Forum Replies Created
-
goddddddddd I hate this team
I wouldn’t mind taking this team to a WC.
Marc-André ter Stegen Goalkeeper FC Barcelona Germany
Robert Sanchez Goalkeeper Brighton & Hove Albion Spain
Kamil Grabara Goalkeeper FC Copenhagen PolandJackson Porozo Defender (Center) ES Troyes AC Ecuador
Harry Maguire Defender (Center) Manchester Uniteds FC England
Benjamin White Def (Center) Arsenal FC England
Benjamin Pavard Def (Center/Right) Wingback (Right) FC Bayern Munchen France
Raphaël Varane Def (Center) Manchester United FC France
Gleison Bremer Defender (Center) Juventus FC Brazil
Manuel Akanji Defender (Center) Manchester City FC Switzerland
Min-jae Kim Def (Center) SSC Napoli South Korea
Alejandro Balde Def/WB/Mid/Attmid (Left) FC Barcelona SpainGonzalo Plata Attmid (RLC) Real Valladolid CF Ecuador
Xavi Simons Defmid/Mid (Center) PSV Eindhoven Netherlands
Kalvin Phillips Defmid/Mid (Center) Manchester City FC England
Phil Foden Mid (Center)/Attmid (RCL) Manchester City FC England
Guido Rodriguez Defmid/Mid (Center) Real Betis Balompié Argentina
Anis Ben Slimane Mid/Att Mid (Center) Brøndby IF Tunisia
Sergej Milinković-Savić Mid/Att Mid (Center) SS Lazio Serbia
Fabian Rieder Mid (Center) BSC Young Boys SwitzerlandBoulaye Dia Attmid (Right) Fwd Villarreal CF Senegal
Randal Kolo Muani Attmid (Right) Fwd Eintracht Frankfurt eV France
Romelu Lukaku Forward Chelsea FC Belgium
Abdessamad Ezzalzouli Mid/Attmid (Right/Left) Fwd FC Barcelona Morocco
Vinicius Junior Att Mid (Right/Left) Fwd Real Madrid CF Brazil
Facundo Pellistri Attmid (Right) Fwd Manchester United FC Uruguay– how the fuck does Jose Luis Rodriguez, who has never been called up to the full Uruguay national team, get on the World Cup roster? I held on to this guy forever before I let him go. I knew he was good but he wasn’t going anywhere. Now he’s going to Qatar.
– I think Mexico will regret not taking Chicharito to the WC.
– two key defenders (Miles Robinson/Chris Richards) injured for the USA will likely cost them a trip to the 2nd round. I hope I’m wrong.
– My first WC experience was in 1974. I spent the summer in Sweden when the WC was in West Germany. Sweden had an unbeaten first round which included a 0-0 draw against eventual runner-up Netherlands which featured Cruyff and Neeskens, and a 3-0 win over Uruguay. In the second group stage they beat Yugoslavia but lost to Poland and eventual Champion West Germany. CONCACAF was represented by Haiti who lost their first round matches to Poland, Argentina and Italy by a combined 2-14. Zaire ( Wikipedia – Zaire 1974 WC ), now known as DR Congo was Africa’s only representative and lost their first round matches to Yugoslavia, Brazil and Scotland by a combined 0-14. After that I was hooked on football. Unfortunately it was many years until cable tv came along and access to matches from Europe became commonplace.
– I’m not gonna dare pick a winner because I think this is the most wide open WC ever. I think the winner will be a country that has not won it before.
I took two airplane flights last week. Of course there was the emergency safety announcement done by the flight attendants prior to take off. One of the things mentioned was that the seat cushion can be used as a flotation device in the event of a water landing. For some reason it occurred to me that in the movie “Sully”, I didn’t recall any of the passengers that were evacuated onto the wings of the jet or onto the rubber rafts had taken their seat cushions with them. So I just took a look at the YouTube video from that part of the film, and sure enough, not a one of those passengers or the flight crew took a seat cushion with them even though they had just made a water landing. Some of the passengers even jumped into the water without seat cushions. But now I realize, the flights I was on never went over water. And I remember reading about a jet from the airline I was on that crashed off of California in the ocean, and there were no survivors. My wife asked me before we got on the flight, “do you like to fly?” I responded jokingly, “if God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings”. I then said, “no I don’t like to fly, but of course I’ll do it if it’s necessary to get where I want to go.” Anyway, I’m thinking of researching the “Sully” crash to see if the seat cushion thing came up in the investigation because, wtf, when they landed in the water, didn’t any of the crew yell out, “hey, take your fucking seat cushions, ’cause you know, we just landed in the fucking water”.
NASCAR’s Cup playoff system received one of its most iconic moments ever in the penultimate race of the 2022 season at Martinsville, as Ross Chastain used the wall to slingshot himself into the championship race.
With one final turn to do in the 500-lap race, Chastain – in his first year as a bona fide Cup frontrunner with Justin Marks’ Trackhouse team that had acquired Ganassi’s Cup operation ahead of this year (and is co-owned by rapper Pitbull) – was set to miss out on a place in the ‘championship four’ at Phoenix, the traditional end-of-season Cup race in which four drivers go in level on points and whoever finishes ahead is crowned champion.
Martinsville marked the final race of the third round of the four-stage Cup playoffs, with eight drivers remaining in the hunt and Penske’s Joey Logano having already ensured his Phoenix title shot courtesy of a win two weeks prior.
Chastain – who has earned himself an aggressive and controversial on-track reputation within Cup – was second in the standings going in to Martinsville and thus on course to make the title race, with places in the final guaranteed to those winning in the third round but the remaining allocation determined on points.
But Chastain’s race had been a struggle, and as Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin won two stages – leading at the mid-race cut-off laps that award points in NASCAR – and another Gibbs playoff driver in Christopher Bell was on course to pick up a win, Chastain found himself on the outside looking in.
Having cleared Hendrick driver Chase Elliott, Chastain found himself in 10th, five places behind Hamlin but with the field relatively bunched up after a recent caution. But there was no conventional way of getting where he needed to be.
So, coming into the final corner, Chastain did something absolutely ridiculous.
“I’ve played a lot of NASCAR 2005 on the [Nintendo] Gamecube with Chad [younger brother and fellow racing driver] growing up, and you could get away with it,” he explained post-race. “And I never knew it could actually work.
“I mean, I did that when I was eight years old. And I grabbed fifth gear, I just made the choice, and full committed.
“Basically let go of the wheel, just hoped I wouldn’t catch the Turn 4 access gate or something crazy. But I was willing to do it.”
To say it worked out would be an understatement. Chastain’s wall-ride of the final corner of Martinsville, a half-mile ‘paperclip’ short oval where the average speed is around 96mph in current Cup cars, propelled him to a new Cup track record, beating a laptime set by Logano eight years prior, in qualifying. As far as the 2022 race, it was the fastest lap by over a second – at a 20-second circuit.
Much more importantly, it elevated him to as high as fifth, Chastain’s momentum just carrying him to the line ahead of Hamlin to add insult to injury for the eliminated veteran.
ROSS CHASTAIN in CAR #1
