The Sports Thread
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So did anyone follow the world cup draw this evening?
An absolutely despicable show notwithstanding (I don’t know who’s more insufferable, Trump or Infantino…they can take that socalled “peace prize” and stuff it up where the sun don’t shine), Norway ended up with France, Senegal and Iraq/Surinam/Bolivia. France is of course an insurmountable task. Senegal is very, very tough. Iraq, Surinam and Bolivia should be doable, but also tough in their own way. Could have been worse, could have been better. At least the matches are played on the US east coast, which has friendlier climate.
How did your country do?
England are up against Croatia, Ghana and Panama and will find it a hard task to win the group but will likely finish first or second.
Scotland got a glamour tie against Brazil (also Morocco and Haiti) and will probably finish third in the group.
In essence there are far too many teams in the competition and there’ll be 8-0 scores all over the place (figuratively if not literally). What are the FIFA World Rankings for if not to invite the top say 24 teams to contest the World Cup? I know it’s nice for Curaçao and Jordan etc to get a share of the limelight but you could make all games count throughout the gap between World Cups without the nonsense of the Nations League etc.
The first World Cup I recall in any detail was Mexico 1970, which included Israel and El Salvador. I collected the stickers, wish I still had the album!
The draw itself yesterday was ghastly, for all sorts of reasons.
Thor, I was at the Man City vs Leeds game last weekend, and we found a way to keep Haaland quiet. Unfortunately, in doing so we failed to contain Foden! Maybe it was just that he didn’t want to score his 100th Premier League goal against the club he supports. I hope he does well at the World Cup, though; I enjoy watching him play.
Should be an easy breeze for England. And yes, there are far too many teams now!
Was that an FA Cup match you attended, TG? I must admit I don’t follow British football as much as I used to back in the 90s.
Been watching a lot of ski events this weekend, the world cups in cross-country and biathlon. As the Norwegian that I am.
Bless you no,Thor, it was a Premier League game. The FA Cup doesn’t start for the higher league clubs until January (and for Leeds, usually finishes then, too).
Gotta be brutally honest, I wasn’t aware that Leeds had returned to the Premier League. Says more about how out of touch I am.
We’re slowly, but certainly, approaching the Winter Olympics in Italy, which kick off on February 6th.
I watch winter events every weekend – mostly cross-country skiing and biathlon – but I know it has limited interest to anyone here, except maybe Nils and Sigbjørn. But the Winter Olympics open up to all kinds of events that many of you may connect to.
I know for a fact I will be posting in this thread when the events commence (sorry to Tall Guy and others who expect loads of football updates).
In all honesty, I probably prefer the Winter Olympics over the Summer ones. Can’t say I’m enthused between times, but I watch quite a lot of the ski races and jumping, bobsleigh, (ice) hockey, speed skating, luge … really anything where there’s a competition you can readily follow, so where there’s a score between teams or players or a time to beat.
I used to enjoy the figure skating, but that might just have been the Torville and Dean effect. Now the only interest really is the music they use. Otherwise, anything involving interpretive dance or artistic merit bores me rigid.
Of course, it’s not football. But by way of crossover, I love watching snowy football matches. My northern upbringing, albeit not as north as most of yours.
Understandable! In Norway, we sometimes use an ORANGE football for the most snowy of snowy football rounds in the north, just to delineate it from snow.
The UK is not THAT bad in Winter Olympics. You have curling, where you’re one of the best. Figure skating is always what most “foreigners” tune in to (especially Americans), but I’ve always considered that a snoozefest myself.
But you actually have a couple of decent cross country skiers – Andrew Musgrave, primarily, but also James Clugnet, Joe Davis and Andrew Young. They’re all pretty close to the top. And you have Dave Ryding for slalom, I hope he’s still active. Probably loads of others.
I only wish I knew ANY of those names, Thor. (Apart from Joe Davis, who was world snooker champion for much of the 20th century and died almost fifty years ago, so I presume not the same person.)
And I believe all our decent curlers are Scottish (nod to Graham).
I saw a couple of snowy footie games in Newcastle in the 70s. They used an orange ball then, too, and every so often the game was halted to allow ground staff to clear the white lines with boards on sticks. Good times!
Speaking of snooker, I’m currently in a hotel room on Gran Canaria watching the final couple of frames of the UK Masters final on Eurosport in German, while waiting for Mrs TG to ready herself to make an entrance in the dining room.
What’s interesting to me is that I know a tiny amount of German, enough to follow more or less what’s going on in the game. The German commentators call the red balls “die Rote”, the yellow ball “der Gelb” and the blue ball “der Blaue” (apologies to real German speakers if I’ve got the gender or spellings wrong). But the pink and black are “der Pink” and “der Black”. And I’m sure I’ve heard them refer to “Frames”.
I’ve yet to hear reference to the table pockets, which I believe would be “Tischtaschen”. Fascinating. Does snooker have a following in Germany, I wonder?
It says something about how unpopular winter sports are in the UK when I as a Norwegian know more about the UK athletes than you do! But I suppose that goes with the territory. I wouldn’t know much about any Norwegians partaking in cricket or snooker either. I don’t think there are any.
I do watch some snooker occasionally. It’s perfect Sunday viewing if you’re hung over. Ronny O’Sullivan is obviously the big star. I also know Mark Selby, Steve Davis, John Higgins, a Chinese guy named Ding-something. I think that’s about it.
Gran Canaria sounds perfect right about now, btw. Enjoy!
I think to most people in Germany Snooker is just known because it is almost permanently on Eurosport.
While in the news channels madness reigns watching snooker has a hypnotic relaxing quality.The opening ceremony isn’t until tomorrow, but the Olympic games have had a head start already, with curling and some other stuff.
Tall Guy will be delighted to know that team GB smashed Norway in the opening couples match. The Norwegians, btw, have played abysmal and lost all three matches so far (the other two against the USA and Canada).
We seem to have won the first four matches, but play the two biggest rivals tomorrow, USA and (I think) Canada. So far so good, but I’ve seen very little of it so far because of work and other commitments.
To be fair, curling isn’t terribly exciting, would be better if it were a contact sport 🙂
They’re having the official Opening Ceremony soon, but I’m not sure how much we’ll see live, because we’ve got dinner shortly and Leeds are playing Forest on the telly at 8pm…
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