136 Comments
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Ronaldo is an awesome soccer player. Our society unfortunately has no clue how to properly talk about him!

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In case anyone missed the most important news of the day ... https://www.espn.com/soccer/manchester-united/story/3868460/maradona-im-the-man-to-fix-man-united

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My thing with these VAR penalty calls is the refs know the rules better than we do, so if they're taking extra time to watch replays of the plays, don't we just have to give them the benefit of the doubt? Anyway, I hate talking about whether or not something is a penalty! Game on!

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In college, I had a teammate who scored a bunch of FK goals my senior year. His theory was that keepers cheat too much to the side, so you were better off just ripping it at the part of the goal the wall wasn't covering. There ya go!

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Shaqiri is ...

A) as good as Messi?

or

B) better than Messi?

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Hell of a ball from Neves, hell of a touch and pass from Bernardo, and ... welp, now it's 3-1.

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People have been talking about William Carvalho for like a decade now, it seems. But on that break, I think you saw why he's never been scooped up by a big team. He had a couple not-too difficult forward passes he could've made, but he hesitated, lost the angles, cut back toward his own goal, and then tried a long ball after the D had recovered.

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OK, that's it for today. Thanks for all of the great comments and Qs. As always, feel free to keep the discussions going without me. TBD on tomorrow, but I think I'll plan on doing another one for the final on Sunday.

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Jun 5, 2019Liked by Ryan O'Hanlon

hope the LFC players are not forced into action - let them have a rest!

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Biggest (and obvious) takeaway from that game: talent matters so much in knockout games. Portugal's XI had way more quality, but Switzerland were the better "team", as they controlled possession, territory, and had the balance of chances. But: goal one is a great FK, goal two is a succession of great individual moments, and goal three is Ronaldo turning a counter into a great chance. Swiss needed a PK to get the ball across the goal-line.

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You doing this again tomorrow Ryan, tomorrow's game should be great.

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Not a great debut for Joao Felix -- gave the ball away a lot, didn't contribute much defensively, took one shot, create none -- but I'd say that this game should barely have any effect on how you feel about him as a player/prospect.

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Portugal replace Pepe, who is 36, with Jose Fonte, and the average age of the 11 barely budges.

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Gotta run out to pick my dog up from the groomer. Will be back for the second half. Impressive first half from the Swiss, imo. Bunch of shots in the box, and they're running the attack through Shaqiri, who's everywhere. He's completed 22 passes in the final third; no one on Portugal has more than 10. Lemme know what you guys thought of the first 45, and please feel free to chat among yourselves!

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Switzerland are looking pretty nice right now

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For those who haven't seen, Switzerland's CB Akanji who plays for Dortmund, has a calculator for a brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN9GHwAAD98

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Is it just me or has Patricio been in goal for Portugal since the Fillmore administration?

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I read that mourinho is interested in managing an international side...so which side is he ideally suited for? Can he take Iceland to glory with a Greece 2004 style run??

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Do you think Ozil could still be a starter for a big european club playing in a champions league? I feel that his talents are just not suited for the Prem anymore, yet I could see him playing a Tadic-like role somewhere in Italy, Germany or for PSG. Is this just wishful thinking on my part?

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Hi Ryan,

Big fan of your writing. I am a relatively new soccer fan (got into it this summer and chose the Wolves as my "team") my friends are City and United fans and I wanted a scrappy underdog to root for. However it is frustrating seeing every good player in the transfer market basically linked only to the best clubs. Is there any hope for lesser teams to add superstar talent or am I just doomed to watch the best team in the world buy all the best young players on teams where guys like Leroy Sane don't even get playing time?

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Where do PSG go from here? They’re likely to keep both Mbappe and Neymar this summer, but I’d say there’s a good chance of at least one of them leaving next summer. Ideally, you’d like to keep them both, but if they cashed in on Mbappe next summer for let’s say, €250mil-ish, theoretically, you could use that money to build out the rest of the squad so it’s more balanced and you don’t have as many glaring holes. Could PSG be better by selling one of Mbappe or Neymar? It sounds crazy and I don’t really believe they would be but I’m curious to hear your thoughts

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I still think of switzerland as the team who lost to Ukraine on Pens at WC2006 in what was one of the dullest games I've ever seen. The players have changed but their game is the same. Are they a more attacking team now and is my judgement still clouded from 2006?

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:checks portugal lineup again:

Pepe?!!!!!!!?!?!

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Doing this again tomorrow for England - Holland?

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Fn Quintana. That creep sure can roll, Dude.

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Off topic: getting rid of Cavani and having Mbappe play centrally, is this the best move for PSG?

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Switzerland's assistant coach is a tanning bed, right?

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yesterday you said southampton needed to sign a real attacker, then moussa djenepo of mali/standard liege is apparently undergoing a physical! thoughts?

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Hey Ryan,

How important would nations league be for Asian or African countries? Where so many teams get limited game time.

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If Pepe isn't the guy, is there any attacking mid or forward you'd like to see Liverpool go after this summer?

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Hi Ryan, as a fellow Frenkie Stan, does Barca's new jersey upset you as well? Like he really left the most fun team in the world, to dress up like a clown

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LOVE ME SOME VAR!

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Ryan, I know this was touched on a little bit for Ringer FC a few weeks back, but I was going to ask for a little more insight as to what you’re thinking. Did Man U get it right by going with OGS when they did? Or would they have been better off waiting it out and seeing if they could make a run at someone like Poch? Hard to believe Ole wouldn’t have taken the job after the season.

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Hey Ryan!

Suffering Arsenal fan back again. Just wanna know what you think of the ten thousand transfer rumors going around and what they actually need vs. what they're being linked with. Also, Emery? Thoughts? Problems? Basically just do a Tuesday mail with Arsenal and I'm happy if you don't answer this one

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Anybody else here think that in 20-30 years the Nations League will be regarded as a very prestigious tournament, on the order of a Copa America? When the WC started, it was basically just a continuation of the Olympics and had less than 15 teams.

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If a club wanted to pull a Wolves and essentially just buy players from one country to make up a majority of the team, would Switzerland be your best bet? Lots of talented players who could likely be purchased for a reasonable fee. Belgium might be a good shout too but obviously you're not buying Hazard unless you're Real Madrid.

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Thoughts on Joao Felix?

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who's the young, up and coming player left in Nations League that might be an important purchase for a big PL club this Summer?

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Ugh

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Ronaldo gonna Ronaldo

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Unless I've miscounted, on both of these teams there are just as many Wolves players (4) as players from all other Prem teams combined.

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Which one is the better vacation destination?

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Shaq playing as the 10 for Country but seems to be regularly shunted out wide for Club. Do we think we could—with the possible addition of another pacy winger to take some minutes off Salah/Mané or one of those two playing up top in a 4231—see Xherdan playing more centrally next year for Liverpool?

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With the Football Leaks guy out of commission for the moment (the NYer article on him is really great by the way) will anyone pick up the torch of quasi-legal exposes? It's been both illuminating and disillusioning and...well I hope someone or someone does it because clearly there's plenty of dirt to be dug up. And if the leaker can refrain from clumsy extortion attempts they could probably keep doing it for a good long while too.

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Real loading up on signings ( Jovic, Rodrygo, Eder Militão, Ferland Mendy, Hazard?), is there anyone else they should be going after? A superstar type, pogba/mbappe, or someone more low key?

Who should be shipped out with all these players coming in?

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Only watching this for Joao Felix

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Can we talk about Eriksen's recent comments? As a Spurs fan, I don't think RM would pay the 100M+ we'd want, making the Replace-Coutinho-with-Three-Vital-Players-At-Different-Positions move a bit harder, considering the ~70M prices we're seeing for Lo Celso and Ndombele.

So assuming he doesn't move to a PL side, what team would most benefit from signing Eriksen?

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:checks Portugal lineup:

oh this might be good

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A slightly different tack--do you think we'll see players begin to decline national team appearances or sit out tournaments with an ever increasing number of club and international games? The best players get basically no consistent off-season anymore, and if I was someone like Harry Kane, I'd be at least a little inclined to rest for the team that's paying me all that money.

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Anyone else worried about Kane playing. I’d rather he relax and go to the physio for the next 6 weeks.

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