baxus

It's really not as if Haaland dominated the Bundesliga, is it? He was neither the champion nor the best goalscorer. Not saying he wasn't playing great, but there's a whole world of difference between his level at Borussia and what he's showing now at City.

That's tennis, mate. Who cares? City is not miles ahead. They're not even top of the table. Sure, they are looking better than everyone else, but they have failed to perform from time to time. They seem to be hitting their stride and I think we all agree they'll win the league this season but they won't do it with 20 points to spare. Also, they are lucky that most of their rivals are in transition - Arsenal are trying to get back to the top (looking pretty good so far) as are United (not looking as good as Arsenal), Chelsea are transitioning to post-Abramovich era, Liverpool are in the process of replacing Salah-Mane-Firmino with Jota-Darwin-Diaz and their midfield is in shambles at the moment. If 2 of those teams sort themselves out soon, City will not walk to the title in the upcoming years. They might still win it but it won't be a foregone conclusion. I've seen some Sky sports graphics that said United spent more than City since Fergie left, so it's not finances that are holding United back.

To be honest, I'd absolutely love it if it was my team doing the dominating.

Firmino?

Among all your accomplishments (congrats on all of them, btw) over the last year this name deserves a special credit

I'm upset about anyone being called "Orcs". It's a term that dehumanises people and, as such, is neither accurate nor suitable for any kind of reasonable discussion and debate. I must point out that you are still avoiding to answer whether US (and allies) soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan should also be considered "Orcs" since the reasons they invaded those countries are anything but moral and noble.

The new Chelsea owner can bugger off. If he wanted an All-Star game, he should've bought an MLS team.

So, basically not a very enlightened bunch of people who could be manipulated more or less easily in order to justify what the military needs them to do? I wonder if SeanF would call them Orcs, or is that reserved only for "the other guys".

Not for a second am I trying to justify Nazi atrocities during WWII, especially with so many of my family being their victims, but if we're setting it as clear-cut as that, then let's use the same measuring tape for everyone. Are those who bombed Iraq back into middle ages also complete scum? And let's not forget that pretty much the same people did the same to Afghanistan and then backed out overnight and hung all their local allies to dry?

My dad also served in the army of former Yugoslavia, he was stationed in Maribor, Slovenia. His stories usually were around fun stuff, but once I talked to him in more detail he pretty much got to the "it was a waste of time" conclusion. Funny how the brain works - filters out crappy parts over time and keeps only the enjoyable stuff. I am the last generation that had compulsory military service in Serbia, but since a lot of people thought there will be no way to serve after that there was enough volunteers that I was able to skip it with no consequences. A lot of older people around here would love nothing more than seeing compulsory military service reinstated and it's always because of some stupid reason. For example, one of the more popular ones is "it teaches young men to make their bed in the morning". It's also my pet peeve, and I almost always freak out and say that making your bed is something you either have learned by the age of 19 or you just need to give up on it. I dislike Putin's and Russian foreign policies as much as the next guy but calling someone Orcs is not a good thing. Noble Elves vs foul Orcs narrative works for Tolkien only. When you have guys coming in to kill/ethnically cleanse you, it's already too late to apply conscription in a way that will make a significant difference. There's more to it than just "here's a gun, shoot at the enemy". You clearly have no idea how these things work, do you? I mean, it's great for you to not have been exposed to it first hand, but you should read up on things before making statements such as this. Did USA (and other countries who were US allies) have a moral justification for invading Iraq? You do remember false accusations of Iraq having WMDs? Are US (and their allies) soldiers Orcs in those stories? Don't forget that Nazi regime had support of big part of German people. Do you think that German people are bad people? Do you think they really wanted to kill all the Jews just for laughs? Or that maybe they have been under very specific circumstances and then exposed to years of narrative that would find justification for those actions? The point is not trying to lay blame on anyone, it's to point out that for every war there first needs to be a justification for both internal and external use. Even Putin's Russia have given one and as ridiculous as "saving Russian people from genocide" and "denazifying Ukraine" sound to us you can rest assured that Russian people have been bombed with it enough for it to make sense to them.

Gymnastics is probably the sport with highest bar for entry level. I mean, we can all go out on the court and play basketball, nowhere near world class level of course, but still play it. No dunks, but we could pretty much all hit a three pointer or play some defense etc. On the other hand, not sure many (if any) of us could even get to starting position on the rings. That being said, gymnasts obviously do perform more than one routine, but routine is a minute or two long so I wouldn't really count that the same as a match in football, basketball etc.

I think you are putting a cart before the horse. LeBron is not built the way he's built because he's played basketball his whole life. He has played basketball his whole life because he's built the way he is. Sure, there'd probably be some more muscle on him had he chosen American football, but I doubt it'd be that much. And I very much doubt he'd be as lean as Phelps was from swimming. Sure, these top level athletes we're talking about would probably be good at some other sports, had they undergone different training from an early age, but there are limitations set even upon them by their physiques. He's 5 inches taller, but he's 20-25kgs heavier. There's a French swimmer called Florent Manadou. He's 1.99m (compared to LeBron's 2.06m) tall, and weighs 99kg (compared to Lebron's 113kg). He's the tallest swimmer I can remember (if anyone can find another example please say so) and he's won medals and with 4 Olympic medals (1 gold, 3 silver) there's no doubt he was world class swimmer, but still much leaner than LeBron and built pretty differently. I must admit, this is the first time I heard of Mark Warnecke. Yeah, I'm sure the level of athleticism in a sport in which physical drain is such that you can play two matches at top level in a single day must be staggering.

I edited my previous post and admitted to my mistake. Still, that doesn't make baseball any less of a niche sport. Hell, they play baseball here in Serbia, too. Do you count Serbia to show that baseball is popular worldwide, despite the fact it attracts less spectators than a regular 3 on 3 pickup basketball game in the street? And no, it's not Europeans who are sensitive about sports in this case. It's you who are trying to pass off "favourite American pastime" as something more than it actually is, and that's a niche sport pretty much everywhere outside of US, and even in the US it's on a major decline in popularity.

Ok, my numbers were off. I must admit I thought some countries were part of Western hemisphere that weren't. As far as determining if sport is niche or not, popularity is definitely a factor. If the country where baseball is THE most popular in the world has 2 more popular sports (American football and basketball) and a relatively new sport (football) is in the same ballpark, and there's only a handful of other countries where it's played at all, then you can't really make a case that it's popular worldwide, can you? Here's Michael Phelps and here's LeBron James. You see the difference? Let me help you out - one is 1.93m tall and weighs 90kg, the other is 2.06m tall and weighs 113kg. I'll let you decide which is which.

Sure, if we take some 15% of population of the wester hemisphere as "much of the western hemisphere", then sure... Plus, let's not turn our attention to the fact that baseball is not even the most popular sport in US (with American football being in a league of it's own, but with even football well on its way to catch up to baseball), let alone in any of the other countries on the list. A niche sport if there ever was one.

Back in my college days when I returned to rowing, I told a bunch of my rowing friends that through my college we have some cheap swimming timeslots at the local pool so we went for that. I was 5 minutes late and by the time I got to the pool, my friends were already hanging on to the side of the pool for dear life. Now, I'm not talking about Olympic level rowers, but still they were recreational rowers who have rowed some college regattas (university sports in Europe, and especially in our part of Europe, not being anywhere near US levels), and were in a good enough shape to run half-marathons for fun at around 1h45min range despite not being built anything like distance runners. Baseball is a "niche local sport", whether you like to admit it or not. It's played in USA and Japan and that's pretty much it. Stating Taiwan as an example of why it's not should probably be the best proof that it actually is. And what is this "much of the western hemisphere" you are talking about? I did a quick google search and, outside of USA and Canada, only other countries in Americas that have professional league (I'm not sure of the quality levels) are: Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba in the Caribbean Mexico, Panama and Nicaragua in Central America Venezuela and Colombia in South America Other than that, there's also Australia. Now, while population of those countries does add up, when we take into account that baseball is nowhere near the most popular sport in those countries, it most definitely is a niche sport. Way to ignore all the other sports I mentioned. And no, LeBron couldn't be a world class swimmer and the best reason for that would be to have him stand next to world class swimmers. Height and wingspan would work in his favour, but his mass would drag him down massively. As far as rowing is concerned, it takes completely different type of effort than what he's used to. Basketball is about many bursts of speed, short sprints, explosive jumping etc. while rowing is going 100% all out for 5,5-7,5 minutes. It's really unpleasant at the lowest levels of the sport, let alone at top level where they're basically pushing the limits of what humans are capable of. You can go and watch any Olympic finals race and check out what they look like after crossing the finish line. I have NEVER seen a basketball player in that state after a match, or a football player, or a tennis player etc. Mind you, I'm not saying those sports are any less worthy or anything, just trying to point out difference in types of effort required. Sure, with top level coaching and training from childhood, LeBron maybe could've become an elite rower, but he's at least 20 years too late to make that switch. There's no turning back for him now, just as you couldn't take a 35 year old elite rower and turn him into world class basketball player by switching his training.

Depends on what sport you're making the athlete for, doesn't it? LeBron is big and strong and quick, but I doubt he'd ever make a world-class level swimmer, for example. Or a cyclist, or triathlete, or high-jumper, or rower or...

Are we talking about greatest sportsmen/women or best athletes? Because those are very different things. GOATs are people who have taken their respective sports to a whole other level, whether when it's the quality of the sport itself or it's popularity or whatever. Those are people after who their sports have never been the same. Best athletes is a bit trickier. There's a lot of talk about athleticism in this thread, but how do we define athleticism in the first place? World class marathon runners are clearly athletic, but their athleticism is rather narrowly focused, as is world class weightlifters', for example. How do we rank those? Is strength aspect of athleticism more important than endurance? Or agility? Or whatever else? Or are we talking about some imaginary competition where all this is tested and evaluated and the score is tallied in the end? Funny thing is that I'd say team sports athletes would have much better shot at scoring well in this imaginary athleticism competition.

If you take money out of the equation, would you keep working at your current job? If you would, then don't retire. On the other hand, if you would find something else that you'd rather do then retire and do that. Also, at 44 you can always come out of retirement if you get bored or whatever.

As crazy it is to compare athletes across sports, if we're already doing it Sir Steve Redgrave must be mentioned. He's won gold in rowing at 5 Olympics and I doubt even he knows how many times he's been world champion. The best description of how successful he was is that he's won an Olympic bronze and no one even mentions it.

Imagine him at his peak with people defending him basically not being allowed to touch him or even come too close.

I imagine someone telling Jordan: "You know, if you work on this, you'll score 5 points more per game" and just chuckle. The guy would practice that so much he'd wear out the floor in the gym around 3 point line.

Thank you for sharing this. It's an interesting video. It's funny to see Liverpool in "same teams win everything every year" montage, though.

So, your point is that the sport is kind of weird but that it's 100% certain that Serena would sweep Graf (or anyone else) off the court? Seems reasonable. If you think that Jordan would be 33% 3 point shooter with today's defence you are delusional. Either way, basketball is not the topic here.

Funny story about copyright. Back in the '90s, Yugoslavia was under sanctions from the UN which severed commercial ties of the country to the outside world that, among other things, included books, music, movies etc. It lasted for 4-5 years, and took some time to reestablish those connections. During that period, the only way to get music or movies was through pretty serious copyright violations. It's literally what kept us even remotely in touch with what was going on outside of our borders, outside of our TV and radio programmes which were heavily controlled by the government. The dark side is that's left its mark on our mindset where pirating something is considered normal.