METALMAN

That seems a bit US-centric to me. UK has had (legal, regulated, widespread) high street bookies for millions of years. The fact that back then your only option was to go to the bookies meant that if you went people would know and the public aspect and the shame of it played a part in keeping levels of gambling relatively low. Before internet gambling there was an ick factor to it which (sadly) has mostly dissipated since. Doing it on your phone makes it far more private which gets rid of the shame factor and makes it far easier to do it. Also prior to the internet offering limitless betting opportunities on all kinds of nonsense the majority of football gambling happened through the pools which involved small amounts of money and was pretty harmless.

Next season Leverkusen will get sucked dry of their talent, finish 15th in the league and sack Alonso who will end up managing Empoli or something and we’ll never hear of him again.

This is sad. Poor Sven. https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/23/sven-goran-eriksson-savours-huge-memory-in-life-at-liverpool

this is basically all of f1 media acting as if Christian Horner has had a nice winter break and is now 100% focused on running Red Bull and why wouldn't he be because nothing else has been happening

Happier for Georgia tbh. They've never been to a tournament either and unlike Luxembourg don't have the luxury of wiping their tears away with all their money.

They should ask ChatGPT to tell them how to build a good car

And Ferrari and Red Bull would at least win from time to time. I’ve got to admit a big part of this for me is that I really like Lewis Hamilton so didn’t mind him winning all the time (same for Vettel). Whereas I found/find Schumacher and Verstappen to both be quite unpleasant characters. Although Verstappen has mellowed a bit.recently, admittedly.

Yeah I’ve not watched a race this season. I think if a non Verstappen person wins two consecutive races I will use that as a trigger to watch again. So probs 2035 or so.

There was an FM game - I think it might have been 2009 - where these things were ridiculously common in two-legged ties. I think it was something to do with the team that lost the first leg getting an insane morale boost for the second leg or something. It was broken to the extent that you'd end up tanking the first leg just to make sure you went through in the end.

lol wales

Starting to wonder why I bother being nasty to Lineker anymore if I can’t even get any likes for it ☹️

June 2045: Gareth Southgate announces the England squad for the Nations League Division C clash against Albania. Jodran Hednerson is there.

I’m really hoping Arsenal win now. I’m going to become an Arsenal fan solely for the purpose of taunting Linkeles

Well, football is a kind of loss-leading marketing operation used by brands that refer to themselves as “football clubs”. It enables larger and far more important parts of the business, like merchandising and media, to bring in more revenue by boosting brand image. So he’s basically in advertising.

Oh this is annoying. I share my office with a French rugby fan and I probably shouldn’t have made fun of her so much for drawing with Italy now.

Looks like 2020s Paul Gascoigne

Who’d have thought Tottenham Hotspur would be doing more to redistribute wealth away from the most richest age group than the prospective Labour government.

Was there anything particularly notable about 2007/2008 that justifies this? All I can think of is that that was the last year that I lived in Kilmarnock and therefore also the last year that I regularly travelled to away games but I’m not 100% convinced that is what led these people to make a database for that year.

I mean if ever a race needed to be interfered with…

I would stop watching to register my disapproval of the lack of competitiveness and so F1 would lose a viewer, but I've only ever watched it on illegal streams so I doubt they're going to be too bothered.

This Christian Horner thing makes you realise how compromised these “independent” YouTubers are and how it can never compete with real journalism. This is the story right now but because these YouTubers etc are not paid a wage by a publication or a broadcaster but instead rely on cushy team partnerships and so on they are just acting like it’s not happening. I mean, I understand these people need to make a living and you’re not going to do that if you piss off Red Bull, but it is lacking in integrity and journalistic rigour a little bit.

We need to bring back Michael Masi.

Cool name

Can we split all the VAR chat into a separate thread so those of who aren’t interested (me) don’t have to read through the same arguments over and over again. It’s made football podcasts (even more) unlistenable, don’t let it do the same to EWB!

We should strip France of the 2018 World Cup now.