Leaderboard

Got the all clear this morning so that's good news at least...

Nice.

On field referees don’t really get the hate nowadays. Not since VAR came in. I fully appreciate the pressure on the pitch; you’re exhausted, you’re seeing everything in real time and only once for the most part and you’ve got 22 players screaming at you constantly. You don’t have any of those factors effecting your decision in that little cubicle. And to consistently come to stupid decision while working in an absolutely ideal environment is just unacceptable.

That is true. Same with baseball here, to become an ump is so difficult and you can tell that these umps are so accurate.

Yeah, it could be that. I went onto the club's Twitter page and they are going absolutely mental with Azeri nationalism - it's weird though because in the comments there seem to be a lot of their fans expressing dismay/disgust at the club for that. I know politics and football go hand in hand a lot, others are pretty gungho about it though. It's weird because I know a few Azeri-Iranians and they're definitely not like the Azeri nationalists you might see online (particularly the ones from Azerbaijan the country, not Azerbaijan the state in Iran) - maybe they're a bit more heated about the ethnic differences in Iran than the people who made it out? That wouldn't surprise me. It also might be a Tabriz v. Tehran thing - considering those are the two biggest cities in the country & city rivalries might exist. I know my great aunt (the one the Shah had enough of torturing and kicked out of the country) lived in Tabriz for a year or two for a while because it was sort of a hotbed for the Tudeh party (that she was pretty heavily involved in) - while she was alive she never mentioned anything about being treated differently in Tabriz for being a Persian from Tehran. But... it was a very different Iran back then, for sure. They do the "Marg Bar Diktator" chant like Persepolis does when they play Esteghal... so they can't be all that bad

Could be because they are seen as an Azerbaijani club with strong racist tendencies against Kurds and Persians?

Most of my family that likes football in Iran are Persepolis FC fans. I've got a cousin that likes Saipa too, so I guess I like both of those clubs. If I had to pick one, I'd probably pick Persepolis because they play in red - but it's also the equivalent of gloryhunting because I think they're Iran's biggest club by far. The clubs I know I'm not supposed to like are: Esteghal (also from Tehran like those other two, but they're also sort of the "regime" club - even pre-revolution... and if you know my politics regarding Iran: fuck the Shah and also fuck the Islamic Republic) & Tractor Sazi (I actually don't know why I'm not supposed to like them, but my cousins in Tehran all hate them).

One of Arizona's most successful trial attorneys too. From Wiki: Comparing his law and officiating professions, he says "A trial is nothing, pressure-wise, compared to the NFL. … I have that long [snaps his fingers] to make a decision with a million people watching and second-guessing (by video) in slow-motion. You've got to be right or wrong. I love the satisfaction when you are right — and the agony when you are wrong."[22] Hochuli finds similarities between the football field and courtroom saying, "On the football field, people like that I'm in charge and know what I'm doing, but a lot of the time, it's just appearance. I'm going to sell you on my decision. It's the same in the courtroom. You don't stand in front of a jury and say, 'I think my client is innocent.' You say, 'We're right!'"[9] Which actually makes me think maybe NFL refs are just better at bullshitting but I honestly think they're very good compared to refs in... just about everything. Although that quote I guess does highlight how much pressure referees really are under.

God bless Ed Hochuli.

Good work but it boils my blood that they need to step in.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/nico-rosberg-lewis-hamilton-extreme-e/

My trusted sources say it is most likely Wensleydale or Stilton.

Welcome aboard!

The fact is VAR has been our for over a year and hasn’t actually done anything except manufacture more controversy. It should be binned off until AI referees put the useless bastards we currently have as referees out of a job and they can go get real jobs.

It can be backed up relatively simply. Football as a spectacle was much better without all this shite.

It is - it’s the fault of having a system in place that is to the detriment of the game. Trying to change things unnecessarily.