Lichfield Dean

Went shopping...

Shame, Morocco were excellent, but that little bit of star quality to get the ball in the net just wasn't there. Remarkable achievement though.

Looks like no foul play here then, as I expected. Poor guy just suffered a major rupture. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63973929

Morocco are a great team to watch to be honest.

Jesus Christ

Definitely, but oddly almost every time he seemed to win it back somehow.

Maybe so, maybe it was intentional

It's so hard to say. He was definitely impeded by the keeper, so I get it, but he also got to the ball and got his shot off and where was the keeper meant to go?

Christ, he belted that

Hmmmm.... Harsh penalty?

Ref didn't give it though. That would have been given in another game no doubt.

Ooooh, Messi didn't get given that!

Methinks he is in a small spot of bother https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/sam-bankman-fried-arrested-in-bahamas-charged-with-massive-crypto-fraud-in-us/

Not 100% sure. The Guardian says it doesn't include the power needed to power up the lasers in the first place. I'm not sure exactly how that affects things... Is it a one-off "startup" cost and once going over a long period it becomes irrelevant? Any way, fusion isn't "impossible" obviously, it's just really really hard, and it annoys me when they sensationalise stuff like that.

Dreadful sensationalist reporting. There's nothing "impossible" about it. It's also probably nowhere near to being a useable tech yet, and may not be the best bet for large-scale fusion energy generation anyway. And the story also points out that it ignores the 500MJ of energy used to power the lasers, so in fact it is nowhere near to outputting more energy than it put in. So, yeah, still not an actual thing we can use yet nor even close. But it is at least another small step closer, which is important.

I get that Chelsea are probably going to be looking at strikers in the January transfer window after Broja's unfortunate injury, but I don't understand why so many of their fans seem to want Ronaldo to join so much? Is he really what they need right now?

Best of luck finding a club with more history...

I was in there literally last week. Has it closed down since then? Edit: you do mean The Oasis right?

Shame, I like it when they bounce

Wow, we win so many pre-season* trophies. It's like our signature move. * not actually pre-season this time I guess ... But I don't know what else to call it.

They were a great live act apparently. This video definitely supports that:

I said in the match thread that I've been surprised by Southgate this tournament. Up until now I've been very critical of him, but it feels like he's either finally learnt how to get this England team working, or he's had some better coaching advice from someone. Either way I think he has shown signs of improvement that I wasn't expecting. Ok, I think he messed up the subs in the France game and reverted back a bit too much to the team that did so badly in the Nation's League towards the end, but despite being knocked out a round earlier I think we were actually a much better side than in 2018. Whether we can get an upgrade on him is another argument, but I didn't find myself shouting at the TV in annoyance this world cup so much.

Didn't look to me anywhere near the level of the refereeing bias in the PL. The Saka free kick that wasn't given was a minor thing really, the ref couldn't have known that 45 seconds later after several phases of play (including a foul by Rice on Mbappe that that Mbappe chose not to go to ground on) that France would score. And the penalty shout? Not sure it was a penalty. Ok, maybe should have been a foul, but that's all. I'm pretty sure there were instances of fouls against France not being given. If that had been Villa against Utd I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten the Mount penalty, the ref would have just claimed it was "strong defending" or some other such nonsense. Overall, were we unlucky? Perhaps a bit. But I don't think the referee was the main reason we lost. We just weren't clinical enough when it really mattered and we weren't strong enough defensively.

Can't believe I'm saying it, but credit to Southgate. This tournament I feel like he's learnt some lessons from previous tournaments and made us a better football team overall. Not sure I agree with the Mount and Sterling subs but overall, I'd say Southgate has definitely improved.

Oh dear