✂✂✂✂ Saudi just become a senseless. UCL meant UEFA champion league. It's not europe asian champion league. There have been thousands of people who are against the idea from saudi pro league. That SPL just become even crazy. SPL shall move its country to the european continent.  Feeling jealous? Saudis are swimming in wads of cash and they can afford to pack their league with top players from all around the world. None of the European leagues can compete with them in terms of monetary terms. And let's not forget the fact that a large fraction of the players participating in various European leagues are also hailing from other continents. There was not much outcry when Lionel Messi decided to represent Paris Saint-Germain, or when Mohamed Salah chose Liverpool. But all the hell breaks loose when Ronaldo goes for Al Nassr. |
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The performance of these four teams, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark or Italy, is not the same as before, we have noticed a lot of decline in their performance in the last World Cup. Germany was eliminated from the group stage in the last World Cup. The performance of these teams in Europe must change.
Yeah.. I should have added Italy as well. Until the late 1990s, they constantly ranked as one of the top-5 teams. Now they are not even in top-10 and for Qatar 2022 they didn't even managed to qualify. Central European teams are having serious issues in replacing their retiring players. And this is happening despite the fact that quality of their national leagues remain intact. At the same time, teams like England and France are not facing this issue. A lot of quality players are rising through the ranks in these two nations. |
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Aha, I doubt that. It's India A Emerging vs Ireland, not India vs Ireland so it won't be one-sided series. I'd be very surprised if it's a dud. Well.. you can label the squad as India A or India Emerging, but officially it is the Indian senior team. Jasprit Bumrah got an opportunity to captain the team, with Ruturaj Gaikwad as the deputy. Sanju Samson gets another opportunity despite repeated failures. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tilak Varma will be hoping to continue with their good form with the bat. So will be Arshdeep Singh and Mukesh Kumar with the ball. India lost against West Indies due to the absence of senior players. But Ireland is so pathetic right now, that they would get defeated even by an Indian U-15 team. |
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The fact that almost nobody knew a single team from this league just a year ago, and now we are aware that there are some good teams with some great players is beyond sanity. I mean we are talking about a league changing this much all of a sudden. Do not tell me that it's Ronaldo impact, because even before Ronaldo we have NEVER heard of anyone getting 100 million offers there at all. Have you heard anyone that got a 100 million per year offer from Saudi league before Ronaldo?
I have never heard of it reported before at all. This is why we are getting a much better league nowadays and it is going to matter a lot as well. I think it is going to be important to make the distinction because going forward we are going to see this league do a lot better.
Well.. I thought about it. I never took Saudi Professional League seriously until Ronaldo joined Al Nassr. In order to make the entire league popular across the world, you need to being one of the top-5 players (Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Mbappe.etc). And this is what the Saudis did. Ronaldo single-handedly made this league as one of the most popular across the globe. And his entry also encouraged several other players to consider their own options in Saudi Arabia. Without Ronaldo, none of this would have been possible. |
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I have some sobering news for those who believe that the Russian economy is about to "implode". Urals FOB prices are at all-time high. Last week, FOB price at Novorossiysk was $73.57 per barrel, which represents a discount of just $14.80 per barrel to benchmark Brent. And this is well above the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel. Freight rates have also decreased, making it profitable for importers to chose for Russian crude. Russian diesel was trading at $108.98 per barrel, which is again well above the price cap. The freight cost from Russia to India has now declined to just $4.5 per barrel. |
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That is exactly what Chris Christie has been trying to achieve since he got into the Presidential run. He has been trying to show people it is possible to frontally attack Trump in the media and during political speeches, but other candidates still refuse to take any lead from him. They continue to be scared of their future within the party.
It would be quite ironic if some Republican who is going for the nomination ends up stealing the race as Trump did back in 2016, in a very unexpected way. Though I am not sure what kind of speech and talking points would be required to catch the attention of the average Red voter; they have further moved to the right side of the political spectrum and they do not seem to be willing to change. Republican voters might have moved to the right side of the spectrum (similar to the case with Democrat voters who have moved to the left). But Trump is not exactly right-wing. He is not even religious, unlike the case with Cruz and Rubio. The advantage with Trump is that he says what the GOP base wants to hear. Afterall, he is a businessman and knows how to fool people. For GOP, it is now or never. Another nomination for Trump (even after the failure in 2020) would mean deviating from their core principles and getting demoted to being a party that is centered around an individual. |
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Ok, and who would you trust more? Brazil practising some self-containment in money printing? India maybe?
In this forum of anywhere else, most people understand that money is about trusting. The US dollar despite all the failures and arrogance of the government, has been there for a couple of centuries doing wonderfully and it quite difficult to match that with any other fiat in the world. Perhaps the Swiss Franc, but it just does not have the markets built for it. Same for BRICS... you need very ample an liquid markets to make a fiat the dominant one.
Well.. at this point there is no doubt that US Dollar is more trustworthy than any of the other fiat currencies (including the JPY, GBP, CNY and EUR). CHF is a great option, but it doesn't have that much acceptability and the Swiss government is against the idea of using the currency for global trade. Almost all of the BRICS currencies have gone down heavily against the USD during the last few years, and there is not a single one among them that I would consider as a "strong" currency. Even in my country, the INR has lost around 20% of its value against USD during the last 5 years. |
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A team with KAT, Horford and Duarte is no joke. KAT is gonna dominate this game on the I side if he wanted. Knowing him he will sit on the outside and look for his outside shot. Between him and horford it's gonna be a tough cover between them.
Am I missing something? Al Horford is not part of the Dominican squad for the 2023 FIBA World Cup. Karl Towns from Minnesota Timberwolves and Lester Quinones from Golden State Warriors are the only two NBA players in their team. I don't know why Al Horford was not included in the squad. Perhaps the Boston Celtics refused to release him? And it would be wrong to say that Argentina could not qualify because of Dominican Republic. Their loss against Venezuela early during the qualifiers was the main reason why they ended up at the 4th position in Group E. |
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A very exciting game awaits us. My prediction is that England will be the champion, but anything can happen in the finals.
I can't wait for Sunday, I hope they give us a good game enjoyment. Both the finalists are good teams and do have the potential to lift the trophy. One thing is for sure. The final is going to be a very close match. And the odds are also extremely close. I could get these odds from Stake.com: Spain: 2.60 Draw: 2.75 England: 2.80 I don't necessarily agree with these odds, as I believe that England has a higher chance of winning. But I noticed that a majority of the sportsbooks have Spain as the favorites (although only by a small margin). Just made a bet in favor of England in Stake, as the odds looked attractive. In case Spain wins, then I will lose my money.  |
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We can't expect this to be one-sided series. If it is an ODI series, then the matches could've been won by India, but with T20 matches played anything could happen. Even the Ireland players are good in chasing targets, against a team like India they'll give the best. T20 match results can change in no time and I believe Ireland will win atleast one match. This isn't going to be one-sided series.
Well.. I am skeptical about Ireland's chances. They have the home advantage for sure, as the matches are taking place at the Malahide ground in Dublin. But Ireland's recent form has been disappointing. In fact, they have performed below par ever since they were awarded the test status in 2019. One player who can make a difference is Josh Little. He has been a regular feature in T20 leagues around the world and he can trouble Indian batsmen at home. And the Irish batsmen need to think about how to handle Jasprit Bumrah, who is making a comeback in this series. |
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Well, there's no way they can get into the Champions League. This is just one of the things we are dreaming of. Legally, it can't happen.
I will give another way for Saudi Arabian clubs to show their strength in the European arena. They will hold friendlies with major European clubs. This happened and is happening. They should open a new tournament to assert their strength even more. This tournament will be open to all clubs worldwide. But to do this, they must first show the strength of their team.
Never say never. Afterall, UEFA is a money minded organization and all they care about is revenue. They will just make an exemption for the Saudi clubs and get them to the UEFA champions league. It doesn't mean that they are going to include all the 16 Saudi clubs. They will just include the 4 clubs that are funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (Al Nassr, Al Hilal, Al-Ittihad and Al Ahli). For UEFA, it is beneficial as it will increase the media rights revenue for champions league. But the most important question is whether the Saudis will agree to it, or not. |
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I didn’t think for a second that Threads would be a replacement for Twitter. Twitter is already an established platform dominating the social media space. It would take almost a miracle for a completely new platform to healthily rival Twitter. Obviously, people were interested in Threads mostly cause it was new and majorly unknown. After all the hype about Threads has gone, and the dust settled, people are now back to Twitter(X) like they never left.
A cage fight is never going to happen.
Well.. I went through media articles at the time of the official launch of Threads, and many of them were predicting that it would replace Twitter completely. There was so much hype, and Threads was being projected as the next big thing. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg's product lacked quality to compete with Twitter and the left-wing user base is not actually well suited for the micro-blogging domain. Zuckerberg was thinking about converting a part of the Instagram userbase to Threads users. But this was illogical and quite rightly the attempt ended up in failure. |
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BTW, there is already confirmation that Elon Musk has won the real battle against Mark Zuckerberg. Check this: https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/ry2iwed32There was so much hype related to Threads, immediately after its launch on 5th July 2023. So many people were predicting the demise of Twitter and claiming that Threads was going to replace it. But similar to so many other copycat ventures from Zuckerberg, this one also failed miserably. And this time, Threads flopped despite the entire left-wing establishment rallying in its support. I am sure that Elon will be boosted by his success in micro-blogging domain. A win in cage fight would be an added sweetener. |
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The pioneer economic crisis for the world this decade began with COVID-19 pandemic IMO. The economic effect that is going on now has its roots from 2020 when the world almost shut down for the whole year. In fact some countries in Europe stayed back from manufacturing and financial activities. So the world economy is yet to recover from that, the infiltration of wars around only amplified the situation at hand.
LOL.. this is laughable. First of all, countries such as Netherlands were not that much affected by the COVID pandemic. Most of the population got vaccinated before the Delta wave began. It was third world nations such as India and Brazil that got impacted the most. And these countries have shown robust economic growth during the last few years. So what is wrong with Netherlands? The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war has played its part, but the rot started long back. Many of the European governments still believe that they are super-rich and splurge money on unnecessary expenses. In the end, they are forced to increase taxes and this negatively affects the economy. |
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That's the weird thing though, they have won the latest one, and suddenly they are bad? Think about it, they were the winners of euro 2020, and then they were not even in world cup. How many times did that happen before? Maybe it has happened before and I am just not aware of it, but to me that looks like an unlikely situation.
The fact that France couldn't win 2020 euro and Italy did was a big shocking result. This is why I am not entirely sure about what's going to happen next, it could be something decent or it could be nothing at all, in the end I feel like maybe another big shocker could happen again as well. That seems like the most important part of the deal right now and we need to be more careful about it when we are betting.
Let's see how they are going to perform in this tournament. They are in a very tough group, along with England, Ukraine and North Macedonia. They are the defending champions, but there is no guarantee at this point that they will qualify for Euro 2024. Next month they have matches against Ukraine and N.Macedonia. Already they lost one match against England and any further losses would put them on backfoot. Even their win against Malta was not that satisfactory. Malta gave a good fight and in the end went down by 0-2. |
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everyone is free to speak with their own point of view, indeed RONALDO is the icon of world football who carries the flow of the world's eye. it could be that if RONALDO retires there will be a change in decline in the Arab league because many people like RONALDO when playing on the field. lucky the player now bought by the arab club with a fantastic salary, just waiting for retirement to happen enjoy big results
First of all, Ronaldo is not going to retire anytime soon. His contract with Al Nassr runs for multiple years. And secondly, the reason why the Saudis brough Ronaldo to their country is not just for participation in the Saudi Professional League. The primary reason is that they want Ronaldo to lead the Saudi bid to host the 2030 World Cup. There are also rumors that Ronaldo will accept the Saudi citizenship and settle down in that country, but at this point I am just treating these claims as unsubstantiated rumors without any substance. |
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Asia Cup is coming soon but not seeing any hype from the broadcasters, atm they are busy with useless bilateral series against Ireland. Guess we'll start seeing some promo during the Ireland series.
And 1 good news for Indian fans, there are some reports coming out that Rishab Pant played in a practice match, not sure about the field but he did come to bat.
The broadcasters doesn't seem happy about the tournament, and it is understandable. The schedule is messed up. Some of the matches are taking place in Pakistan, and some in Sri Lanka. And this just adds complexity to the logistics for broadcasters. On top of that, too many India vs Pakistan matches are scheduled to happen in the next few months (including one in the upcoming Asian Games cricket tournament). BTW, I don't know what India is going to achieve by playing against Ireland. It is going to be a completely one-sided series. |
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Chinesse Superleague and Arabia Saudi league both have the same problem to the long term, and the main problem its POLITICS, when west thinks they gone to far or something they are gonna start to blame the goverment of that countries with authoritarianism things and something related, in the case of CHina its well know, Communism party etc, and with Arabs one, with some anty monarchy or not spport to female LGBGT thing.
This is not a fair comparison. When foreign superstars were brought to the Chinese league, the intent was something different. The national association was hoping that local players will get an opportunity to play along with the best in the world, and as a result their quality would increase. But the program was shelved after a few months and therefore the aim was not achieved. What Saudis are aiming to achieve is different. They want Saudi Arabia to become the sporting hub of the world. So their plan is for the long-term. |
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The Caribbean Premier League gets started with the match between Jamaica Tallawahs and St Lucia Kings tomorrow. Some of the overseas players have pulled out from the tournament at the last minute, and that is a dampener (Maheesh Theekshana, Rassie van der Dussen, Rahmanullah Gurbaz.etc). But still they have a good bunch of local T20 stars and some of the top overseas players participating this time (Imad Wasim, Alex Hales, Ambati Rayudu and Faf du Plessis are some of the big names taking part this time). Who is going to win the trophy in 2023? Last time it was Jamaica Tallawahs.
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Oh yes I remember that, Ted Cruz got personally attacked by Trump into submission and He stole his chances of getting elected, to the point of Ted getting forced to endorse Trump to save whatever was left of his political career.
Yes, I agree with you there is still a long path ahead, but Trump has already proven himself to be skillful enough not to loose his grip on the Republican voters. Ironically, this political situation could have been avoided if the GOP united together against him after the Jan 6th episode. When I have got some time ill see if the odds in some casinos have either decreased or increased a bit after this 4th indictment. Keeping in mind the amount of evidence and the severity of this arrest.
By the way, I recall when Tucker Carlson talked regarding of his political plans and made clear that he does not intend to run against Trump, but he may do when Trump politically expire.
The turning point was when Trump refused to campaign for David Perdue in Georgia after he lost the POTUS elections. In the first round Perdue got 49.7% of the vote and just missed an outright win by a few votes. But in the second round, Trump refused to campaign for him and he ended up with just 49.4% of the votes, thereby giving Jon Ossoff of the Democratic party an upset win. Shane T. Hazel of the Libertarian party received 2.32% of the vote in the first round. A majority of those votes went to GOP in the second round. Yet they lost, because Trump refused to campaign for them. At this point, everyone should have put up an united front and kicked Trump out of GOP. |
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