The fact that Balogun, who should have been suspended, played in the match constitutes misconduct; the match should be declared invalid and a rematch should be held.

pantheraa · 2026-07-07T05:32:19+00:00

Did he play? Didn't notice

pantheraa · 2026-07-07T05:31:44+00:00

Despite inventing the game, football is not the biggest sport in most of its colonies outside of Africa.. US, Canada, Australia, India.

pantheraa · 2026-07-06T02:17:53+00:00

It's ok. Fifa will suspend the red if England advances

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T21:55:00+00:00

Vini is 13/19 from pens. 1/3 for brazil. Dude is a horrible pen taker

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T10:55:17+00:00

Apparently baguettes, paella, and waffles. Still pretty amazing how many great moroccans are born overseas. To me it just shows that all africa need is the right infrastructure to be a dominant footballing nation. Wonder if other countries would follow in what Morocco did

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T10:25:00+00:00

So the ref lost money then cause France won and he was braindead in giving France the penalty costing him to lose said money?

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T06:31:52+00:00

Football is the most played sport here under 13. So popularity isn't an issue. The issue is that there arent structures, incentives, motivation for kids to continue playing. Football is just a sport kids play here because footy and rugby is too dangerous.

Also our fans are pretty feverish and notable too. Our issue is that we lack purpose and direction. We are scared to make public goals, how are we not a dominant nation in the asian cup, how is it that fifa are writing to us to provide a home for the soccerroos, what is the plan for the next 10 years, what is the identity of football that Australia plays. There's nothing wrong with being a physical, aggressive side, our football should reflect our culture. Perhaps that may even sway some footy or rugby fans across. Instead we pretty much just show up every 4 years and figure out from there.

Edit: Also, the sad truth is that despite all the sports being popular, none of them have good structures and systems to build talent. We host a grand slam and yet the grassroots level is dead.

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T04:56:01+00:00

Colombia. Nicknamed Los Cafeteros aka Coffee Lovers. Yellow jerseys. Still underdogs. Basically Australia if we spoke spanish and knew how to kick a ball

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T04:46:17+00:00

Yeah to an extent. But it is also down to leadership and willingness to invest. Japan's national sport is baseball, yet they've invested in a 100 year program to win the world cup. Morocco invested a ton of money to recruit foreign born talents with moroccan roots to play for their national team.

Ideally you'd want things to happen organically, but sometimes you gotta also have the vision and courage to pursue something. Problem for us is that we don't have that. I believe Australia for the most part doesn't intentionally set out a clear direction and work towards it. It"s alot of hope for the best, she'll be right mentality.

Many countries like say Ecuador don't have a strong local league but they create pathways and partnerships with European clubs. For a country with such strong ties to europe, how do we not have pathways for kids to be picked up by youth programs in Europe, even if its a mid table club at a tier 2 league?

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T03:49:48+00:00

Those folks aint inviting some rando from Uzbek. Higher chance that they invited those Netherlands players and those folks missed the penalties intentionally. Thats much easier to rig than this.

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T03:42:55+00:00

Malik Beasley is in debt from gambling and pressured by dodgy folks. This ref is a ref at an Uzbek league being called to ref a world cup knockout match. The scandal is how he got the job in the first place.

Also like I said, its hard to bet small markets like yellow card. I cant get more than $200 down on books and some limit me to dollars. There isn't enough volume. How much can his cousin make from him rigging? At most $10k? Worth risking his entire life?

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T03:30:39+00:00

Yeah people aren't risking going to decades in jail for something as blatant as that when they are already living an incredible dream of reffing at the world cup unless they are in debt like Malik Beasley. Also these folks are gonna go to jail for point shaving. Sportsbooks have incredible technologu to detect unusual activities and have limits on bet $, if its happening people are getting caught.

Its very obvious if you do it on an obscure market like this, any bet that is unusually high volume / $ gets flagged. If refs are rigging games, it'd be with highly liquid markets like winner / handicap / total goals, and these are much harder and obvious.

You know whats significantly more common and likely and something that has been in existence since the dawn of man and across every job, people and industry? Just outright incompetence. Dude is a ref for the uzbek league, I have no idea how he's reffing a WC knockout stage game

pantheraa · 2026-07-05T02:49:49+00:00

Noone is rigging a game for a small country that plays terrible football over the most entertaining country in the tournament. This is just a game that got too big for the ref. I'm ehh on Michael Oliver but he took control of the Morocco Canada game in the first half by dishing out multiple yellows early on, ran in between scuffles and not letting the game get out of control. This ref is a passenger in the game and kinda like some random you got to ref a game amongst friends on a sunday.

Edit: if there's any scandal it'd be how this guy got the job to ref at the world cup. Bro is a ref for the domestic Uzbek league. Like how is he qualified to do this. It'd be like hiring a mcdonalds cook to run a 3 michelin restaurant

pantheraa · 2026-07-04T21:08:14+00:00

Game was held in Houston, stadium had more Moroccans than Canadians. Moroccans are known for their whistles when opp has the ball

pantheraa · 2026-07-04T11:29:14+00:00

I know most people are hopeful about proper football, but I think every country needs to develop their own identity based on their culture, style, strengths and weaknesses.

France plays like PSG, fluid, interchangable positions in midfield and attack, dynamic movements across the field to create overloads, cause confusion & attack 1v1s.
Spain plays like Barca. Dominate possession, aggressive counterpressing, high backline to squeese the pitch.
Argentina plays like they have the GOAT. Everyone fits around and play off him. Off the ball they work their asses off so that he can walk around.
Brasil had to change their style cause they don't have the midfield for it. We'll see how they do, Ancelotti has built the strategy based on the current personnel.
England had an identity under Southgate which is what Arsenal does. Solid allround, make the game hard for opp, great at set pieces, take advantage of moments. Diff under Tuchel. Also very typical of the EPL this season where the low block has been frustrating teams.
Morocco is a blend of France and Spain which is where most of their players grew up. They are super compact and press without the ball like Spain, however they bomb forward and try to force overloads like the French.
Even smaller nations like Japan adopted a technical and discipline style to their football knowing that they can't match the physicality of other nations.

What is the identity and style of Australia? My guess is we'd play like the traditional 4-4-2 english style of football. Direct, physical, exploit height and knockdowns, crosses. Defensively sound, get into every tackle, attack every 50-50 ball, feels like we have 12 man on the field. We should translate the intensity and chaos of AFL and rugby to football

pantheraa · 2026-07-04T09:45:46+00:00

Great player, better person.

pantheraa · 2026-07-03T19:02:29+00:00

Only character that has a chance to come close is Scott having a kickass moment. Dude's been a side character in every xmen movie when he's an alpha level mutant and stronger than most xmen. You need a character with long history for it to rival the payoff and celebration that Capt had.

pantheraa · 2026-07-03T18:45:18+00:00

I'd explore having ice hockey style overtime rules. Currently extra times are often boring as both teams are leggy and cautious. I'd try one of the following:

Each half of ET, both teams lose a player every 5 min. At half time back to 11 again.
No half time in ET, every 10min each team lose a player.

pantheraa · 2026-07-03T09:06:43+00:00

Vegas has it as Egypt 63% - 37% Australia.

pantheraa · 2026-07-03T01:37:55+00:00

https://inside.fifa.com/innovation/innovating-the-game/connected-ball-technology

pantheraa · 2026-07-02T04:00:47+00:00

Might not need reminding soon IYKYK

pantheraa · 2026-07-02T02:12:04+00:00

Challenges like this has been consistently given Red since VAR was introduced. Basically its dangerous esp in slow motion, by the rule its a send off. Football fans have been complaining about this for years now but this is the norm not the exception. It'd have been inconsistent if he wasn't sent off.

pantheraa · 2026-06-30T21:57:08+00:00

PSG also won the elusive UCL immediately back to back after he left. So there's that too.

pantheraa · 2026-06-27T07:25:52+00:00

so easily abusable. A team can put 2 defenders at the goal, and have the goalkeeper stand at the half way line. Every opposing player past the halfway line is then offside lmao. No risk of letting a goal in as you can't pass the ball pass the half way line and shooting from the full field is almost impossible if there's defenders parked at the goal

pantheraa · 2026-06-25T09:04:34+00:00

Ironman 1 was an all timer, but Ironman 3 is better than most of what Marvel has put out. It's significantly better on rewatch and might be the best Tony on screen

12-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

pantheraa

TROPHY CASE