Miercoles

Jesus fuck, listening to that guy talk was brutal. I feel eight years older now.

Was really, really nice to watch us comfortably see out a game.

This dude in a team that creates chances would be absolutely ridiculous.

There were a couple editions of Pro Evo where that happened every fucking season

Funny that we both have Chelsea rejects now. It'll be quite the derby next world cup when we're in the same group yet again.

As a backup. It's not exactly a stellar recommendation when a team wants your star player for their bench. I'd rather have Pope than Pickford too, all things considered.

What a weird fucking penalty, I think Schar hypnotized him

What a relief to see two goalkeepers on the bench! We had been living dangerously the last couple of games there.

In Pro Evo I'd be playing the reserves to give everyone a rest

Yeah this is the usual process for these coaching carousel idiots. Rock up and give everyone a bollocking, get back to basics, earn your place you shits, etc. Players freak out and win a couple games with simple play and some renewed intensity. Then it gets down to "okay boss how do we beat these" and you start hearing "ahh yeah, well, it's a game of football innit, just go for it lads" (like the fucking interview minigame on new star soccer) so the players look sideways at each other and think "why are we busting ass for this idiot?" At which point, the wheels come the fuck off the bus. We'll be entering phase two shortly.

That was really cool, thank you! The study I linked was pre-covid, so it was very interesting to see some current research. Definitely seems to indicate a direct relationship to team performance in addition to the referee bias effect. The data is pretty dramatic in the new study, showing home advantage halved in most categories when the crowd is absent.

I dunno, Perez celebrated his goals by taking the piss out of our own fans for like a year

I think that's individual, right? Like some players thrive on being booed, others crumble. The same goes for cheering, some players love it and others feel it as an added pressure. It'd be very interesting to look at individual player performance during empty stadium games, to see if there is any noticeable difference in production without a crowd.

Yeah that was part of the details, the referee bias is basically down to crowd pressure. Agreed that it is very difficult to quantify the boost in energy a player might describe due to the crowd noise, especially when they are obviously incentivized to lie and say the fans are the 12th man on the field. No player is gonna be like "Yeah, nah, fuck the fans mate we're the ones kicking the ball" in a post match interview The empty stadium period would be a great way to look at that, but sadly as you say it also cuts the pressure on referees. You'd need an empty stadium with a bunch of hateful machete wielding maniacs screaming into the ref's earpiece.

There's some academic research out there about home field advantage, and the only conclusive finding is that referees generally favor the home team. The rest of it (crowd gave us energy, etc) is mostly bullshit. Travel fatigue was given a small amount of credence, but really the advantage is in referee bias. Here's a place to start if you're curious: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/2015/june/home-field-advantage-the-facts-and-the-fiction

Could be very interesting if they receive some heavy sanctions, i.e. relegation, embargo, etc. Suddenly they're a division or two down, Pep leaves, and some key players like KDB are aging out. It wouldn't be the simplest rebuild.

I don't think the premier League can afford to void like 8 of their last 10 championships or whatever. The punishment will be for future seasons, probably starting next year.

That's got to be the miss of the season there good lord. Tbh that's something I do a lot, reach for the ball and not really get it because I don't understand the distance and where my foot is. Of course I haven't played since U8s, sooooo

I did not expect to see him come up for the fifth penalty Tbf he was cool as fuck though

I was just thinking how fucking good this guy is, not even the goal just his movement and pace and everything, he's electric, and then fuuuuuuck. I don't even want to hear the prognosis at this point, it's just going to be another season of 6 weeks off 2 weeks on. Gutted.

That's what I was going to mention also, when it got down to it he was able to go ten games or whatever without a yellow. I think the responsibility of captaincy will drive him to act more rationally if anything.

Those intangibles again

The Fair Catch rule (3) is interesting. That action is basically the core mechanic of Australian Rules football.

Looked it up, actually the golfer John Daly: "you can pull a muscle but you can't pull fat" Still a stick swinging sport, so I was close

I forget what baseball player said "you can't tear fat"