#I don't follow football

[threewaywithdelusion]

Cardiff was relegated from the Premier League during the 2018-2019 football season, only a year before Ted Lasso begins. During that season, they played Man City twice, losing both times. The scores were 2-0 and 5-0. But if Man City was up by 5 goals, they probably would have subbed on some less experienced players, which means Jamie and Colin might have played against each other the year before they both started playing for Richmond

[cementcornfield]

are you like.. actually a believer that joe and ja’marr are a thing or are you just joking.

it's real, i've Seen Them 👀

[that-wildwolf]

So who are you guys rooting for in today's match? Evil Oppressive Coloniser Country or *checks notes* Evil Oppressive Coloniser Country?

[morvith]

Valinor Football Clubs

So, I was thinking...

Fëanor has 7 sons and 1 grandson. Fingolfin and Finarfin have, between them, between 8 and 9 children (depends on which family tree we are working from, though the definitive answer seems to be eight? Unless you move Orodreth back up a generation...)

That's not enough for a football team (soccer team for the Americans in the audience, if you must. Because you need 11 players, not counting reserves)

But it's more than enough for five-a-side football!

(I am not trusting either side with contact sports. Or balls that get thrown. Or, Heaven forbid, bats.)

Think about it. Consider how competitive Fëanor and Fingolfin are - you know, Finarfin is the "not ambitious" one, but this is sport and sport makes people crazy, so maybe he will secede and start his own team. Or maybe his children will do it for him again, although Rabid Football Fan Finarfin is a funny image.

And of course more people will want to play, and before you know it they have a Valinor Football League and Valinor Football Championship!

And Fëanor and Fingolfin will be too busy planning the next match and/or season!

And all the Valar's problems will be solved! Well, the old ones, because this solution will definitely create new ones. (Football riots, anyone?)

I have so many questions, like:

Who are the goalkeepers?

Who invents fouling?

Who are the divers?

Each of the Valar would be called in to be referees in turn and how terrible would they be at it?

And can you imagine the supporters?! The chants! The signs! The banners! The choreographies!

....also Fëanor is the coach who ends up in trouble for running in front of the Blue supporters' stands and making rude gestures after his team wins.

[muninnhuginn]

li tianchen saying he hated people who pretended to be nice but were secretly jerks the most + the neighbour who saw what was going on but backed off (whether because of his own safety or because liu lan shook her head to get him to go away with the idea that it would stop further escalation). the idea that "jerk pretending to be nice" in this case is represented by an observer seeing something wrong and refusing to intervene.

looking at cheng xiaoshi's repeated interference during dives vs lu guang's mantra to keep the past as it was. to remain an observer deliberately.

[golden-lovers]

[bidgies]

Bayer Leverkusen finally ended 11 years of Bayern supremacy!!!!!

[livvyofthelake]

oh the chiefs might win the super bowl again! what if travis kelce shot himself in the head. shut upppppp about the chiefs i am SO SICK of the kansas city chiefs. if i was actually into football i'd be such a fucking chiefs hater it's not even funny.... the marvel movies of football teams to me. the colleen hoover of football teams. not surprised travis is the football player taylor swift fell for the chiefs are the taylor swift of football teams but the difference there is taylor swift wrote love story and the chiefs have done nothing but piss me the fuck off all the time for years. goddamn.

[spoondrifts]

now maybe i just fundamentally don't understand sports, but why on earth are some people adamant, loyal fans to teams that never win?? as annoying as they are, i understand why my whole family is comprised of kc chiefs fans because the chiefs win all the time and have clearly earned their reputation, but what is the point in cheering for a team that loses over and over again just because they come from your city

[batsplat]

i’ve been into motorsports for..arounddd a year? and only got into tennis in the last couple months and i would like to tell you i really enjoy reading your posts about these things! i think you are very knowledgeable, I always get something interesting out of your posts. How did you get into these sports/how long have you been a fan?

that's really kind, thank you <3

i started playing tennis when i was like four years old, though i started taking it more seriously when i was around nine and that's probably also the time when i got more invested as a viewer. so uh... idk i didn't get into it, it's always just been part of my life. got my coaching license when i was fourteen, played for clubs + tournaments, spent most of my teenage summers on a tennis court every day either playing or coaching, played for my uni team etc. my mum's a tennis fan (albeit fairly casually at the time) so she got me to try it out, i enjoyed a bunch of different sports but for whatever reason that's the one that stuck. something about the one-on-one nature probably, also even as a kid i was really into the tactical flexibility and being able to choose yourself how to construct your technique. kinda a control freak sport i reckon

motogp would've been 2016, an auspicious year to join in some ways... i'd started following it quite casually around the time i was moving to a foreign country for the first time,, where i knew nobody, complete blank slate etc etc. i'd stumbled across motogp in quite a roundabout way, enjoying motocross youtube videos and like... probably went on the wikipedia page for what kind of motorcycle racing sports there are, idk lol. i just liked having a new interest when moving abroad, something that was completely For Myself and i wasn't going to discuss with anyone but just gave me something to get kinda excited about. different from tennis because obviously i play that myself and i talk a lot about it with my family and players and coaches and my high school maths teacher and i also watch matches with other people... which is great!! lots of fond memories with a lot of different people over the years!! but idk i do get discourse fatigue sometimes, so it's nice having a sport where it's like... if something in motogp pisses me off, i can just completely ignore it for three months and literally nobody will ask me about it or tease me or anything. shout out to me having to rock up to 7:30 am training on the monday after medvedev lost that ao 2024 final, love leaving the house at 6:20 to whack balls and pretend like i don't still want to blow my brains out over the match that is the main topic of conversation that morning

uhh as for what actually got me into motogp specifically... it was that tried and tested combo of 1) really not sure this sport should be legal what tf, and 2) wow they sure do keep referencing a lot of backstory i am completely unfamiliar with. as somebody who obviously also enjoys plenty of non-sports fandoms, there was something immediately appealing about coming across a sport with quite so much Lore that was also generally just insane. like i just did all these google sprees where you initially feel like you're being fed a new bonkers fact every minute, i love researching stuff, it's a sport that ends up almost doubling as a fun lil puzzle to pick at. and over the off-season 2016-17 where i was on the cusp of getting PROPER invested, i watched some old races based on like. reddit recommendations (race replays were WAY harder to find back then if you couldn't afford videopass lemme tell u). and one of the first ones i was actually able to access was due to some kind soul in september 2016 uploading one of those crappy 'i'm trying to avoid this getting copyright struck' streams of laguna seca 2008 with the beloved eurosport commentary. forty eight minutes and four seconds later i was a changed person. i was invested for life. extremely fortuitous timing with that upload tbh like idk if i would have stuck with the sport to the same extent if i hadn't been able to watch THAT exact race at that exact time. eye opening moment because it's like... the exact stuff i enjoy about tennis, this one-to-one tactically intricate excruciatingly tense psychologically vicious confrontation meets soul exorcism etc etc etc... like even with minimal backstory you watch it and you can TELL how much it matters, the commentary explains why what you're watching is unusual + surprising, what's going on strategically, this role reversal dynamic between the duellists, the emotional stakes of both sides... and then you watch how both parties act after the race like... yes haha yes (sickos). motogp uploading the aborted handshake attempt way back in 2008 changed lives. so obviously i immediately became fond of the surly australian git going :| throughout the post-race proceedings. few things in life i adore more than a sore loser

[hubba1892]

I see what you did there, Brendan Hunt.

[jerswayman]

the only sport i can handle my faves not winning in is formula one and that's simply bc the set up of the sport means you might have a favourite who has NEVER won. that's not rare. so you're kinda conditioned to be disappointed when your fave is at the back of the grid but it's also kind of just a part of the whole experience. it sucks, but that all consuming rage isn't there the way it is with hockey and football and tennis for me.

unfortunately, watching a racist ableist prick win every weekend DOES fill me with an all consuming rage so i cannot, in fact, enjoy even that anymore!

[frauenfootball]

can you recommend some women's football blogs to follow? i'm mostly into liga f and serie a, sometimes wls, but i'll take everything, just to fill my dash with more content about women's football

Hi! I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask this as I follow less than 30 blogs on here and not all of them are women's football blogs 😅 But these are the ones I follow that post football-specific content:

@glimmerofawesome (international football gifs + Chelsea gifs)

@aus-wnt

@nzfootballferns

@itawnt - probably the one most relevant to you

@rubes6 - mostly Barcelona stuff, so also relevant to you judging by your blog name

I've also just followed @nelove22 who posts about the Portugal WNT

There's also @gwnts and @nedwnt but I haven't seen them post in a while

[contritecactite]

American football commentator is pluralizing Chiefs as Chieves and I'm having a Moment about it

[dracolizardlars]

Ok seriously though GG Spain, never really had any hope we could win this one against frickin' Spain and then seeing their current team in action (I only watch England's games so I hadn't seen the Spanish team playing recently) I was like god damn yeah they're on another fucking level. This was fun though, first football tournament I've properly followed since the 2018 World Cup and only the second one I've followed ever. I was coincidentally travelling during both the 2020/1 and 2022 men's tournaments and honestly wasn't even aware the women's Euro in 22 was happening until we got to the final (which I did watch and it was rad as hell). (I've just been doing some googling and apparently I completely and utterly missed the existence of a women's world cup last year as well?)

Time for me to not care even remotely about any team sports again until the women's Euros next year. Would be sick if our team could do well in that again.

Hype for the Olympics next 😄

[cant-get-no-worse]

a scientific reflection on football rivalries

Brothers to ennemies to lovers to ennemies. Wants to kill each other but want to be the one kicking the other’s ass. Latin America solidarity if circomstances happen. Arguing over who gets the guard of the kid (Beautiful Game). Players friends from both sides but will try to break each other’s legs for ninety minutes running. Weirdly intense kids you want to avoid at school but can’t because they’re too loud.

Rivals so old neither of them really remember why they are fighting but it will go on until one country disappears just because. No hate in it, just pure delight in beating the other’s ass for tradition and honour’s sake. Some say the distant call of Medieval horns can be heard faintly in the distance right before games.

Noisy and bickering neighbours refusing to acknowledge the other as the main rival by haughtiness but nevertheless rejoicing in each downfall. Bitterness and accusations flying around. The bushes are too long on your fence and anyways you bought them with the oil money given from the Mayor himself and you shouldn’t even live here and-

Genuine dislike, full hate relationship. Love to insult each other by singing? No salvation. 

Genuine dislike, full hate relationship, but no real physical violence outside of pitch. Just snakes going at it in the institutions and players and fans going at it everywhere else. Political, historical, footballistic imbroglio, an absolute tiring mess. No salvation.

Friendly rivalry turned sour by escalation. Nothing can come back to the way they were, oh the remnants of long lost friendships.

Genuine dislike, full hate relationship, full on physical violence. No salvation. Put each one of the above rivalries to shame. They don’t even hate fuck.

Genuine dislike, physical violence. Two dumpsterfire going at it in the circus.