Rob2012

Making Measles Great Again Meanwhile...

Jamaica miss out on automatic qualification, Dick Advocaat just ended Steve McLaren. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c04gwqvlvqqo "Not even a pre-match speech from Usain Bolt could inspire them." (I guess the headline should really be that Curacao have reached the world cup!)

You couldn't make this game up. Amazing. Well done Scotland.

Honestly, I don't know what the noise I just made was watching this was...something like a high pitched squeal mixed with a laugh... Take a bow Scott McTominay.

Watching Scotland v Denmark, if Scotland win they're through. EDIT: You're shitting me, what a goal that was 3 mins in!

They're in the play-offs. I think the draw for those is Thursday. I had to look up how this works... The draw in Switzerland will comprise of 12 teams who finished second in their qualifying groups [one of those being Italy] and the four best ranked Nations League group winners who missed out on top two finishes in their groups. Just four European World Cup spots are up for grabs, with nations playing two knockout matches in order to qualify. More @ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp3xr7kxgqno

Brilliant...

And England complete the clean sweep in Albania. Not the trickiest qualification group, but finishing it Played 8, Won 8, Goals For 22, Goals Against 0 is very nice indeed.

Everything being adidas or nike is boring. Can't we go back to the days when national teams had some local sportswear manufacturer making their kits? Is Diadora still a thing? Anyway Republic Of Ireland and ex-Spurs man Troy Parrott just done a madness and beaten Hungary in the last minute to reach the playoffs!

Going to be odd having athletics right off the bat, as it were. Gives them space to experiment with the scheduling even more. Athletes seem to be on board with it too, so all good!

A brand/look based heavily around words is kind of cool and a brave idea (see the vid that goes with it), but I can't say I love the logo. See also the venue icons in this vid here, which I like a lot more. I think at this point we're resigned to generic. Looks like that's the direction FIFA and UEFA want to go in (see Euro 20,24 and 28 logos and world cup 26 logo). Emphasise the trophy/the governing body, de-emphasise the host nations in the design.

Anyway, I'm going to disagree with some here. These '26 venue pictograms are awful. Indistinctive squiggles, hard to tell apart from one another, I don't think they'll be any good functionally (certainly not from any kind of distance), and they only look 'ok' aesthetically. It's been quite a mixed bag in terms of design for these Games so far. Some really good things, other things not so great.

I can't remember this at all in London. Maybe they did exist but they weren't very prominent. Obviously Paris did away with the human figures so kind of had 'venue' like pictorgrams anyway. But this new set for the upcoming Winter Games is the first time I think I've seen a proper separate set released just for the venues. EDIT: Ah yes, there were some little pics on some of the signs, but they hadn't stuck in my mind at all. Completely functional design, nothing special, forgotten they were a thing!