Sports thread: Everything sport related here.

plawolf

Lieutenant General
I’m so glad England won, because the whole Columbian team played in a most disgracefully dirty manner, especially in the first half.

Every time there was a decision against them, they would swarm around the ref, proteating and arguing for unseemly long periods like the worst kind of spoilt sport sore loosers.

With the England penalty, half of them were distracting the ref with their cry baby whining while the rest were continuously scuffing up the penalty spot.

The fouling was also systematic, with the whole team acting like the worst Sunday league thugs.

The ref could have sent pretty much the entire Columbian side off had he been so inclined.

Had they won, it would have been a damning stain on the beautiful game for such atrocious tactics and behaviours to work and bare fruit.

Ironically, had they not bothered with all the ‘gamesmanship’ BS, and actually just tried to play the game like they did in the later stages, but from the start, they might have won without needing to go to penalties.
 

timepass

Brigadier
Export of
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from
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during July-May current year has increased by 10.64 % as compared to same period of the previous year.


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Increase in the export of footballs is witnessed amid ongoing
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, where Pakistan's manufactured footballs are being used.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
I made a comment on a Yahoo article about how the Warriors are ruining the NBA because of Demarcus Cousins deciding to become a Warrior. I find it ironic that sports fans can be the most conservative lot in their politics yet when it comes to sports, they want parity aka communism. Don't blame the Warriors for following the rules. Don't blame the Warriors because the owner of your favorite team just owns it for prestige and making money and not spend because he or she would make less money if they did that. I basically said that and got a whole lot of likes up there in the most liked comments. Yahoo wiped out my likes. What's the matter? Don't like being called a communist? If it walks like a duck... I know... it's these dummies who don't even know what the communism they hate means. If they think there should be parity in sports, that's communism. Yeah one owner who doesn't want to spend the money but wants a shot at the title is going to push everyone else down and not bring their team up in order to get that chance. All the things people who supposedly hate about communism are all of the sudden okay with when they're at the bottom. Yes they don't call it communism and that's the only difference to them.
 

vesicles

Colonel
I made a comment on a Yahoo article about how the Warriors are ruining the NBA because of Demarcus Cousins deciding to become a Warrior. I find it ironic that sports fans can be the most conservative lot in their politics yet when it comes to sports, they want parity aka communism. Don't blame the Warriors for following the rules. Don't blame the Warriors because the owner of your favorite team just owns it for prestige and making money and not spend because he or she would make less money if they did that. I basically said that and got a whole lot of likes up there in the most liked comments. Yahoo wiped out my likes. What's the matter? Don't like being called a communist? If it walks like a duck... I know... it's these dummies who don't even know what the communism they hate means. If they think there should be parity in sports, that's communism. Yeah one owner who doesn't want to spend the money but wants a shot at the title is going to push everyone else down and not bring their team up in order to get that chance. All the things people who supposedly hate about communism are all of the sudden okay with when they're at the bottom. Yes they don't call it communism and that's the only difference to them.

Well, there is a difference between communism and anti-monopoly. What the Warriors are doing is to build a monopoly, which does hurt business. Having a team that wins every single year would obviously make the games boring and no one wants to watch anymore.

That’s why the lottery system was set up, to give bad teams a chance to get better. Just look at the olympics men’s basketball games. Who watches them? Practically no one since everyone knows the American super dream team will win. No suspension, no viewers. That was also why women’s softball at the olympics was taken out because the Americans won every single time. They ultimately decided to take it out of the olympics because of lack of competition.

At the end of the day, it is still a business. And it’s gotta find the most efficient way to make the most money. And in this case, having as many competitive teams as possible makes the game interesting and sells tickets and commercials.

In this sense, this is not communism at all. It’s simply about making as much cash as humanly possible.

It comes communism if someone decides to force the star players to make the same amount of money as the benchwarmers. That’s not what is happening.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Well, there is a difference between communism and anti-monopoly. What the Warriors are doing is to build a monopoly, which does hurt business. Having a team that wins every single year would obviously make the games boring and no one wants to watch anymore.

That’s why the lottery system was set up, to give bad teams a chance to get better. Just look at the olympics men’s basketball games. Who watches them? Practically no one since everyone knows the American super dream team will win. No suspension, no viewers. That was also why women’s softball at the olympics was taken out because the Americans won every single time. They ultimately decided to take it out of the olympics because of lack of competition.

At the end of the day, it is still a business. And it’s gotta find the most efficient way to make the most money. And in this case, having as many competitive teams as possible makes the game interesting and sells tickets and commercials.

In this sense, this is not communism at all. It’s simply about making as much cash as humanly possible.

It comes communism if someone decides to force the star players to make the same amount of money as the benchwarmers. That’s not what is happening.


The Warriors are playing by the rules that everyone else plays by. If other team's owners and managers aren't as smart, don't bring everyone else down because of it. They want it easy for themselves because they want to make money which is more important than winning. I'm sure the Warriors are making gazillions to offset what they're spending but that just shows other teams owner's are just lazy. Also there's the unwritten rules that the haters expect to be followed and the Warriors are breaking them and they were hated before Kevin Durant joined the team. The culture for decades has been one "star" player on every team and every one else are just support. The Warriors have a team mentality that's not against the rules which ruins the "star" player culture. There has always been a prejudice against SF/Bay Area professional teams. That's because people are bringing their personal politics that has nothing to do with sports into sports. Hence why I will use communism to describe it. Ironic that people will hate something in society in general and in their personal political view of the world are suddenly for it when it comes to sports and how it affects their team. How many sports commentators and fans are against affirmative action? I bet a lot. Certainly most of the sports commentators with their own TV and radio shows are by what I hear of their politics. Yet they want to punish merit in the NBA. Every team has to be equal but not when people bring their personal political prejudices against certain teams because of what part of the country the team is from. The 49ers also had a similar culture to the Warriors and because Jerry Jones didn't like how the 49ers were winning, he led the charge to change the rules. Yeah it's okay when the Cowboys were winning. So what's unfair? I'm sure they will eventually change the rules to just stop the Warriors from winning.
 
I came across this article about the Belgium - Japan match as watched in Beijing.

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Warming ties? Chinese fans cheered for Japan at World Cup
State media praise Samurai Blue despite last-16 exit

OKI NAGAI, Nikkei staff writer July 10, 2018 06:14 JST
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Japan's Takashi Inui celebrates scoring the team's second goal in a game against Belgium on July 2. © Reuters
BEIJING -- About 30 soccer fans gathered around a big-screen television at a sports bar here during the wee hours of July 3 to watch the World Cup round of 16 game between Japan and Belgium.

A shot in the second minute by Japanese midfielder Shinji Kagawa drew disappointed sighs as it bounced wide of the goal, followed by cries of alarm when Belgium went on the attack.

Caught up in the excitement, this reporter briefly forgot being in Beijing, rather than Tokyo, and that most of the people here at 2 a.m. were Chinese. Any doubts that the spectators came to support the Samurai Blue were dispelled with the cheers that greeted each Japanese pass.


After the scoreless first half, a group of six customers in their 20s acknowledged they were rooting for Japan.

"That's right," one replied with a grin. "They're the only Asian team that made it to the knockout stage. They're a shining beacon of Asia."

Another man said he had bet on Japan -- as an expression of Asian soccer friendship, not because of the odds, he clarified. A woman sitting nearby, apparently his girlfriend, said she supported the Japanese team as well.



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Chinese soccer fans at a Beijing sports bar cheer on Japan during its World Cup knockout match against Belgium. (Photo by Oki Nagai)

This bar sits in Beijing's popular Sanlitun district with many bars and stores that attract young people interested in foreign cultures. The customers here are the sort who can afford to drop 50 yuan ($7.56) on a draft beer -- a small share of this country's 1.4 billion people.

Yet even the ruling Chinese Communist Party showered Japan's national soccer team with praise. Japan may have lost, but the players can return home with their heads held high, the official People's Daily newspaper wrote in its Wednesday edition, lauding the teamwork, technique and mental fortitude that let them go toe-to-toe with Belgium.

State-run China Central Television praised manager Akira Nishino's ability to get the most out of his players. It talked about the "Miracle of Miami," when Nishino coached the Japanese team to victory over Brazil in the 1996 Olympics.

Nishino had taken flak from many in the media over Japan's last group-stage game, against Poland, in which the players simply passed the ball around in the final minutes despite being down a goal in order to squeak through to the knockout stage on the team's superior disciplinary record. But even then, the People's Daily said Japan had kept Asia's hopes alive.

President Xi Jinping, a fan of the sport, has poured resources into
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. Yet the country failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2014 and 2018.

China's desire to assemble a team strong enough to reach the World Cup seems to spur this support for a fellow Asian squad. Warmer ties with Japan also may have eased the way for Chinese fans to cheer on their neighbor, while state media might be encouraging the trend to improve public sentiment.

But Japanese fans show little interest in China's sporting achievements. In table tennis, Japan sees its dominant neighbor more as an obstacle blocking its own players. Chinese runner Su Bingtian has garnered little attention for his achievements in the men's 100-meter dash -- where Asian countries are usually weak -- despite recently breaking the 10-second mark in two consecutive competitions.

What it would take for Japan to reciprocate China's support for the Samurai Blue remains unclear.
 
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