What a different time. Now when kids head the ball, most of the parents cringe. I must admit I’m one of them. When there’s a high kick–that is a ball that’s been booted high–I just say to myself, “Please don’t head it. Please don’t head it.”
-xtien
I don’t really follow football but that was a great story and, wow, what an incredible goal from Gazza and a remarkable pic of the bloodied captain. Thanks for sharing.
@ChristienMurawski Sheffield Wednesday (and United) are one of my local teams. In fact I’ve only just got back from Sheffield tonight!
Mr. Bismarck, I haven’t played a FIFA game since '13, but your posts are making me want to go buy the latest one. I wish American sports gave more opportunities to describe something as a “thunderbastard.”
Your posts also reminded me of this amazing series of Football Manager AARs. It’s quite a long read, but worth it, IMO. I highly recommend it to anyone reading this thread.
The Pro Vercelli chronicles are probably my favourite writing about FM. It’s a great series. “When it comes to judging player ability, the difference between Walter Colombo and a six-month-old baby is that Walter is under contract through 2013.” is a great line.
So for a time while playing this game, my son’s team goalie was Jordan Pickford.
Whenever I would watch him play, or see the recap of his goals–at the end of a match my son always wants me to see the goals and saves replayed–I’d say, “Wow, that Mary Pickford is really something.”
“Why do you keep calling him Mary?”
“Isn’t that Mary Pickford? Famous actress from the days of yore?”
“Stop it.”
Fast forward to today. My son is on his 8th grade trip and they are at the Capital Library in Washington, DC. He sent me this picture just now:
My boy.
-xtien
:-) Awesome! Both the modern parenting approach of adding some culture to a football game and his way of picking it up. Well done!
This is adorable.
I suspect Pickford is going to be England’s #1 during the upcoming World Cup, so now my brain is going to call him “Mary” every time he touches the ball.
Can I do the text dump thing again?
I hope so, because I recently had my favourite season in FIFA17.
In 2022/23 we’d won La Liga, just barely outlasting Barcelona by two points while Real Madrid had an off-year and finished fourth, but it was the following season that was my favourite.
In the off-season Atletico had sold my regular attacking partner, so I was now going to be paired with Adelberto Penaranda - a silly man with sillier hair - who would slowly drive me insane over the course of the season.
Penaranda wasn’t really bad or anything, it was worse than that. He would miss easy chances for far post tap-ins, then dance around two players at the edge of the box and curl a shot with his wrong foot into the top corner. He took over my role as designated penalty taker and would slam low bullets into the corners, but then trailing 1-2 against Barcelona he tried some golf-wedge ultra-Panenka and scuffed the shot over the bar, consigning us to defeat.
With Penaranda in the team I became a much more selfish player, because I quickly tired of watching him take perfect passes and turn them into inexplicable misses. Eventually I turned the in-game commentary off altogether, because I couldn’t listen to them crow on again about his mistakes.
As a result, Atletico kind of fell apart for a while. We slumped as low as sixth before Christmas and it was apparent very early that we weren’t going to be defending our crown. Although we improved in the new year there was no way Barca and Real were going to lose enough games for us to catch them, so we turned our attention to the cups.
In the Champions League we won our group then squeaked past Manchester United in the first knockout round. We were in a poor run of form before the next round where we’d meet Arsenal, but the Gunners proved to be good for what ails ya as we won 4-0 in London and 6-1 overall.
That took us to the semi-final and Juventus, where both games ended 1-1. This meant extra time and both teams scored there too, which meant we were going to go out on away goals. We pushed forward to find a winner, only to get done on the break for a 3-4 defeat.
Juventus would beat PSG in the final.
With the cups in mind, the story of the season for me was really defined by two headers.
As defending Champions we opened our season with the Spanish Supercup against Bigger Madrid and after we took an early lead Anthony Martial decided to take over and he scored twice to put the bad guys ahead 2-1.
I really hate losing to Real, so with 90 minutes on the clock in what’s essentially a pre-season game I’m still sprinting about the field trying to win tackles in my own half, but when I do win the ball back on our left with 90+4 on the clock, I’m not expecting too much…
It’s a pretty gentle header, but the shout I gave there rattled the teacups and only got louder when we scored three times in extra time to win the first pot of the year, 5-2.
Then all the way at the end of the season, in the very final game, we came up against Real again in the Spanish Cup Final. This was our last chance to win something and we had clawed back from an early Martial goal to tie the game up with seven minutes to play and force extra time again.
In the last minutes of the first half of extra time I muscled onto the ball into the Madrid area and then got chopped down to win a penalty that Yannick Carrasco scored. Then, with exactly two seconds left in the season…
That is a proper Scottish header right there.
We were third in the league, out in the semi-finals of the Champions League and winners of the Spanish Cup. I had already decided it was time to move on from Atletico after this season, so to finish with a belting header like that against Real seemed like a great way to sign off.
I want to go back to England and win the Premier League and pick up the Champions League trophy too, but ultimately the goal remains to get Scotland into an international tournament knockout game.
Because I am pissing folks off lately (sorry, my bad!) I’m going to try to make up for it with the greatest sports twitter thread of all time.
Sywell Football Club, or A Story in Three Acts.
There. Can we all be friends again?
Vowels come at you fast.
Fat thumbs and GPS will be the end of all of us.
I love that term. “A Pretty Gentle Header” could be so many things, from a Billy Elliot kind of warm-hearted movie, to a weird name for an English breakfast, to a strangely translated foreign adult film.
I think my kid just won the Premier League with Leeds, against Chelsea. He tied the last game against second place Chelsea. Then they scored two, and his left back, Kieran Tierney, scored twice to give him nine for the season. He was up on points and got the trophy. Then sent me the celebration video.
Did I miss something?
-xtien
Did I miss something?
-xtien
[/quote]
Nah.
Well I still love you, Chris.
My dad is from Hendon, not Hundon.
It should be noted that both @triggercut and @Chappers are Tottenham fans. Isn’t Tottenham’s nickname “The English Diving Club”?*
*I kid of course. Just sad they will probably finish above Liverpool.
I think you have us confused @marquac , we are purveyors of the beautiful game. You should be happy, you just made the Champion’s league semi finals at @Richard_Holt 's expense.
Really, is it too much to ask that we win something? It’s true, money can’t buy happiness.