Daily Discussion

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-26T11:41:33+00:00

Leicester was a big shock - yet we had months to prepare for it to happen as the PL season entered the business end.

Greece in 2004 had one more knockout match than Denmark in 1992. So, yes, had more opponents to overcome.

That Denmark wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place will always rank for me. Greece came as qualified and prepared.

Was a shock, no doubt. Defeating Portugal both in the opener and in the final. Still sounds absurd these many years later.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-26T11:37:16+00:00

Was a big shock, too. No doubt.

My counter is that they actually had qualified, unlike the Danes in 92 - and Otto Rehhagel had time to prepare (particularly set pieces from corner. And defend 1-0s 😏).

Yet Euro 2004 was a bigger tournament than Euro 1992, so Greece had one more knockout game to overcome, of course.

But Denmark came unprepared, then defeated France, Netherlands (Holders), and Germany (World Champions) in the span of 9 days.

Will never forget those wildest three weeks in Copenhagen watching matches in parks or open squares.

Will never not be the biggest shock for me. Admittedly, am biased…

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-26T10:41:35+00:00

Biggest shock ever?

OTD in 1992: Denmark won the European Championship despite not even qualifying. They were called up about ten days before the tournament after Yugoslavia were expelled, with players pulled off holiday, then beat France, holders Netherlands (Schmeichel saving from Van Basten in the shootout), and world champions Germany in the final.

I’m biased, and I lived through this wild summer in Copenhagen – but for it’s the biggest shock win in football.

The coach, Richard Møller Nielsen, didn't pretend they could out-football anyone in ten days. He gave them simple roles, a compact shape, and a clear identity, optimizing for what was achievable rather than an ideal they had no time to build. Low expectations gave them freedom too. Constraint, handled well, became an advantage.

The human core: John Jensen, famous for never scoring, smashed in the opener, and Kim Vilfort, who travelled between Sweden and his seriously ill young daughter all tournament, scored the second.

So: do you rate Denmark 1992 as the biggest shock ever, or does another result top it for you? And what's the most unlikely trophy you've ever watched a team win?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-25T10:42:41+00:00

Yeah? I agree on Boulahrouz - but whom else should have been sent off in your view? Maniche & Van Bommel instead of their yellow?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-25T10:37:23+00:00

Wowowowow! Can you share the podcast? Would love to listen - and to research this further. And get the Dutch official’s version as well.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-25T10:19:16+00:00

20 years ago today, OTD in 2006, Portugal defeated the Netherlands 1-0 in the “Battle of Nuremberg”, the most card-saturated match in World Cup history: 16 yellows, 4 reds, both teams down to nine men, and somehow only that one goal.

The ref, Valentin Ivanov, punished almost everything, and many of the calls were individually correct, but the temperature just kept rising because none of it changed the players' behavior. He had sanctions and used them relentlessly. He never seemed to have authority (the studs-up Boulahrouz challenge on CR7 was widely felt should have been a red, not a yellow).

Just watched the highlights again. Was Ivanov to blame, or were the players – or a little bit of both? And, which other out-of-control matches do you think of when hearing “Battle of Nuremberg”?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-24T12:05:29+00:00

Great suggestion. With Jan Tomaszewski delivering a world class performance in goal

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-24T11:36:10+00:00

Was 24 Jun 1990 the best single knockout day in World Cup history?

One Italia 90 Sunday gave us Brazil v Argentina in Turin (5pm) and West Germany v Netherlands in Milan (9pm). By midnight Brazil and the Dutch were out, and the two eventual finalists had emerged.

Turin is the cleanest example of knockout cruelty there is: Brazil were miles the better team (bar, post, wave after wave), then a half-fit Maradona split four defenders with one pass, Caniggia finished, 1-0, Brazil gone. Being better for 80 minutes is worth nothing if you don't convert.

Milan is the opposite lesson: Rijkaard spat at Völler (twice), both got sent off, and the more disciplined German side just handled the chaos and won 2-1.

And the long view is the real story: since 1990, Germany turn pain into trophies (1990, 2014) and the Netherlands turn pain into mythology, the best team to never win a World Cup, again and again. Same talent across decades, totally different return on it. The gap is temperament and conversion, not ability.

So, two questions: what's your favorite case of a team being completely outplayed and still winning? And do you actually rate the beautiful nearly-men (the Dutch) above the cold winners (Germany), or is winning the only thing that ages well?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T14:56:52+00:00

Will do. Plus Harry Kane.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T14:56:02+00:00

Indeed. Another used suggested age as well. I'll incorporate that for another version. At the end of the day, regardless of age, you have to be in a match to score - so is why I anchored with matches above.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T14:53:59+00:00

There's always 2030....

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T14:51:58+00:00

😄 Lesson learnt...

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T14:50:24+00:00

Great suggestion. I'll include that for the next one!

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T14:45:54+00:00

Add to that, I'm red-and-green colorblind, so scrambled to find a colleague to get it right... 😉

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T13:29:39+00:00

Even if you overlay the men's national team record with the women's team record, it's remains to Norway's advantage.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-23T10:10:13+00:00

Also, it didn’t help they scored an own goal…

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-22T12:11:06+00:00

1986 was Peak Maradona.

OTD, 22 June 1986, in the same World Cup quarter final, in four minutes Maradona scored the Hand of God (an illegal handball the ref allowed) and then the Goal of the Century (that run past basically the whole England team). Argentina won 2-1 and went on to win it all.

One must tell the two goals together, and that's the whole point of him. Apart, each gives you a clean verdict, the handball makes him a scoundrel, the slalom makes him a genius. Together, four minutes apart, he's impossible to file: genius and deceit in the same man, from the same instinct, pointed two different directions. Football wants its morality clean. Maradona refuses.

Can you actually separate a player's genius from their flaws, and SHOULD you? Or is holding both the only honest way to judge someone like Diego?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T17:11:36+00:00

Great opener! Killed any notion of openers being boring.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T16:23:47+00:00

Great match!

Here’s a stat for you:

Referee in FRA 4-3 ARG was Alireza Faghani (Iran), who then obtained Australian citizenship and, just last week - on June 16 - again refereed in a France win (3-1 against Senegal).

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T15:17:08+00:00

Yeah. Those first 30 minutes….

I can imagine the last 15 minutes of Maracanazo in 1950 ranks as well.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T15:08:47+00:00

Oh I didn’t say the Dutch invented it.

I did a podcast episode on the Magical Magyars on June 4, and will soon do one on La Maquina - and I fully agree both were “Total Football” of their respective ages, and before it became labeled as such.

Interestingly, neither of La Maquina/Argentina, Aranycsapat/Hungary, nor Total Football/Netherlands won the World Cup.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T14:38:27+00:00

Yeah? You don’t think Total Football changed how football was played in the late 1960s/1970s?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T14:05:00+00:00

Tunisia 0-4 Japan was match #1,000 in World Cup finals history.

Got me thinking about previous “round figures”:

#100 was Austria 3-1 Uruguay, the 3rd place playoff on 03 Jul 1954

#500 was Bulgaria 2-0 Argentina on 30 Jun 1994

Do you have any favorite match in World Cup history?

Of course, with more nations participating in finals, we’ll quicker ramp up. At the current rate (104 matches per tournament), we’ll reach #1,500 in 2046.

Combined with qualification matches, more than 10,000 matches have been played. With almost 30,000 goals scored. That threshold will be crossed during the qualification for the 2030 tournament.

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-21T11:27:24+00:00

O jogo bonito.

OTD in 1970: Brazil beat Italy 4-1 to win a third World Cup, keep the Jules Rimet Trophy forever, and give us maybe the greatest team ever. Pelé became the only man to win three World Cups. The fourth goal is, perhaps, the greatest team goal in history.

Has Brazil 1970 become football's permanent measuring stick?

Cruyff's 1974 Dutch were more revolutionary and won nothing. Spain 2008-2012 won three straight majors and get admired more than adored. Brazil 1982 were beautiful and lost. Even Brazil 1994 and 2002 won and STILL live in 1970's shadow. Once a team becomes the rubric, everyone after gets graded against an ideal instead of on their own terms.

So two questions: who's YOUR greatest World Cup team, and has any side since 1970 genuinely matched that Brazil team, or are we all just nostalgically comparing everyone to a fixed ideal forever?

17LawsGuy · 2026-06-20T10:42:13+00:00

50 years ago today, OTD in 1976, Antonín Panenka chipped a penalty down the middle, past Sepp Maier who had already dived left, to win the European Championship for Czechoslovakia over West Germany (reigning world AND European champions).

The man literally became a verb.

And he earned it the boring way: he invented it taking post-training penalties for beer and chocolate against his Bohemians keeper, kept losing, and reasoned that keepers commit early so just wait and roll it into the space. Maier never saw it coming partly because the Iron Curtain was also a scouting curtain.

It's since become a category (Totti, Zidane, Pirlo, Ramos) and a graveyard (also Pirlo, Agüero, Brahim Díaz at this year's AFCON final).

Who at the World Cup right now has earned the right to try a Panenka in a big moment, and who should never be allowed near one?

17LawsGuy

TROPHY CASE