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You are here: Home / Sports / Denmark v Portugal Open Thread

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26Comments

  3. 3.

    handsmile

    With its shock victory against the Netherlands, Denmark certainly surpassed pre-tournament expectations. The consensus on Portugal, however, in its match with Germany deemed it to be SOP: too much reliance upon and too much taken on by CRonaldo, as well as an inadequate supporting cast of midfielders and forwards.

    Myself I was most surprised that the team committed only 19 fouls with two yellow cards. In order to maintain its international preeminence in outright thuggishness (embodied best by its enforcer Pepe), Portugal must do more against the Danes. And those heels of the mighty Bendtner will be ever so tempting.

    Off-topic (well perhaps not so much given previous threads’ discussions of kvass, cheese puns and kebabs), here’s a football story you won’t see coming out of Italy from its current scandal, “China jails former football bosses in match-fixing crackdown”:
    guardian.co.uk/worl…..sfeed=true

    Two former heads of the Chinese national football association were jailed for 10-1/2 years (!!) for taking bribes in the amount of around $250,000 (i.e., a week’s salary for many EPL players). Four former national team players were also sentenced to up to six years for bribe-taking.

    Another interesting nugget from the article is that China, with an estimated population of 1.35B, has a national team that is ranked by FIFA at 73rd in the world, between Benin and Iraq.

  4. 4.

    J. Michael Neal

    Two former heads of the Chinese national football association were jailed for 10-1/2 years (!!) for taking bribes in the amount of around $250,000 (i.e., a week’s salary for many EPL players).

    This is another reason sports fans shouldn’t whine so much about the high salaries that players receive. If they’re receiving their fair share of the loot, they’re a shitload less likely to fix results.

  6. 6.

    handsmile

    And the mighty, mighty Nicklas Bendtner scores!! Suck on that Arsene, you Dutch-loving Frenchie!

    (of course, from that distance Stephen Hawking could have scored,)

  8. 8.

    flukebucket

    Castelo Branco

    Because it sounds like one of those fine convenience store wines with a twist off lid.

  9. 9.

    catclub

    @handsmile: Go look up the population of Uruguay. – They made it how far in the world cup last time?

    There are lots of population anomalies. The populations of Libya, Ireland and Greece are all about the same order as the population of Alabama or North Carolina, but they get a whole lot more financial/war coverage. North Carolina probably has a larger GDP than any of them.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    @J. Michael Neal:
    I don’t know if I agree. Bribe money from illegal b00kies isn’t generated by the licit side of the game, not selling tickets or TV rights or team merch or commercial endorsements. Theirs is an illegal activity on the periphery of the game; the sport can’t really control it, or where it puts its money, beyond forbidding football people to have anything to do with it.

  12. 12.

    J. Michael Neal

    @Amir Khalid: True, but the illicit side of sports money isn’t large enough to buy off a properly paid athlete. It’s why the dangers of match fixing by athletes (officials are a different matter) have to do with blackmail rather than bribes. There just aren’t enough times that a bookie can offer enough money to an athlete to make it worth jeopardizing his regular paycheck.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    @J. Michael Neal:
    There isn’t enough money in the world for any football club to outbid a gambling syndicate, if a player is greedy enough to want more than his honest pay. The b00kies don’t need to keep a bent player on retainer, anyway; that’s not how they operate. Betting, legal and illegal, revolves more around individual matches than seasons.

  15. 15.

    handsmile

    That sound you just heard was a non-trivial fraction of the world’s population jeering in delight! (CRonaldo shoots wide from about five yards out.)

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    And the Danes come from two goals down to level it with Bendtner’s second headed strike. The first come-from-behind win of the tournament?

  18. 18.

    J. Michael Neal

    Okay, so why wasn’t the correct play for Rinaldo just to chip the ball to his left and then score? The keeper had gone down and there was no way he could have recovered in time. Why take the shot right there?

    And I still need Portugal to win, dammit.

  26. 26.

    handsmile

    Okay, whatever is the Danish version of “humble pie” (a variation on lutefisk perhaps), I’ve earned myself a heaping portion with my repeated mockery of Nicklas Bendtner. His second goal, a commanding header, was a thing of beauty. Longtime fans of Arsenal will understand my impulse, but no more japes about the good Dane. My apologies to Nethead Jay and all other Danish readers. Skoal!

    Breathtaking recovery and strike from Varela for Portugal’s winning goal. Woof!

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