Sova

That Grealish goal. Liquid football.

The Mackems aren't exactly taking a 'nothing to see here' stance: https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/nufc-aug-oct-21-and-sportwashing-takeover-edition-all-nufc-stuff-in-here.1557357/page-637

True. On the other hand, it's miles from Newcastle, so that probably doesn't mean anything anyway.

It's in Derbyshire, but it's closer to Sheffield.

We're also 15th for all-time seasons in the top flight (down from 12th the last time we were there).

To be fair, this wasn't our decision. We applied to join the FL, but were rejected.

But not enough! (replying to Salmonbones's post!)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!! Great final

5,000 - not bad at all.

That 66-67 season... We followed that run by going 10 games in all competitions without a win and conceding in all of them! Indeed, we conceded in each of our next 13. But perhaps that wasn't so surprising - even though only 2 teams went down that season, 3 of those 4 games were against a side that ended up relegated, because we played Villa twice.

He's made the final. Good luck, Peter!

5 goals in the last 18 league games.

Fanfeckintastic. Literally just turned it on. Unless Birmingham have signed a shedload of fantastic new players since the start of last season, this is, on paper, one of their easiest games too.

I think 5 minutes is too short for the sin-bin period. I'd like to see something like a team-based red card or sin-bin as well - so once a team has picked up a certain number of yellow cards, they have to take a man off (permanently or temporarily).

Once it got to extra time, certainly, we had to keep Kane on in case it went to penalties. But we could have made other substitutions! We did the same against Denmark as well - just 1 in normal time, and just 4 overall. Against Germany, we made just 2. Against Ukraine, on the other hand, when we had the match sewn up 5 minutes after half-time, we made our 5th substitution in the 73rd minute - which of course is fine: you want to rest players. But the general pattern doesn't seem to be that of a manager comfortable with making proactive substitutions. Southgate mentioned upsetting the shape - but teams change their shape all the time; England themselves have started with different formations in the tournament. If he didn't want to make changes in 90 minutes, surely he could have made more in extra time? I also found our reported method of choosing the penalty-takers hard to agree with, especially if Rashford wasn't fit enough to make a proper contribution.

I agree. They're so teddyous.

Quite. Statistically, going first is an advantage, so we were unlucky there. With penalties at a saveable height, there's an element of luck. But missing the target isn't unlucky. And slamming one in like Kevin Pressman isn't lucky. In any case, we had the opportunity to make sure it didn't go to penalties last night. We were the better team in extra time - why couldn't we have brought on some fresh legs and gone for it?

Went on to score loads of goals in the Norwegian lower leagues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Lekaj Here's a recent profile of him: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.gjoviklyn.no/2021/06/tett-pa-rocky-lekaj/

Yes - best team in the tournament, best team on the night. Well done Italy. But really - all the times we've lost penalty shootouts to teams who seemed to never miss - the one time a team misses a couple, we do even worse.

So, so true...

How can you score just 2 out of 5 penalties? Got to say - I was surprised Saka was up for the 5th - surely a more experienced player could have taken it?

It was pretty rubbish, wasn't it? But if we win tonight, I won't care if the game is even worse. Incidentally, because the Copa America hasn't always been taken seriously by various sides, Messi now has 1 more win in the competition than a whole host of greats, including Pele and many other legends from Brazil (they failed to win it between 1949 and 1989) and Maradona and many other legends from Argentina (they failed to win it between 1959 and 1991).

This is on BBC 1 tonight. If you don't fancy staying up, you can watch it tomorrow morning via https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/categories/sport/featured

The Spaniards complaining there seem to have forgotten that they hosted a group stage where their three opponents had to shuttle between Seville and St Petersburg, not to mention Switzerland's unfortunate red card in the QF.