The Lusophone

Beta's out @Lineker

Lollujo appears to have de-aged by about a decade.

If either Bosnia or Iceland sneak into the playoffs ahead of them, I'll be a bit sad.

This is the funniest outcome.

Sorry, I'm a Plymouth Argyle fan only now

Just clocked that Jordan Henderson's Saudi Ministry of Sports-owned team is not only behind the four teams owned by PiF, they're also behind two teams not owned by the Saudi state in any way and whose highest profile players are Musa Barrow and Cristian Tello. Why on earth is he in the squad?

Andreas Schelderup would be that guy if he hadn't moved to Benfica in January irl. Probably Mamardashvilli, the GK from Valencia.

Which was, apparently, the only refereeing performance at that World Cup FIFA was happy with. They felt that the World Cup product had been undermined by how strictly (i.e. how good) the refereeing had been at that World Cup, and Sepp Blatter, in a turnaround from his previous support for good refereeing (he once abused his power as a then VP of FIFA to get a ref sent home from Italia 90 after a bad mistake), instituted a committee to look at 'improving' refereeing in major tournaments. That committee ceased to meet after 2013, but essentially they established the way in which almost development in policy with regards to refereeing has happened since then - they're all aimed at improving the spectacle rather than the refereeing. Written post-match referee reports, important for helping refs identify areas to improve, were replaced only with verbal reports. The traditional after-round analysis where all the refs meet up and go over important moments and decisions was abolished in knockout rounds of tournaments. Referees who ref strictly or even just to the letter of the law are not given major games in favour of the vibes based approach that gets called 'game management' by its proponents. We don't really have referees any more. We have professional wrestling referees. They're not really there to enforce the rules.

Canada, Australia and England along with the US make the "traditional 4" leading members of the lacrosse world. In 2018 the Lacrosse World Championships were held outside of those four for the first time, in Israel. That being said, outside of the four the teams that have appeared at most World Championships are Japan and the Haudenosaunee lacrosse team, who are currently ranked third in the world, and likely wouldn't be part of the Olympics. 86 countries are part of the World Lacrosse organisation though. Flag Football appears to be played by an eclectic mix of Latin American and northern and central European countries - and Israel, who hosted the last IFAF Flag Football World Championships. US are the best team but it looks like they get run close by Mexico, Denmark and especially Austria who hosted and won the first World Championship and have won three in total, beating the US in 2012's final.

The 2028 LA Olympics will likely have baseball/softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash included as sports.

Note for people hoarding ingots in the hopes they're used for something later on - they're not. Related spoiler:

Bizarre move, and you'd think the club would've learnt from the last time they did this when they sacked Gary Rowett in 7th in favour of Gianfranco Zola. It took 11 games for Zola to win one, he resigned in April with them just 3 points off the relegation places.

Should've kept Florian Balogun then.

Commentators made sure to point out that this was something the video ref could do as well XD.

Genuinely more recent than I was expecting.

Should be marked on four categories - style, control, damage and aggression.

Some lovely features in here.

Probably should've sacked this one, given their start to the season. Having just seen Argyle's score. I do not like this wall of Mills.

@Colly laziness on my part mostly. I think this was actually Oli Kohout (great name):

I wonder if this could've been avoided if there wasn't so much pressure for checks to be done quickly now...

This is one of those mistakes that likely won't ever be seen again. This is Graham Poll three yellow cards levels of mistake.

You're welcome.

The bullet Arsenal dodged when Chelsea took Mykhailo Mudryk instead of them, is titanic in size.

Many more that you'll ever see from players when they make mistakes that effect results. They already get paid £100,000 a year, how much more do they need?