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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3925 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Do you think that the 3d place match should be abolished? We got a farce this year and it is additional humiliation ritual for teams that are already pissed off at the universe.

No, I found it oddly satisfying that England won third place in a goal bonanza match where Mbappé was the eventual Golden Boot winner and still that didn't mean France won the World Cup.

I don't want football (soccer) to end up like some boring American sport where points are artificially inflated and the entertainment consists of getting out your slide rule for esoteric calculations on who has the best average whatever scoring ratio to three decimal points, not from the "take a break every ten minutes so we can sell TV ads and you need fifteen specialised positions where someone might only play five minutes in a game because they're the designated 'kick the ball from this particular spot on the field, now go back to the bench' player" type of play that I've seen in American football (football) matches.

No. I think we should do everything we can to preserve rituals in sport that honor all competition and fighting for every single spot, rather than the "Championship or Bust" mentality that has destroyed the NBA and is eating away at the NFL and MLB.

Oh man, I laughed so hard at the "this is why black people were cheering against the Argentinians" article I read online, because it was by some "who the heck are you?" writer whose entire expertise seemed to be that once upon a time he played in basketball. Tell me you've all heard of Etan (no "h", sic) Thomas, the famous ex-basketball player? 😁

My admittedly unkind reaction was "you're just salty that globally even a yak herder up a Mongolian mountain knows who Messi is, while in the USA itself does anyone outside your own family know you used to play professional sports?"

That's one thing I really hate about what the playoff is doing to college football. As bad as the BCS system was, it meant that an awful lot of teams who weren’t the best could end a season on a massive high note.

This year's was wonderful, and not just because England won. We got a great, flowing game without the pressure, we got to see some beautiful goals, the story of the match (4 down, recovered, ended 6-4). Way better than England vs. Argentina or Spain vs. Argentina.

(Although I also think Argentina just play in a way that doesn't fit the spirit of the game.)

It got Mbappe the golden boot and it’s consistently one of the better games of the tournament. This year was a really good game for watching.

More importantly it deprived Messi of the golden boot, which in turn muted all the pundits who had been falling over themselves in their race to beatify him.

Is this not the primary reason to get rid of it? Those awards should go to the person who earned it NOT the person running up stats in an exhibition game.

To be fair to Messi, he had an amazing cross in the final, nearly scoring from the corner of the pitch. I'd never actually seen a football turn a right-angle in midair before.

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