SportsTalk

[boatbuilder]

Latest post of the previous page:

Quite an impressive display in Amsterdam tonight by the England football squad against the Dutch, resulting in a 1-0 victory for us.

I'm not quite sure what this young Dutch girl 'mascot' was trying to indicate before the match - I can only think that maybe she is a secret England supporter indicating 'V' as her prediction of our Victory - the first in Amsterdam since 1969.
:StGeorge:1 ....... 0

Image courtesy of ITV1

[Mel]

Watched the England friendly last night against Nigeria, one of the last games before our team competes in the World Cup Finals and I thought they played OK. The first half England took complete control and went in at half time two goals ahead. Nigeria came out for the second half in a more determined mood and deserved the early goal they got. England weathered the early Nigeria pressure and never looked like losing the game. All in all I thought it was a good performance from the England players.

My only criticism is for Rayhem Sterling. He has been in great form for his club team this season but never seems to reach the same standards when wearing an England shirt. Also I hate seeing blatant cheating in a game and Sterling try to earn England a penalty with a deliberate dive in the Nigeria penalty area; I think Southgate should have immediately substituted him as this sort of behaviour should be seriously discouraged

[boatbuilder]

I watched the 'live' broadcast on LFCTV of the Liverpool v Manchester United 'friendly' pre-season match tonight from the Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, in the United States which was played in front of an amazing crowd of 101,000 spectators. It was an excellent match and I was well-impressed with the performance of 'my team' Liverpool. They played some skilful football and if they play like that in the forthcoming season then I certainly won't be disappointed. The match finished with a 4-1 win for us.

[boatbuilder]

I was looking back through some posts on here in the This Day in History topic and after reading a post about the 1966 World Cup in England I thought I would try and find out what my 7 match 'season ticket' for the matches at Everton and Man Utd., really did cost, as I had a vague idea that they were something like £15 for all 7. I managed to find out in the link below and was astonished to discover that all 7 cost just £4.10s.0d (£4.50) - way below what I thought I had paid for them. How time distorts memory? There were even tickets for £2.12s.6d (£2.62½) which I guess were for those behind the goal.

The link below dated 2016 makes interesting reading when comparing prices from then with prices 50 year on, not only the direct comparisons but the percentages way-over and above inflation.

Soccer Attic

[boatbuilder]

I just went onto the BBC sport website to see how the afternoon football is progressing and noticed this blunder:

Note the headline (Leicester) and compare to the facts in the 'Summary' and 'Scores'

[boatbuilder]

I watched the Merseyside Premier League derby earlier (Liverpool v Everton) which Liverpool won with the only goal of the game in 'time-added-on' to 'time-added-on'. Yes, it was in the sixth minute of the four added-on minutes at the end of the game (there was an injury stoppage in the added-on time). However, it was a most unusual goal and possibly the most unusual one that has ever won the Merseyside derby.

The Liverpool goalkeeper took a free-kick close to the halfway line with a tap-pass down the right wing which the receiving player then crossed to the far side of the pitch towards the corner of penalty area, only for Virgil Van Dijk who received the ball to apparently miskick his 'shot' which appeared to be going over the bar, as he seemed to have turned away in disgust after he had kicked it. However, it was too close to the bar for the Everton and England keeper Jordan Pickford to risk leaving it and he seemed to attempt to catch the ball, which had some spin on it, just above the bar and fumbled it, whereon it appeared to spin out of his hands and along the crossbar and back into play for the Liverpool substitute Divock Origi to head into the goal. What was just as strange was that Origi had come on as a substitute with only six minutes of normal time remaining - in his first Premier League appearance since August 2017, due mainly to injury.

What looked like was going to be a drawn game had a totally different outcome - not that I am complaining!

I just looked at the BBC online text commentary (below) for that part of the game and it comes across as a somewhat totally different sequence of events to what I have described above.

[boatbuilder]

Today's match between Bournmouth and Manchester City ended with the score at 0-1. However, when I looked a the match statistics the scoreline margin was not reflected in them.

[Dave]

Almost 60,000 supporters rose to their feet at London Stadium in celebration of West Ham United legend Billy Bonds, as the East Stand was renamed in the icon’s honour ahead of Saturday’s match with Newcastle.
Home to over 20,000 West Ham supporters, the man himself cut the ribbon to officially open the newly named Billy Bonds stand, rechristened in tribute to the 72-year-old’s 27 years with the Irons as both a player and a manager.

See the video here.

[Dave]

PSG 1 Manchester United 3 Agg 3-3. Manchester United win on away goals.

Like others I thought Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was nothing more than a stop gap until a 'Name' arrived to take over. He's proved everybody wrong and created a piece of football history comparable to Leicester's championship win a few seasons ago. I'd like to hear Jose Mourinho's excuses reasons as to why he couldn't get results like Solskjaer is getting. I usually want London teams to win all the trophies but this season I hope it will be one from Manchester who lifts the European Cup and I don't mean City.

[boatbuilder]

And I hope it goes 35 miles west along the East Lancashire Road!
If not, I'd prefer Man City to win it.

[boatbuilder]

Tottenham's new football ground is set to stage its first two 'test games' over the next ten days with the first Premier League game to be played there scheduled for April 3rd.

There seems to be an awful lot of technology involved and you can read about it HERE. I do wonder though what will happen if something goes wrong with the 'pitch technolgy'.

However, the following quote from the report also has me wondering about what state the fans might be in after the match.

10,000 PINTS A MINUTE

The bars, including The White Hart, The Dispensary and The Goal Line (at 65 metres, it’s the longest bar in Europe), will be serving gallons of booze, including craft beers from Beavertown, an onsite microbrewery.

Taps will fill plastic glasses from the bottom up, technology which will enable staff to pour about 10,000 pints a minute around the ground — a million over the whole match.

You’ll pay £5 and upwards for a pint of craft ale, £4 for a lager and £2 for tea, coffee or bottles of water.

With a ground capacity of 62,062 - a million pints 'over the whole match' would leave everyone consuming about 16 pints each - and that's assuming every spectator is 18+ years old. I hope they are only using those figures to demonstrate the speed at which they can be served and not what they hope to sell!!!

[boatbuilder]

How about THIS for luck.

[Dave]

Two seasons ago the O's were an inch from going out of business, relegated to the National League and in dire financial trouble. At the end of their second season they are promoted to Division Two as champions of the National League. Not all great football stories have to come from the Premier League.

[youtube]AGdZcokd1Zw[/youtube]

[boatbuilder]

Looks like we posted almost simultaneously, Dave - me in the Sports News topic. The database tells me you posted 34 seconds before me. Well done to LO.

[boatbuilder]

What a fantastic game of football tonight in the Liverpool v Barcelona Champions League semi-final second leg. To come back from a 3-0 deficit after the first away leg to clinch overall victory 4-3 without two of their top strikers was absolutely amazing. Certainly one of the best matches I have witnessed for a long time, albeit a nail-biter in the final 10 minutes when a goal for Barcelona would have reversed the result on the away goal rule.

[Dave]

What a fantastic game of football tonight

I didn't see the game, boatbuilder, but I'll bet your pulse rate doubled. To go all out to score four goals and not concede one must have needed nerves of steel. It would have been a crying shame for Liverpool not to have reached the Final and with either Spurs or Ajax as their opponents I think there's another winning night on the horizon. I can't see Man City losing to Brighton next Sunday, mind you I couldn't see Liverpool beating Barcelona, so the winning the Champions League isn't a bad consolation.