Soccer (Closing)

I think any team out of the group stage in cup competitions get 0 restrictions on minutes for that competition, and also it shouldn’t be a full season cap I would probably break it up into 2 halves or maybe even quarters like 900 minutes per 12 games for example

Only Arsenal fans can spout such nonsense. It's better to lose a few than draw a lot. Nobody gives a shit about draws. That's the whole point of the 3 point system.

Every single thing that references someone's half brother's dog walker's grandma who is half Israeli gets locked and all the comments get removed

fucking hell just watched the Beckham documentary and the overaction to the red card was absolutely insane. what do you reckon happens if it was 2023?

can’t be convinced Oihan Sancet is the name of someone not from the lord of the rings’ universe

yeah it was like they're actively looking to eat him alive

my neim is, hames. updetofis

There was loads of support for them as well though. With Beckham the Tabloids smelt blood and it was all very one sided.

IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - October 13th

First Division

Leeds remain unbeaten after suffering a scare at Filbert Street. Leicester City went 2-0 up courtesy of Frank Worthington and a thunderbolt by Alan Birchenall, but Leeds fought to draw level: Mick Jones and a controversial free-kick parried into the net by Billy Bremner helped the Whites to continue his march on top of the table.

The gap between first and second is reduced to two points. Burnley beat QPR 2-1 thanks to the goals by Geoff Nulty and Ray Hankin, cancelling Dave Thomas effort. Coventry couldn't snatch a win at Norwich, ending all square at 0-0.

Liverpool's shaky start of the season continues, virtue of a 1-0 defeat at The Dell, with an effort by Mick Channon, settling the points for Southampton. A crowd of 25,111 at Stamford Bridge saw one of the most entertaining games of the day - Ipswich defeated Chelsea thanks to a brace by David Johnson and a Bryan Hamilton goal. 3-2 for the Anglia team. At White Hart Lane, a North London Derby with 2 teams in search of a victory which can give a bit of fresh aire was decided in favour of a Spurs side which really needed the points: a crowd of 41,000 saw Martin Chivers and Alan Gilzean score the goals.

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CONTROVERSY AT OLD TRAFFORD. United's woes continue after another dire performance against now 3rd place Derby County: the biggets crowd of the day (43,000) saw Kevin Hector score the only goal of the match. But the real trouble started at the end of the match. Sam Longson, the Derby chairman, claimed that Brian Clough v-signed Sir Matt Busby, in attendance today. This really aggravates the atmosphere between the board and the manager. We shall see if the situation improves or not.

To finish with, it's good to see Birmingham City's first victory of the season: goals from Trevor Francis and Kenny Burns obliterated John Richards' effort for a Wolves side who lie only one point above the relegation zone. Said relegation zone is also shared by West Ham, who is rock bottom after Colin Harper's goal gave Everton the win at Goodison Park.

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Second Division

Middlesbrough earn another valuable home win to keep themselves top of the table: 1-0 against Hull - Malcolm Smith the scorer. An overhaul of the promotion places has happened: both Fulham and Forest lost today - Don Masson scoring a brace to sink Fulham at Notts County and the Gordon Fairbrother-Ricky Heppolette duo partnering to beat Forest at the Orient - leaving Luton Town to pick the rewards. A penalty scored by John Aston and a goal by Peter Anderson gave the Hatters a 2-1 win against Swindon. Preston's purple patch continues, as they move to third - Neil Young with the penalty to beat Sunderland in front of 21,000. In all, up to 8 teams are in a 2-point gap.

At the bottom, Malcolm Allison's Palace are still winless, although they can boast their third draw of the season - 1-1 at Oxford, with the goal by Don Rogers to show. But they have 3 points from 11 matches. This draw helps Oxford to lift themselves from the danger zone - a place in which Swindon and Millwall enter.

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Third and Fourth Division

Bristol Rovers' immaculate start of the season continues with a 1-1 draw against shaky Port Vale at Eastville with the biggest crowd of the day in the division - 8,882. The two promotion places remain unchanged - Oldham beat Rochdale in a regional derby 3-1, and Bournemouth could only muster a draw at Shrewsbury (1-1). Bolstered by BBC's Match of the Day cameras, Hereford's 8,552 crowd could only see their side draw 0-0 against Cambridge. At the bottom, Aldershot goes back to last position after a dissapointing day at Roots Hall, Southend. 2-1 for the Shrimps, who are now outside the relegation zone. Brighton (lost 1-0 at home to Halifax), Shrewsbury and Rochdale, follow the Shots at the bottom.

In the fourth division, Top 4 remains unchanged. Colchester 3-0 drubbing against Darlington on Friday helped them to keep the top of the table one week more. Meanwhile, Bury in second place suffered a 3-0 beating by Gillingham, with a brace of in-form Brian Yeo (9 goals so far). The top of the table is very crowded - 4 points separating the Top 10. The goal-fest of the day was at Millmoor, where Rotherham beat Exeter 4-0. And for the highest attendance today we go to London - Brentford's 6,100 crowd saw a gallant home side go down 1-0 against in-form Peterborough. Sadly, the lowest crowd could only muster a thousand crowd, who saw Workington beat Barnsley by 1-0, helping them to distance themselves from the re-election bunch.

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Outside of the League

Next Wednesday, England faces a daunting prospect in order to be in West Germany the next year - they need to beat Poland in order to qualify for the World Cup. There was great talk on newspapers to postpone this week's matches, but Alan Hardaker, Chairman of the Football League, was adamant on a radio interview:

It is a football match, not a war. Let us keep our sense of perspective, everybody is getting hysterical. If we do lose, the game is not going to die. It will be a terrible thing for six weeks and then everybody will forget about it.

Lest not forget that the sold-out match will be covered LIVE on ITV starting at 7.30. Highlights will be shown at Sportsnight at 10.30.

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FOOTBALL ON TV TODAY.

BBC - Liverpool v Southampton and Hereford United v Cambridge United.

ITV - Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal (London Weekend - Brian Moore), Leicester City v Leeds United (ATV - Hugh Johns), Norwich City v Hull City (Anglia TV), Sheffield Wednesday v Plymouth Argyle (Yorkshire TV) and Middlesbrough v Hull City (Tyne Tees TV).

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Link with all results and scorers (1st and 2nd Division only)

Is this text you wrote yourself or from a newspaper? I dig it tbh

My main takeaway too. Incredible really.

Ter stegen and your defense right? Shocking how fast all of your starter fall one by one

Leicester catching strays from Trent 😪

They weren't jeered around the country though?

So Balde injured and Gavi playing 90 with discomfort, fucking hell we’ll have like 4 starters left

I mean, outside of football, isn't it completely normal?

The Italy NT after all the good vibes and winning the Euros has just 📉📉📉📉

Nice work!

Oof that's bad. Your whole midfield died, and only one fit attacker. In hindsight Fati should have been kept around because this would be his chance

Today, the debate everyone has will be over... Julián vs Bareiro, the decisive hour

The stick was confined to social media and barely lasted a week, they had more support than negativity. Not comparable to what Beckham had

The same goes for most points which actually matters much more.

Why does it matter more when both teams won the league

It means they were better, therefore more impressive.

Lionel Messi is still the main man for Argentina

Marcelo Morelo Martins is still the main man for Bolivia

Alexis Sanchez and Arturo Vidal are still the main men for Chile

James Rodriguez is still the main man for Colombia

Enner Valencia is still the main man for Ecuador

Paolo Guerrero still a vital figure for Peru

Salomon Rondon still a vital figure for Venezuela

When will CONMEBOL finally move on man? It is the year of our lord 2023

The future generations are in trouble

Colombia is a bigger underachiever than Mexico

I think I will die if Boca signs Messi even for a short loan. Probably bs but I don't think my mind would comprehend it and I would just get a stroke.

Nope, 30 degrees on October is unbearable.

Have Match Threadder’s thread been wonky lately for anyone else

Encouraging performance, but fucks sake man that's a game we should be winning. Lorenzo set us up well but not great in game management. We needed to slow that down after people started gassing and we already had a lead

I'm not bitter or anything but the way goalkeepers are protected is a joke. They get away with so much and get fouls called in their favour for absolutely everything.

Please a match thread we've already scored.

Sancet could half pass as a proper name in Basque or some other regional dialect of Spain, but Oihan?? That’s a high elf carpenter or something

For those who think Bellingham is overrated, what exactly are his weaknesses? The only glaring one that I can think of is he's not really a controller like a Kroos or Xavi, but that's probably due to the position that Ancelotti is playing him this season. If Madrid sign a world-class striker next season, and Bellingham goes back to his usual midfield position, we'll probably see him focus more on controlling the game. Maybe you can argue his technique/eye test is overrated, but technique doesn't really matter if you're producing results on the pitch

Eh, "presumably from" is doing a lot of heavy lifting the

Did remind me of a spectacular dumb post I saw in a different sub celebrating the Spanish WWC win over England because the (very American) poster didn't want to see a nation of colonisers win 😂🤷‍♂️

They've formed some sort of psychic connection in that summer where they went to United and Chelsea, after each was supposed to go to the other club. Never cross streams.

For those who think Bellingham is overrated, what exactly are his weaknesses? The only glaring one that I can think of is he's not really a controller like a Kroos or Xavi, but that's probably due to the position that Ancelotti is playing him this season. If Madrid sign a world-class striker next season, and Bellingham goes back to his usual midfield position, we'll probably see him focus more on controlling the game. Maybe you can argue his technique/eye test is overrated, but technique doesn't really matter if you're producing results on the pitch

Spot on. You’re not reading too much into it at all, it’s just something that a lot of people don’t have the language for. Especially the part about his masculinity. The pearl clutching about the sarong in particular was pathetic. As for the supposed “distraction” of it all it seemed more like people tried their hardest to let themselves be distracted into caring about anything but his quality as a player. And you’re so spot on, I think most people wouldn’t admit it but the fact that he engaged with traditionally “feminine” interests with the modeling and fashion in not just society at that time but football in particular caused most people the most grief. And they’re pathetic for it. It’s also something I really respect Beckham for, just like how I respect Dennis Rodman for it (engaging with “femininity” and expression through fashion, makeup, hair etc). I’m truly upset thinking about how all these backwards people banded together to project their own insecurities and misery onto these men who went against stupid gendered conventions

Pedraza is better then Grimaldo even the Spanish coach agrees

International break, and clubs I dislike doing well, has forced me to lurk in the /r/cricket SA vs Aus post-match thread for my schadenfreuden. Really scraping the barrel now

why are Scotland fans whinging about a goal that should’ve been disallowed being disallowed?

Your team is in the Champions League final. What goal would you rather score to win the match in the 90th minute

A) a 50 pass team goal where every player has a touch, slotted home via a 5 yard tap in from a cross

B) a 35 yard volley after their goalkeeper punched the ball out from a corner

C) I don't care as long as we win (if you pick this option your team gets found to have been involved in a cheating scandal and the win gets given to the other team)