Fifa 98 GOAT

I'll be happy to run that if it EA follows through. But knowing EA I'll be shocked if it can be fully customized. Unless they allow me to pick all the teams (not just one to control) and to set all of the groups based on actual, it won't work. The career mode is really crappy/unrealistic in certain ways, like you will be the leading scorer by a wide margin and can't get a decent transfer, the team you carried from EFL League 2 all the way to EPL still won't buy decent supporting players, etc, so I'm not expecting much.

Preliminary Brazil squad

That’s already the official 23. I only have a problem with Fagner and Taison in that list.

Is Rafinha from Bayern terrible? Because with Alves’ injury Tite decided to take Danilo from City and Fagner who plays for Corinthians and his own fans think he is bad.

Oh, apparently I can't count.

Rafinha seems decent but not anything special, but with Bayern players it's often hard to tell because they play in so few competitive games.

I'm a bit offended they didn't take the GÖAT ÖAT Naldo. Where is Geromel playing these days? Last I saw of him was getting relegated with Cologne.

Where's Alex Sandro?

Didn't their manager already say his starting 11 are *googles it*

In Feb he said - Alisson, Miranda, Alves, Marcelo, Marquinhos, Paulinho, Renato Augusto (who?), Casemiro, Coutinho, Jesus and Neymar

Renato Augusto used to be awesome for Leverkusen but that was in ~2010.

Ah right, he's playing in China now. Maybe a bit of the paulinho about him?

I just noticed as well that the photo accompanying the article has Ederson in the team.

This is the starting line up for Brazil except for Alves who is injured. Some players in danger of losing their positions are:

R.Augusto to Fernandinho
Marquinhos to Silva
Jesus to Firmino

Willian is a supersub and should get a lot of playing time.

Geromel is killing it in Brazil for Gremio. They won the libertadores last year and he was probably the only player who was actually good against Real in the CWC.

Alisson is def the starting keeper not Ederson.

Tite likes him but Brazil is stacked for LB’s and he decided to go with F.Luis and Marcelo

Rumours that Petersen made the cut instead of Wagner. We'll see about that in a bit.

It's true!

Tor: Bernd Leno (Bayer Leverkusen), Manuel Neuer (FC Bayern), Marc-André ter Stegen (FC Barcelona),Kevin Trapp (Paris St. Germain)

Abwehr: Jerome Boateng (FC Bayern), Matthias Ginter (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Jonas Hector (1. FC Köln), Mats Hummels (FC Bayern), Joshua Kimmich (FC Bayern), Marvin Plattenhardt (Hertha BSC), Antonio Rüdiger (FC Chelsea), Niklas Süle (FC Bayern), Jonathan Tah (Bayer Leverkusen)

Mittelfeld/Angriff: Julian Brandt (Bayer Leverkusen), Julian Draxler (Paris St. Germain), Mario Gomez (VfB Stuttgart), Leon Goretzka (Schalke 04), Ilkay Gündogan (Manchester City), Sami Khedira (Juventus Turin), Toni Kroos (Real Madrid), Thomas Müller (FC Bayern), Mesut Özil (FC Arsenal), Nils Petersen (SC Freiburg) Marco Reus (Borussia Dortmund), Sebastian Rudy (FC Bayern), Leroy Sané (Manchester City), Timo Werner (RB Leipzig)

Lol @ taking 4 goalies in the preliminary squad. I'm not sure they've done that before? It's just for Neuer, in case he's not fit in time.

Pretty standard stuff, I think Kruse deserves it but he's not really fitting Löw's agenda, so no surprise there. As well as Götze and Schürrle not being included, even with Gnabry and Stindl out.

I honestly don't get why people care about who's the third keeper or fifth CM. Like, I think Can is slightly better than Rudy, but does anyone honestly think that decision moves the needle much?

The Xi will be something like
Keeper
Kimmich-Boateng-Hummels-Hector
Khedira-Özil-Kroos
Reus-Werner-Müller

Maybe Draxler, Gündogan or Sané get in. But it's a strong squad either way.

Good point but where's the banter then?

.

up for this and fantasy

Yeah, Petersen instead of Wagner also makes sense as he prefers the quiet characters...

For anyone heading to Russia this summer, the argentine football association has published some helpful information:

OK so re. this:

i) What buyin? I'd like to go w twenty quid to make a bigger prize pool is that better than ten?

ii) I'd like to offer it to my irl friends. And maybe play myself. So I'd need someone who isn't playing to take control of an email address I'll create (i.e change the password) until all submissions are accepted. (The submission form will look like this or similar.) Is that cool? Should I run a separate one for my friends?

iii) Anyone want to volunteer to assist me with writing the questions? Just looking for one of two people to run things by.

I can help with questions.

I ran a similar comp for the Olympics and one each year called Ash's Tipsters for 100 questions for the upcoming 12 month cycle of sport. Things like world cup winner longest unbeaten in aussie rules football etc...

Give me an hour or two tomorrow and Il send across a prelim list...

Best thing is to make it 10 points a question no matter what and to collect all entries a few days before collecting answers. Strategy with 5 entries is a lot different to 40 entries (with 5 you want to sheep all the time, 40 is spot to YOLO it up).

Good questions include

- first team to score 4 goals in a game
- first team to concede a penalty
- total tournament red cards
- earliest goal (0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, 81-100, 101-120, 121+ seconds)
How many points will X team get in the group stage
Which team will concede the most goals for the group stage.
How many goals for Messi
Result of Portugal vs Spain (draw, Portugal by 1, Portugal by 2+ etc...)
Etc... with good questions being spread over the tournament and not just resolved at the end.

Obv the fact a unique correct scoring 10 and a sheep answer scoring maybe 1 or 2 is the key

Don't see a reason why you shouldn't play or your friends shouldn't get involved as long as it's transparent. Wasn't an issue with ash's olympic game. It's your choice, of someone thinks you're trying to scam them out of 20 quid they're free to not play.

(Also: in)

Will be in for any world cup gambling