Verbal

It has - and for this world cup. Ronaldo was let off a 3-match ban during the qualifiers for elbowing an Ireland player in the face.

Now confirmed by CBS that the red card suspension followed an intervention from the White House to FIFA.

It was a red card, however controversial, and it hasn't been overturned but suspended for one year.

*Immediately followed by a post that gives an update regarding the FA investigation.* Honestly think Saintsweb is a den of fate-tempters.

Is it also net of agents' fees? That can take a huge chunk out too. (Eg of Tonali's £100m transfer to Tottenham, the agent collects 23%, which my complicated calculator tells me is £23m.)

Yes I agree, it would be unusual if there were not plenty of mitigations being put in place, although it's possible that what Tuchel means is that high-altitude adaptation is not the best prep for sea-level games. I think an England win would be especially great in that environment, but It still is a hell of an ask physiologically.

A sports scientist I know quantified the advantage like this: England will start the game and within a few minutes will feel like they've already played an hour of football. There are probably a few things you can do to mitigate: early subs, oxygen during hydration breaks (?). But the advantage Mexican players already acclimatised will have will be huge.

Personally I'd be amazed, but then I'm not Dr Doolittle.

Oh boy

When in my youth (2018) I went to Mexico City for the first time I'd forgotten about that little altitude thing. My body realised the problem with the first breath on the jetway. You breathe in, get half-way through it, and then it's as if someone cut the oxygen supply. The Mexican team will have a huge advantage.

No they won't and I'm not the least bit nervous about it because there just isn't enough time to acclimatise.

I've seen it up close and the Azteca is glorious. And nothing quite irritates me more about this World Cup (aside from the scandalous, vindictive abuse by the Trump regime of the Iran team) than the common American claim that their stadiums outshine European ones. They are bigger, yes, but most are utter shit for football. They're built not just for different sports but for a different sporting culture. The vast and numerous parking lots that surround them are designed for American football and baseball fans who can never stop eating, with "tailgate parties" starting hours before the game. This eating frenzy then continues in the stadiums with food hawkers going up and down the extra-wide, extra-numerous aisles passing blobs of fat burger to ever fatter people. In American sports, attention paid to what's going on on the pitch is slight. Sport is experienced as an individual - it isn't a collective, communal thing at all. Hence, among other things, no real actual noise other than when a goal is scored, no edge, and no humour (oh god how I'd miss this if stuck there). My son went to the England Panama game, played at the MetLife in a New Jersey wasteland. This is the venue for the final. Whoever designed it thought that as an East Coast venue of a winter sport, the stadium didn't need a roof of any kind. The downpour before and during the match meant there wasn't a dry seat, or person, in the stadium. Unfettered commercialism makes the pitch-side parts of the stadium - weirdly devoid of fans and consisting, seemingly, of air ducts, ad screens and scaffolding - a cluttered, ugly mess. It's also not designed to have well built-up ends (because: see above) - the one in Foxborough is even worse, with one end taken up with the largest screen you've ever seen along with what appears to be a vast abandoned greenhouse. Oh, and the pitch at MetLife is worse than anything you'd see in League 2 - swampy and weirdly uneven. It seems FIFA has applied no quality to control at all to pitch preparation and devoted their attention to dynamic pricing instead. Great football (often) but shit major US venues.

I do find it interesting how you can carbon-date posters on here by the jokes they tell. Did not know, e.g., that GS was a grandad.

You're tri-ang too hard

Sorry, but for some of us that's a mere raindrop in the ocean.

Yikes, you must be boiling. Never seen a two-pony post before.

And after that, Brian Jones ended up where?

V much this. But I doubt he'll stay.

Are you on loan from another club? Either way we thank you for signing on for another 12 months.

Is the correct answer. Pretty sure Daniel Peretz isn't going to concede a goal because he was busy saying hello to a pigeon.

I'll happily write a reference for him...

Not so much of a kid any more - Ollie Wright is 23 or 24 now. He was very highly regarded at Acc Stanley last season.

I'm proud too but I'll be as far away from one of those cruise ships as possible. Never know what you might catch. Instead I'll be cottaging in the Cotswolds.

If we were as serious about spying as you suspect, then I can't believe the club just sent an ill-equipped intern to do it - someone least likely to get what was wanted. But that's exactly what they did.

I may be wrong but isn't his mouth a rectum transplant?