Detroit Blues

This is a really popular topic in right wing circles who believe Trans women are destroying women's sports. Unfortunately for Imane, she was lumped into this category, regardless of if she really fits that narrative. 1) Imane Khelif does not identify as trans. She's a Muslim woman from Algeria. 2) The gender test she failed was a XY chromosome test. Scientists have argued against this type of testing, and it has been out of favor for decades. They now favor hormone testing for Testosterone levels, which is the hormone that allows men to develop more muscle mass than women. 3) The organization that banned her was the IBA. The IBA was banned from running boxing tournaments in the Olympics due to governance issues and ethics scandals. The IOC took over running the testing/judging of the event, of which Imane was cleared to compete. Unfortunately these things are just not really as black and white as people would like it to be. Some people are born with XXY chromosomes and some people are born intersex, etc. The concerns conservatives have about people who are born as biological men, who later have sexual reassignment surgery and hormonal therapy, and then choose to compete against people who are born as biological women is not without merits. It just does not fit this particular case, and unfortunately people on the internet do not favor nuanced opinions and would rather paint athletes like Imane with a broad brush to fit their political narrative. It causes a lot of pain for these athletes, who are brandished as evil men who are preying upon women for the glory of athletic achievement. Simply look at the twitter replies to the link you provided.

Here's a more comprehensive article on the subject: https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/olympics/are-different-olympic-medal-counts-know-tally-rcna164477

FYI, that's just how NBC shows the medal standings over here. It's not some dastardly plan to put America in first place For example - https://www.nbcolympics.com/beijing-2022-medal-standings https://www.nbcolympics.com/tokyo-2020-medal-standings

I'm a big fan of Robert Eggers' work. If you haven't seen them, The Lighthouse and The Witch are really good too.

It looks like the the kit Guy Fieri would want if he owned a team. Flavortown FC

I think everyone would love to see if it worked, or failed spectacularly. If he won the World Cup with England, it would really cement his legacy of being the GOAT.

I wont stand for this Josh Sargent slander He's got a really high work rate, he seems to be very likeable, and towards the end of last season he was really starting to show what he is capable of (13 goals in 21 games).... But he is not a proven commodity at the Premier League level. To me, he would be a project like Tom Cannon. If we were still in the Championship, i think he would be a really good signing, but I don't see how he'd help us in a relegation battle.

Due to the host locations, London will be between 5 hours ahead for East Coast games, 6 hours ahead of the central region (Texas, Mexico, Kansas City), and 8 hours ahead of the west coast games. So I would wager the earliest games will start around 4:30 in London, and the latest games will end around 2:30am. Honestly, that's not that bad, all things considered.

Not sure I agree that the USA "has never done anything." If anything, we have generally overperformed at major tournaments respective to our talent level. The US has made it to the Copa America Semifinals twice - once in 1995, in Uruguay, and again in 2016 during the Copa America Centenario which was hosted in the US. We have also made it to the Quarterfinals of the world cup and the finals of the Confederations cup. That said, I'll be happy for Canada's fans and players if they win. They actually outplayed Argentina in the first half of their last game, and it felt like they just ran out of gas. They generally represent CONCACAF well, and are preferable to all the ankle kickers and projectile throwers in our confederation

I forgot el tri is without Edson Alvarez. It's going to be tough for them to beat Venezuela and/or Ecuador.

Hopefully Barcelona is watching

Yes poor little England. No way they could use their world class talent to play an attractive possession style of football in a tournament game against the likes of ... Slovenia. Leicester didn't have the luxury? Sure we did! If you recall, not only did we play Enzo ball, we won the championship with it last season

I wish the MAGA crowd would be forced to defend their own logic. If Biden does well in the debate solely on the basis of "performance enhancing drugs," why then wouldn't be taking them for the rest of his presidency? Why would a company that has somehow figured dementia not sell this wonder drug on the open market? Surely there would be money to be made. When has big Pharma not capitalized on some revolutionary new drug?

Honestly think Brendan would do a better job

I think it is pretty unrealistic to think that a club, their management staff, etc. are going to be so much better at their job than the rest of the Premier League, that it can make up for the massive advantages that come with money. Not only does money attract talent, but it allows them to pay high wages to retain the talent they bring in or develop internally. Even if Leicester develop high end players, it is the revenue that we generate that will determine via PSR if we can afford to pay to retain those players when they re-negotiate their contracts. That means every time we uncover a diamond in the rough, we are obligated to sell them and restart the process. That is as unsustainable a business model as operating a club like Chelsea. There are so many data points that show that a club's wage bill predicts the outcomes of where it will find itself in the table. Even Chelsea and Manchester United at worst will end up midtable, propped up by their massive fortunes. All they have to do is an average job to secure top 6, and a place in Europe. The rest of the plebs in the Premier League have actual fears about relegation, and need to have so many things go right for them to end up in Europe. Even when they do, they often struggle to expand their squad size to handle the additional fixtures, and they suffer as a result of it. Why do you think the Premier League has cemented themselves as the best league in world football? Is it because the clubs in England are so good at finding and developing talent? No, they are where they are because they have money to buy and retain the best players in the world. The Premier League's TV contract dwarf that of any other league (due to foreign interest), which gives the bottom clubs in the Premier League the spending power equivalent to that of the best teams in Europe.

CONCACAF having a decent tournament so far. Canada with a win over Peru, USMNT win over Bolivia, Costa Rica draw against Brazil. It wouldn't surprise me if US/Canada/Mexico all move on to the knockout rounds.

Good article on the subject - https://www.yahoo.com/sports/why-do-copa-america-games-have-empty-seats-its-about-more-than-ticket-prices-151017048.html

You are pointing your finger in the wrong direction. CONMEBOL is in charge of hosting this tournament, including setting the locations, stadiums and prices of tickets for the games. They chose to pick the largest stadiums in the biggest metropolitan cities for the sole purposes of maximizing profit. The ticket prices (and fees) at Copa America have been astronomical. This has lead to half-full stadiums lacking in atmosphere. The tournament is spread out across the country, making travel for supporters difficult. For example, the US national team will travel 2500km in the group stage alone. It is not like the Euros where it is relatively easy for traveling fans to come into the country and travel between matches. If you're a fan from South America and you want to follow your team during the tournament, you are flying thousands of km into the US, and then flying from match to match. It's not feasible. That means that most of the matches are full of either the ultra rich that can afford the travel, or ex-pats that live near enough to travel there. As for the field conditions, CONMEBOL knew what surfaces existed there when they selected the stadiums. They went with a makeshift grass surface laid over the turf in Atlanta, and it went about as poorly as you would expect. I haven't read about any complaints elsewhere. The US played last night against Bolivia in Dallas, and the field was great. The attendance was 47k, which is about the average attendance at the 2016 euros in France. But the attendance looks poor, because the capacity at Jerry World is nearly double that. If you think that's an outlier, it's not. There were 53k for Mexico-Jamiaca, 43k for Peru-Chile, etc. The US have many soccer specific stadiums that would be at capacity, like FC Dallas's home stadium down the street, but CONMEBOL is only thinking about maximizing profit. In that aspect, this tournament will be a massive success for the confederation.

Yeah, Canada really stood toe-to-toe with Argentina in the first half. It will be interesting to see how much energy they have for the next game and if Jesse Marsch can get this team up again.

Argentina should have like 4 or 5 goals by now. Canada's just hanging around. That won't come back to bite Argentina, right? right? ... it didn't

How has Jannik looked so far?

Honestly, Belgium could probably do with bringing Tielemans into the game.

so, you're saying England should hire Big Sam

If Gareth was that honest, I think he'd have a lot more popular support

Potter is an upgrade on Maresca IMO. Plus we get the buyout money from Chelsea, seems ideal.