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SOCCER - SPRING 2019


Dolfan in NYC

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Guardian: Gamblers fixed last-day La Liga match 

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The final-day victory against Valladolid that secured Valencia’s place in the Champions League was prearranged by a criminal gang and up to seven players from the losing side, according to allegations from the judge investigating match fixing in Spain.

Wire taps carried out by police over the past six months, following suspicions raised by a second division game between Huesca and Gimnastic de Tarragona at the end of the 2017-18 season, have now allegedly caught the former footballer Carlos Aranda, suspected of being the leader of the conspiracy, outlining the result required and claiming that seven players had been bought.

According to extracts of the investigation which were published in the newspaper El Mundo, the former Real Madrid and Leeds United defender Raúl Bravo, accused of organising match fixing with Aranda, met the Valladolid captain Borja Fernández in a bar during the buildup to the final game of the season. Fernández then set up a meeting with a number of players.

In one of the recordings, Aranda can allegedly be heard saying: “Look brother, Valencia have to win the first half and in the second, OK?” Valencia won 2-0, with a goal in each half.

Valladolid had secured survival the week before, while Valencia needed to win to take the final Champions League place. Their 2-0 victory denied Getafe the chance to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in their history. There is no suggestion that Valencia were involved in the conspiracy in any way or were aware of it.

Prosecutors believe that this was driven by gambling, not the interests of the clubs. The initial investigation began when the league alerted to suspicious betting patterns at the end of last season in the second division; now the investigation has expanded to include this highly significant first‑division match.

 

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Fuck that vile gutless punk Escalante, fuck Cavalry FC and fuck that idiot referee who has a lower IQ than a baked potato. At least Forge is pretty much a lock to qualify for the CCL play in tournament with a win vs Valour at the Donut Box on the 15th (I'll be there!).  

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In the most shocking piece of football news imaginable, Real Madrid have bought Eden Hazard off Chelsea, for a Hundred Million Euros. Which Chelsea can't reinvest until next summer because they've got a transfer ban for two windows.

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10 minutes ago, AxB said:

In the most shocking piece of football news imaginable, Real Madrid have bought Eden Hazard off Chelsea, for a Hundred Million Euros. Which Chelsea can't reinvest until next summer because they've got a transfer ban for two windows.

Unless it gets postponed. I think they have appealed to CAS after UEFA ruled against their last appeal.

Speaking of shocking news ...

English fans in Portugal clashed with police. I guess the general goodwill generated recently in Baku and Madrid by club fans  does not apply to the traveling national team supporters. 

Arguably, not singing 10 German Bombers on D-Day was asking too much for some folks.

I wonder what it would take for those fans to cause England to get an empty stadium ban. 

Edited by odessasteps
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9 minutes ago, SirFozzie said:

That African Champions League final second leg is going to be replayed after it was decided that the team leaving the field had a valid protest.

 

Not surprising. Playing 1 leg with VAR and 1 leg without VAR is not a level playing field. 

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It's one of those things, if England had made the final and won, the media would have said this tournament was as important as the World Cup, or more. But because England only came third, it's just a pre-season friendly tournament that means nothing. The Women's World Cup is far more prestigious until England are eliminated, and then we never cared about that because the men's team are qualifying for Euro 2020. Unless England Women win, and then Women's Football is equal to the men's version after all.

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7 hours ago, AxB said:

It's one of those things, if England had made the final and won, the media would have said this tournament was as important as the World Cup, or more. But because England only came third, it's just a pre-season friendly tournament that means nothing. The Women's World Cup is far more prestigious until England are eliminated, and then we never cared about that because the men's team are qualifying for Euro 2020. Unless England Women win, and then Women's Football is equal to the men's version after all.

I agree that the only way for this dumb tournament to gain any sort of momentum was for England to win it. English sports Media are the ones to generate trends and influence opinions the most regarding this sport. 

That being said, not even the yellow press would have gone as far as putting the World Cup on par with this.

I really think it is dumb that everyone has to play qualifiers anyway. The only argument pro Nation's League - to me at least - with some merit was the idea to shorten the blown up qualifiers. Now every nation plays them anyway, only to check in the end if they might make it through divisional shortcuts. So basically everyone plays more games? Or at least as many? I'm totally at loss what exactly the idea behind all this is supposed to be. 

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I think it's mainly for UEFA teams to not have to play "meaningless friendlies." 

At least now, they are generally playing teams of equal strength and "for a trophy." And it allows big teams that trip up during qualifying (like Itlay and the Dutch last time) a second chance to play in the Euros or WC. 

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