Ireland deserved the win, but this exposes a serious flaw in the current rule. A team wins a penalty, scores, and then is effectively punished by having the fouled player off the field during a critical transition moment. That creates an unintended competitive disadvantage for the team that was fouled.
The objective of the law should be player safety, not altering the balance of the match. If a player must leave the field after treatment, FIFA should allow them to re-enter immediately following a successful penalty or before play restarts. Otherwise, we are going to see more matches influenced by a technicality that makes little footballing sense. This will not be the last time a team will be in the disadvantage. Change is imminent.
Enzo Fernandez chance creation levels in the past 2 seasons has been best in the Prem level. If Palmer recovers and we have more runs, Chelsea's chance creation will be so good
Klara Bühl on how she approaches contract situations in general via @SPORT1 "If you know your contract is expiring or there's an option to transfer, then you start thinking about it about six months beforehand.
#CFCW
A Thread;
ℹ️ We can confirm that midfielder Erin Cuthbert has been assessed following the injury sustained in last night's match.
Erin has suffered a knee injury that will rule her out of Tuesday night's qualifier and will return to club for further assessment and a short period of rehabilitation.
Recover well, Ez 💪
🏥 Scotland confirms that Erin Cuthbert has returned to Chelsea for further assessment and a short period of rehabilitation after sustaining a knee injury against Israel yesterday.
🚨 Pep Guardiola: “What is Barça missing to win the Champions League? The Champions League is a competition that DESTROYS projects, and I hope that’s not the case at Barça”.
“We must not think that just because you don’t win it, everything that has been built is no good. The league is the competition that gives you consistency and continuity. In the Champions League, you need to reach the decisive stages in good condition, without injuries, and refereeing also has a huge impact”.
“What matters is that the daily work is excellent, that the team keeps growing and improving, and that they don’t believe the season is a failure just because they don’t reach the Champions League final or win it. The league is what sets the foundation for judging whether a season has been good or not”.
John Terry and Roman Abramovich have got some serious pull 😳
🗣️ "We went to Russia. Took us ages to land. We were circling around the airport, but we couldn't land.
It was the Russians, so John Terry actually phoned Abramovich from the plane and said, 'Roman, we can't land. For some reason, we are not landing, and we are going round and round in circles.'
Five minutes later, all of a sudden, we landed. I thought, 'That's influence for you.'"
(via Steve McClaren on the High Performance Podcast)
I believe Ireland won fair and square yesterday but its worth questioning if FIFA’s new rule of sidelining a player after the penalty decision actually does make any sense.
Groenen taken down. Netherlands get penalty. Groenen has to leave the pitch. Netherlands score from penalty. Groenen still not on. Ireland counter. Netherlands don’t have tactics in place with 10 players. Ireland score.
This is one of those that’s going to piss so many more teams off moving forward.
Two years ago, Cole Palmer won this award after scoring 22 goals (including two hat-tricks) and making 11 assists in 34 appearances in the Premier League.
Turns out all he had to do was just play 150 minutes of football all season long to get a nomination.
If Ireland WNT can’t celebrate after beating Netherlands who’s ranked 10th then when can they? It’s a big moment for the team beating a team in the top 10, getting chance to automatically qualify is massive. I guess the men shouldn’t have celebrated beating Hungary for a playoff