CL 2019-20

[Ray de Galles]

Barkley misses a Chelsea penalty.

The most predictable miss you could imagine, given all the delay in taking it and his and Willian's clear disagreement over if he should.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Nice of the English sides last night to remind evrryone that the Premier League is the best in the world.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

That 'clear and obvious error' thing with VAR penalty reviews is somewhat subjective, isn't it? At least one of the four angles they just replayed showed exactly that, but presumably they have to judge what angle the ref was viewing it from?

The only way that was going to be a clear and obvious error is if robertson made contact with the ball. It looks from one angle like he got the ball, but the other two show otherwise.

It's just tired defending by Robertson, He's not supposed to stick his leg out at all there. His job is to force the Napoli player, inside towards the massed ranks of liverpool players. (That guy had kicked the ball straight to fabinho) once the leg is out, and he hasn't got the ball, all the napoli player has to do is run towards it and it's a penalty.

[Sporting]

Bale scores brilliant disallowed goal.

[Felicity, I guess so]

It’s been a great week of results so far...

[ursus arctos]

Atalanta's introduction to the competition has not been kind

[Third rate Leszno]

Atleti v Juventus has been half decent.

[jwdd27]

Not sure if it has been covered in another thread, but it seems Mignolet has decided to wear 88 for Brugge.

It is the year of his birth, as well as neo-nazi code for Heil Hitler, but in the article I Googled he says

"Ik heb altijd met rugnummer 22 gespeeld. 88 is het viervoud van 22 en dit is mijn 4e club. Dat is het idee. Zo simpel is het. Meer hoeft daar niet achter gezocht te worden en ik ga me er ook niet druk in maken."

Which I guess roughly translates as he's always worn 22, but it wasn't available, so he went for 4 times 22 as it's his 4th club. It's as simple as that, no drama...

Slightly more convincing than Buffon's "4 balls", but then Buffon is a better player and more handsome, so it balances out. It's not as if 22 has brought him any great luck, I'd be looking to change things with his career trajectory.

[Lang Spoon]

Wow.

[Satchmo Distel]

But he also participated in the PFA social media boycott protesting against racism:

https://twitter.com/SMignolet/status...49591692058626

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

18 is much more the talismanic number for neo-nazis, isn't it, if you go looking for these things? Someone might want to tell Jordi Alba, who plays 18 for Barca and Spain.

[Ray de Galles]

Not sure if it has been covered in another thread, but it seems Mignolet has decided to wear 88 for Brugge.

It is the year of his birth, as well as neo-nazi code for Heil Hitler, but in the article I Googled he says

"Ik heb altijd met rugnummer 22 gespeeld. 88 is het viervoud van 22 en dit is mijn 4e club. Dat is het idee. Zo simpel is het. Meer hoeft daar niet achter gezocht te worden en ik ga me er ook niet druk in maken."

Which I guess roughly translates as he's always worn 22, but it wasn't available, so he went for 4 times 22 as it's his 4th club. It's as simple as that, no drama...

Slightly more convincing than Buffon's "4 balls", but then Buffon is a better player and more handsome, so it balances out. It's not as if 22 has brought him any great luck, I'd be looking to change things with his career trajectory.

Could I humbly suggest this thread to sir for such musings?

One of the guys who sits with me at Wimbledon and is from generations of Dons fans has a son, who also sits with us, who is close to breaking through in the first team squad. I'm trying to convince the boy to ask for 88 as a squad number if he does make it, for obvious reasons. I should probably tell him the Buffon story just in case though.

[Tony C]

Atalanta's introduction to the competition has not been kind

Indeed. A sobering experience for a team who have been gaining a lot of plaudits over the last year or so.

[seand]

Atalanta's introduction to the competition has not been kind

And further evidence of the insanity and unfairness of guaranteeing group stage places for the top 4 in the top 4 leagues. Half the group stage places pre-assigned to those countries is choking the competition without raising standards, but hey it makes it near impossible for Milan to miss out on qualification, so it's all good!

[Kevin S]

As you can tell from this and the Europa League thread, I'm catching up with the Opta stats, but this one is worthy of Rogin's Quiz.

https://twitter.com/OptaJean/status/1174630438733787136?s=19

[Ray de Galles]

Why is everyone calling PSG Paris now? The score on the TV coverage last night was shown as PAR-RMA too.

Their kit is lush though, even if they shouldn't have been wearing it at home.

[ursus arctos]

I am somewhat surprised that this never happened in Inter's relatively recent heyday, but that reflects the fact that the heart of those teams was Latin American.

[ursus arctos]

The same reason that "people" are calling Stade Francais "Paris" in rugby union.

It is a marketing ruse pushed relentlessly by the ownership of both clubs, which has now been accepted by UEFA and the Top 14.

The official UEFA score bug was already using PAR last season, however.

[Sporting]

Here in Spain there are two English clubs usually referred to in the sports press as United and City.

[Kevin S]

Correspondingly, the meringues are often just called "Real" over here by the likes of Alan Brazil.

[Kevin S]

Mind you, I've always been annoyed at the hybrid names "Bayern Munich" and "Inter Milan" too.

[Kevin S]

Though I suppose that must happen a lot and probably not just in English: take the short form of the name in the local language and add it to the place name in your language.

[ursus arctos]

Here in Spain there are two English clubs usually referred to in the sports press as United and City.

Though this is arguably progress from when the red one was simply referred to as "Manchester" by the same outlets.

[Kevin S]

Dynamo Kiev, Sparta Prague, Sporting Lisbon - they're everywhere, aren't they.

[Diable Rouge]

Dynamo Kiev, Sparta Prague, Sporting Lisbon - they're everywhere, aren't they.

The last-named raising the hackles of Portuguese, as it should be Sporting Portugal.