Accepted truths of football that are wrong

Michael Owen's "wonder goal" against Argentina in France 98. The single most over-rated goal in the history of the World Cup. He only actually attacks and beats two players. It wasn't even the best goal of that GAME - Zanetti's equaliser to make it 2-2 was a fantastic set piece.

The Owen strike was a good goal made even more impressive by the fact he was so young at the time - but it has been in no way deserving of the footballing immortality that has been bestowed upon it.
Behave yourself mate, Owens goal was phenomenal
 
“Got the ball”

This is not, and never has been (in my lifetime at least) associated anywhere in the guidelines of tackling. Or so I’m lead to believe by an ex referee
 
Kenny Dalglish was better than the boy wonder.

What kind of nuts believe that.

Loonies and Liverpudlians only accept this.
 
That Pro Youth is a good idea.

I believe it causes more damage than it does good. Boys should be playing with their Boys Clubs and school teams until the age of 16.

Only then should clubs be permitted to sign a player on some kind of contract. By all means have coaching days and friendlies etc. Boys Clubs and their leagues are being destroyed by having their best players taken away leaving behind boys who believe they aren't good enough when in truth they may only be taking longer to grow physically and mature mentally than others.

Thousands of potential players are being lost this way. Allow them to grow up and play football together and the cream will rise to be taken to the next level by the professional clubs.

Pro Youth was introduced in 1994 and Scotland haven't qualified since 1998. The problem? We have Xbox's now? Nah not for me.
 
Having lived for 8 years in Manchester, all over the city, I concur. It is nonsense.

As for generally accepted truths that are wrong, playing a second leg at home in a two-legged tie is best. Rangers played Bremen away, Sporting away and Fiorentina away second en-route to Manchester and Liverpool player Porto, city and Roma away last year yet also reached the CL final.

How do those examples prove it wrong? If we had played at home second, we may have won every tie by a bigger margin. Exceptions do not prove a rule!
 
Mark Robins saved Alex Ferguson's job by hitting the winner in the FA Cup at Forest.

Martin Edwards has denied it for years that Ferguson's job hinged on that result.
I thought winning the fa Cup that season went a long way to keeping his job.
 
I think it's like something like 1 in every 30 corners taken ends in a goal. You're about as likely to concede from one as you are to score from it.

Absolute fact. Teams in the top 5 leagues in Europe only score from a corner on average once in every 10 games. Source:- A book called The Numbers Game (Why everything you know about football is wrong).
It's a bit heavy but a great read Warburton had obviously read it.
 
A
There's a goal that Owen scores at the start of the following season v Newcastle for the hat trick that was so much better than the Argentina one.

His finish is absolutely exceptional

Agreed that wee dink for the finish is sublime, crespo-esque in the Liverpool final, but for an overall goal, the one versus Argentina for me my friend shades it
 
That if Scotland had beaten Holland by 3 clear goals in Argentina '78 we would definitely have been in the next round. Found out recently that FIFA were holding the right to impose a 2 point penalty on Scotland due to the Willie Johnston episode. They may have imposed it which would have knocked us out in an even more "Scottish" way.
 
"(Insert foreign team name here) can't handle the long high ball and big centre forwards".

Cue 90 minutes of them dealing easily with countless aimless long punts to an immobile big buffoon:)
 
How do those examples prove it wrong? If we had played at home second, we may have won every tie by a bigger margin. Exceptions do not prove a rule!
In the last round Liverpool, Spurs, Man Utd and Ajax all played at home first and that’s just off the top of my head. Happens all too often to be just seen as exceptions.
 
Foreign players can’t play football on a wet Tuesday night in stoke.

Re they Owen goal against Argentina I always felt the defenders backed off him as they knew he’d go down easily. Could be my memory playing tricks mind you
 
In the last round Liverpool, Spurs, Man Utd and Ajax all played at home first and that’s just off the top of my head. Happens all too often to be just seen as exceptions.
But the results if the ties are unknown and therefore have absolutely no bearing on whether it is easier to play away first or second (or no difference).

Pretty much every manager going and in the past that has commented has said it is easier to play away first.
 
But the results if the ties are unknown and therefore have absolutely no bearing on whether it is easier to play away first or second (or no difference).

Pretty much every manager going and in the past that has commented has said it is easier to play away first.
I’m not sure what you mean by your first point bud. It appears to contradict your second? Unless I am
being daft?

I think the benefit is probably far less than people think. A quick look shows plenty of evidence that there is probably little benefit and that the best side generally prevails regardless of the order of the legs.
 
Chopped off is not 'wrong', it is just 'different'. it is still perfectly good English and works the same.
Indeed not. If you're recording scores on a 'chalk board' and got it wrong then it's normal to 'chalk it off'. I'm not sure what sort of cretin you have to be to record scores on a 'chop board' and then 'chop it off'.

You're certainly not someone whose first language is English.
 
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Ron Atkinson is a racist and shouldn't be remembered as being amongst the best co commentators going, and deserves to be ostracised from the game completely.
 
Only head injuries require play to be stopped, this isn’t correct it is solely the referees decision on how serious he thinks an injury is.

Also “last man” fouls, but that seems to be dying out thankfully.

There’s tonnes of rules commentators and pundits get wrong regularly, the basic refereeing course should be a requirement you’d think for anyone actually paid to talk about the sport.

I’ve only heard this as: a referee only has to stop the game for a head injury. I.e. no matter how little, whereas everything else is his judgement.
 
I’m not sure what you mean by your first point bud. It appears to contradict your second? Unless I am
being daft?

I think the benefit is probably far less than people think. A quick look shows plenty of evidence that there is probably little benefit and that the best side generally prevails regardless of the order of the legs.

It is clumsily worded :D I will try to explain a little better. Naming teams who have won ties with the second leg away does not contradict the thought that they are harder. It could mean that those teams played particularly well to overcome the negative. A side winning after a first leg at home is not evidence that the assertion is wrong, it simply means that side won a game.

Again, the managers who say it makes a difference are most likely speaking from experience rather than rolling out a cliche and if 2 sides are reasonably similarly matched, the benefit would be more obvious.
 
Indeed not. If you're recording scores on a 'chalk board' and got it wrong then it's normal to 'chalk it off'. I'm not sure what sort of cretin you have to be to record scores on a 'chop board' and then 'chop it off'.

You're certainly not someone whose first language is English.


Chopping something is, reasonably obviously, cutting something off it. Something like a score in a football match. To Chop is the verb, not a noun, in this case. Being a professor of English, you will obviously know that.

What an absolutely moronic post :D
 
It is clumsily worded :D I will try to explain a little better. Naming teams who have won ties with the second leg away does not contradict the thought that they are harder. It could mean that those teams played particularly well to overcome the negative. A side winning after a first leg at home is not evidence that the assertion is wrong, it simply means that side won a game.

Again, the managers who say it makes a difference are most likely speaking from experience rather than rolling out a cliche and if 2 sides are reasonably similarly matched, the benefit would be more obvious.
Ok, that makes sense.

I always used to think it made sense but increasingly I am not so sure as there are so many examples of sides winning after playing at home first. It feels like there has been a bit of a shift in mindset in recent years. If you were at home first, years ago the mindset was ‘let’s put it to bed in the first leg,’ however now a lot of sides think ‘start with a clean sheet and even a narrow win is decent.’

Would probably need to do a broader research over a longer period to see whether the advantage is borne out or not?
 
Ok, that makes sense.

I always used to think it made sense but increasingly I am not so sure as there are so many examples of sides winning after playing at home first. It feels like there has been a bit of a shift in mindset in recent years. If you were at home first, years ago the mindset was ‘let’s put it to bed in the first leg,’ however now a lot of sides think ‘start with a clean sheet and even a narrow win is decent.’

Would probably need to do a broader research over a longer period to see whether the advantage is borne out or not?

I'm not sure it is something that could ever be proven. Man UTD winning in Paris as an example, would contradict the 'rule' and lean the stats in one particular way but it does not account for any other factor such as injuries, mistakes, referee mistakes, poor form, bad substitutions etc etc. You would need a sample of 2 teams playing each other home and away time after time with the same line up to even start to get data. I guess you could get a broad perspective by looking at ties over a number of years, looking at team form, relative league strength etc etc and see if there was a link but really, why bother? If there is a benefit, it is not necessarily a huge one anyway!
 
Chopping something is, reasonably obviously, cutting something off it. Something like a score in a football match. To Chop is the verb, not a noun, in this case. Being a professor of English, you will obviously know that.

What an absolutely moronic post :D
You can try and defend it all you like. The idiom is based on 'chalking' rather than 'chopping'. That you confuse the terms is very much to your demerit. I suspect it's a common flaw for English learners.
 
You can try and defend it all you like. The idiom is based on 'chalking' rather than 'chopping'. That you confuse the terms is very much to your demerit. I suspect it's a common flaw for English learners.
What are you gibbering on about? The idiom is chalking off a goal. Well done. Using the word chop to describe, well, chopping, is also fine. That is all I said and that is 100% correct. That you fail to grasp that very basic and very obvious concept, yet still feel empowered to question intelligence in others says far more about you than any verbose rant I could put on a message board. So, that being said, I will leave you alone and allow your stupidity to speak for you.
 
“Penalty shootouts are a lottery”

No they aren’t. The more you practice penalties, the better you get. The more the entire team practice penalties, the better the team will be at shootouts.
 
Thanks. Let's park this before you make even more of an arse of yourself.

Go back to my very first post. Pay close attention to the words in parentheses then drop me a wee pm with an apology. I have not at any point said anything other than using the word chopped is not wrong, it is different. It is saying the same thing (a goal disallowed) in a different way. It is not someone trying to say chalked off and getting it wrong, it is someone saying something else entirely, something that is perfectly valid English.

Once you have re read the post that bunches up your little girl pants, you might be able to see that. My breath shall not be held.
 
That Pro Youth is a good idea.

I believe it causes more damage than it does good. Boys should be playing with their Boys Clubs and school teams until the age of 16.

Only then should clubs be permitted to sign a player on some kind of contract. By all means have coaching days and friendlies etc. Boys Clubs and their leagues are being destroyed by having their best players taken away leaving behind boys who believe they aren't good enough when in truth they may only be taking longer to grow physically and mature mentally than others.

Thousands of potential players are being lost this way. Allow them to grow up and play football together and the cream will rise to be taken to the next level by the professional clubs.

Pro Youth was introduced in 1994 and Scotland haven't qualified since 1998. The problem? We have Xbox's now? Nah not for me.

I'd add the scrapping of the old reserve leagues to that as well.
 
“Penalty shootouts are a lottery”

No they aren’t. The more you practice penalties, the better you get. The more the entire team practice penalties, the better the team will be at shootouts.

There is definitely an element of luck involved though. You could hit a near perfect shot into the corner but the keeper dives early and saves it, then the next player could scuff it down the middle and it ends up in the net. Then you add in the pressure the players are under depending on the magnitude of the match and it's anyone's game.

I remember watching Trezeguet taking a penalty for Juve against Milan (I think) in the Champions League final and you could tell straight away he was going to miss. He looked genuinely terrified as he walked up to the penalty spot. I think he might've missed a big penalty for France in a shootout as well before.
 
Regarding the chalked/chopped off debate.
I hate hearing this being used, let's use McGregor at Ibrox in December as an example, when it clearly wasn't a disallowed goal.
He was flagged offside, the ref blew for a free kick and that was it.
That he puts the ball into the goal afterwards is of no consequence.
Would we have had a goal kick disallowed if he put it past the post?
 
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