Who pays $100k to fix an exhibition match? Might as well pay baseball players to throw games in spring training.
Part of the problem here is that it's just too easy to fix soccer matches. The scores are low and referees can easily add or remove a penalty kick here and there.
It always amazes me when corrupt officials actually do the bagful of cash thing. In this day and age! For a six-figure amount! C'mon people, have a little pride and at least set up a bank account in Cyprus or Latvia or something.
OT: I guess I'm not really the audience for this article but "Limiting access to guns reduces suicides.Really." by Vox strikes me as the height of clickbait trolling. It's like "You probably won't believe this, but the Earth is round. No, really."
OT: I guess I'm not really the audience for this article but "Limiting access to guns reduces suicides.Really." by Vox strikes me as the height of clickbait trolling. It's like "You probably won't believe this, but the Earth is round. No, really."
That's the height of clickbait? I can't imagine anybody clicking on it. The Special K of the internet doesn't have much time left, I'm not real sorry to say.
If you want to fix a match, tennis is the sport. Do it at the Bet@Home tournament in Austria for added irony.
My impression was that those exhibition matches essentially existed in order to be fixed. Like so and so.
8 is right, but I can't fathom who other than fixers are betting on the things. Who's on the other side of the bets? If nobody, why are bookies taking bets?
Please don't ever reply to me, bjk.
8: It is a base calumny that anyone would ever fix a friendly.
Meanwhile, Sepp Blatter's apparently gotten tired of trying to reason with people and is now burning the Qatar 2022 WC to the ground.
And to the OP: yeah, matches everywhere are fixed. I'm reading this book right now, and at least half the stories in it are about fixed matches, both under Communism and in the present day.
That's too bad. The video in 11 is amazing.
Why aren't we talking about hockey? Rangers! First chance at the Cup in twenty years...
Fixed matches are fairly common, but only in matches where some of the players aren't on huge wages, so never in the PL. The favorite tends to win, so it won't look suspicious.
You need several people in on it to guarantee a result.
The fix could be green team goal from set piece in the second half rather than a result, since people will bet on anything.
I still find it kind of baffling that Premier League stadiums (well, I guess I only know the Emirates for sure) have betting stands *inside the stadium*. From a USian/Canadian perspective that's utterly bizarre, given how strict the leagues are here about keeping gambling separate from the sports.
I guess maybe that doesn't really count as a sport.
18. Within my memory it was illegal in Britain to bet on sports anywhere except at the track/ground/stadium. There were a few minor exceptions, but not many.
Exactly. You can't play hockey on ice. Don't be daft. What, do they wear ice skates or something? Ridiculous.
Exactly. You can't play hockey on ice. Don't be daft. What, do they wear ice skates or something? Ridiculous.
Go Kings Go says my deep hockey fandom that's not at all bandwagoning.
I thought at least one or two people would have something to say about the actual world cup.
I've been a Habs fan ever since the days of my childhood in an imaginary northern land. But now that the Habs are out, it's Go Rangers Go.
I wish I could attend one of the imaginary games at Madison Square Garden. But the ticket prices are all too real, and really quite ridiculous (I think the average price is now over $2000?).
I don't understand getting so emotionally invested when the athletes aren't at a very great risk of concussion and aren't exploited under cover of their status as "students".
26: I went to the US/Azerbaijan match last week. If that game's any guide, we're gonna get our asses handed to us.
29: Oh hockey has its own reckoning coming on the subconcussive injury front.
Anyway! You don't want to make him cry, do you, JPJ?
I was slightly dismayed to learn that a conference I agreed to go to in a few weeks is mostly an excuse for people to watch the World Cup together. I guess I should learn something about soccer before my trip.
I'll be rooting for Germany, as usual.
The hockey game isn't half bad. I was hoping for the Habs too, but can root for Chicago
My early 60s idea of north made me a fan of the Blackhawks and then Redwings. Because I wanted somebody besides the Leafs and Habs, and their all-too-present tribal followers, because their uniforms were cool, and because I had a thing even then for big American cities. My dad had that romance and transmitted it to me.
I was more involved in the '64 Stanley Cup playoffs than at any time for any series in any sport since.
The US will never win without Lando Calrissian.
Such is my hockey fandom that I don't even know what "Habs" is short for, nor where they play.
we're gonna get our asses handed to us
It was not an impressive performance. Not too late to root for Iran! (Can I name a single Iranian player? No, but I love them all like brothers.)
I guess I should learn something about soccer before my trip.
They'll have their own opinions, you only need to feign some enthusiasm. You know, I used to see soccer as endless foreplay with no orgasm, but then one day it became human toil punctuated by moments of grace. And once you get past the apparent futility and boredom, the stuff to appreciate is pretty obvious: a nice pass, fancy dribbling, a powerful shot. The World Cup is great because you only need national allegiances, and no real knowledge of soccer.
Such is my hockey fandom that I don't even know what "Habs" is short for, nor where they play.
The Canadiens. Transparently!
Not too late to root for Iran! (Can I name a single Iranian player? No, but I love them all like brothers.)
Especially the one from San Jose named "Steve".
What if the grinder pump isn't installed yet?
38: the one saving grace from Tuesday is that none of our group opponents are likely to play as cautiously as Azerbaijan did. Their fullbacks never went forward at all and neither Wondo nor Altidore is the type to drop deep and help link the play or find space. With Dempsey in it'd have been a different story.
And I'm definitely rooting for Iran! I love that they've got a nasty little rivalry going with South Korea. (And I can even name one of their players; he plays for Fulham.)
The game today against Turkey did not inspire much more confidence. In particular the defense continues to look prone to untimely breakdowns and turnovers.
Glad the Kings won tonight. Whatever happened, it was gonna be big city hockey. As I've mentioned here previously, NBC did a great job in televising every game. Quite the turnaround from just a few years back.
I mean fuck the flyover rubes and fuck Canada, this is what big-time sports is all about; coastal elites cheering on brutish white men with sticks.
39: So have you tried playing at all?
47: Yeah, the defense is gonna be a problem, although Jones did a pretty good job in the Azerbaijan game of sitting back and giving them help. I just hope Howard doesn't have an aneurysm from all the screaming at the back line.
Did the CIA manage to put the shah back?
That was definitely not the first hockey game I watched in five-ten years. Also suck it Just Plain Jane and notorious racist/lover of suburban white UMC person sports "JP Stormcrow." Your loser team of finance industry losers is going to confront a fucking silver and black beat down. Icing!
Soon the children of the greater New York area will be drinking nothing but tears of shame, while we drink our enemies' blood from a silver cup.
I predict the English press will expect England to make the finals, since they're obviously the best team in the world. Then I expect the English to lose to Italy and Uruguay and draw with Costa Rica and for the manager to get sacked. After slagging him off for years, suddenly everyone will get nostalgic for Ericksson.
I predict Germany will make the semis at least but fall apart under pressure and lose to a classic powerhouse team like Argentina, Brazil or Italy. I expect Spain is overrated and will get knocked out in the quarters.
I predict Italy will underperform in the group stage and over perform in the knockout rounds. I'm hoping they're the dark horses that win the thing, but that probably won't happen.
I predict Brazil will kill in the group stages, but lose in the finals or before. Argentina will win the thing. Uruguay will be the dark horse that does surprisingly well.
The US won't make it out of their group.
I heard if you win you get to take the Stanley Cup home with the losers' entrails inside.
Iberian Fury and I will be in Lisbon during the Portugal/Germany match, which should be fun.
55 is masterful trolling.
57: One of my friends is going to be at that match (and at the Spain/Holland match). I'm not generally jealous of people who're going to Brazil, but that pushes me pretty close.
Your loser team of finance industry losers is going to confront a fucking silver and black beat down. Icing!
Oh, right, because the Kings are just an organic outgrowth of the homegrown hockey culture of L.A., whereas the Rangers are...
... one of the six original teams of the NHL!
You know, compared to most of the males in my extended family, I'm borderline 'hockey-indifferent'. But theirs is a very high bar to leap indeed; and compared to most of the commenters here at unfogged, I'm probably the most 'hockey-mad' person ever to post a comment (my grandfather played hockey with King Clancy, after all).
And I call "icing" on your "icing" call, Halford. The Kings, they are going down.
Now that I'm not in Canada and the Sharks did their annual lose four straight to get eliminated routine, I don't have any reason to think about hockey. I'm sorry I'm probably not going to see much of the World Cup, but I have slow internet, no cable, and a job.
My grandfather in his stripey, woollen hockey uniform.
Get a brain Morans! Go USA Kings.
Get a brain Morans!
I'm sorry, but I just laughed out loud. You arsehole.
61 is excellent.
There's nothing to be done about teams that aren't the Original Six, but if the league hadn't awarded the LA franchise to Jack Kent Cooke, at least the team wouldn't have one of the lamest names in sports. (At least the basketball team the guy used to own was named after a geographic feature that existed, somewhere.)
55 is excellent trolling. I don't think it's really true, though. I don't think the English press either expects England to win it, or thinks England are the best team. I think the current consensus is that the current team is transitional, has a few promising players and a manager who is a safe pair of hands (but not a genuinely brilliant manager), and shouldn't too badly, but that winning it is a no-hoper. I think a quarter final place would be a result the press would see as an OK but not outstanding result. A semi-final place would be seen as a top performance.
I don't think the English press have really seen England as the best team in the world for 40 years or more.
Also, predicting that England will make the finals after they...made the finals is easy:-)
Sarcasm aside, this is the first time in many, many World Cups that England aren't hanging on someone's dodgy knee or carrying anyone who's patently short of match fitness. It's something of an achievement that we've got to the start line without any passengers.
re: 66.last
Yes, although there are a few players in the squad who I'm not 100% sure about [the Man U ones, basically]. Still, I'm basically a neutral, so I'm not going to get het up, whether they do well or not.*
* actually, not really a neutral. I'm quite well-disposed to them in the absence of Scotland, but I'd probably rather they didn't win it.
Also, we've not picked the traditional shit player, the Phil Neville or Carlton Palmer figure England usually take to major tournaments as a sort of statutory representation of the talentless majority. There's not an identifiable member of the team who makes you think "fuck, I could do better, what on earth must Brazil think of us".
Only the UK would need several teams from their component states to ensure one of them makes the tournament. Go NY/NJ!
For good historical reasons, trying to make English and Sottish players play on the same team would be slightly more difficult than making a majority of House Republicans work for the general good.
They're not all drunk. That's just a stereotype you English use because of colonialism.
At my conference in the Lake District we had a couple of guides along to make sure we didn't wreck ourselves walking up the hills. It was a little bit humiliating but then it turned out they also were carrying mimosas and biscuits for us so I got over it.
Of course I posted that in the wrong thread. Of course!
re: 69
Yeah, it's grandfathered in, for the UK, what with it being 'our' sport and all that.
From wiki [re: pre WW1 football]:
On the international scene, the Home Nations continued to play each other, with Scotland the slightly more successful of the four[citation needed]. When the countries combined to play as Great Britain in the Olympic Games they were unbeatable, winning all three pre-World War I football gold medals.
Also, we've not picked the traditional shit player, the Phil Neville or Carlton Palmer figure England usually take to major tournaments as a sort of statutory representation of the talentless majority. There's not an identifiable member of the team who makes you think "fuck, I could do better, what on earth must Brazil think of us".
Yeah, where's Matthew Upson? He just signed with a Premier League team!
61 is quite a picture. As a kid I used to live near Baz Bastien, a sometime NHLer who was GM of the early, not-so-good Pittsburgh Penguins and who was primarily notable to us 5th graders for having only one eye (a hockey accident).
I've always wondered if the ice hockey player who shares my surname is a relative. My grandfather's brother emigrated to Canada at about the right time to be his great grandfather, and even lived in what, I think [from googling] is the right area of Canada. Also, his father and grandfather seem to have the right forename. But no way of finding out.
Next time he's in a fight grab some blood to test the DNA.
I don't know, do any members of your family have a predilection for boozing and constantly starting fights?
Also suck it Just Plain Jane and notorious racist/lover of suburban white UMC person sports "JP Stormcrow." Your loser team of finance industry losers is going to confront a fucking silver and black beat down.
Halford, you carbohydrate-starved nitwit who apparently would be hard-pressed to parse the words on a stop sign, I have given precisely one indication in this thread of any rooting preference and that was "Glad the Kings won tonight" in comment 48.
Looks like there were 132 people with your surname in the US in 2000.
re: 79
Scots, from Glasgow? You think?
Really? I would thing the letter sequence rGcM would be hard to pronounce and make it less popular.
ttaM, it may well be that someone with an Ancestry subscription and some experience with Canadian records -- say JPJ or me -- could get you something definitive one way or the other.
It would be much easier if he'd gone to the US -- those Canadians are clinging to quaint notions like privacy -- but there's enough there that it might be possible.
I feel safe volunteering Jane -- send either of us an email.
Thanks Charley for the kind offer. It may be quite tricky, because while I know the grand-uncle emigrated, I don't know when, and I'm not even 100% sure on his first-name. My Dad will know re: the first name.
Your name is uncommon even in Canada -- not so many in the 1921 census, or in the voter registration rolls between 1935 and 1980 that a person couldn't get some serious figuring done. It's just not that big a country, for purposes of figuring out who people not on the lam are/were. There's other stuff that comes into play at the provincial level: this might not be difficult.
Was 83 to 81? If so, 132 people is pretty uncommon by US standards - 88% of the population in 2000 had a more common name, and by contrast, the names Satterwhite, Radke, and Luckey had about 5,000 people each.
And ship registers going back and forth to the UK don't have that many people with your name either.
89: of course not. nattarGcMs migrate by swimming from ice floe to ice floe. That's why polar bear populations started to fall around 1900. Grand-uncle kept thinking they were looking at him funny.
re: 90
I'm allowed. Just like members of [racialgroup] get to use [racialepithet] as a way of referring to themselves, whereas [whitey] doesn't.
re: 88/89
That's really interesting, ta. I might give you an email, if I get the chance, thanks!
92 was me, but I was too drunk to put my name in.
Are Glaswegians stereotypically the drunkest, fighting-ist people on earth? I guess most Americans would just say "the Irish" if asked to rank the sterotypical drunk fighters, but I feel like Glaswegian is a more sophisticated and accurate answer. I can't think of anyone else in Europe or the rest of the world who rivals the stereotype for drunk fighting, but maybe that's just being too Anglophone- or Euro-centric.
Maybe Albanians, I guess, but the fighting/drunkeness balance is weighed differently in the stereotype.
I'd say the stereotypical Irishman gets drunk and sings songs. He's a maudlin/happy drunk, not a violent drunk.
re: 95
The stereotype is certainly commonly held. I don't think it's really true, though.*
There is a fair bit of fighting, but I expect there's tons of places just in the UK that beat it on the stats. Certainly my experience is that my home town is much more violent [about 20 miles outside Glasgow]. But that may partly be a function of age, as I lived there at the peak age for being subject to violence.
I expect there's loads of god-forsaken shit-holes in Wales, and the North of England [as well as in Scotland] where you are much more likely to get punched by a drunk on a Friday night. Nevermind some of the more fighty bits of Eastern Europe.
I really liked living in Glasgow, and would move back in a shot if the right job came up, and I could persuade my wife.
* although there was UN (?) report that claimed you were more likely to be a victim of assault in Scotland than anywhere else in the western world.
Like the Russians, I suppose. Both fighty by nature, but when drunk tend more towards sentimentality. Possibly because they get too drunk to stand up.
Not sure I think of Russians as particularly fighting-y, but they definitely have the "drunkest" part wrapped up.
I don't know about all the Irish, but my relatives really cut down on the fighting as soon as they had enough money to try for middle class.
nb 100 was written before I saw 99.
98.last: that's you specifically, Halford. So watch out.
It is certainly true, though, that the level of inter-personal dickishness that is semi-routine* in London wouldn't fly in Glasgow. Someone would punch you.
* along with a fair bit of good-humour and niceness, too, I have to admit. But it's the dickheads that stick in the memory.
it's the dickheads that stick in the memory
Mouseover text!
Hmm:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-22276018
"Glasgow ranked UK's most violent area"
Maybe I'm wrong.
106: most violent, but possibly least dickish. The study doesn't say.
re: 107
Yeah.
'We haven't seen anyone with a coloured shirt with a white collar and a pin-stripe suit for years.'
Off topic but I didn't want to derail the Piketty thread:
Are the GOP crazies actually going to go after a returned POW and his family? Really?
I ... don't even.
It should be possible to survey the urban areas of the UK for dickishness. You might have to do it surreptitiously with a pin and a cross-shaped bit of paper in your pocket, like Galton assessing feminine beauty.
My wife and I are thinking of doing a late summer trip to Scotland. We're going to do most of the pretty rural bits that we missed last time, but is Glasgow worth visiting as provincial Yankee tourists?
111: Make a mark on the line if they vote Tory, below the line if they vote UKIP? (I don't understand British politics.)
re: 112
Well, it depends. It's not a particularly picturesque city, although bits of it are quite nice, but it has good bars, galleries/museums, and restaurants. The live music is often good, too. You'd certainly be able to have a good time, although I suppose it depends what you are looking for.
110: I haven't seen the primary reaction, just Kevin Drum reacting to the reaction. Are they going after the POW personally, or just after Obama for making a prisoner exchange? (Which could, I suppose, be seen as an attack on him: nothing personal, but we'd prefer you remained in captivity.)
I saw a crazy facebook thing (apparently from Allen West) about how his father said "Bismallah al-rahman al-raheem" when he spoke at the White House. (With a thought bubble for Obama, saying "right on, right on").
Reading the report, it looks like Glasgow City as a whole is less violent than three boroughs of London - Lewisham, Lambeth, and Hackney. That probably doesn't mean much, though.
Great. They spend eight years assessing interrogation policies through "24", now they're assessing POW returns through "Homeland".
117: which doesn't help the thesis, because Hackney is easily the most dickish borough of London.
112: That'd do it for me. Is it fair to assume that it's vaguely similar to Northern English industrial cities? I liked Newcastle, and in general like those cities that came of age during a Victorian industrialisation (although I guess Glasgow got big due to trading with the colonies earlier than that?). Anyway, yeah, museums and bars and music sound good, thanks.
I heard on the radio about 8 years ago that they banned the sales of cleavers and other large kitchen knives in Glasgow. Dunno if the ban is still in effect though.
re: 120
Yes, first wave of industrialisation, and also the tobacco trade which was a tiny bit earlier. So there's a fair bit of late Georgian and Regency stuff around, and lots of wide streets that are quite 'American' looking in some ways. Bits of Glasgow have stood in for turn of the century New York, and even bits of Philadelphia in films.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/sep/16/glasgow-favourite-location-hollywood-filmmakers
http://www.thelocationguide.com/blog/2012/10/glasgow-doubles-for-san-francisco-and-london-in-epic-cloud-atlas-shoot/
Lots of it is fairly anonymous brownstones, too.
115- Both- Obama broke the law by removing prisoners from Gitmo without Congressional approval (which they never would have granted, they back channel floated getting approval and were shot down.) Also claiming the POW in question was possibly a deserter and/or said bad things about the war (because a soldier has never complained about a war) and/or may secretly be Mooslim and has become less proficient in English after spending 5 years with Pashto speaking captors.
There's quite a bit of mainstream stuff speculating that he might have deserted--it might not be a ridiculous claim. And I think some people died looking for him. If he did desert, that's...bad.
Bringing this thread back to the World Cup, which country has the drunkest, fightiest, soccer hooligans fans? 8 years ago people might have said England, but that might not be the case today.
re: 125
Turkey, maybe. Possibly Italy, although that's more clubs than the national team.
I just read something suggesting that Portland soccer fans in the US are developing drunk, fighty soccer-fan culture. It seems implausible, but who knows?
Someone must have told them that's how to be authentic.
I feel safe volunteering Jane
I'd be happy to do a search of the Canadian records. As Charley points out, Canada is, population-wise, not a big country. At the time of the 1921 census enumeration, the population was under 9 million.
Butttercup, the idea that the English soccer team is going to disappoint everyone in England and the English media who all thinks the team is going to do great is almost as outdated as the idea that English soccer hooligans are the worst soccer hooligans.
127. I immediately thought Turkey, but they're not in the finals. Somewhere like Croatia might be a dark horse; they'd win on racism, probably, and believe me they've got some competition.
117: which doesn't help the thesis, because Hackney is easily the most dickish borough of London.
Kensington and Chelsea, surely.
And I think some people died looking for him. If he did desert, that's...bad.
No. Deserter or not, he was still an American prisoner of the Taliban. He wasn't with them voluntarily - even if he walked off the FOB with the intention of never coming back (which would be desertion) he didn't walk off the FOB with the intention of going into Taliban captivity for five years. Getting him back was a good cause and worth the risk of loss, as it would have been for any other American in similar circumstances.
I remember hearing four years ago that the Ghanaian fans are total jerks when they beat you, but I'm not sure if they're jerks in the fighty, hooligany, drunky way.
Who could have guessed that pandering to political opponents' worst impulses -- in return for precisely nothing -- might turn out to have consequences?
The good news is that Republicans are so unhinged by their echo chamber that they'll go way too far attacking the ex-POW, and do more discredit to themselves than the President.
(And for those not keeping score, it's now 149 total prisoners in our tropical gulag; 89 from Yemen; 78 cleared for release inc. 60 from Yemen; 7 on trial or indicted.)
Deserting doesn't make a guy not the Army's responsibility. If they put a guy in a situation psychologically distressing enough that he cracked, it doesn't absolve the military of culpability just because he reacted to it by attempting to desert, instead of, say, by committing suicide, which is another common outcome.
And of course the whole thing is ridiculous anyway. We're not going to "lose" the war to the Taliban because 5 guys are out of jail. We're going to lose because there's no ally capable of standing alone as a national government.
128: The Timbers Army definitely has a drunken element to it (not so sure about the fighty part), but they also do some really cool things too. And the Pacific Northwest teams in general seem to have the most dedicated and engaged support in the entire country.
138: And because Pakistan is actively supporting the Taliban.
Lindsay Graham is cute when he's mad.
"Taliban Dream Team."
I didn't know they'd made it to the world cup.
