World Cup

Pulisic hurt on the play and they are trying to give him an opportunity to recover and come back in so we’re playing a man down for a long bit. He is trying to walk it off

Let’s go USA

Halftime. Still up 1-0. We dominated first half but Iran only needs a tie to advance so they were playing defensively. They will play much more aggressively in second half and we need to maintain or raise our level to get through to knockout round.

We got destroyed in the second half but held on, barely. Netherlands on Saturday in the round of 16.

Congratulations to the USA. The Netherlands game will be tough.

I'm with ☫ 🇮🇷 🇮🇷

I've always been a fan of their soccer program. Especially their women's te.

I've never liked a US national team because it always felt like a foreign legion.

Nice win!

All citizens 21cee!

Good game. Was afraid something would go wrong in final 10 minutes or so (pk against, or goal off free kick). Netherlands has dominating defense and USA lacking at forward/scoring goals. We'll see what happens I guess. Happy they got out of the group stage after that awful tie with Wales to start the group stage.

I drink a cup of I don't care to the World Cup.

Was very glad to see we beat Iran.

Good win. When is America though gonna come up with a big soccer star? Somebody better than Pulisic or Donovan. It’s a big country we can do it.

Icee gonna kill himself. Mexico out of the WC

Worst performance since 78

USA!

I feel bad for Mexico, they looked good today but had a tough group.

Pulisic is way better than Donovan. He's a legitimate player for Chelsea, while Donovan was always borderline good enough for Europe.

Our pipeline looks pretty good these days. We had a "donut" group last world cup with a mix of too old and too young, but our youth have developed.

Puli sic is the real deal. Great goal in probably the biggest game in team history.

I think this is the worst world cup. Qatar shouldn't have received it. No gay rights no women's rights. Russia banned from the cup while no other countries that started wars were ever banned. The US making it political and defacing the Iranian flag.

6500 people died building the stafiums because of no work safety protocols.

Worst World Cup is a stretch. Politically, there’s a lot of mess. I hate that Qatar bribed fifa to get the wc, same as Russia in 2018. Sepp Blatter should be in jail, not just fired. But we’ve also had the Olympics in China and Russia (right after they annexed Crimea if memory serves). US boycotting Russia Olympics. There’s a lot there. But a lot of the controversy gives us great moments. Jesse Owens winning a gold medal in nazi germany?Miracle on ice in Lake Placid?

I’m not minimizing the slave labor conditions and other atrocities. Indeed, I am 100% in agreement with you pointing out the hypocrisy. But sports washing is real. Once the games begin, the political and humanitarian issues start to fade. This could be Messi’s last World Cup. Or Ronaldo’s. We get to see Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. World class athletes playing world class soccer doesn’t even cover it. And we get beautiful moments like Pulisic’s goal on an outstanding team play. It won’t ever be all good or all bad, but don’t be blind to the good because there’s (a lot of) bad.

The worst world cup ever lol. Because Russia was banned lol. Mrs. human rights Icee making nonsense again. Stick your rights up you ass Putin cocksucker. You and Dwve.

"6500 people died building the stafiums because of no work safety protocols."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/football/…

According to this article a Qatari government official told CNN last month: “The 6,500 figure takes the number of all foreign worker deaths in the country over a 10-year period" and he goes on to say they weren't all necessarily related to World Cup projects. As if it's somehow more acceptable that they died on other projects.

Hassan Al-Thawadi, known as the "Qatar World Cup Chief", puts the number of fatalities directly related to World Cup construction at somewhere between 400-500.

So World Cup-related or not, there has been an average of almost two construction deaths per day, in a country that's roughly the size of Connecticut. By comparison, the Hoover Dam was built about 90 years ago and there were a total of 96 deaths throughout the five-year-long project, or

2)

Oops... hit post too soon.

... or less than two per month.

So aside from the horrific death count, does anyone else wonder whether or not an industry losing 2 workers per day is capable of building a stadium that is safe to occupy by 10's of thousands of fans all jumping up and down in unison?

@mister orange
They're just soccer fans bro, not like there was anyone important, I mean really if they were football fans,(I mean real football, not some sissy sport) they would be taking real precautions
LULZ

I agree that the worker deaths are horrible atrocities, whether it was 500 or 6500. Your second point makes it sound like they died on the job, leading to the conclusion that the stadiums aren’t safe? I don’t think the assumption that they died on the job is correct. A lot of the deaths were likely due to disgusting living conditions and lack of nutrition and medical care. Probably not on your regular viewing list, but John Oliver did a long piece on it a week or two ago. The video was simply appalling. This is nothing new for Qatar. As you said, it’s the size of Connecticut. It only has 350k citizens but its population is 3 million, many of whom are foreign labor brought in to work for the ruling class. Every citizen works for the state or at least gets a share of state income. I remember a story a few years back where the state doubled the salary of every citizen. It’s truly a monarchy.

^^ Jimmy, yeah I get that. But generally speaking, if a country puts so little value on human life, it's hard to imagine their construction standards are up to scale. I wouldn't be surprised if they brought in the finest engineers from Europe or wherever just to design and oversee construction of one tiny section where the Emir will make an appearance, and the rest of the place is held together by bubble gum and duct tape.

Maybe. But this is an event of world scale. They know it. And whatever bad you can say of the Qataris (and you can say a lot) they are most definitely not cheap. My guess is those stadiums and the city they built (yes they had to build a new city in the last 10 years) are not even first class, they are well beyond it to royalty levels. They are showing off, after all.

The EUs reaction to the deaths was to ask fifa to compensate the families of the migrant workers. Not Qatar.

Blatter called this world cup a mistake.

Infantino is the one pretending like Qatar is a great choice and how gays and everyone are really safe there. He actually tried to pretend like Qatar has human rights

Kind of funny that they would hold a tournament for a gay sport in an anti-gay country. It's akin to having some socialist party in American government. In addition, Qatar is aligned with Iran, so the Democrats are just blowing gas when they claim to be against this world cup. Just more Biden bending over for Iran.

I like that Germany got knocked out by Japan lol. And Italy didn’t even qualify. There ‘s a WW2 joke in there somewhere.

Maybe it’s a changing of the guard with the U.S. moving up a few rungs.

The “I like football so I hate soccer” mentality is small. You can like both. I don’t hate cats because I like dogs.

One thing I respect about soccer is there are no slow, old men who get by on some niche skill like baseball or to a lesser extent football. Every man on the field is fast and in great shape. There’s a ton of foot races for the ball and you see, consistently, that they can all fly.

Jimmy

"And whatever bad you can say of the Qataris (and you can say a lot) they are most definitely not cheap."

Okay, so imagine I'm a gozillionaire and I spend a Billion dollars building a humongous palace to honor myself. 400-500 people died during construction of my Billion dollar house. I'm not exactly sure how many because I'm not really counting. I mean fuck it, who cares right?

Turns out if I had spent $1.2 Billion instead of just $1 Billion, I could have hired engineers and construction managers who follow known safety practices, and most likely there would have been zero deaths. But DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME CHEAP because I spent a Billion fucking dollars man!

@mr. O. I’m not picking up on the point you’re trying to make. You’re suspicious the stadiums were poorly built because they used cheap labor? There’s no evidence of that. I don’t think they’d be motivated to save money in exchange for safety, but neither your assumption nor my response can in any way lead to a meaningful conclusion as to whether the stadiums are well built. I guess if they are still standing after the championship game we’ll have our answer?

@stud. I’ve Lon been a fan and student of the game. I love soccer and have a fair bit of knowledge about tactics. More than that, I understand that I know a micro percentage of what the Europeans and South Americans know. The game looks simple but is incredibly complex. It’s like poker. You can teach someone how to play in ten minutes, but to be a pro? It takes a lifetime and you may never be done learning. I also love football and baseball. When I hear people say soccer is boring I know it just means they haven’t tried to learn it. And that’s ok as long as they aren’t being condescending about it. That is as you say a small mentality. John Oliver (second time I’ve mentioned him today) had a great line. “The World Cup is like the Super Bowl, if the rest of the world gave a fuck about the Super Bowl.”

Lmao I don’t care what anyone says Ski does not pay for drinks in any bar I’m in!!!! Lmfao!

@Jimmy "You’re (I'm) suspicious the stadiums were poorly built because they used cheap labor."

Not exactly. I'm suspicious of a regime that has so little consideration for human life (other than their own) and still thinks they are building a great reputation on the world stage, while 500 people died to make it happen. In fact, I'm more concerned that "the world" apparently doesn't give a crap about those men who died, and still thinks this is some kind of step forward toward unity and peace on earth.

And I'm saying what other reason could there be to build a project so carelessly that 500 people get killed, except to save money, and that money is more important to them than human lives (other than their own). I mean seriously, in any normal place like the USA, if one guy dies on a construction site it's a major deal. There will be a work stoppage and a huge investigation. News reports. Law suits. Changes to the construction code. In Qatar they kill two people a day and no one even notices.

As far as the quality of the stadiums, think about this. In today's world, if you gathered together the finest engineers and contractors and told them to build a magnificent arena, that would be luxurious and safe for the sports fans... and then told them not to worry how many peasants might die during the construction because we don't give a fuck about that, do you think any of them would sign onto the project?

Something for Team USA to build on.

England looked great today. They’re my pick to win it all if they get by France next game. If not then France.

I put $100 on England at the Borgata sports book in 2018 and they lost in the semi-finals. I feel even better about them this time.

People always talk about how soccer can turn on a pk or something random, but in reality the best teams usually win. England, France, Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands. They are all there. Should be a great couple weeks.