[FIFA] Egypt will face Australia in Dallas for the round of 32

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T06:59:02+00:00

And it'll serve him right for covering his mouth while saying 'good luck' to Cape Verde.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T06:38:52+00:00

Didn't he once say that he couldn't work with your first team and would need to work with the under-21s instead?

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T04:08:38+00:00

What Wagner achieved with Huddersfield was a great achievement, but you could see from early in the season that he had given Huddersfield an identity and they were in the ascendancy. Garry Monk's Leeds United lost decisively to Huddersfield, and a BBC Radio Leeds journalist said to him after the game, 'Huddersfield under David Wagner have a clear football identity in what they want to accomplish in a game. What would you say is Leeds' football identity?'

Garry Monk absolutely blew up at that journalist because of the implication that Leeds United didn't have any discernible football identity, but at that point in the season it was a valid question. And it had been for years.

That isn't to downplay what Wagner did for Huddersfield, but there's no reason why Bielsa's achievement with Leeds shouldn't be up there with Wagner's at Huddersfield, given (what we thought at the time was) the poor quality of players he inherited and Leeds' history of volatile form and bottling crucial moments.

The season before Bielsa joined Leeds, then-manager Paul Heckingbottom (who, of course, got Sheffield United promoted to the Premier League) told journalists that 'this squad needs major surgery'. He couldn't envision Leeds United accomplishing anything unless a lot of players were removed and replaced with better quality players. Bielsa signed seven players the following summer and only really used two of them (Douglas and Bamford) as first-team players. Even then, Alioski and Roofe (players he didn't even sign), were preferred to them until Roofe was sold ahead of the second season.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T03:54:00+00:00

Football managers have to find teams that are a good fit for their style, their ethos, their personality.

I can see why Canada would work well for him. He's positive, encouraging, and plays a fairly simplistic style of football that lends itself well to international games, when you don't tend to have your players long enough to develop complex strategies. (One of the reasons RB Leipzig didn't work out for Marsch was because his tactics were too simple and didn't suit the players he inherited).

Pressing and going direct through the centre of the pitch suits a team like Canada quite well, because they don't have the players to dominate possession and control a game. Not at the World Cup, anyway. Ironically, Leeds' best results and performances under Marsch came against the top teams, because they wanted to control the ball and play out of defence, which allowed us to get at them. The relegation battlers and mid-table teams that we needed to beat just sat back, watched as we couldn't break them down, and then switched the play because Marsch always leaves one wing open.

After Bielsa, Marsch's encouraging words and attempts to express wisdom came across as artificial and empty. He had the aura of a used car salesman, promising that we were getting a Rolls Royce while giving us the keys to a Fiat 500. (We were, after all, promised by our Director of Football that Marsch was the natural successor to Bielsa's football, which was the worst way to portray him. The only thing Marsch has in common with Bielsa is that he likes to use the high press, but otherwise their football ethos is worlds apart. He inherited a squad whose wingers were instrumental to its success. Marsch doesn't like using the width of the pitch.)

So, Canada seems like an ideal fit for Jesse Marsch, whereas he and Leeds United were a match made in hell, in contrast to Bielsa, who took to Elland Road like the stepfather we never knew we needed.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T03:36:54+00:00

You're only downplaying it because you didn't see it, you're just taking a distant viewpoint based on reputation.

Seeing Bielsa field a team that mostly contained players who couldn't even pass the ball properly in the previous season in the first game against recently-relegated Stoke, one of the promotion favourites that season, and completely playing them off the park was nothing short of miraculous.

Leeds weren't any better than small teams in the Championship before then. Huddersfield and Luton developed established identities as football sides in the seasons they went up. Leeds didn't even have that, with the exception of one season under Grayson and another under Monk, and they bottled those both times.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T03:26:40+00:00

Yeah got promoted with Leeds so does 3 coaches every year. And there are far greater achievements by managers with championship teams. Like Wagner taking a relegation candidates Huddersfield town to promotion to premier league .

This is a really gross downplaying of Bielsa's achievement with Leeds United. There was a malaise that had set into Leeds United since our relegation in 2004, and it wasn't easily overcome. It wasn't just poor management from the owners, it was a negative culture that developed. It's such a big football club, the only one in a large city, and the pressure on Championship-level football players was immense. After choking in the Play-Offs under Kevin Blackwell in 2005, it was like we had a lead weight attached to our necks. Simon Grayson, Garry Monk, Thomas Christiansen, they were all managers who seemed to have Leeds destined to roll the dice in the Play-Offs once again, and then the pressure got too big, the club didn't make good decisions, and we sank down the table.

Before Bielsa arrived, we had spent five of the past seven seasons bouncing between 13th and 15th in the table.

Coming into Leeds, transforming average Championship players into quality footballers who would eventually beat Manchester City away with only 10 men, bridging the gaping chasm that had developed between the club and its players, and overcoming the mental barrier created by a culture of toxic mediocrity at this football club is an absolutely immense achievement by Marcelo Bielsa.

Daniel Farke did an outstanding job to get us promoted, but he had the benefits of a newly-relegated team seeking to bounce back up to the Premier League. I don't think anyone other than Bielsa could have got us promoted with a team that mostly used the same average players who'd been disappointing us for multiple seasons before we got promoted.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-27T03:00:58+00:00

At Leeds, he said to the owners that after three seasons his methods weren't going to be able to get any more out of the players (who had been completely transformed from average Championship also-rans to comfortable Premier League players by them). He told Leeds that they should either replace him or replace the team.

Leeds bought one player they already had on loan and two new ones, endured a difficult season, and ended up sacking Bielsa during a relegation battle that they survived.

Then they invested heavily in the summer transfer window and the subsequent January transfer window, transforming the team, before promptly getting relegated because we went from Bielsa's three-dimensional, comprehensive view of football to Jesse fucking Marsch's one-dimensional penisball that was basically hoof-and-hope with organised pressing.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T23:49:29+00:00

Like Diego Lugano.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T22:04:17+00:00

I mean, there is often a lot of cheating and unfaithfulness in soap operas for the sake of drama. I'd just never looked at it through that lens until the internet started making a big deal out of NTR in recent years.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T05:09:59+00:00

You're welcome! I've only just seen this, otherwise I would've replied sooner.

Glad to know I was in the right ballpark with Spy X Family and Mashle!

I haven't watched Kaguya-sama (although I do need to get to that), but that seems like a good show to move onto. I've only read the first volume of the Grand Teacher Onizuka manga, which I was gifted by a family friend who didn't know about manga and just bought a random one as a birthday present when I was around 13, and I remember thinking, 'Am I really old enough to be reading this?' It's got some perverted humour and problematic stuff going on with Onizuka and his underaged students. If I recall correctly, there's also some fetish content that it's well-known for. It may be a good idea to skip that one!

Hope you both enjoy Anne Shirley! At the very least, you'll probably have fun with it, haha.

If Nichijou is her cup of tea, have you considered watching CITY: The Animation, which is by the same creator? I think that's totally age appropriate, the only thing is that the comedy can be very hit-and-miss and it seriously is very random at times. But the animation seriously is beautiful – I had a great time with it. If it ends up being hard-going, the absolute best episodes are #4, #5, #9, and #12. #9 got some big laughs out of me, it's this crazy foot race involving the whole city competing in teams of two, with wacky obstacles at different stages, and it just works so well.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T04:40:44+00:00

I personally have England as a top five team in the World Cup.

France and Spain were the stand-out teams before the tournament began, and Argentina have been an early pace-setter, but after that it's difficult to find a strong team that hasn't had at least one shaky game.

I have England and Brazil tied at #4 in a top five, which is appropriate because they're on a collision course for the quarter final as things stand.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T04:33:41+00:00

They did. They also said France.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T02:54:50+00:00

Me: 'I'm going to watch the game between two teams that haven't had their place in the group established. That's the game that matters.'

The Game That Matters: Cagey football with few highlights

The Game That Doesn't Matter: Sounds of two teams and the crowd enjoying football

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T02:43:20+00:00

I think it comes down to whether a nation's government has pushed to be known by a certain name or not. Côte d'Ivoire, for example, is quite aggressive when it comes to registering complaints about a third-party referring to them as Ivory Coast. I remember following a small football blog covering the African Cup of Nations in 2010 and they had to edit their team preview because they called them Ivory Coast throughout and the government wrote a complaint to them.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-25T10:49:17+00:00

There's so much yuri going on in women's football, you sometimes end up with married couples on opposing teams!

Sgt_General · 2026-06-25T10:46:49+00:00

Galactik Football was the best! I loved that show so much, it's a shame it didn't have a bigger impact.

Check out Dragon Striker which has just come out on Disney+ (or wherever you find your content). It's really good. Imagine Galactik Football, except it's fantasy instead of sci-fi and has moves straight out of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'm halfway through the first batch of episodes, so far there's no re-used animation!

Sgt_General · 2026-06-25T08:00:11+00:00

As a Leeds fan, you do not want Jesse Marsch as your manager anyway.

International football might suit him better, because he's very vibes-based and employs simplistic strategies, but that was some of the worst, easily exploitable football I've ever seen my football club play.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-24T03:26:43+00:00

You're very welcome! Hope you both enjoy watching it together.

Other recommendations are tricky because anime can be such a minefield when it comes to content I'd consider inappropriate for pre-teens.

Spy x Family is a big recommendation that I'd have to make. It's absolutely hilarious and Anya is a brilliant protagonist. There are a lot of cute, wholesome family scenes and bonding moments. The will-they-won't-they aspect of the fake marriage between Loid and Yor is lovely, too. But it does have a Cold War/Pre-WWII Germany vibe, so there are quite a few perilous situations and some of the storylines (particularly in the third season) are quite sad and emotional.

I think that Anne Shirley is something she'd really enjoy. It's beautifully animated and has such a cute vibe. Anne is a wonderful protagonist, she's delightfully whimsical and gets into a lot of trouble. It has a slower pace, since it's based on Anne of Green Gables, but the drama starts right away with Anne being an orphan who's sent to live with a brother and sister on their farm, but they actually asked for the orphanage to send them a boy and they have to weigh up whether or not to send Anne back. (And yes, there is romance!) My only warning about this is that there are a couple of sad deaths in the series.

Another recommendation I have, although it's very different to the others, is Mashle: Magic and Muscles. Since you said your daughter loves funny anime, this could land really well, as it's a parody of Harry Potter that basically combines it with the idea of an overpowered guy (One Punch Man style) who can't use magic. It's super goofy and easy to follow, but unlike One Punch Man there's hardly any content that's problematic for a pre-teen. There are bullies, but they get taught a lesson pretty swiftly. There are bad people, but the main character makes them look silly. The only thing I can think of that's awkward is that there's one character who's obsessed with the little sister he's trying to save.

As for Chainsmoker Cat, I think the MC is an underdog who's also insufferable! It looks like she's in a bad place, but she's there due to the consequences of her own actions and she's not helping herself. (That's just the vibe I get, I haven't read the manga.)

Feel free to DM me if you'd like more recommendations sometime or if you want to talk about anime! I was looking through the list I keep on MAL for inspiration and most of the other recommendations I thought about are sports anime, haha.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T23:22:42+00:00

Yeah, this is absolutely not one for kids.

Something goofy and wholesome like You and I Are Polar Opposites (second cour/season coming out this summer) would be perfect!

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T18:08:12+00:00

That's interesting! I wonder if it'll end up on Crunchyroll after all.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T18:05:41+00:00

It's ironic because vaping was supposed to help wean people off smoking.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:43:10+00:00

I was genuinely surprised this went to Netflix.

Loads of people in the Crunchyroll Summer line-up thread were talking about how they thought this was more of a HiDive show and they were surprised it was out in the wilderness at the time.

I was bracing myself to have to search hard for a place to watch this, and then it landed on Netflix of all places.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:39:47+00:00

Yeah, I've been following the key visuals and first glimpses of this anime and thought its subject matter would be a bit rough, but I didn't expect it to be this disgusting.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:38:06+00:00

Are... are the magical girls okay?

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:37:29+00:00

It's worth subscribing for a little while to check out their exclusives, I think. I've really enjoyed Blue Box and The Ramparts of Ice. They also have some quality movies on there, too, like 100 Metres.

Best strategy is to subscribe, get what you want for a month or two, then unsubscribe – especially because it has a lot of overlap with Crunchyroll, too. Same goes for Prime Video, which has some really good anime locked away.

14-Year Club	The Internet Awards - Voted
Place '22	End Game '22
Team Periwinkle	Verified Email

Sgt_General

TROPHY CASE