I remember one of the Bosnia players actually kinda consoled him while the officials were deliberatin.  Put his arm around his shoulder and said somethin.  Not like Oh good, the best player out here just got tossed.  More like respect and understandin. 

Yeah man, great point IBC. I totally agree. They were like, wow, this is fucked up bro. Especially because they assumed we were going to win and they knew our star player was going to have to sit out....

That said, Fox Sports has been talking about how you can't challenge a red card after the fact, but you CAN challenge illegal use of VAR, so they read the rule, and it leaves some interpretation because it says "in most cases" and stuff like that, but generally, slow motion is not reserved for review in that situation, and I think they are trying to challenge that. 

Also, I guess before the WC, Ronaldo had like a 3 game suspension, that they changed to 2 game probation or what not... So, the legal crews will try and get something done, but I am not sure if it will work. Here is to hoping. 

https://x.com/TelemundoSports/status/2072498415947087976/video/1

Yeah, not gonna lie, I watched part of the game last night in Telemundo. They just do it better. I speak broken spanish, so I understood some of it, but man, their goal calls put us gringos to shame!

And I know it's world cup time, so that will dominate most conversations, but there is some crazy shit going on in the NBA.

- ganias antetokounmpo to Miami

- Jaylen Brown to the rival, same conference 76ers for peanuts. This one was fucking nuts. Celtics are crazy. I know Brown was a problem for them, but he was a top 5 player in MVP votes. Won a championship and an MVP, and they moved him for nothing.

- Lebron officially announced he is leaving the Lakers. That's not crazy news. Writing has been on the walls, but as a Warriors fan, the word on the street is that his number 1 landing spot is with Steph Curry in GS. I don't think Lebron moves the needle and puts them into championship contention, but with Lebron playing point forward, curry and Butler, then Draymond at the 4 spot and Porzingus at center, that is an interesting squad. We shall see. 

Oh, shit.  I forgot about the Knicks.  Spike and his beloved Knicks.  He's always the 1st person I think of. 

Yeah man, Shit it has been a while. And I will pulling for Wemby and the spurs, but it was hard not to be happy for the Knicks fans. They have been in purgatory my whole life. I think every fan and player from the 90's still has nightmares about Michael Jordan....

But my main NBA playoff goal was met. The evil empire, the OKC Thunder lost, and that is all I cared about. As I have ranted on and on about for years on the previous forums. OKC illegally purchased the team from Seattle (Super Sonics). They had to pay like a 5 million dollar fine at the time, but the sale was not approved from Seattle, so their team was stolen. Ever since then, I wished nothing but defeat on them. The Sonics were a staple of the NBA. A La' the Baltimore Colts. Actually, the same thing happened when the Rams left St. Louis. That was also an illegal sale/purchase. 

But to make matters worse, SGA is the biggest bitch that has ever tied up his laces. He is a coward. A freak. A sissy, a liar, a cheat and many other things. Flopping like he is on the soccer pitch. He is a joke, so I was ECSTATIC when San Antonio look those losers out. Fuck OKC, fuck their fans and fuck their city. 

I actually have an ongoing beef with my best friend about OKC. He travels a lot with work and has been to OKC a few times and tells me what a great city it is. I have been there once and I saw everything I needed to see. It's a second rate shit hole dump of a city in a terrible part of the country. He calls me a hater and says it's just an opinion. So I bring up OKC all the time, like "Hey, I just got back from a trip to Miami. South Beach was fun, I mean, it's no Oklahoma City or anything, but it was okay"... Kinda deal....

But yeah, as long as the fucking Thunder loss, I was happy. And the Knicks were on fire. They will NEVER duplicate that, but it was a nice run and they got their rings. 

Okay, so initially, I didn't have a problem with this VAR stuff, but it's getting out of control. I feel like more than 50% of goals are being called back after review for someone being offsides by a millimeter. 

Like, in the Portugal game. The called back one of Croatia's goals early. Then at the very end, when the had seemingly scored the tying goal, they review it for 5 minutes just to over turn it.... So, in that scenario, it was fucked up. Because a defender deflected the ball, which in most cases leaves a play "on sides", but they said it was an unintentional touch, so it was still offsides. I mean, come the fuck on....

What a heart breaker for Croatia. That one stung. And fuck Ronaldo. 

But on top of that, I will say this. I have noticed this year, more than ANY other time I have watched soccer, the lackadaisical and general laziness from almost all of the forward players. These guys linger offsides ALL THE TIME. I really noticed it when watch Ronaldo in the last group stage. He would make a run, then just stop to a dead walk back up the field. And about a half dozen times, his supporting mid-fielders won the ball back and Ronaldo is just standing there, 10 feet offsides, so the guys are all passing around and dribbling waiting for him to get back on sides. Just with regards to Renaldo, he left like 5 potential goal opportunities for being lazy.

Messi lingers as well, but he always runs back to the onsides position. He even goes deep in the defense to help with coverage. 

But I guess what I am saying is this: Even in middle school and high school soccer, offsides is taught constantly. It's one of the most important aspects of the game. And to see these elite players CONSTANTLY being offsides is just starting to piss me off. YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AT ALL TIMES. There is no excuse for these guys to be on inch offsides. an inch is an inch, but it is still offsides, and 99% of the time, they would have score anyway. No need to encroach. 

Before my senior year, our coach has this guy name Graham Ramsey come and coach us all summer. He had previously been the England Men's national coach. Dude had one eye with an eye patch, smoked cigarettes, but could bend it in the net from 50 yards out at a stand still, at age 65 of whatever...

So anyway, the main thing he taught our defense was the "Flat Back Four" and the "Offsides Trap"... So our traditional defense was a diamond, with me in the back at the sweeper position. And when the ball was in our attacking half, the coach would give us a signal, and we would align straight across in a flat back 4. Based on where the ball was, we would move a wing defender up and then it would be a line of 3. But anyway, the principal was that I was the faster dude on the team at the time, but we were all fast. So, we would sneak up in an alignment straight across and we would just watch the mid fielders and as soon as a wing player would move the ball towards the sideline to make a cross or a deep chip pass, we would simply all move up 5 feet, leaving the stikers offsides. It worked EVERY TIME. It was the most genius, but simple thing any team can do. It worked almost every time. And when the rarity happened and we got beat, it was me and my guys in a foot race, and we would always catch back up and clear the ball....

So, point is, this is a tactic used by international soccer teams since the dawn of time....

So there is no fucking excuse that these idiots are offsides, all THE FUCKING TIME.... I mean, sometimes it's so egregious that I want to scream. 

And in Croatia's case, yes, there was a technicality that could have made that goal count, but watch the replay, their striker was easily 5 feet behind the last defender. Just standing there waving for the ball. BRO, YOU ARE OFF FUCKING SIDES. Step back to the proper position, you fucking idiots. 

So I am not sure if I hate VAR, or if these players are just that lazy and fucking stupid. 

Haha, Zach.  Ready... shift.  Oops.  You're offside dude.  That's great.  

Yeah man, It's something I coached my daughter U8 team to do, and we won 2 championships. It's the simplest thing on earth. And my senior year, we only had one lost and made a deep playoff run, and we were one of the smaller schools. I would say, if I had to guess, we were getting upwards of 15 offsides calls per game.

Remember, offsides only holds to mid field, but anywhere beyond that, we were toasting guys with the offsides call. Every time. 

And the US has the same problem. Two goals called back against Bosnia. TWO! We are not a team with a reputation or the luxury of doing shit like that. The refs don't like us and the international soccer community wants us to fail. We get red cards and suspensions. Messi and Argentina get a chuckle, no cards and a "play on" for a worse tackle..... 

We have to remember that. We are in no position to piss away opportunities by make middle school level mistakes. We need to capitalize on every single opportunity we get, or we aren't going any deeper. 

Yeah, the VAR shit is crazy, sometimes it's good, but many times I think it's BS. I feel for Croatia for sure. But I actually don't have a problem with Ronaldo, not a huge fan but I respect his talent, one of the greats for sure, but being objective, I think the goal they took back of his was BS, "offsides", his feet and all of his body was on sides, but his forward lean from running had his head juuust over that imaginary line they spin around in a 360 view to get an angle that shows offsides, fucken hell. Maybe I'm wrong on that call, but I thought he was onsides or right at the line. If his posture was more upright, they don't call it? I don't buy that.

Yeah, it's was definitely offsides. But it's like in baseball with calls and strikes. They are taking the human element out of it. That is what the line judge is for. But, I get it... And that leads me back to my previous point. The guys know this. If you are off by an inch, you are getting called. No matter what. I guess it just takes some getting used to. 

As I was talking about soccer back in the day, before EVERY game, because it was the late 90s, I would tell the line judges and the head ref "We are running offsides traps, so please pay close attention to our positioning, because we are going to jump forward the whole time... That is because we didn't have technology and we had to rely on some teenager to see what we are doing....

And for Ronaldo, I didn't care much until recently. But my son has become a huge Messi fan, and much like the "MJ Vs. Lebron" argument, I guess we are supposed to pick a side. I appreciate Ronaldo and I know he is amazing, but his personality, in my view, has been poor. He is arrogant, he is selfish and he is the guy out there literally saying "I am the best soccer player ever", when with Messi, he NEVER says that. People say that ABOUT him, and that is a big difference. 

I further loved Messi because he came to the US, plays in Miami and literally doubled the popularity of our league. And the MLS pays him peanuts as a player, but many don't know this: MLS has a deal with Apple TV. Messi gets a percentage of EVERY Apple TV membership and gets paid for views of not just his games, but ALL games. Also, the MLS gave him a business deal with Jerseys. Messi also gets a cut on every MLS jersey sold, not just his own..... So, he made an incredible deal and will end up getting a billion dollars in the end...

Meanwhile, Ronaldo didn't want to play in the USA, so he did the LIV Golf thing, and plays in Saudi Arabia, where no one earth sees him. Can you name what team he plays for? Or the name of the league? I cannot....

And the icing on the Cake for Ronaldo was when I was at the beach about a month ago. The girls are out of town and my son was playing on the beach with his little girl friend, and I am on the beach with the parents. This is the Dad from Belgium that I have been teaching how to surf, and the Mom is from Maryland.... So she is going on and on about how she hopes Ronaldo gets a world cup, because he deserves it and all this. And I am like, fuck him, why do you like him... She immediately stays wooing about "Oh, his abs. His face. He is dreamy".... I roll my eyes, yeah... Okay... Then she is like, well, Ronaldo does hate America. He makes that clear. He wouldn't even do a press conference with a coca cola in front of him. He tossed it to the side and demanded a water. He didn't want to come here and live as a US legend at the end of his career,

so for all those reasons. Fuck that dude. Go Messi! I don't care what your fucking abs look like, I care about your play on the field, your character and what you mean to the millions of kids that look up to you. Messi is a Hero. Ronaldo is a fucking villain. 

Oh, dang.  Cape Verde is kinda long odds.  The lady on Fox Sports asks dude the standard question what Cape Verde has to do to win.  Usually there's some kinda optimistic if they do such and so...  Dude just flat out says there ain't nothin they can do.

Period. 😲

It's usually not so abrupt.  😁  Everyone is bein nice though.  It would take a kinda big miracle for Argentina to lose.

I didn't realize Messi played for Miami.  Home game.  Lotta Argentina fans.

I forgot my pic... 

Messi with a goal in his 8th straight world

cup game. Unreal. Cape Verde squared things, but I think Argentina ha this one. 

unbelievable 

Holy Moly.  Cape Verde didn't get the memo sayin they were done.  Here we go to overtime.  🤯

What an INSANE game.  Argentina got a pretty good scare from Cape Verde.  Great stuff.  🤯

I never really thought about how teams decide who takes the free kicks, penalty kicks.  Commentators were sayin like Why is so and so the one kickin the ball in such an important moment, etc.  One of em says nobody will do it... 

Say WHAT?

Starts goin into how people can't do it.  The pressure is too intense.  

I always thought they just put so and so up there.  Now I'm curious what happens behind the scenes just before they decide who goes out to kick the ball. 

That cape verde game was epic! They played their hearts out and almost pulled off the upset…

I actually found myself gettin pretty riled up over the Paraguay thuggery.  Was yellin at my TV as they kept tryna pull cheap shit on France.  Not a single card to Paraguay.  NADA.  It was beyond obvious all the illegal hits.  They just wanted to punch people in the face, not play soccer.  I'm not only glad as hell they're gone.  It wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least if their bus breaks down, luggage gets sent to Pakistan by mistake, and the nation of Paraguay suffers a 50% reduction of their entire economy.   Really. 

Someone else might get on my last nerve, but Paraguay set the bar pretty high.