This is what you call “home field advantage”.
The other owner, Bill Foley, also owns the farming company my partner Kara works for.
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I see where Ronaldo inked a deal in Saudi Arabia for $213MM/season. Yes, that’s per season.
Showing his true color. Green.
And as an added bonus, I believe there’s no extradition from Saudi Arabia.
And all of the goals he scores against high school-level defenses will count on his career total.
There are few things I wouldn’t do for $213MM/year, including telling Man U to go fuck itself. Hell, I’d do that for free.
He’s already made more money than could be spent in 100 lifetimes. If that was a deal from almost anywhere, I’d not care. But it’s blood-spattered sports washing money from Bonesaw Arabia, which is the problem.
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But to what end though? That amount is obscene, and people with that amount of money and beyond cannot be considered anything more than a stain on humanity, and the ability of so few people to control the fate of so many others in this world has to be addressed. Sorry for the rant.
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Depends on how fast he can spend money. Jeremy Peña has already made more money than 100 lifetimes for some people. I do not begrudge athletes for their salaries. I get that Saudi Arabia has issues, but the amount of money they’re giving him is not one of them.
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Reports re now saying that Ronaldo’s contract has a clause that says he can transfer to Newcastle if they qualify for next year’s Champions League. If true, it has a strong whiff of evading UEFA’s financial rules.
All of Sunday League soccer in one short clip:
So what’s the rule on penalty kicks? Can they be kicked again after being stopped?
It’s a live ball as soon as it’s struck by the kicker. Other players cannot enter the box until the ball is struck. In theory, any rebound can be deposited in the net. In practice, most saves deflect the ball off to the side where some defender deals with them.
When in regular play (i.e. not in a shootout), penalties are treated the same as a regular free kick. Thus, the penalty taker is not allowed to touch the ball again unless and until another player (of either team) has touched it.
In this case, the 'keeper saved it so the penalty taker is at liberty to play the follow up. If the ball had come back off the woodwork, he mustn’t touch it until someone else does and, if he does, the referee awards a free kick to the other team.
The rule in rugby is that a player can take a free kick to themselves, and some believe that this should be implemented in soccer. I am one of them. For the most part it wouldn’t make much difference but, the times it would, the difference could be quite dramatic.
For example: In the 2016 FA Cup final between Crystal Palace and Manchester United, Palace’s Connor Wickham had beaten Utd’s high defensive line and was bearing down on goal. He was brought down from behind by Utd’s Chris Smalling. With Utd’s defender still on the ground, Wickham got up and continued his run, only to be stopped by the referee’s whistle for the foul.
Had the “play to yourself” rule been in place, Wickham could’ve quickly stopped the ball, taken the free kick and continued his run. There was no one else within 30 yards of the play, so his goal-scoring opportunity remain “en vogue”. So much more fair, IMHO.
FTR, Smalling was not sent off for this DOGSO, and went on to commit a number of yellow card offenses throughout the game before finally being sent off for a second yellow card during extra time. Utd eventually won 2-1, but it’s not like I’m not still mad about it or anything.
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At least Ronaldo doesn’t have a history of financial evasion.
Eh? Oh.
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I’m sure that the new ownership at Newcastle will be completely aboveboard and forthright about their finances. Where are they from again?
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Fwiw, ESPN are now reporting that Al Nassr and Newcastle both deny that such a clause exists. It will be worth it to have Newcastle qualify for Champions League just see what happens. Wouldn’t Ronaldo be about 40 once that Champions League season starts?
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Hey Siri! What does “Sportswashing” mean?
The Premier League goes on hold this weekend as the clubs play in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. Though its status has diminished in recent years - mostly due to the big money available in the Premier and Champions Leagues - this competition still has caché with fans and it does offer a Europa League spot to the winner.
3rd round you say; what happened to the 1st and 2nd? It’s actually deeper than that. The FA Cup is a straight knockout tournament that is open to the top 9 levels of English football (the Premier League being Level 1). This means that the tournament kicks off with over 750 teams involved. The lower 5 levels (often described as “non-league”) are whittled down to 32 teams by “preliminary” rounds, with those clubs entering the 1st round “proper”, joining clubs from Levels 3 and 4 (League 1 and League 2).
The 3rd round sees teams from the Championship and Premier League thrown into the hat (each round is a fresh blind draw). It is not an uncommon occurrence to have an obscure little team drawn against one of the big boys, which is where “giant killing” legends can be, and often are, born. If nothing else, you might get to see Liverpool running out on some godforsaken dog track, or one of these cash-strapped minnows get a massively lucrative trip to somewhere like Old Trafford.
This year, there aren’t really any major mis-matches as the non-league teams have drawn lower tier league clubs. This does offer the prospect of some of them getting through into the next round where the field will have thinned by 50%. The best we have is League 2’s Stevenage hosting Aston Villa and League 1’s Oxford Utd hosting Arsenal. The major draws of the round are Man City vs. Chelsea and Man Utd vs. Everton.
There will be 32 matches this weekend, kicking off Friday afternoon with the aforementioned Moan Utd - Everton game and concluding Monday afternoon with Oxford vs. Arsenal. All are being shown live on ESPN+. There will be extra time and penalties as needed to determine the winner who will go into the hat for the 4th round.
My beloved Crystal Palace - two-time runners up - will host the loathsome Southampton at 6:30am (CST) Saturday morning. I still haven’t forgiven them for 1976, when then 3rd tier Crystal Palace played a first tier Southampton team in the semi-final, when they proceeded to hoof our players into the air at every opportunity, leaving our star player - Peter Taylor - to play most of the game on one leg. Southampton won the match and zero fans that day.
