SEE YOU! A brand spanking new modern fitba thread 2023/2024

Chile won the South American tournament twice a few years ago. Or maybe it was the Copa America. I remember they were doing really well and then didn't even qualify for the WC.

 

South American football is very very top heavy.

 

Well they only have about ten countries.

Venezuela & Suriname are baseball countries though Venezuela will occasionally do alright in football as well.

The two Guyanas will never do jack shit in any sport unless they play a sport I never watch like cricket.

So the head honchos are :

1/2 Argentina/Brazil
3 Uruguay

4/5 you'd expect Colombia & Chile but they have been inconsistent and can get that ass kicked by Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay or Bolivia.

But I think we're both telling each other shit we both already know.

 

Probably.

Guyana might be World Mosquito Breeding champs or something.

 

Chile had a golden generation of sorts, mainly Vidal and Sanchez, but they're done now and it's a country which has since in the last fifty years generated the odd good/brilliant player like Salas or Zamorano but rarely two at same time

 

Spain lead. I think they're the only side with Portugal that can do a 100% group?

 

Croatia very one paced and toothless...Italy in fairness have been really consistent since the first game, plenty of energy and pace, not exceptional in any sense...

 

Wayne Rooney is inflating.

 

The BBC are desperate for Italy to go out. Screaming for handball.....

 

High Drama.

Italy better get their skates on.

 

Every time I see him he more and more resembles Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas

 

Yeah his hair is turning into downy fluff. He must be hitting the sauce hard. And listening to that fucking Colleen all day won't do your nut any good either..

 

I'll say it now.....on the evidence of the two games England have played there's no way they'd have stood up to that Italian keep ball from 60 mins on....they'd have folded long before the 98th minute.

 

The despondency in that studio is a disgrace.

 

Probably better for the competition, Italy will make for more exciting games than Croatia would have

 

They play the Swiss next, equal odds to progress IMO

 

Yeah I'd say when he goes at it, he does go at it awful and very hard.

 

I do feel for Modric. But had they beaten Albania they'd be able to have settled for a gentlemanly draw (Think Austria Vs Germany '82) and both gone thru with 4.

 

Oh I'll see that and raise you......this fucking lad.

 

That Rooney-Cash video from 1990 is full of gems, including the interview with Johnny Coyle and Paddy Docherty

 

Dan Rooney was a mountain of a man, always reminds me of that Flann O Brian description of Finn MacCool from At Swim Two Birds:

Though not mentally robust, he was a man of superb physique and development. Each of his thighs was as thick as a horse’s belly, narrowing to a calf as thick as the belly of a foal. Three fifties of fosterlings could engage with handball against the wideness of his backside, which was wide enough to halt the march of warriors through a mountain pass.

 

Johnny Coyle. The slightly deformed and very angry Irish answer to Paul Newman.

 

That's great writing. Flann was onto glutes before it was cool. That's real vision.

I never read enough Irish material mainly because we were always hit in primary school and so I developed a real angry loathing of all that shit they pushed. A haon dó trí is a dó dó trí where's your feadóg etc.

The old man banging on about the Christian Brothers etc. Nah. Not my division at all.

 

At Swim Two Birds is like nothing else to me anyway, encapsulates Irish humour, mix of ridicule, absurdity and whimsical...

 

Funny how association works. Mention of Flann o Brien minds me of Brendan Behan which reminds me in turn of the Auld Triangle (a pub named after a prison device- Behan did a bit of bird and hated it- the triangle was used to rouse prisoners like a bell) which in turn reminds me of The Big Tree on the corner of Dorset St and the North Circular (long since gone "redeveloped") and finally that Dublin have drawn Galway in the football 1/4s.....about the only Irish thing apart from the rugby that I'll tune into still.

 

If Congestive Heart Failure was a person.

 

Didn't see the match, but apparently James Rodriguez has a big game for Colombia. That's a name i had totally forgotten about.

 

Don't get me started on that motherfucker.

 

I forgot about Everton too. Often times when a player had a huge tournament their stock would hit the moon and all the big clubs would be making offers. With Rodriguez Real went for him and it didn't work out. Bayern being generally more conservative only took him on loan. On to Everton where it didn't work out either and it's off to football nowhere land.

He wasn't the first or only one, but clubs have been a bit more reserved with spending on a single tourney performance even though transfer fees will only continue to rise.