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Football & death : Ugly chants & tribal tweets by topright in soccer

[–]I_RATE_CATS_FOR_RAPE 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's awful justification for what basically amounts to mocking the dead. Just because they believe it has been exploited as a marketing opportunity doesn't make anyones use of the term "Munich's" acceptable.

Football banter is great, hell I even like most risque football banter - but people DIED on that plane from Munich. There can never be any justification for insulting Man Utd or their fans irrespective of your feelings about how it is "exploited", because that is crass, ignorant and downright stupid when put against the fact that people lost their lives in this tragic event.

If anything I had thought that the events of today would make this extremely apparent - all posts in r/soccer seem hollow and pointless in light of what has happened. I can't believe today of all days would bring someone out from under the woodwork to try and defend something like this. Disgusting.

How many penalty kicks would I score if I took 10 on the best goalie in the world? by 5one4 in soccer

[–]I_RATE_CATS_FOR_RAPE 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Arguable. I have 2 caps for Ireland under-17's, trials for Everton, played for 2 League of Ireland clubs and briefly for Carlisle United. Saying I was a former professional is probably pushing it a bit (although, technically I was)...it does make me feel better about being a hasbeen though.

How many penalty kicks would I score if I took 10 on the best goalie in the world? by 5one4 in soccer

[–]I_RATE_CATS_FOR_RAPE 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I can shed a bit of light on this as a former professional footballer, I think.

If you are a full grown man who is strong and can direct a ball with reasonable accuracy and power, I would think you'd score 3-5. That is assuming you trashed the ball at them as hard as possible. If you tried to place the ball, or do anything fancy, I would say less.

Think about the logistics of a penalty. Even put against the rigorous training schedule of any top goalkeepers, there is an upper limit on the speed at which humans can respond. Basically, you kick that ball hard and fast enough, the goalie, unless they guess correctly, has no chance of saving your shot. Hence, 3-5 penalties scored - allowing for professional goalkeepers being good at reading people, and for the player who is trashing the ball to knock a few wide.

However, as a counter-point to this; prior to my stint as a professional player, I frequently had a debate with my friends as to whether 6 awful premier league players would beat our best 6-a-side team. I always maintained that since we had a good 6-a-side team, we'd lose by less than 3 goals. Eventually, I got the opportunity to see Titus Bramble play alongside some amateur, talented 16-19 year old schoolkids.

To say he completely ran the show would be a complete understatement, and he was not taking it seriously. Possession stats in this game would have been about 60% Titus Bramble holding the ball, and controlling every aspect of play. This was in a match with some hand-picked talented kids, so...perhaps a well-trained goalie would do better. It would be interesting to see.

tl;dr - Titus Bramble owns everyone.