A British boxer would never have taken a Soviet opponent as lightly as Apollo Creed did in the fatal fight, as he'd be familiar with the stereotype of the 'crack east-european outfit' turning over complacent westerners, and more wary of Drago.
I mean, no-one likes to see a fighter die in the ring, but Creed's pisstaking and showboating was pretty reprehensible.
I think I quite like the idea of a dusty copy of an alternative Rocky IV script sitting in an archive somewhere.
Opening scene: Rocky and Apollo are watching the 2nd leg of a UEFA cup tie between Ipswich Town and Dinamo Tblisi. After a late goal for Dinamo sends them through on away goals, Apollo turns to Rocky "Hey Rock, look at the technique of these Russians (sic). They certainly shouldn't be underestimated".
Team bonding sessions
Actions performed between players of the same team in order to build cameraderie and team spirit that would almost certainly be prosecutable in any other workplace.
Originally posted by Favourite Worst NightmareView Post
Opening scene: Rocky and Apollo are watching the 2nd leg of a UEFA cup tie between Ipswich Town and Dinamo Tblisi. After a late goal for Dinamo sends them through on away goals, Apollo turns to Rocky "Hey Rock, look at the technique of these Russians (sic). They certainly shouldn't be underestimated".
Alternatively, Sly might've mused about similar with Russell Osman on the set of Escape to Victory.
Europa League
A competition that English clubs try to qualify for, in order to be knocked out of at the earliest possible opportunity so that they can try to qualify for it again.
This. It drove me nuts when teams that rarely get a sniff of European places finally got into the competition and then blew it off. I could slightly understand one year when Bolton (??) was also battling relegation that playing in two competitions at that level wasn't going to work, but when Martin O'Neill was managing Villa and starting second stringers just so he could finish in the top 7, that was ridiculous.
But one other thing I would add to the definition of this tournament: A tournament that allows second to last place finishers from each Champions League group to participate during the knock-out rounds. Creates an opportunity for those sides to earn more money to remain dominant in their domestic leagues.
At the expense of teams who performed extraordinarily to qualify.
There is that problem as well: mid-level clubs (sometimes pretty far down mid-table). But if the competition is only 4-6 from most leagues there can be something interesting about seeing those sides face each other. I certainly can say that my geographical knowledge has expanded quite a bit because of the UEFA Cup/Europa League and the same for Copa Sudamericana in South America, which is CONMEBOL's equivalent to the Europa League.
The "cracks" thing is a misquote/mis-phrasing I feel (it would always be in the singular, not plural, as seen correctly in the responses to that original post at the time), but does refer to the propensity of commentators, media etc. to routinely label continental teams, particularly ones from behind the Iron Curtain during Cold War times, as crack sides. The typical form would be along the lines of "a crack Eastern European outfit". It was/is a sort of (lazy?) journalistic shorthand for 'fit, well-drilled, effective', in the same vein as it gets used to describe slick military operations.
"Briefs" for tickets isn't something I've ever knowingly come across, I don't think.
Never heard it used that way in half a century of following fitba’. It was always ‘the crack Hungarian outfit’ or similar.
It strikes me as a very ‘1970s’ adjective that didn’t really survive beyond the decade. It did seem to be largely Eastern European sides, but I can recall (for example) Cruijff-era Dutch clubs being described thus.
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