Ahead of Boca-River tonight, a LONG READ thread on River Plate's 2010/11 season: How did a massive club and institution like Club Atlético River Plate get relegated from Argentina's top tier in June 2011?

🇦🇷 #longread (3,000 words)

This thread is based on the fantastic When We Were Kings podcast with the blessing of its creators @ErikNiva & @andreassonhakan. Because the podcast is in Swedish, I wanted to translate the story and share it in English.

Disclaimer: this is NOT a dig at River Plate. My book's title/front cover overwhelmingly suggest that it's exclusively about Boca Juniors - that's not the case. I'm 100% neutral when it comes to Argentinian fútbol. This thread is not written to antagonise River fans!

June 2008. River Plate win the Clausura 2007/08 title (a 19-game half season) with Diego Cholo Simeone as manager. It's their 35th league title! River's attacking players: Radamel Falcao, Alexis Sánchez, Ariel Ortega, Sebastián Abreu, Diego Buonanotte, amongst others.

10/08/2008: The story of River Plate’s relegation in June 2011 starts on 10th August 2008! River Plate draw 1-1 away to Colón de Santa Fe on the opening day of the Apertura 2008/09 - it would be a bad campaign:
P19: W2/D8/L9. Cholo Simeone resigns after 1 win in first 14 games

You wanted it, you got it. The final 2020 QB STEW composite for Josh Allen. I will sit down and do all the NFL QBs soon.

#2 in CPOE
#3 in EPA/play
#5 in ANY/A
#3 in QBR
#4 in passer rating
#3 in DVOA
#5 in PFF grade

STEW score of 3.57. For reference, Wentz in 2017 was 4.71.

The reality of biology in a single clip:

Transwomen are women

I'm not being a jerk, I'm making my point with a sledgehammer.

Pretending differences between men and women don't exist is utterly absurd, and people keep saying it. This ACLU lawyer quite literally says "Women and girls who are trans are biological women and girls."

In 2017 Craid Telfor ranked 390th in the mens 400m hurdles.

In 2018 Craig Telfor transitioned and became CeCe Telfor.

In 2019 CeCe Telfor won the women's 400m hurdles at the Womens Division II National Championship.

In what moral universe is this fair to women?

Renee Richards was a male to female transgender person who at age *45* became the 20th ranked women's player in the world.

Richards now says if the transition had at happened age 22 rather then at 40 no biological women would have had a chance:

The Review: GW 18 - A thread

Hi everyone, welcome to the latest edition of “The Review” where I look at Bench Boost, Triple Captaincy and the upcoming double GW 19 in detail:

#FPL #FPLCommunity @OfficialFPL

(Data taken from @FFScout and @FFH_HQ with consent)

Before I start, I'd like to introduce you to this game called Fantasy5. It’s free to enter, with a £10k weekly prize. All you have to do is to pick 5 players that you think will beat their Fantasy points target. Link

At this point, I’d also like to mention that I post about FPL on my Instagram too, so if you have an Instagram account, follow up here!

Q: Who is the best captaincy option this week and why?

I jump straight away to what is the toughest question of the week. I first try and work out which one of the Liverpool midfielders to own:

(read below)

Salah (20/21) vs Mane (20/21)

Mins per shot inside the box: 33.73 vs 34.15
Mins per big chance: 96.4 vs 111
Mins per big chance created: 224.8 vs 333
Mins per chance created: 49.9 vs 57.9

Even though Mane’s numbers in comparison to his numbers in the yesteryears have...

LATEST VAR STATS THREAD

Overturns: 83
Rejected: 3
Goals: 23
Disallowed: 25
Pens: 19 (4 missed)
-for handball: 8
-overturned: 16
-retakes: 3
Offside goals: 20
Allowed after offside: 5
Disallowed handball: 3
Allowed after handball: 0
Reds: 12
-overturned:

VAR STATS (cont)

Most for: Brighton 8
Fewest for: Arsenal 1
Most against: Liverpool 10
Fewest against: Burnley 0
Most net for: Chelsea, Everton 3
Most net against: Liverpool 5
Most involvement: Man United 15

VAR STATS (cont)

Most goals awarded: Leicester 4
Most goals disallowed: Liverpool 6
Best net goal score: Everton, Sheffield United +3
Worst net goal score: Liverpool -8

VAR STATS (cont)

Most goals to opposition: Brighton, Liverpool, Tottenham, West Brom 3
Most goals disallowed for opposition: Brighton, Tottenham, West Ham 3
Most penalties awarded: Leicester, Sheffield United 3
Most penalties conceded: Brighton, Liverpool, Tottenham 3

VAR STATS (cont)

Most subjective decisions for: Man United 5
Most subjective decisions against: Fulham 5
Best net subjective score: Man United +3
Worst net subjective score: Arsenal, West Brom, Wolves -2

It's 16th of December, 2020. India is standing at the back of an ODI series loss and a momentum shifting win in the t20i series. It's time for the marquee Border Gavaskar trophy. The pink ball test, the boxing day, new year's test and the Gabba Challenge. Are we up for it?

Join me on a special thread where I take you through the series with the journey of the series. We shall look at the playing 11s, the game progressions, special strategies, important moments, standout performances.

Fasten your seat belt or don't, hop on anyway for 46 tweets ☺️

Match 1: Adelaide

Jadeja is injured so Ashwin becomes an easy answer for the tough question of the lone spinner. There are other tough questions as to who should be the 2nd opener, Gill who had good practice game or Shaw who scored a 50 in the last test he played? Pant or Saha?

India is going into the pink ball test with Pace trio Bumrah Shami Umesh. Shaw is opening and Saha keeping. A decision probably taken with the Wicketkeeping ability as the priority

Virat has one the toss and decided to bat. He has never lost a test match after winning the toss

Second ball of the first over and the nightmares turn true as Starc runs through Shaw. Mayank gets out after getting a start and then Virat stitches two gritty partnerships with Pujara and Rahane. Things turn bad only when Virat gets run out on an unfortunate wrong call by Rahane

1) All day long everything that was trending for me was Football related. I only follow politics here so just chocked it up as @ jack suppressing tweets again. Even #LinWood wasn't even showing up on my trends & we all know that's bs. Came across @WhipLash347 tweet so I dug.

Open Letter: “Is this Nate?”

It’s sizzling in my chest, so here it is. I don’t want to hurt the poor guy who called me—probably forced to call me—but it needs to be said. Yesterday, at about 11:00 at night, I got a call from a representative of the Governor’s office.

A nice guy. But last night, this guy wasn't so nice. He told me, with profanity and threatening piñache, that he’s, “not f##cking happy” about a tweet that I sent out. I didn't even know what Tweet he was talking about. But it turns out, he was mad that I criticized the . . .

Governor’s plan to go to the Bills game because only 6.500 people were allowed to go and I felt it reinforced the belief—incorrectly or correctly—that the #COVID restrictions do not apply to elites. Pretty mild, but I’m a team player. If this man had just called me . . .

and told me that I misunderstood the facts, got it wrong, I would have taken the Tweet down. But again, he called me at 11:00 at night. Swearing. Keep in mind, at this point, I’m just a taxpayer. I’m not running for office. I have no more connection to the Governor than you ...

Please put yourself in my shoes. An emissary for one of the most powerful politicians in America called me, late on a holiday evening, looking to take my head off. Disturbing. This isn’t the first time some elite Democrat called me—either directly or indirectly—over the past...

Thread:
Happy Birthday @therealkapildev
Kapil Dev was always present, in every cricket-crazy consciousness of India of my boyhood

#onthisday #cricket

One just had to close one’s eyes & the graceful, lithe run up could be seen, leap before delivery, head tilted to the left, right hand close to the chest left raised in front of the face, and then the left arm extended outwards as the right came around to send down the delivery

All through the 1980s with more cricket being telecast one found almost every cricket pitch, from coaching centres to school games, full of bowling actions that were almost exact replicas of the great man’s. Yes, Indians could bowl pace, successfully, and Kapil had shown the way

Anyone with more than a few paces in his run up seemed to follow in his excellent steps, at least as far as running up to the wicket was concerned. Almost every young lad in the country aspiring to bowl pace at any level of the game emulated the action.

From the early eighties, some occasionally tried to model their run up on Malcolm Marshall, although few managed the pace. One or two made a decent caricature of Imran Khan. But by and large, the template remained uniformly Kapil.

Hyperice, the leading sports recovery company, is set to become the next multi-billion-dollar sports business.

The part you didn't know?

Without Kobe Bryant, it would have never happened.

Time for a thread 👇👇👇

1) Let's start in 2007 — Anthony Katz is a 30-year-old high school teacher and basketball coach in Southern California.

For exercise, he regularly organizes pickup basketball games.

The only problem?

As he got older, the games started to leave him increasingly sore & fatigued.

2) Looking for a way to recover faster & prevent injury, Anthony Katz researched how professional athletes dealt with soreness & fatigue.

"I wanted to get the level of treatment the pros were getting."

A combo of elevation, ice & compression made sense — but ice bags didn't…

3) Despite ice bags being used by athletes all over the world, Anthony Katz saw one glaring issue.

As the ice melts, the bag fills with air — causing it to lose its coldness & compression.

Not to mention, they looked ugly.

Instead, Katz set out to engineer a better solution.

4) In an effort to make his own ice compression wrap, Anthony Katz bought Neoprene from a Huntington Beach wetsuit maker, cut it with a knife, and sewed Velcro to hold the ice bag in place.

But would it work?

Next up — testing & feedback.

THREAD - HANUMA VIHARI'S INSPIRING JOURNEY.

Joined the St.Johns Cricket Academy at the age of 11. And after few days his father passed away. But the next day, Vihari scored 80 in the final and won a school tournament.

VVS was the first of five cricketers who came from St. John’s academy and went on to represent their country followed by Mithali Raj, MSK, Tarun Sai and Hanuma Vihari.

2012 - Picked as a last-minute replacement for the injured Manan Vohra for the 2012 U19 WC. India won the World Cup but he could only score 73 runs in 6 matches.

"That moment I told myself, I would be the first one to play for the national team from this U19 WC squad 2012."
- Hanuma Vihari in Spicy Pitch episode (cricbuzz)

2013 - SRH brought him in the IPL. Vihari opened the bowling as an off-spinner and removed Chris Gayle for just 1, also scored 46* in the same match while chasing and was awarded Man of the match in his 2nd IPL game.
Scored 241 runs in 17 games in IPL 2013, with two MOM.

Analyzing Manchester United’s 3-2 win over Liverpool in the FA Cup through data and tactical analysis: a thread.

#MUFC’s plan was to progress the ball wide through the flanks to find runners and/or switch the players — and it was well executed.

Issues:

(A) Henderson’s ball distribution was not well utilized to find forwards through long balls.

(B) Weak verticality/central presence.

This can be better seen through the territory Manchester United occupied in both halves — although they dominated through the left flank, they progressed well through the right as well.

The height of central presence increased as a result of substitutions: Fred/Bruno.

EXAMPLE: #MUFC’s dominance in the left was seen in multiple formats which include:

(A) Construction of triangles — to cross, create space and perform third-man runs.

(B) Rashford dribbles > cutbacks.

(C) Overlaps from Luke Shaw.

(D) Long balls from deep to find runners.

So how did #MUFC move the ball?

In the first half — they looked to build-up *and* progress to the left flank to create opportunities to exploit #LIV’s high line i.e long balls, overlaps.

Directness improved in the second half with a more dangerous forward presence.

35 years ago today, in Moscow, Russia, "The Italian Stallion" Rocky Balboa defeated "The Siberian Express" Ivan Drago via 15th round knockout in what is still considered one of the greatest wars in combat sports history 🥊

Many questioned Balboa's decision to fight Drago following the death of his friend Apollo Creed during an exhibition bout with the Russian earlier in the year. Balboa was criticised for failing in his duty as a cornerman by not throwing in the towel when Creed was clearly done.

Drago showed no mercy and no remorse for the former heavyweight champion of the world. Creed would pass away in the ring in what is still considered one of the darkest days in boxing history.

It didn't take long for Balboa and Drago to come to terms and agree to throw down but even the press were stunned to learn the date and location at the pre-fight press conference. Christmas day in the Russian capital.

Drago was heralded as the perfect combination of genetics and science, using some of the most state of art training facilities and equipment available at the time. The result was the highest punching power ever achieved by a boxer. A record that still stands to this day.

1/? A thread...Why am I right about certain aspects of strategy, even understanding it better than Nicklaus? Far too often players of past generations hold their playing background out as an appeal to their authority. I did not play on the PGA Tour, why?

2/? I didn't specialize in golf until high school which left my true playing experience far behind my peers. I then transferred schools after my freshmen yr & had to sit out 1.5 yrs. I then played spring my 3rd yr & fall my 4th b4 breaking my leg in Feb my redshirt jr yr

3/? After breaking my leg I didn't touch my clubs for almost 18 months. I got a job in real estate in Dallas after graduating & played golf on my bday (July 4) at Gleneagles in Plano & shot 68. I stewed all night watching fireworks & dreamt of professional golf.

4/? The right blend of emotion from fireworks w/friends, a great round of golf that day, & the perfect amt of beers & I decided I was going to quit & play professional golf. I won my 1st mini tour event six weeks later with 67-68. Following yr I traveled the Hooters Tour w/...

5/? Chad Campbell & Chris Riley & knew I had the physical skills they did but I only won twice on that Tour while Chad won damn near every week. I attributed it to my being an over the top hothead. Truly world class basket case. This is b/c I was a perfectionist & couldn't...

Bruno Fernandes

Player Analysis | A THREAD

An analysis where we look at how Bruno Fernandes, the Portuguese magnifico has revived the confidence of the Red Devils.

(Data accurate till 31st December, 2020)

When Bruno arrived at Old Trafford, @ManUtd was sitting at 5th on the table - six points behind Chelsea and fourteen behind Leicester! The image given below explains why United had to sign the Portuguese and how he turned the table around pretty much single-handedly.

United manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer mostly plays in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Bruno Fernandes as the player behind the striker. At times, Solskjaer has employed Fernandes as the highest central midfielder behind the two strikers in a 4-1-2-1-2 setup.

(Source: @SofaScoreINT )

In general, like most other creative midfielders, Bruno Fernandes tries to occupy the gap in between the opposition’s midfield line and defensive line. He often drifts to both sides as well, to support the wide players.

Semenya is an in­cred­ibly powerful runner from South Africa, a two-time Olympic champion. She has also been the subject of controversy since the beginning of her career over decade ago.

Semenya has an intersex condition, though she doesn’t publicly speak about it: Her body allegedly produces testosterone at a higher level than most women.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that if Semenya wanted to continue to compete, she would be required to take medications to lower it.

The CAS, which was upholding a previous ruling by the @WorldAthletics , admitted that the decision was tantamount to discrimination. But, a statement read,...

“discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics.”

THREAD: Congress & The Football Penalty

Anyone else find it remotely odd that every name mentioned in this article matches one in Congress?

Notice it was published at roughly noon today, 1/11/2021 - this is important and we'll come to back to

2) Let's look at the names listed...

Browns > Anthony G. Brown > Maryland [D]

Baker > Dave Baker > Minnesota [R]

Mayfield > Debbie Mayfield > Florida [R]

Steelers > ref to Steele dossier

3) Joel Bitonio > Joel Fry > Iowa [R]

Cleveland > George Cleveland > North Carolina [R]

Michael Dunn > Neal Dunn > Florida [R]

Blake Hance > Blake Moore > Utah [R]

Peter King > Pete King > New York [R] (just left office on 1/3)

New York Jets > Joe Jett > Arkansas [R]

4) Now that we've got all the names sorted - let's looks at the comms...

emergency offensive

25 years thanks to some real luck > 25th amendment

forced to play > backed in a corner

held up their end of the bargain

late in the game

5) Steelers defenders > Steele dossier defenders

had just met him in the locker room

stepped up in the fourth quarter

documented

arrival

signed off

practice squad

Week 17

within driving distance of Cleveland

regular testing program

signed with a new team > flipped

When we started @CourtsideVC in 2016, the biggest question we faced was "Can you really generate venture returns investing in sports?". 5 years later, we have enough data to share. This is the story of how we turned our passion for sports into a business.
👇👇👇👇 👇 👇

First, some context. When I started my sports analytics software company in 2009, I was unable to raise a single dollar in venture capital. I ended up having to cobble together $10K, $25K and $100K checks from individuals to get things going.

At the time, there were no venture funds focused on this space and generalist VCs simply did not believe in the market size of sports companies. As a result, almost all of them ran to the hills when they heard the word "sports".

Even when we got to ~$10M in recurring revenue, there was nobody knocking on our door to try and give us growth capital to see if we could build something big. Ultimately, this forced us to sell short to private equity guys who destroyed the business.

Fast forward to 2016 and we felt the sports, fitness and gaming markets were on the verge of exploding - these were three places where the next generation was spending its money & yet there were no early stage funds setup to fund these entrepreneurs and strategically open doors.