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We had a bunch of disappointing matches yesterday. There were no major upsets. I was expecting Greece to put up a bit more resistance against the Americans, but they lost the match by a big margin. Giannis Antetokounmpo's absence seems to have hurt Greece, although his brother Thanasis was included in the squad. USA completely dominated the match and Greece was unable to secure a lead in any of the quarters. BTW, did anyone watched the Serbia vs Puerto Rico match? It was weird. 2nd quarter went for Serbia, by a margin of 30-12. And third quarter was swept by PR, with 18-31. In the end, Serbia had an easy win though.
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I'm not sure how FIFA selects a country or some countries to host the World Cup because sometimes just like the Qatar World Cup, they could select many other teams.
However the last World Cup was during the covid crisis but still, I think there could be much better options than Qatar.
But this time America is the best option they could ever have because they hosted the World Cup before. I have posted this before. The decision to grant the hosting rights to Qatar for the 2022 world cup was a grave mistake from the part of FIFA. There were issues related to poor treatment being meted out to the construction workers, as well as issues regarding discrimination against certain sections of the visitors. Even in 2018, Russia hosted the tournament without any major issues. But that was not the case with Qatar in 2022. Hopefully the 2026 edition would be an occasion where the visitors and fans are treated with respect. |
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Exactly as predicted Al Hilal won easily 2-0 but all the goals were scored in the first half while there no goals in the second half, Al Hilal controlled the game from the start fired 21 shots 6 on target and Al Ettifaq could not do anything with 6 shots only 2 on target. In another match Al ittihad caught our eye they consistently win every game with an average of 3 goals and never conceded but yeah so far their opponent is a normal team in the next match they will fight against a strong team like AL Hilal, here the strength of their defense will be tested.
A win is a win, and Al Hilal should be happy that they got 3 points from this match. Neymar has not yet joined them and until that happens their attack will be a bit off-color. But they fielded a star studded side yesterday, including Aleksandar Mitrović, Malcom, Michael, Yassine Bounou, Rúben Neves and Kalidou Koulibaly. And also, Al-Ettifaq is not a weak side as they have players like Vitinho, Jordan Henderson and Robin Quaison. And their strength will be further boosted once Jack Hendry and Moussa Dembélé starts playing regularly for them. |
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Karun Nair made a century in the semi-final of the Maharaja T20 Trophy (formerly Karnataka Premier League), for Mysuru Warriors against the Gulbarga Mystics. He has been in terrific form this season, having scored 495 runs from 11 innings at an average of 49.50. Mohammed Taha at the second place has only 376 runs to his name. Karun last played in the IPL many years ago, and this performance would surely ignite the attention from a few of the IPL franchises. The final match will be played today, between Mysuru Warriors and Hubli Tigers. The match will take place at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
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St Kitts and Nevis Patriots vs Trinbago Knight Riders Today's 12th Match of the two teams has already started. Trinbago Knight Riders team won the toss and decided to bowl the ball. St Kitts and Nevis Patriots put in to bat and scored 168 runs in 19.3 overs. St Kitts And Nevis Patriots team batsman has only 3 balls left. The runs that St Kitts and Nevis Patriots team scored are the right runs to win. Now if they can do well in the bowling line then they will have a chance to win this match.
Turning out to be quite an exciting match. Trinbago Knight Riders need another 59 runs to win from 6 overs. The required run rate is still under 10 runs per over and they have 7 wickets at hand. And they have two set batsmen at the crease - Kieron Pollard and Lorcan Tucker. St Kitts and Nevis Patriots bowlers have been economical, but they have failed so far to get the breakthroughs. Corbin Bosch was the only one who looked capable of taking wickets, while Blessing Muzarabani had a decent opening spell. At this point, the Trinbago Knight Riders seems to have a clear advantage. |
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There is no clear favorite in the upcoming Asia Cup which makes it more exciting.
I think this time Asia Cup might turn into a blockbuster contest. Pakistan is in top form despite a couple of fuckups. India looking good after Bumrah's comeback and mix up with new guys in the squad. Bangladesh defeated India in the last ODI series so they are alright too. Sri Lanka also not looking that bad, The only drawback would be an absence of inform Hasaranga as he got injured i suppose. Weaker link would be Afghanistan but they can beat anyone on their day and we can expect some sort of fightback from them, not counting Nepal atm. Pakistan is the same team that got bowled out for 201 runs in the first match of the bilateral series against Afghanistan. They performed well in the next two matches, but inconsistency is a big issue with them. They have some of the world's best batsmen and pace bowlers, but as a result of inconsistency they haven't been winning any major tournaments of late. India's case is similar. The last time they won a major ICC tournament was back in 2011. Asia Cup is organized by the ACC, but even in this tournament they became champions for the last time in 2018. |
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The next round of matches will start in less than 2 weeks from now. Group A is going to be very interesting, as Scotland is now leading the points able with 12 points. Georgia at second place has only 4 points and Spain is far below. For Spain, the matches in this round are against Georgia and Cyprus, who are relatively weak opponents. Scotland on the other hand has one match against Cyprus. I am not expecting any major changes in the standings after this round. Spain may get to the second spot though. BTW, Group B is perhaps the toughest one. Netherlands is currently at 4th place and this time they have matches against Greece and Ireland.
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I thought Afghanistan might be able to win the match but they failed in the end. The failure of some top players was identified as one of the reasons for the defeat in this match. It seems to me that Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Gulbadin and Naib Mohammad Nabi, who have the provability, did not play in the match. Their batting disaster was the major hindrance to their victory in the last match.
They will be seen in the field against the Bangladesh team in the 4th match of the Asia Cup on September 3. It will also be difficult for them to win against the Bangladesh team. In particular, the impact of this defeat may be the cause of concern in some of them. Bangladesh are currently ranked seventh in the ODI rankings while Afghanistan occupy the ninth position.
Mohammad Nabi is 38 years old. The fact that he is playing even now means that Afghanistan doesn't have enough strength in their batting lineup. Gurbaz and Zadran are key players, but they are inconsistent. Apart from the 80 he made during second ODI, Ibrahim Zadran's performance was disappointing. Rahmanullah Gurbaz scored 151 in the second match, but then he scored 5 and 18 in the other two matches. These two need to show more consistency. Anyway, both of them are just 21 years old, so there is a lot of time to improve. |
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^^^^ 258 million views for the interview with Tucker Carlson. 1.5 million likes 216 million views for the mugshot tweet. Donald Trump for sure has some solid backing in social media platforms. I am not sure whether DeSantis and Ramaswamy (who I believe are the only other two candidates with even a remote chance of winning the GOP nomination) should continue with their presidential run, given the recent poll numbers and also looking at how Trump is completely dominating the GOP space. Shouldn't they try to get a VP spot this time?
I was not expecting to see Trump back in Twitter, to be honest. I must admit that the timing was genius on his part, he managed to catch much of the attention by himself posting his own mugshot. He is trying to turn something must of us would perceive as negative into a tool for his political career. I have my doubts he will come back to Twitter as the old days before Jan 6, he has already compromised with Truth Social, though, after seeing such numbers and support from people who are wearing his mugshot as a shirt, he could feel tempted to become a regular Twitter user again. It was one of the things which characterized his run for the presidency back in 2016, after all. It may be one of his ace in the hole. After all, he is a successful businessman. He knows how to stay in limelight. It is very clear that his experiment with Truth Social had failed. Social media users are mostly young, and few of them have a solid political inclination. Trump was hoping that all of the conservative users may follow his lead and dump Twitter for Truth Social. But that never happened. Twitter users want a mix of different topics and not just Trump-related news. And those who joined Truth Social are mostly hardcore Trump supporters and there will be no net addition for GOP. In order to gain new support, it is essential for Trump to stay in neutral platforms like Twitter. |
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Soccer is not that popular and of interest to most Americans but there is also a sizable Domestic League.
I think the love of football for the US people will be even greater later when the World Cup is over there and the Domestic League can also be the most interested in by most people even though the NFL and NBA are the most popular.
Even for women's soccer the US has a national team that is strong enough and can compete with other national teams.
With the FIFA World Cup being held there, the US has the opportunity to get tickets to compete in this prestigious event.
Association football is not very popular in the United States and one of the reasons is that the US national team is not very strong and almost never performs well during the FIFA tournaments. And the American public doesn't like it when their national team loses to countries such as Germany and Argentina. Hopefully during the 2026 tournament, there will be a change. if the national team can do a few upsets, then there is a chance that more and more people may pay attention to football and in the end it will result in an increased popularity for that sport in the US. |
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Another reason could be Al-Hilal being worth 258 million (200 without Neymar) and Al-Ettifaq being worth less than 50 million euro? That seems like 5 times (4 times without Neymar) bigger club to win the game and I believe that's quite understandable.
I still wouldn't give them 1.18 to be fair because we have seen in European competitions just recently that teams with much lower valuation could still get a draw or a win, and that's why it's difficult to say if it's 1.18 worthy or not, but I would totally give them 1.40 without a doubt, that is exactly what I thought it would be before the odds were clear, because 1.40 means clear winner and they are clear favorites without a doubt. They will win this game one way or another.
For where did you got these valuations? Al Hilal is worth just €258 million? This might have been the case in 2020 or 2021, when they were having mostly Saudi players in their squad. The current valuation should be upwards of a billion Euros. A few months back, Paris Saint-Germain was valued at €3.2 billion. Manchester United is valued at $6 billion as of March 2023 by Forbes. Compared to these figures, I simply don't think that the numbers you have given for Al Hilal is closer to reality. Please check the source again, to see whether they are precise. |
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Disappointed with the matches yesterday. Asian, African and Oceanian teams were destroyed by Europeans and Americans. Serbia had an easy win over China, with a margin of 105-63. USA swept the floor with New Zealand, to win by 99-72. And in the third match, Ivory Cost lost to Spain by a margin of 64-94. For me, the only interesting match was the one between South Sudan and Puerto Rico. The former gave a tough fight to Puerto Rico, but eventually lost by the slightest of the margins (96-101). This team shows a lot of promise for sure.
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Cool. A picture of Donald Trump surrendering himself in mspaint that says "NEVER SURRENDER"
LOL.. what you want him to do other than surrendering? Pickup a gun and fight with the law enforcement officials. I have a feeling that all this drama is going to be costly for the Democrats. For sure it has fired up the conservatives, and a lot of Republican voters who previously preferred either DeSantis or Pence are now rooting for Trump. I can clearly see a lot of sympathy for Trump on various social media channels. The question being asked is why he is being arrested and sent to jail, while Hunter Biden is being protected despite having committed far more serious crimes. |
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St Kitts and Nevis Patriots vs Barbados Royals, 10th Match St Kitts and Nevis Patriots batted in the first innings and scored 197 runs for the loss of 6 wickets. But right now Barbados Royals are struggling to win maybe they can win today's match. Currently Barbados Royals have lost 3 wickets with not many runs left to reach the target set by St Kitts and Nevis Patriots. Barbados Royals two batsmen have been batting well especially Rahkeem Cornwall and Kyle Mayers have been good batting performance to score a good total so far. SNP must improve and keep wickets falling if they are to win or else the match will be impossible for them. Because BR is doing well in their batting performance and it will not be too difficult for them to score 81 runs in just 48 balls if they can bat well.
Right now the match is at 50-50. Rahkeem Cornwall and Kyle Mayers were involved in an opening partnership of 58 runs from just 4 overs, but they lost the momentum once Cornwall got out. The batsmen who followed them (Jason Holder and Alick Athanaze) were unable to keep up with the required run rate and now the RRR is above 10. Athanaze and Rovman Powell are at the crease now, and it needs to be seen whether they can take Barbados home. For the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, Izharulhaq Naveed and Corbin Bosch have bowled well and both of them have one over remaining. |
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Just noticed that Pakistan is now the top ranked team as per ICC rankings for ODIs. They overtook Australia after the win yesterday. India is at the third place, but there is quite some gap between them and Australia. This would mean that Pakistan will be one of the favorites to win the ODI World Cup, as well as the upcoming Asia Cup. But I am still concerned about some of their weaknesses. They still don't have a quality spinner who can perform consistently. Also the batting collapse in the first match against Afghanistan doesn't bode well for the future.
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This coach from Spain (Jorde Vilda) seems to need to be investigated because it includes inappropriate behavior both intentional and unintentional towards his players, because if left unchecked it is likely to happen again. it is so inappropriate. It's ironic to see an incident like that, a coach should be able to adapt well and give appropriate appreciation to the players he coaches.
I have never seen women coaching men's football teams. So why should we have men as managers for the women's teams? This puts the safety of women players at risk. Here in India, a few years back the coach for the national field hockey team was suspended after he threatened the players. The coach (M K Kaushik) used to ask players to have physical relations with him, and those who didn't agreed to the demands were kicked out of the team. Finally one of the players (T S Ranjitha Devi) complained about it and there was some media coverage. But in the end, the media coverage waned and Kaushik was appointed in another plum post by the government. The player who complained had her career destroyed. |
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✂✂✂✂
I honestly don't see what the big deal is. It's just a kiss while celebrating being the world champions.
Can't believe that the whole championship is being ignored and people are focusing on a one second kiss.
Well.. this is the problem. Being a woman myself, I can't forgive Luis Rubiales for what he did. What was his contribution to Spain winning the world cup? Are the players more important, or the AFE president? The Spanish women worked so hard to win the trophy and then Rubiales uses that opportunity to do whatever he want to do. And when questioned about it, he refuses to resign or even apologize, claiming that people are mistreating him after he helped the women's team to become champions. I don't understand. If tomorrow another team wins the trophy and the president of the association rapes one of the players, will he be let off just because he "helped" the team to win the trophy? |
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Last year's SPL trophy was a favorite for Al Nasser because then the most popular and star player in SPL was Cristiano Ronaldo and it belonged to Al Nasser. But it cannot be said with certainty which team will be the champion in this year's SPL grand event with star players. Karim Benzema at Al Ittihad, Neymar Jr at Al Hilal, Sadio Mane and CR7 at Al Nasser will always be desperate to qualify for their respective clubs. So it is not possible to say for sure which team will win the SPL this year. However, considering the star players, Al Nass is far ahead of other clubs.
These three teams already known as strong teams in Saudi Professional League, but I think they will not become a champions because Al Ahli is really a black horse since there are so many European players in this team. Al Hilal and Al Ittihad are still stable, but Al Nassr isn't, they only won one match. Al Ahli is more rounded, their goalkeeper is also an European player. Only 3 teams? Why not Al Ahli? It is true that they don't have celebrity signings like Ronaldo and Benzema. But they do have their fair share of star players and also they are in the process of brining a few more of the European and Latin American players to their squad. If I am not wrong, they get the same share of funding from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund as the other three big clubs (Al Nassr, Al Hilal and Al Ittihad). However, apart from Franck Kessié, Roger Ibañez and Édouard Mendy, they haven't brought any star players recently. That will change for sure. |
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Yeah, at the end of the day it's all about the money.
These leagues make a lot of money by simply having these young players, and in return they basically give them a scholarship.
Seems like a really great deal for the companies running those leagues. It's also a good opportunity for the young players that would have no chance to pay for the expensive university.
I guess that wouldn't work in countries were universities are free or reasonably priced.
So you are saying that the shitty college system in the United States is actually helping it to produce great athletes? I thought about it, and I would agree to it partially. I know that the tuition fee and other expenses in college system is extremely high for the American students, and that is one of the reasons why Bernie Sanders became popular suddenly when he talked about writing off student loans. And education is either free or affordable in most of the European countries (and also in non-European countries such as China). But I do believe that this scholarship system for bright athletes exist in other countries as well. |
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Oh "Warning" doesn't sound good to me because it comes from the same school of thought "Spirit of the game". It baffles me how hard is to stay in the crease for non-strikers. Where does this spirit of the game vanish when batters knick to slip, keeper, or close fielders but refuse to walk out voluntarily?
I opted for 6 runs penalty because when the bowler steps out of the line for even mm, it's a no ball (Should the umpire also warn bowlers for not overstepping?) and the batting team gets a free hit so it sounded fair to me.
Well.. agreed with this. Cricket is known as a batsmen's game exactly due to these sort of rules (and expectations). It is OK for the batsmen to step outside the crease, while it is not being allowed for the bowlers. Actually the third umpire can check whether the batsman has overstepped or not, similar to what they are doing for the bowlers now. And I agree with the 6-run penalty. It sounds fair, given how much advantage the batsmen get when they break the laws of the game. Hopefully the ICC would consider changing the rules by adding a penalty clause. |
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