A Game For The Neutrals? SWE-SWI

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

One thing I don't get with VAR is why the ref is stuck in the 70's while we live way beyond Y2K.
If people get that tedious hand-heart, he doesn't have to shape a 26" black-and-white telly I used to watch Baretta on as a kid, in the air with his hands.
It's enough if he motions an iPad, or a Samsung Galaxy S8+ with his hands. No need to go retro.

[Satchmo Distel]

Serbia might have been better than the Swiss, had they avoided them in the draw and not had to deal with the political distraction. Senegal or Nigeria or Iran almost certainly so.

[G-Man]

That red card was a bit of a joke. There was no shirt-tug nor a shove from Lang. The Swedish player stumbled of his own clumsiness. That the ref gave a free-kick instead and didn't rescind the red card shows that VAR doesn't protect us from the vanity of referees.

But this didn't upset me half as much as the commentator we had -- one of the English gang, perhaps that Peter Drury or someone of his ilk -- who decided to give the names of all the Swiss-Germans a French pronunciation. Lang became Long instead of Lung; Zuber became ZueBEAR instead of Tsoober; Sommer became SomMERE instead of Zommer. It was like the man was possessed by the spirit of Alan Partridge.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

That red card was a bit of a joke. There was no shirt-tug nor a shove from Lang. The Swedish player stumbled of his own clumsiness. That the ref gave a free-kick instead and didn't rescind the red card shows that VAR doesn't protect us from the vanity of referees.

Don't understand this. He had decided the card (right or wrong) but noticed that it was outside the penalty area. Are you saying that simply because it was outside and not inside, it was no red? Doesn't make sense.

[Duncan Gardner]

Too many ifs there Satch- that's Granny's gonads territory

The Heidis could easily have won 3-0 in both NI playoffs. Equally they might have had a man sent off in Belfast and not had a dodgy pen. All those variables

[Satchmo Distel]

Fair enough, DG. Granny's testicles always a risk in these hypotheticals.

We have a lot of European and African teams of similar quality among both the qualifiers and nearly qualifieds and therefore a lot of randomness in play. I thought Sweden were marginally better today but it still took a deflection to settle it.

[ad hoc]

PPV: in the apparently likely event that we will have a Croatia vs Sweden World Cup semi final... Who will you support?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

PPV: in the apparently likely event that we will have a Croatia vs Sweden World Cup semi final... Who will you support?

I think it will be like the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the handball final where they played and both had very good players. I was completely calm, just enjoyed the game and whoever won, I won.
I can't choose between them. Hard to explain.

[tee rex]

They were crap while you were away from OTF all that time. What can we say to make you go away again?

(smiley winky wanky)

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Hah, no way.
Eng-Swe will be a fun game, looking at it now with a few days left. But on the day it will be hell, I think. Tension during the penalties Cro-Den and tension again today gave me headache both times. Saturday both of them play, one after the other.

[stefan]

I have nothing against Switzerland, so I tried to pretend that they were Ireland. Didn't really work.

[Duncan Gardner]

[Satchmo Distel]

A Game For the Neutered.