Segun Oluwaniyi

I do not know if this is the quality of England, or just poor play from a team with serious turmoil in their country, but I have never seen Iran under Queiroz treated like this. This is historically one of the most difficult sides to play against in international football and they are being abused all over the pitch.

That is the exact penalty that helped spur England's run to the semifinals four years ago, so I guess the rules have changed in that time.

Reviving this thread: Just leaving Stadico Olimpico after Derby Della Capitale, highly disappointed as someone that came hoping to see Roma win. Atmosphere was incredible, of course, game generally was horrendous. Ibanez gifted Lazio the goal, they had no desire to pursue more and Roma created almost nothing. The decline of Tammy Abraham this season has been shocking. In his current form, the boy is a liability. All-around play is not as good as it previously was and missing countless easy chances every match. Roma in general are held back by their attack, Dybala is the only reliable player. They will struggle to get top four without sorting it out.

Stade Velodrome is a beautiful place when there is a big match. My first time in attendance and the atmosphere was beautiful.It is a shame that l'OM lack the quality and mental fortitude to actually compete at the level though. Spurs were not there at all in the first half, they should have been down more than one, but it was an entirely different match in the second half. Kolasinac miss was unbelievable, that man is just pure rubbish. Mbemba was MOTM, he was brilliant throughout. The last second to crash out of Europe was disgraceful though . Just making random loose passes with every single player on the pitch and the Tudor running on the pitch to try and have the ref stop the match during a 2 v. 1.

Chelsea have played rubbish football for a good while now, and every single attacking player at that club has regressed or under-performed with Tuchel. The only one that has looked capable this season is Sterling, who Tuchel has not had time to ruin yet. So, in a sense, it is unreasonable as a manager who won the Champions League 1.5 years ago should have earned a chance to build a team with some stability, but the reality is that no Chelsea fan will miss him. It did not seem like he had any idea of how to fix the issues they were going through this season.

All of the Italian teams are rubbish at the top level, tbh. The top 7 teams in Serie A this season are strong and quite equal, but nowhere near the top contenders in the Champions League. Donnarumma has regressed badly at PSG.

PSG may still have issues in terms of their defensive structure with all three superstars on the pitch in the final stages of the CL, but Galtier has improved them drastically. The team will be a juggernaut this season.

Leicester need to sack Rodgers or they could actually be in danger of relegation. They have dynamic players in throughout their squad and chose to play backwards/sideways the whole match. I do not know what has happened at that club, but there is no reason for the to be so poor going forward with the team they have.

I have said from the beginning, I do not even trust this offside process being used with VAR at the small margins it is being used to adjudicate decisions. There was another yesterday where Gray looked visually onside for Everton, but was declared off by the arbitrary lines. The goal-line technology (which is much simpler) has failed in the Premier League at least once, so I am not sure why we take this seemingly manual geometric process as gospel?

It is unbelievable that this boy scored 8 goals in 14 matches at one point. He looks lost with the ball at his feet, in every part of the pitch. Misplaced passes, consistently rubbish clearances, and hesitant in attacking positions. His workrate and athleticism make him an "OK" player at this level, but overall very disappointing since signing permanently.

Even five minutes of added time is quite a bit for the events of the second half with one goal and few serious injuries. It is laughable that we are meant to accept that "time-wasting" means the opposition gets an extra 2-3 minutes to score, when this has not been the case at all in my decades of watching football. This would only happen away on a "storied night at Anfield" or other certain clubs. Very annoying.

Lascelles, cot damn.

Mitrovic (also his own managerial failings) making Scott Parker look like a fool this season.

Ludicrous that Bruno's challenge in the first five minutes was a yellow and Rodrigo's cynical tackle on ASM just now was not.

No touch. Onside. Goal.

I am not hyping a single Naija player until after the World cup (maybe even until after the election). They seriously vexed me and my family with the rubbish they pulled against Ghana. Along with many vexations about that place in general. I wish the boys well, but that is as far as we go now.

Forest should be careful not to sign too many Nigerians, it has been a recipe for relegation. Fulham in 2021 and Watford in 2022 both fell prey to this strategy. Honestly, I could see all three they've signed/been linked to being decent for them: Awoniyi is a strong, quick player to knock the ball up to (Do not see him being as prolific as in Germany, where no one defends), Dennis has attitude issues but is very dangerous, and Moses has great pace and dribbling (Even though he is often going nowhere useful, he can win his team the match sometimes and was good for Nantes).

I like Zaha quite a bit, but I think he has been playing bigman football as the best player at a lower-tier side for too long and has gained bad habits. He is isolating himself and delaying play far too much. The consistent crying to ref is also a symptom of being the best player and placated to for too long at the club. At this stage, he'd struggle to adjust his style. Even with the players Palace have now, he would benefit from altering the way he plays.

Seems like that should be a penalty?

Bundesliga title race over in the first 35 minutes of play.

Even in a pre-blood/oil money world, it would be highly disappointing not to sign a starting quality forward in this summer, whether it be a wide player or a striker. Both were clear weaknesses last season, there is a spot now with Gayle gone, and ideally it would be time to eliminate one of Murphy, Fraser, or Almiron. I do not think it is unusual at all to be unnerved when it is nearly August and arguably the main target of the transfer window remains unfulfilled. Leicester, West Ham, and Villa are realistic teams to compete with this season and the quality in attacking areas of those sides is markedly superior.

I would think it is a combination of the discrepancies in his documents and not providing the wage and length of deal he would want. OM have definitely increased his wage and for three years. The age issue is nothing new. It is the same 1988 date that has followed his career from Anderlecht to Newcastle to now. So, Porto signed him initially with this knowledge. My wife was also born sometime between 1988 and 1994 in Kinshasha, so I will ask her for direct evidence, but it's impossible to know otherwise, that country is dysfunctional even compared to it continental counterparts.

We have just missed the last one primarily due to internal incompetence, the successful basketball and athletics teams were just recently banned internationally due to further incompetence, and the people in power make Trump and Biden seem like Alexander the Great. You are laughing, but I am deadly (Mike translation: dead-ass) serious. You are not lying, I love driving long distances in all manner of scenarios, but when the wind started whipping in the Wyoming mountains with all of those trailers around, I was actually scared for my life. I cannot even imagine it in winter, there was snow around in April, still. That makes sense about the airport, never seen the city, but as you say, have been through the airport a few times. KC is actually rubbish and boring anyway, so I do not doubt Denver is better. DC United Stadium is quite nice, but tiny, yeah. Baltimore has problems that everyone knows about, but the stadiums are wonderful and I doubt people are coming from all-over the world to stay in Park Heights and Walbrook, anyway. In Russia, the events were essentially in two places for most of the cities, there was not a need to go elsewhere.

I am sure Denver is wonderful, but is it not even further from other places than Kansas City? I had to drive from Salt Lake City (which a map says is one of the closer cities to it) to Denver airport after an unfortunate travel incident a while back, and it was roughly 9 hours through an actual mountain. Kansas City meanwhile is three hours from Saint Louis. The hope was for matches in Batimore, but I strongly doubted this after it had to combine with DC. The fact that Baltimore, which has perfectly adequate stadium and facilities, felt the need to attach itself to another city and DC had to abandon the idea of hosting matches in their disgraceful stadium in the boondocks of PG County, meant FIFA likely did not view either favourably. There is a distinct possibility that Nigeria will again fail to qualify, be banned internationally, or fail to exist in general by 2026, but still I will spend the next four years wishing to have a match in Dallas or Houston. Would be madness and essentially a home match, as long as it is not against a Latin American team or the US.

Costa Rica essentially still have the exact same team that they brought to the World Cup in 2014. Just 8 years slower and older.