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Football: The Kids Are All Right


Raja

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At some point, watching City, PSG or now Newcastle play football becomes like watching a movie by Woody Allen or Roman Polanski.  Or like cheering on Ronaldo while ignoring his self-admitted rape.  Can you really separate the art from the artist?

Suarez’ beyond-the-pale shithousing incurred hate and boos and howls, and yet no boos for Ronaldo.  Football fans were United in their disdain for Adam Johnson though.

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2 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

and yet no boos for Ronaldo.  Football fans were United in their disdain for Adam Johnson though.

 

I'm pretty disgusted with the Ronaldo thing as I've made pretty clear, but to be fair to booing/not-booing fans, the big difference here is that (1) Johnson was arrested and tried, whereas with Ronaldo it's still a he-said-she-said and most fans simply haven't read how convincing the evidence/admission against him is and that he-said is that it happened too (I think the failure is more on the media in not hammering it home- and on the club for allowing him to join) and (2) Johnson fucked a child, which always provokes a more visceral reaction.  


 

 

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Since it’s a boring international break:

I watched the Liverpool game on replay on Monday evening.  I’m less and less thrilled about this replay bullshit on the Peacock streaming.

Both teams will feel disappointed not to have won.  City bossed the first half as Liverpool’s midfield forgot how to press, but City didn’t create much despite all the possession and space they had. I can only remember one decent stop by Alisson on Foden, the kind of save that Ederson makes several times each game by rushing out early and smothering the shot.

Then Liverpool largely bossed the second half and scored two great goals, but didn’t create many clear cut chances (City were dropping deep quite quickly), conceded two equalizers against the run of play by dropping all focus for a minute, and then saw a late winning goal miraculously prevented by Rodri.  And the second equalizer was a jammy deflection.  While at the same time Milner could have been sent of at 1-1 and Silva could have been sent off at 2-2.

Entertaining stuff but it seemed like the teams canceled each other (they all looked shattered in stoppage time).

Liverpool have only drawn with both City and Chelsea at home, despite having a dominant second half when they should have won.  Those are points dropped in the title race.  Liverpool missing both TAA and Thiago were at a bigger disadvantage than City on Sunday, so perhaps it’s not so terrible.

Liverpool’s MF is attacking more this season, and we’re scoring more because of it, but the two 8s are not shielding the defense much, and we look vulnerable whenever an opponent pushes players forward suddenly.  The post-Gini model has pros and cons.  Brentford did it last week, and then City had Walker, Cancelo, Silva and KDB bombing forward.  Fabinho has looked really fatigued in the past few games and will need a rest.  Salah is in amazing form, and Mane is gradually finding his old form, but Firmino is far off the pace when he plays.  VVD’s positioning is only mostly good so far and he needs to get his game sense back.

Aside from Salah, no individual really dominated the game.  I guess the quality of the opponents makes it harder to command the game.  Foden had a relatively easier opportunity up against Milner and made the most of it.  KDB was below his best, despite scoring a goal to get the draw.  But Bernardo Silva showed the kind of energy and stamina that I’d like to see from Liverpool’s MF; he was relentless, while still having good quality on the ball.  And I have to commend City for digging deep to get two equalizers when they were on the back foot.  They could easily have lost some confidence after failing to score in the first half, they were getting outplayed in a raucous away game, their manager was having a strop on the sideline, but they stayed focused and snatched a couple of goals.  Their experience in title chases over the past few years has made them mentally resilient.

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1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

At some point, watching City, PSG or now Newcastle play football becomes like watching a movie by Woody Allen or Roman Polanski.  Or like cheering on Ronaldo while ignoring his self-admitted rape.  Can you really separate the art from the artist?

Suarez’ beyond-the-pale shithousing incurred hate and boos and howls, and yet no boos for Ronaldo.  Football fans were United in their disdain for Adam Johnson though.

Tbf, most football fans are unaware that Ronaldo is a rapist. I know I was until Polish pointed out that he'd basically admitted it to his lawyers.

The lack of media scrutiny is no surprise though. Everybody knows that football operates inside its own disgusting morality vacuum, which most of the press happily buy into.

 

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2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Suarez’ beyond-the-pale shithousing incurred hate and boos and howls, and yet no boos for Ronaldo.  Football fans were United in their disdain for Adam Johnson though.

Then you either haven't been paying attention or have selective hearing. Opposition fans have been singing/chanting about it in every game he's played. His first game back against Newcastle, a plane was flown over Old Trafford with the message 'believe Kathryn Mayorga'. 

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2 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Then you either haven't been paying attention or have selective hearing. Opposition fans have been singing/chanting about it in every game he's played. His first game back against Newcastle, a plane was flown over Old Trafford with the message 'believe Kathryn Mayorga'. 

I hadn’t heard of that.  I’m glad it is the case.  It goes unmentioned in the football media.

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5 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I hadn’t heard of that.  I’m glad it is the case.  It goes unmentioned in the football media.

This isn't true either. Major publications have run stories. Just because you and some others hadn’t read anything about it doesn't mean there's a media cover up. This was big news when Der Spiegel broke the story and published the leaked documents. It hit the news again when LVPD reopened their investigation. The Athletic, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, BBC in addition to the tabloids have all run articles recently. 

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I think it is pretty safe to assume if Ronaldo was an actual rapist, he wouldn't have a football career by now. It is enough to look at any celebrity (footballers are celebrities) that did something to be canceled. It got. Being a rapist, homophobical, racist, etc, doesn't matter, even if it's only a suspicion, once the public (not even necesarilly the majority) begins to cancel you, the people around you try to break up any association/relation with you. And that happens all the time. It happens with all kind of celebrities. 

I wonder why Ronaldo is different. 

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57 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

I think it is pretty safe to assume if Ronaldo was an actual rapist, he wouldn't have a football career by now.

Er what? City were playing Mendy right up until he was carted off to jail. I don’t think it’s safe to assume that there aren’t plenty of teams in football willing to overlook Ronaldo potentially being a rapist, ‘cause, you know, United are for a start.

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@Consigliere The fact is still that those of us who take part in this thread follow football rather closely and quite a few of us (myself included) still had no idea about Cristiano Ronaldo being accused of rape. Sure, some newspaper did write about it but it went under the radar for most football fans. It was nowhere near breaking story it should've been. Cristiano's lawyers and publicists did a great job keeping a lid on such a story.

@Daeron the Daring What do you base that statement on? Are you aware that Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the biggest stars in world sports? Can you imagine how much money is actually generated by him and around him? Clubs he played for over the last two decades are billion dollar companies who are very good at looking after their interests. It's nowhere near as easy to "cancel" him (or other players at his level) as it was with, let's say, Louis CK.

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1 hour ago, Daeron the Daring said:

I think it is pretty safe to assume if Ronaldo was an actual rapist, he wouldn't have a football career by now. It is enough to look at any celebrity (footballers are celebrities) that did something to be canceled. It got. Being a rapist, homophobical, racist, etc, doesn't matter, even if it's only a suspicion, once the public (not even necesarilly the majority) begins to cancel you, the people around you try to break up any association/relation with you. And that happens all the time. It happens with all kind of celebrities. 

I wonder why Ronaldo is different. 

Not sure we can assume that. Rich and powerful people do get away with it all the time. It took a long time to take Harvey Weinstein down.

Of course, innocent until proven guilty; but in Ronaldo's case there's a transcript of him admitting to his lawyers that the woman told him "no".

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1 hour ago, Daeron the Daring said:

I think it is pretty safe to assume if Ronaldo was an actual rapist.

From the man himself, discussing the allegations with his lawyers:

Quote

 

"She said that she didn’t want to, but she made herself available.” And further: “But she kept saying ‘no.’ ‘Don’t do it.’ ‘I’m not like the others.’ I apologized afterwards.” The document quotes him as saying that she never screamed and never called out for anyone.

“[NN2] Question: Did Ms. C. say anything afterwards about the sex being too brutal? X: She didn’t complain about it being brutal. She complained that I forced her. She didn’t say anything about wanting to go to the police.”

 

I think it's pretty safe to assume he is a rapist, because he admitted raping her.

 

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29 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

@baxusIf you and others didn't know about it then that's your problem. This story was widely reported so it's pretty disingenuous for people to be crying media cover up. 

I feel you are being unnecessarily confrontational here.

I hadn't heard about it either until long after I should have. In fact I think here was the first time it even came on my radar. 

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34 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I hadn't heard about it either until long after I should have. In fact I think here was the first time it even came on my radar. 

Same here, and I consider myself well on top of the general football news. 

Yes, the media have run 'some' stories, but it seems they've done the barest of minimum in order to avoid being seen as completely ignoring the issue.

Most football fans have no clue about this. Much in the same way that most people have no idea that Karim Benzema was secretly recorded discussing his blackmail plans with a childhood friend from Lyon. During the Euros, there was plenty of talk about the fact that Deschamps had brought Benzema back, but none whatsoever as to why he'd been barred from the national team in the first place.

It's fucking nauseating.

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