The Hawthorn dictatorship and a tradition of doing it hard since 2017
Dictators and their supporters are humourless. Subduing a population and keeping the boot on the throat is no laughing matter. Seventy years later we…
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Footy: The Doggies won the 2016 Premiership!! Soccer: From Ronaldo to Ronaldinho to Messi and seemingly back to another Ronaldo. Full circle!
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Dictators and their supporters are humourless. Subduing a population and keeping the boot on the throat is no laughing matter. Seventy years later we…
Paul Roos at the Sydney Swans famously had a 'no dickheads' policy during his halcyon years of 2005-06. Roos meditated, maintained his pristine brown…
This is a teachable moment. It can educate us about life, about ploughing full-speed down incorrect avenues, about being organic versus the inability to…
The rushed behind. Footy's get out of jail ticket. Or not. What was Callum Mills to do, facing away from goal and Liam Picken…
It was once all so simple. The old VFL clubs had worked out 12 or so guernsey designs involving various combinations of blue, red,…
The Chicago Cubs have won the Major League Baseball championship for the first time since 1908. That's 108 years! Chicago's identity in Americana is…
Footscray and the Western Bulldogs have a history of lacking key position players, particularly forwards, but this hasn't always been the case. In the…
How can a guy win his fifth best and fairest for a club one week and be shipped out the very next? I don't…
The majority of team-sports competitions have been run and won for the year of 2016. We've seen some great stories, but which was the…
It's a credit to the Western Bulldogs organisation that we have reached the prestigious stage of the competition that is the preliminary final seven…
Portugal are the 2016 European champions. This is the worst team Portugal has had in 20 years. Two facts that apparently are not mutually…
Iconic it may be, but I haven't worked out if France the country is relevant anymore. Furthermore, is French football relevant post Zidane-Henry era?…
The knockout stages have begun for Euro 2016 and the surprises keep coming, as Iceland toppled England and France were almost upset by the…
I always think of these two national teams in tandem, a duo of exciting, untraditional South American national teams who rose somewhat simultaneously in…
This week Atletico Madrid eliminated the dynamic Bayern Munich team in the Champions League semi-final, 2-2 on away goals. They achieved this mostly by…
Bless Arsenal. In a strange, strange English Premier League season in which the main villains Manchester United and Chelsea have completely lost their identity,…
Hawthorn will contest their fifth consecutive preliminary final in a challenging situation against the dogged Fremantle in Perth. Their previous four preliminaries have all…
2015 has been a busy year in international football. There have been four major continental championships this year in Asia, Africa and both Americas,…
If you've played sports you've probably stuffed up as majorly as Richmond player Bachar Houli did on the weekend. You watch the ball get…
These days, men are trying to reconcile the gap between being traditional men who are tough, who work, drink and fight, and existing as…
There’s not a chance that any game is better than St Kilda-Geelong of R14, 2009. Watch it from start to finish – it starts magnificently and ends magnificently.
Hawthorn went missing for half of GF 2012, how can you possibly compare them?
Every grand final of the 2000s, ranked first to 24th: Which classic is 'the most underrated decider in footy history'?
GWS played St Kilda for God’s sake. Port will brush them aside.
Finals Fix: The Lions just cracked September after four years of trying - and everyone else should be terrified
True but the weather conditions on Thursday were pretty shocking. It was going to be a tough match by default. Could also argue that of the top 4 teams, Melbourne showed by far the least amount of actual football skill this weekend.
Finals Fix: The Lions just cracked September after four years of trying - and everyone else should be terrified
Messi got a bit too big for things and the game kept him around 😉
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
Neither outshine either, except Messi directly at WC 2022.
For me their achievements are exactly even still. Ronaldo won UCL titles 5-3 (I don’t count 2006 for Messi). Messi won direct leagues against each other 6-2 which is probably really the key stat.
They each won one major international title. The 2021 Copa America was a pissweak tournament played for money in the middle of a pandemic that never should have happened. Argentina were also bang average in it.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
Yeah true, they really stuffed up 1990.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
All good points. As many commenters here have mentioned, CR7’s options were very limited, as Messi’s were when he left Barcelona. For him it was PSG, Manchester City or bust. They have both at this point been priced out of the market.
For me going to Saudi is a bizarre move, as Mbappe staying with PSG was also bizarre to me. What I perhaps overlook are players’ particular motives with their careers. Simon Kuper wrote about this in his recent book about Barcelona. Ultimately not everyone’s motive in their career is to be the best, as the pressure is overwhelming. Some just want to make a living. Maybe that’s why there used to be premature retirements from the national teams, such as Totti and even Messi in 2016, briefly. But surely CR7’s is to be the best, and compete with the best. He didn’t strike me as self-aware enough to realise that he was finished.
I got off topic, but thanks for the comment!
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Any Asian CL game he played in Australia would be a huge drawcard.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
Sure, but he’s already got the money.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
How were Best, CR7, Eusebio, Yashin, even Van Basten ever going to win the World Cup, given the countries they are from? Talk about a rigged playing field. That should only be the marker if you’re from Brazil/Argentina/Germany/France/Italy/England. Let’s say 30 million population minimum with a good football culture and/or some money.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
I think Messi is a more complete player, but I also think that Messi simply plays to his level, and that level either wins or loses (eg Barca’s multiple UCL capitulations). CR7 I thought was a better fighter who refused to accept losing or mediocrity.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
Is there any way for athletes of this financial level to play for peanuts after they’ve made their money? I think Dani Alves played for virtually nothing during the pandemic, though I’d have to look that one up.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
The achievements are written in stone. I don’t even think going to Saudi does anything to his legacy really. I’m just sad his European career is seemingly over. It was all so anticlimactic, unlike the climax that happened to Messi last month obviously.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
I disagree, in my humble opinion the 2008 Man U Champs League win was hugely Ronaldo’s team and Ronaldo’s win. The four Real Madrid Champs Leagues from 2014-18 he was scoring buckets of goals, like 15 per Champions League season. They are not winning three in a row without him. I’d even say those were a one-man team, Real collapsed without him in 2019.
But then, he immediately won nothing further without Real. They helped each other to a degree, Ronaldo helping Real more than the opposite.
'It's over': Cristiano Ronaldo's career to end with a whimper
Pele said a lot of brainless stuff. He tipped Colombia as 1994 winners (Andres Escobar et al). He listed El Hadji Diouf as one of the 125 all-time greatest footballers.
Thinking an African team would make the semis by 2006ish was not off-base though. Nigeria’s decline was a shock to me, they are 210,000,000 football nuts.
The rise and surprise of Asian and African nations at the World Cup
Regioal hosting plays a big part in theme success stories it seems. European-hosted cups are often 4 from 4 European semifinalists these days.
The rise and surprise of Asian and African nations at the World Cup
Naturally the expectations were very big for Nigeria in the 1990s and after the two African Olympic gold medals. But African teams have basically consistently disappointed us since. ‘Expecting’ them to finally come good became like expecting a sociopath to change their ways, or something.
Either Nigeria only had one good generation, which can happen to a lot of countries, or else a vaguely unplayable-against African game style was coached out of them by the dud mercenary coaches of the time.
The rise and surprise of Asian and African nations at the World Cup
I don’t get Qatar either, they went from being terrible in late 2017 to absolutely blitzing the Asian Cup in January 2019, competent at the Copa America in June 2019, and then back to the beginning by November 2022.
How on earth did their 2019 Asian Cup performance happen?
The rise and surprise of Asian and African nations at the World Cup
Sydney looked small to me too. Geelong kept busting their tackles.
A mate pointed out what BS it was that the wife was comforting Maverick about Goose and not the other way around.
The Melbourne thing is interesting. Every single loss except the Geelong one (and ironically the Carlton win) they played as if they had the skills to steamroller all of those teams. Something probably was rotten in the state of Denmark, or else they were all just unfit.
Five Top Gun quotes that perfectly explain the AFL finals
Often The Roar replaces the original submitted title.
Can Sydney bounce back from grand final defeat, or is this all they've got?
You’re a very good writer and I get that it’s exciting that fun things happen, but your weekly “This is the greatest example of this to ever happen in our game” moments are a tad comical. It’s like 2022 is the first season of footy you’ve ever seen.
Six Points: Reid wasn't to blame for Swans' grand final humiliation, and final scandal seals Gill's unflattering legacy
Debatable, they all took turns being up there on a rotating basis. Melbourne, Brisbane and Freo were up there to begin with, then Sydney and Collingwood were towards the end. Sydney were the second best team during most of September but keep a little perspective.
AFL Grand Final Focus: Dad's Army wins the war - here's how Chris Scott's Cats produced their masterpiece
Worldwide club as in “club around the world”. The word order “Which club worldwide” would be more appropriate, but I’m not a lawyer and am not heavily into my semantics.
I don’t think Collingwood need to be worldwide to have the most uncanny set of results of most clubs “around the world”. Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out.
Which worldwide club has the greatest story?
I’ve quietly heard that his activism was also a bit of a downhill ski. He was more symbolic than nuts-and-bolts with that.
Which worldwide club has the greatest story?
This is a good article, you’ve convinced me.
Whether people think it’s important or not, institutional bs is institutional bs no matter how high or low it ranks in importance.
Was there really a 'full house’ at the AFL grand final?