Beastmix

I mean, the football 'hierarchy' is an abstract theoretical concept. This aside, you can move up a hierarchy (as Man City have seemingly done), so this is what we need to be aiming to achieve and you can't achieve this by having an inferiority complex. The club needs to conduct itself like a major force, both to attract and to keep players. The fans need to believe it too.

Yeah, and this is the mentality we need to snap out of. You can't join the elite if you don't think/act like the elite. This goes for both the fans and the club itself.

The greatest pure striker of all time, no question. The guy was something else. Ran the show in the 2002 World Cup. Had a far better supporting cast than Maradona had in '86, but it was still all about R9.

That's an oxymoron.

I don't even know why we entertain the idea of selling certain players. We really need to stop speculating about it or giving the media the attention they're after. It's almost like our fans (especially on social media) are trying to materialise it into happening. In many ways, they're doing his agent's job for him. If you don't give a flame oxygen, it goes out.

It's only going to be one game (two, tops), so I'm sure we can all get behind Olsen for that. He's terrible, granted, but we need to start boosting players' confidence, rather than tearing it down. It is a confidence game, afterall.

...not sure this argument stands when we're literally talking about a footballer who's been on growth hormone drugs for the majority of his life. Medical purposes or not, it's a leg up.

No, but I'm pitting the two individuals against each other. Side by side. They're effectively the same player, but one had far more advantages than the other, meaning the one who didn't, by definition, is the better player. Maradona, with all the advantages Messi has had, would have been horrifyingly good. I mean, nobody can say, definitively, who the best is anyway. It's a boring debate, much like the greatest boxer is. There are too many variables to consider, so I'm simply throwing my argument into the ocean of arguments. The most alarming thing is Argentina have produced the two best players who ever played.

Woke up this morning and immediately needed to see the ending to that game again. Only to make sure I did see what I thought I did. Wild.

Maradona, for me. It's reasonable to say Maradona and Messi are directly comparible in ability, size, and style, so we could make a case to say, from a base-point, they're about as equal as it gets. Then, take away all the advantages Messi has had: sport science, heavy data analysis, higher quality teammates (club/national), better pitches, and so on. Take these things away and, suddenly, it should all become clearer. Messi is still the 2nd best though... and I don't even like the man.

The play makes absolutely zero sense, given the scenario. Can only put it down to a mental blip. Still, always good to see things like this happen to the Pats.

What on EARTH were the Pats thinking there!? They weren't even losing, haha! I've never seen that before.

Dallas don''t makes things easily for themselves... or the fans. I've already had to deal with Messi winning today and now this. Fuming.

I'd like to vouch for the Ambernic RG351M. Endless retro fun on long train/car/bus journeys..

I've cut-up your original quote here because, despite Emi's involvement, this is precisely why I'd like France to win on Sunday. It's fawning on a grotesque level. Damien Duff spitting hyperbole about him on Irish TV yesterday was almost feverish.

There are plenty of 'football crazy' nations in this World Cup with comparible (or higher) populations than Argentina AND are willing to travel en-masse. I reason they've acquired their tickets by nefarious means which, as tournament organisers, is on FIFA to police really. It's a shame because the overwhelming bias every game somewhat tarnishes an otherwise perfectly good World Cup (football-wise).

Argentinian fans have to travel further though, surely? I'm not sure the location of the World Cup makes much difference, unless we're talking about the hosts or immediate neighbouring countries. Croatia is far nearer to Qatar than Argentina.

They should have given each set of fans a fixed amount and then have the usual number of corporate/sponsor/delegate seats. It's a huge advantage, especially with the noise they make.

This might have been asked already, but how have Argentina have been allocated so many tickets? Throughout this tournament, they've almost packed out the stadiums for every game, whereas their opponents have only been allocated small pockets of fans (bar, perhaps, the Saudi match). What's going on there? I've never seen this at a major international tournament before. It's like they have a home game every time, which is a bit unfair really.

The short answer is nobody requested a longer season this year. I could add it to the suggestions for next year, but the long answer may explain why we probably shouldn't. The long answer: this is the standard (and almost universally agreed upon) length of fantasy season. The main reason for this is the amount of real life teams who bench half their starters in the final game week. Statistically, far more teams continue to put out their first team players in the penultimate week (although there are still some outliers here). Having the fantasy final in the same week as the final game of NFL regular season match-ups would potentially be a nightmare, roster-wise. I understand wanting to prolong the fun/misery for an extra week, but I'm in several leagues this year and they all start their playoff games this week for this exact reason.

Rough week here too. Limping into the playoffs.

Why am I only finding out now there was now tangible trophy awarded for the Queensland Cup!? I'm blaming Gerrard.

How dare you. It was our finest moment... and a beautiful trophy too! I completely forgot we won that Queensland Cup back in the summer too. Villa Park will need a new pre-season cup trophy wing. What a feature of the stadium tour that would be.

Looked like it was made of oud wood.

Unai winning MAJOR trophies already. Right in the cabinet, between the 'Peace Cup' and the 'Cup of Traditions'