Azeem

In before Michael

England are starting as favorites given they are by default favorites no matter how shit they are like their last defeat to Iceland. They have good players in the defense, not so good in midfield and piss poor strikers. They have Bellingham who is in great form after winning the Champions League with Real Madrid.

However, Serbia has vastly improved and they have Mitrovic who plays in the Saudi Pro League. And that's about it.

anyone noticed Iman Wasim's attitude ? he wasn't even bothering to run. Wasted the most balls.

what a shit show by Pakistan batters. low scoring match was expected given the previous matches here but Naseem showed more intent than everyone. Deserved to get eliminated

Credit to death over bowling by Bumrah. 

This stadium is atrocious even for a club match, the ball literally stucks in the outfield. 

They lost to Iceland

That is expected with every massacre/genocide/historical injustice, recently UN assembly passed a resolution to recognize Srebrenica as a genocide which is really nothing just a token gesture but the Serbian President had an epic meltdown lol

 

1 hour ago, Stan said:

Why didn't Babar bat in the super over? 

Him and Fakhar should've batted with Fakhar on the strike. 

Pakistan has a habit of giving breakthroughs to smaller teams by losing to them in tournaments. Lost to Bangladesh in 99 in their first WC, lost to Ireland in 2007 giving their first big moment, lost to Zimbabwe last T20 when their cricket was going through an existential crisis and now giving a boost to cricket in US. 

But on a more serious note Pakistan is opposite of a team whose sum is greater than its parts. Relies on individual brilliance (which they have fair bit) but it only comes far and few.

I went with others. Euros have a history of unexpected winners Denmark, Greece etc even last two winners Italy, Portugal weren't exactly expected. 

I'm more active on Discord now so I kinda miss some interactions here.

in any civilized society he would've been jailed for cheating on Shakira anyway ! 

Friday 14th June, 2024
Group A
Germany 2-0 Scotland, 20.00

Saturday 15th June, 2024
Group A
Hungary 1-2 Switzerland, 14.00

Group B
Spain 1-1 Croatia, 17.00
Italy 1-0 Albania, 20.00

Sunday 16th June, 2024
Group C
Slovenia 1-3 Denmark, 17.00
Serbia 1-1 England, 20.00

Group D
Poland 2-3 Netherlands, 14.00

Monday 17th June, 2024
Group E
Romania 0-2 Ukraine, 14.00
Belgium 1-3 Slovakia, 17.00

Group D
Austria 0-2 France, 20.00

Tuesday 18th June, 2024
Turkey 2-2 Georgia, 14.00
Portugal 3-1 Czech Republic, 20.00

My reasons for each team for not winning

Germany Going through a bad patch for some time now with mixed results recently

Scotland Have never progressed out of the group stages in history and not likely to change that

Hungary Remerging on the intl scene after decades of wilderness that is good enough

Switzerland Switzerland in football is like India pre-2003 in cricket which was called team of bank clerics. Competitive enough to do the job here and there but nothing inspiring about them individually and collectively. 

Spain apart from that 2008-12 period they have always been chokers on intl scene

Croatia Their best days are behind them

Italy Last Euro win was an anomaly from the deep structural problems in their football. Even a broken clock thing

Albania Why have they even qualified ?

Slovenia Should be happy they even qualified

Denmark Piss poor at the last WC under different conditions showed they are not all that great with last Euro run

Serbia meh

England Self-explanatory

Poland Like Switzerland but have one very popular player

Netherlands Were really good in last WC expect them to reach semis but 50/50 after that

Austria Like Slovenia but have one very famous player who I believe won't be playing

France No reason not to win

Belgium Wasted golden generation now back to being mediocre like they were from 2000s to early 2010s

Slovakia meh

Romania Eww

Ukraine Expect them to top their group but meh after that

Turkey Did fuck all despite so much talk around them last Euros. A mediocre NT in essence, the best entertainment they can give is by starting one those brawls like in their league

Georgia Technically shouldn't even be here since they are part of Asia

Portugal Ronaldo haters kept saying they are better without Ronaldo but did the same without Ronaldo last WC. QF stuff max

Czech Republic Croatia of Euros but won't win it

 

 

Group A Germany, Hungary, Switzerland

Group B Spain, Croatia, Italy

Group C England, Denmark, Slovenia

Group D France, Netherlands, Poland

Group E Ukraine, Slovakia, Belgium

Group F Portugal, Czech Republic, Turkey

Top goal scorer Mbappe

Winner France

I'm in

I think at this point you guys are being naive to not know why West don't condemn Israel so I'll address the elephant in the room. It's simple Israel is a settler project of West in a very key region of the world and to maintain it they will have to pay some price for it from time to time even in the loss of their own citizens. 

That said I think it's not completely accurate to say West is backing Israel, it's Protestant West. Catholic majority countries like Spain, Ireland, Italy etc have been very critical of Israel but they don't really matter tbh so it doesn't show in material effect. 

I was having this discussion with someone actually that Catholics and Sunnis together make the majority of the world but they are totally useless at the moment. not one state that has their majority really matters globally. You could make some excuse for France, Turkey, Saudi but I don't really buy it. And Saudis aren't really Sunni to begin with, they have their own thing. 

It's the Protestant (US-UK) and Shia (Iran) that are the most active global players despite being numerically a minority. Fascinating

I took stickers on a hotel door room without permission once. 

There is this image created of the 'West' that everything good about it material progress, law and order etc is due to some gigantic team effort where everyone from US to Australia works in shifts. 

But when it comes to bad things the blame is individualized as one off 'mistakes'. Hitler, Leopold in Belgium etc they did not come out of isolation. These are systematic things which are again being seen in Gaza. 

Visuals of famine now coming out of Gaza.

It's now also time the term fundamentalist West or something like that is also used. The unsheltering US support for Israel and things like Iraq war before that are not just for strictly geopolitical reasons or for natural resources etc it goes beyond that. Western power circles are the same colonial fundamentalist that they were centuries ago. That EU guy even saying rest of the world is a jungle and Europe is a garden a while back speaks that they deep down still hold the ideas of racial superiority. 

Normal but I hold the pen very hard. 

Being drunk should have no influence in judging heinous crimes like rape or actions that may lead to death, drunk driving imo

Pantheon is a project by MIT university to rank the most notable people in human history based on how much traffic the Wikipedia profile of the personality gets. In order to get in the database the person's Wiki page must be in at least 15 different language versions of Wikipedia then it applies a complex mathematical equation to assign an HPI (historical popularity index) to rank personalities.

https://pantheon.world/explore/rankings?show=people&years=-3501,2023

Based on that these are the most notable footballer figures player+coach born in each country (just born may not have actually played for that country).

The ones I already know about are bolded. Please bold the ones you already knew about

List A

Afghanistan: Zohaib Islam Amiri

Albania: Panajot Pano

Algeria: Rabah Madjer

Andorra: Oscar Sonejee

Angola: Fernando Peyroteo

Argentina: Diego Maradona

Armenia: Henrikh Mkhtitaryan

Australia: Graham Arnold

Austria: Josef Bican

Azerbaijan: Tofiq Bahramov

List B

Bahrain: A'ala Hubail

Belarus: Sergei Aleinikov

Belgium: Jean-Marrie Pffaf

Belize: Dean McCaulay

Benin: Stephane Sessegnon

Bermuda: Shaun Goater

Bhutan: Wangay Dorji

Bolivia: Ulises Saucedo

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Vahid Halilhodzic

Botswana: Dipsy Selolwane

Brazil: Pele

Bulgaria: Hristo Stiochkov

Burkina Faso: Jonathan Pitroipa

Burundi: Shabani Nonda

List C

Cambodia: Chan Vathanaka

Cameroon: Roger Milla

Canada: John Van't Schip

Cape Verde: Rolando

Central African Rep: Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa

Chad: Japhet N'Doram

Chile: Ivan Zamorano

China: Lie Tie

Colombia: Rene Higuita

Congo DR: Claude Makelele

Congo Rep: Delvin N'Dinga

Costa Rica: Keylor Navas

Croatia: Davor Suker

Cuba: Jorge Romo

Cyprus: Michalis Konstantinou

Czech Republic: Josef Masopust

List D

Denmark: Peter Schmeichel

Dominican Republic: Junior Firpo

List E

Ecuador: Alberto Spencer

Egypt: Mohamad Salah

El Salvador: Jaime Rodriguez

England: Bobby Charlton

Estonia: Valeri Karpin

Eswatini: Bongani Khumalo

List F

Fiji: Roy Krishna

Finland: Jari Litmanen

France: Zinedine Zidane

List G

Gabon: Mario Lemina

Gambia: Omar Colley

Georgia: Murtaz Khurtsilava

Germany: Gerd Muller
Ghana: Abedi Pele
Greece: Theodoros Zagorakis

Guatemala: Carlos Ruiz
Guinea: Naby Keita

Guinea-Bissau: Ansu Fati

List H

Haiti: Emmanuel Sanon

Honduras: David Suazo

Hong Kong: Chan Siu Ki

Hungary: Ferenc Puskas
 

List I
Iceland: Eiour Guojohnsen

India: Sunil Chetri
Indonesia: Beb Bakhyus

Iran: Ali Daei
Iraq: Ahmed Radhi

Ireland: Roy Keane

Israel: Yochanan Vollach

Italy: Giuseppe Meazza

List J
Jamaica: Raheem Sterling

Japan: Kazuyoshi Miura (I knew he's the oldest player but didn't knew his name)

Jordan: Amer Shafi

List K

Kazakhstan: Serhiy Skachenko

Kenya: Michael Olunga

Kosovo: Xerdan Shaqiri

Kuwait: Faisal Al-Dakhil

Kyrgyzstan: Ilzat Akhmetov

List L

Laos: Visay Phaphouvanim

Latvia: Maris Verpakovskis

Lebanon: Yousef Mohamed

Liberia: George Weah

Libya: Claudio Gentile

Liechtenstein: Rainer Hasler

Lithuania: Arminas Narbekovas

Luxembourg: Louis Pilot

List M

Macedonia: Dragoslav Sekularac

Madagascar: Anicet Abel

Malawi: Russell Mwafulirwa

Malaysia: Mokhtar Dahari

Maldives: Ali Ashfaq

Mali: Salif Keita

Malta: Michael Mifsuda

Mauritania: Adama Ba

Mexico: Antonio Carbajal

Moldova: Itzhak Shum

Montenegro: Dejan Savicevic

Morocco: Just Fontaine

Mozambique: Eusebio

List N

Namibia: Collin Benjamin

Nepal: Rohit Chand

Netherlands: Johan Cruyff

New Zealand: Wynton Rufer

Nicaragua: Oscar Duarte

Niger: Moussa Maazou

Nigeria: Jay-Jay Okocha

North Korea: Lee Yoo-hyung

Northern Ireland: George Best

Norway: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

List O

Oman: Ali Al-Habsi

List P

Pakistan: Rubin Okotie

Panama: Jorge Dely Valdes

Paraguay: Jose Luis Chilavert

Peru: Teofillo Cubillas

Philippines: Paulino Alcantara

Poland: Udo Lattek

Portugal: Cristiano Ronaldo

List Q

Qatar: Akram Afif

List R

Romania: Mircea Lucesu

Russia: Lev Yashin

List S

St Kitts & Nevis: Keith Gumbs

Saudi Arabia: Majed Abdullah

Scotland: Kenny Dalgish

Senegal: Jean-Pierre Adams

Serbia: Drajan Dzajic

Seirra Leone: Trevoh Chalobah

Singapore: Terry Butcher

Slovakia: Ferdinand Daucik

Slovenia: Branko Oblak

Somalia: Abdisalam Ibrahim

South Africa: Bruce Grobbelar

South Korea: Cha Bum-Kun

Spain: Santiago Bernabeu

Sudan: Almoez Ali

Suriname: Edgar Davids

Sweden: Gunnar Nordahl

Switzerland: Robert De Mattio

Syria: Mahmoud Dahoud

List T

Tajikistan: Rashid Rakhimov

Thailand: Kiatisuk Senamuang

Togo: Emmanuel Adebayor

Trinidad & Tobago: Dwight Yorke

Tunisia: Sadok Sassi

Turkey: Hakan Sukur

Turkmenistan: Rolan Gusev

List U

Uganda: Pione Sisto

Ukraine: Andriy Shevchenko

UAE: Adnan Al-Talyani

USA: Bert Petanaude

Uruguay: Jose Nasazzi

Uzbekistan: Vasilis Hatzipanagis

List V

Venezuela: Leonardo Jardim

Vietnam: La Cong Vinh

List W

Wales: Ryan Giggs

List Z

Zambia: Godfrey Chitalu

Zimbabwe: Benjani Mwaruwari

Nuclear weapons are almost a century old technology no tech can be made exclusive for that long. Before we see an actual county using one we will see more Beirut like explosions.