop fixing issues that did not exist and just rely on the trained officials to punish keepers who are egregiously off of their line.

Looking forward to this. It should be an interesting tournament, and I'll be watching as much as I can. We have expanded to 24 for some reason and some real minnows have made it. Nigeria's groups has two first time entrants in Madagascar (The surnames of this team will ruin some poor commentator) and Burundi (They will feature Saido Berahino and former NUFC player Bigirimana). It is a positive things for the smaller nations, and for Nigeria who have failed to qualify for 4 of the past 5 tournaments and won the only one in which they appeared. I'm not sure how it will affect the quality/organisation both of which are serious problems already. This is the first one being held in the European summer to placate the clubs and players abroad, and the climate is going to be an issue in some countries for this thing going forward I think. It will be 40+ for some of the matches in Cairo, Suez, and Ismaila, so we may get a sample of what a summer World Cup in Qatar may have been. The rains would be a problem this time of year in other places. Egypt are 100% the favourites, you have to favour the North Africans generally when the tournament is in that part of the continent. I'll be supporting Naija and DRC as per usual, not particularly confident in either though. Nigeria should be a certainty to go far, but not sure if they have it to actually win. DRC are always a wildcard and could finish last in the group or get to the final. They have the talent.

I am still irrationally angry about this, given it is a sport I don't follow at all. The keeper was not even substantially off her line and there were three or four French players encroaching in the box by the same amount. A complete robbery and there is a good chance that it has knocked our girls out of this World Cup. FIFA is seriously testing my patience with the way officiating and VAR have headed just in the past couple of years. They have had dodgy decisions in their favour the last two matches when Nigeria and Norway have pushed them a bit. I cannot even blame FIFA if it is the case, tbh. From what I've seen the matches are more than fifty percent empty when France or the US are not playing. They need to maintain interest.

This is a disgrace.

They play France now, I believe on Monday. Oshoala and Ordega are both class on the wings, tbh, but the rest of the team is so very poor. I know I should not be too expectant (there is so little investment in the game), but some of the passing and defensive errors from midfield and defense would have been laughable on the Ibadan schoolyards of my youth.

When was it introduced? And have they taken steps to address this criticism? One thing I don't like is how long it takes, you're right, and you only see the two officials huddled around a monitor. Again, it didn't really affect my overall excitement of the game, it was a minor stoppage in play. In football, especially, watching teams like Stoke comes with far more stoppages and pain. To echo the previous comment, review in basketball is awful. The delays take far too long for fairly unimportant decisions, and just like football we are now stuck with reviewing the intent of someone's arm position when they are quickly moving in tight areas or zooming in to molecular level to see if the ball clipped someone's fingertip, well beyond anything the naked eye could interpret. They limit a lot of this to the last two minutes of the game or half, just to limit the annoyance of seeing a 47 year old part-time worker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana attempt to decipher how many tenths of a second are left, whether a small part of the ball was still in the cylinder, and other minutiae of a game that is played a very high speed. The quality and fairness of officiating has also not improved with review, imo. Basketball and football are both games that are primarily enjoyable to watch and play because of the free-flowing and creative nature of the games. Review interruptions are more harmful here than other sports.

From my understanding of VAR, the purpose was to correct clear and obvious errors. Lingard being a millimetre offside, according to a derived line dependent on the TV angle is not a clear and obvious error imo, especially given that it would be impossible for the naked human eye to detect. Are we even sure that the technique being used to discern these sorts of marginal offsides decisions is correct in the same way that goal line technology or the hawkeye system in tennis are? I do not see how it could be possible. In theory you would need a directly overhead angle and there is no fixed line or object to use as reference for offsides. The NFL has had replay for decades it is still only used for egregious errors generally. Football has had VAR for two years or so and we are already reviewing at finer margins. I am not sure it makes sense.

I have been overwhelmingly busy recently, so missed the final and have just seen the highlights, but it should seriously concern the leaders of this sport that the deciding (gave the winning side its final lead) goals in the two biggest matches of the past year have resulted from the ball striking a defender in a meaningless and nearly unavoidable situation, one of which needed slow motion, HD replay to be justified. For players that have run 100's of kilometers in the competition and worked their life to get there, investors that have spent billions, and supporters sacrificing large portions of their wages chasing glory, the pinnacle events for all of this were determined by Ivan Perisic having his hand at his waist while jumping to head a football and Moussa Sissoko pointing to a teammate. It is a farce. I am seriously vexed that the worst case scenario (important matches being decided by nonsense) has already happened several times and no one seems to want to take any action. The rule makes no sense, the result has far too great an effect on the match in most cases, and the interpretation is wildly inconsistent, though I am told we are fixing this by formalising the way of things that has led to the current idiocy.

Holy shit, you're still going on about this. What a strange and uneducated thing to say. He was the ONLY black manage in the top flight. Sure, he could have sat there and said nothing, but chose to use his position and exposure to highlight an issue he probably feels strong about and represent the hundreds of black and asian people out there that have tried as hard as anyone to get into football management and been knocked back for whatever reason. Other than Chris Hughton the only other black manager I can think of in the entire history of the Premier League was Ruud Gulliet. I feel like Paul Ince was manager at some point for a month or two, too. You should watch a Wolves match sometime.

I was excited to see what Sessegnon had to offer this season, and was surprised at just how poor he was. To be fair, you can say this for most of the Fulham squad, no one really performed other than a short spell for Mtirovic early in the season, and many players with pedigree and previous success were absolute failures. That must be a tough environment for a young player. I could see him being developed into a top wingback if they continue with three at the back.

Ajax have wasted so many good chances throughout the knockout stages. Like Barcelona, they really should have put the match away and then collapsed defensively once the pressure was applied.

I feel like the top level of club football has seen an explosion of goals recently. The top level matches are much more end to end and the number of defensive errors from the big sides has greatly increased. I'm not sure what has caused it, maybe the pressing and speed of play that have increased in recent years. I remember when sides could actually defend consistently. Absolutely. We’re badly lacking creativity I think it's rare that this happens where a top European country loses one of their players from immigrant background and it's a genuine loss. Was he just not getting in the Dutch team at 22 or was it a personal decision to play elsewhere? I can probably only really think of Koulibaly who would similarly start for his country of birth but took the heritage option. I know Drogba was born in CIV, but spent many years of his childhood in France. He would have been eligible for them, but it was never really a consideration given he became a top player relatively late in his career. Austria isn't a top team, but Alaba wanted to play for Nigeria at youth level, and was turned away, allegedly because he wouldn't pay a bribe.

Injuries or no, Liverpool's keeper, defenders, and midfielders are comfortably better than what Barcelona have to offer, imo. They just rely on world class attacking players to make up the difference.

Barca have collapsed like this several times since 2012 or so. They just fold. The players had no intention of coming back once it was 4-0, including world class walker Messi.

I have never seen a penalty given when the attacker gets a shot on goal. GINI!!! Barcelona very casual at the back again.

Messi will probably end up with a goal or two, but I feel he has been pretty rubbish so far.

The casual non-chalant way he took that shot and missed it, and the total lack of reaction or shame afterwards ... Just so typical man. Awful stuff. Fairly sure Nigeria has scored the most Premier League goals of any country outside of Europe, so maybe calm down with this nonsense you are talking, rubbishing your country for people's amusement. Never been as disappointed in a player as Kelechi. Don't understand how a precocious talent turns into someone that cannot do anything with falling over himself a few years later. Injuries are understandable, but this is just carlessness and contentment with mediocrity. Disappointed that City will win the title, as I despise them, but less annoyed than I would have been before Saturday. Liverpool didn't deserve the gift they got at SJP. It's not my country. I have disowned them. I have absconded to Benin. Na wa for you o I can't imagine Brighton being interesting in doing anything other than keeping the score respectable during the match on Sunday. Tired players with nothing to fight for.

The casual non-chalant way he took that shot and missed it, and the total lack of reaction or shame afterwards ... Just so typical man. Awful stuff. Fairly sure Nigeria has scored the most Premier League goals of any country outside of Europe, so maybe calm down with this nonsense you are talking, rubbishing your country for people's amusement. Never been as disappointed in a player as Kelechi. Don't understand how a precocious talent turns into someone that cannot do anything withput falling over himself a few years later. Injuries are understandable, but this is just carlessness and contentment with mediocrity. Disappointed that City will win the title, as I despise them, but less annoyed than I would have been before Saturday. Liverpool didn't deserve the gift they got at SJP.

Burnley are incredible at clearances. Paul Dummett school of defending. edit: There attacking play is horrendous still.

Burnley have been laughable when in possession. Even worse than expected.

There have been strong rumours of Nkunku going to Rennes this summer, fwiw. Allez Rennes!!

Mbappe's tackle is one of the worst tackles I've ever seen. I have no idea what he could have been trying to do, the technique was bizarre. Rennes are a good side and have shown a lot of fight to get in this position. I hope they can win now.

Imagine missing Fox Can’t get over the fact they’ve got Steve Nash as a pundit, the disrespect. It's like, dude it's exponentially worse. How is it so much worse? How was that possible. Steve Nash, ffs. Everything here is so bad. Who was the crazy, wrongheaded Irishman that used to do games on ESPN with Derek Rae (who was very good, tbf)? Whatever his name, I am 100 percent sure the current American coverage is much better than this time. Progress is not always a straight line, you will be fine. Not watching, but it will be a shame when Ronaldo inevitably scores the winner in this match. Juve are a very uninspiring side in general right now.

It's a bit silly to think it's that easy tbh, there's dozens of examples of clubs throwing money at something and still failing. The money helps obviously but when you're as good as City are it goes way deeper than money. Not to mention they only bought one player this past summer anyway, in terms of last year to this year most of what makes them good is self improvement from what's already there. Please cite examples of clubs that have spent one billion and failed.

You are wrong about Chelsea, they have never been a big club. But they were winning trophies. League, FA, Uefa. It seemed like the next progression. It made it easier to stomach. Correct, and my quoted opinion is entirely about individual perception, tbf. To a fourteen year old in Nigeria at a time where Premier League was massive, but less available than now, they were one of the bigger clubs and them winning a title made sense to me. I understand why that might be different if you were in England or of a different era.