The Weekly Rekrap: You must be this tall to read this week’s post

Ah yes the international break, everyone’s favorite time of the soccer calendar. This was especially great because the Men’s World Cup coming to an end means that Spain winning a game is extra relevant to what they did in Russia and what they will do in all of Europe in 2020 and in Qatar in 2022, for example. It was a big week with beefs, corruption, a weird punishment system, and goals...

Glad that there’s no more corruption in soccer anymore

The Equalizer has the story of the latest women’s national team to demand better treatment by their federation. The Puerto Rico Women’s National Team brought attention to the lack of financial transparency for funds that their team should have received from FIFA. The team has had travel plans cancelled after friendlies were scheduled that may have cost them a chance to move onto Concacaf World Cup Qualifying.

Up the Clood

UEFA is reportedly considering adding yet another international club competition in addition to the Champions League and Europa League. This is following the trend of endlessly adding soccer tournaments and having more soccer that has been gripping the world. This will give clubs like Scunthorpe United, Clood Athletic, and FC Xanthi hope that one day they can play in a meaningful international club competition for the world to enjoy and be enthralled by.

U said wot m8?

Matt Miazga showed that challenging himself at the highest levels can pay off. The several time Chelsea loanee went in on Diego Lainez on Tuesday when the Stars and Stripes and El Tri played a friendly in front of overcharged fans in Nashville.

The internet thought things about it:

Let’s hope he fares a little better than the former Philadelphia Union center back...

I guess you can either be good or be tall?

There was also excellent analysis of the beef...

Joke’s on Lainez, he’ll never know the joy of playing against USV Hercules...

Maybe we’re getting too far ahead of ourselves though...

It’s a friendly, the US won. Yay?

The German wheel of death

Tyler Adams is one of the most exciting players to come out of MLS not to go to Chelsea and be loaned a dozen times to teams nobody has heard of scattered across Europe and he’s headed to Germany. His new club has a novel way of doling out punishments - a punishment wheel of fortune. In honor of wheel of fortune, let’s play a game: the category is ways to describe this idea: S[]UP[]D. I’ll give you a hint, one of those missing letters is a vowel.

What exactly needs to be decided?

Storm of the century? Storm of a lifetime (you know, again since we are all living several lifetimes at once climate-wise now)? Direct hit? But doesn’t the weather know there’s a playoff game between the NC Courage and Chicago Red Stars this weekend? It’s a playoff game, it’s really important. No reason to move quickly to decide to move or re-schedule the game, after all the USWNT is going to be really busy after the NWSL season ends and there shouldn’t be anything to put that in jeopardy like a devastating storm that is causing millions of people to be evacuated.

Goals

Gareth Bale’s goal in something called the UEFA Nations League is pretty sweet.

Here is your FA Women’s Super League Goal of the Month

You should listen to...

Where do you fall on the Football vs Soccer debate? Did you see Green Street Hooligans in your dorm room at University of Wisconsin Fond du Lac and decide that to be a Real and Authentic fan you and everyone else needed to call it Football in order to be taken seriously? Do you read the Stars and Stripes Football Club blog and rage at the writers who call it Soccer? When you are at the pub with your mates do you grip your pint glass menacingly at phonies watching MLS? Or are you so patriotic that you stand in your living room for the national anthem and think that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin didn’t get the French to win our independence for us so that we could have the freedom to spell it honor and neighbor and there’s no way in hell you’d betray your country by calling it anything other than soccer? Well this podcast doesn’t quite get to the bottom of all that noise but it does investigate why pants is a hilarious word in the land of Football but in the land of Soccer it is a garment worn when it is too cold for shorts. Check out the Allusionist episode on English vs. English.