Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 22nd July 2023, 9:17 AM

Woah, I'm finding my feelings about women's football changing.
Japan V Zambia is a cracking match.

The Zambian women look like Amazon warriors and the Japanese are small and nippy.
A magnificent spectacle and a good game with great skills.

View original

I don't know what happened, but about two/three years ago it started to become watchable.
You know me, woke as they come, but before that I thought it was rubbish - and it was.
It was all scuffing it about in the penalty box, missed passes etc etc.
But now it's 'proper' football.
And the girls don't get all sulky like the blokes - the male team could do with a bit of their passion.
Good to watch.

England hardly setting the world alight, against a very low ranked team - I expect The States are quaking in their boots.

I have to say - so far - the ladies (I've seen all of 4 matches!) seem to back in 'scuffing it about the penalty area and misplaced passes" mode.
They also all seem to be of a fairly even standard.
In as much as there's no 'stand-out' players who light the game up when they get the ball.
And our current team is not up to the recent Euro's standard, I'm sad to say.
I shall keep flying the flag though

I'm fairly confident Bolton Wanderers would win the womens World Cup 🤓

RIP Trevor Francis. The first £1,000,000 player

Yes RIP Trevor
forever immortalised in the Only Fools & Horses theme tune

Just been reading some of Matt Letisiers quotes online

Guess what? He's NUTS

Stark raving mad

Off his f**king rocker

I recently stopped following him and blocked him too on Twitter. Or X as it is now known.

Tottenham are preparing to sell a player to Spartak Moscow.

It may not be banned but it's definitely not ethical.

Quote: Lazzard @ 22nd July 2023, 9:46 AM

I don't know what happened, but about two/three years ago it started to become watchable.

View original

Professionalism took a proper hold of the game, new commercial contracts with TV meant much more money for the teams who could pay better coaches and now the best club teams are fully full time professional unlike before, meaning lots of training and skills development. And I believe the best players are quite well paid now. But yes our lot especially went from being comical in defence to being quite good. The quality of goal keeping especially is a world away from what it was, in a very short time.

Plus, of course, girls want to play now - and are allowed to at schools etc.
The reason the US were ahead of the game and dominated for so long was that it's long been a popular sport for young girls - who had the physique for the game, but not for American football.

It also found great favour with the very active equality for women movement in North America which opened doors with their political clout to female 'soccer' being widely funded and played in schools and clubs. It was the perfect new sport for their campaign. And some say it was the catalyst for the US explosion in men's soccer which we've seen as notoriously slow to catch on, given how many big tournies they've hosted to no real effect on them.

But anyone who's been to Scandinavia will know women's football has been a big part of their culture for decades, so it's a bit of a shame to see what the Americans usually do, quickly take over the domination of international sports with their commercial power ie. money.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 29th July 2023, 11:13 AM

Professionalism took a proper hold of the game, new commercial contracts with TV meant much more money for the teams who could pay better coaches and now the best club teams are fully full time professional unlike before, meaning lots of training and skills development. And I believe the best players are quite well paid now. But yes our lot especially went from being comical in defence to being quite good. The quality of goal keeping especially is a world away from what it was, in a very short time.

View original

Yes - I always used to think goalkeeping was the weakness in the early part of the century.

Incidentally my 10 year old granddaughter has been picked up by Sutton United who are now a Football League club (unbelievably!).

My "investments" for the coming season:

Scottish League 2: Spartans each way (1st three) @ 16/1. Non-league clubs promoted into the Scottish League have quite a good record of progressing up through the leagues. Think Gretna (some years ago admittedly) but, more recently, Cove Rangers, Annan Athletic, Edinburgh City & Kelty Hearts. And Spartans beat Dundee Utd & Peterhad in the pre-season Scottish League Cup group games, losing by only one goal to both Falkirk (2nd in League one last season) & Partick Thistle (who lost on penalties in the Play-Off final for promotion to the Premiership).

Most Assists: Trent Alexander Armstrong each way (1st 3) @ 9/1. Second favourite behind Kevin de Bruyne but, with Man City's liking for squad rotation and with De Bruyne having become a little bit injury prone, the chances are Trent A-A will play more games than De Bruyne. And with Trent A-A having toyed with playing in midfield last season...

Two Spread bets on goals scored:

Miguel Almiron (Newcastle) +5.75 goals. Scored 11 last season so, barring injuries (and the spread bets are void if they don't play in at least 10 games), I see no logical reason that he should score fewer than six goals this season. And

Pau Torres (Aston Villa) +2.1 goals. A speculative one. A newly signed defender. But he did score 10 goals in 136 games for Villareal and has scored once in 23 games for the Spanish national side. Not much of a downside at 2.1.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 2nd August 2023, 1:13 PM

My "investments" for the coming season:

Scottish League 2: Spartans each way (1st three) @ 16/1. Non-league clubs promoted into the Scottish League have quite a good record of progressing up through the leagues. Think Gretna (some years ago admittedly) but, more recently, Cove Rangers, Annan Athletic, Edinburgh City & Kelty Hearts. And Spartans beat Dundee Utd & Peterhad in the pre-season Scottish League Cup group games, losing by only one goal to both Falkirk (2nd in League one last season) & Partick Thistle (who lost on penalties in the Play-Off final for promotion to the Premiership).

Most Assists: Trent Alexander Armstrong each way (1st 3) @ 9/1. Second favourite behind Kevin de Bruyne but, with Man City's liking for squad rotation and with De Bruyne having become a little bit injury prone, the chances are Trent A-A will play more games than De Bruyne. And with Trent A-A having toyed with playing in midfield last season...

Two Spread bets on goals scored:

Miguel Almiron (Newcastle) +5.75 goals. Scored 11 last season so, barring injuries (and the spread bets are void if they don't play in at least 10 games), I see no logical reason that he should score fewer than six goals this season. And

Pau Torres (Aston Villa) +2.1 goals. A speculative one. A newly signed defender. But he did score 10 goals in 136 games for Villareal and has scored once in 23 games for the Spanish national side. Not much of a downside at 2.1.

View original

You've totally lost me there.

Although I intend to put my customer £10 on Manure to win the league so that if they do win it I won't be too upset.