Raymond Anderson4 started this thread; I was actually planning on doing the same thing earlier this morning.
I got the idea while thinking about this year's handball World Championship. Everyone keeps talking about how Balica beats the Norwegians, or how he outmaneuvers Karabatich with his dribbling, or how he just runs without breaking a sweat... but where does Kopljar fit into all that?😁
Sean Gonzalez95 said:Yeah, being uncoordinated out of pure fear and staying frozen like that—it's got nothing to do with intelligence.😂 Look, think whatever you want. Personally, I value my own observations and what I actually saw on the court more than anything else. Most of you have nothing to lose by claiming Kopljar will never be a top player—it's easy to play general after the battle is over.
What do I actually gain by saying this about him? It’s not like it puts any money in my pocket.
I have no reason to doubt you. You see this in other sports too. Teammates swear these guys are absolute wizards during practice, only to watch them crumble under the pressure once the lights come on. None of them ever actually make a career out of it. Maybe under a massive "if" or a big "eventually"—a psychiatrist might help. If you're a total pushover at heart, you'll just fold like a cheap lawn chair the moment the spotlight hits you. Might be better to play without the safety net.
Since Goluza is such a visionary and a preeminent expert who certainly won't allow the street or this forum to dictate his roster decisions, I suppose I’ll just appreciate Kopljar playing at least one decent half. To the satisfaction of all the fans in Poland...
I can only hope Slafko pulls another surprise out of his magic hat. The defensive schemes based on Goluza's brilliance will likely be studied in handball academies for years. How opponents slice right through our 6-0 defense, or how we fail to create an advantage even when playing with a man up—that'll be a specialized course at kinesiology departments in countries that actually care about the sport. Those focused on offensive plays will probably complain again about how a team this tactically literate can't capitalize on a numerical advantage, instead finishing attacks right through the middle. I'm genuinely curious what our conversion rate is when playing with an extra man, how often we actually exploit it, and specifically how our stats look against heavy hitters like Denmark, Sweden, or Mexico...
Anyway, I'm hoping for a win, but given the performance we showed against the "heavier" teams, the mental state of the players on the court—not to mention the coaching staff—we don't have much reason to be optimistic.
And honestly, how much long-term optimism can one have with this GG duo and their questionable intentions?
It was obvious from the jump that Argentina can't function without Lionel Messi, Javier Zanetti, and Sergio Agüero.😁
A win like this was necessary to rebuild some confidence. It also proves just how much power our hellish Goluz boys cowboys have, considering we won by two goals despite playing almost the entire match without Kopljar.
I also hope Alilovic didn't go ahead and make all the saves for the entire second half tonight.
Lisa Ward52 said:Hong is out. Blecic is handling the seniors now, while Lydia is coaching the women's bronze medalists, the Zubcicke. And I suppose they all hold degrees from Harvard or Yale—whichever sounds more impressive to you. 😁
There’s really no point in obsessing over the odds, but I suppose I’ll subject myself to one more round of masochism.
I am genuinely unsure if we are looking at personal branding—either Blankin's, Joskov's, or both—or if this is strictly about sports marketing. Or perhaps there is some other unknown factor X at play here.
Janica is an absolute legend and a titan of sport. She’s the gold standard, the kind of athlete you describe as "in a league of her own." Arguing otherwise is pointless—for us, it's just an established fact. Ante managed to pull off this whole family skiing project. He basically collected every medal under the sun while single-handedly promoting a sport we’ve historically struggled with—if you'll excuse the euphemism, we never really had anyone who could handle a slope steeper than 3%. He's probably the coach of all coaches. At least in my book. He probably deserves an award of his own at this point... for coaching achievements, success, sheer persistence.
Medjugorje—once again, I find myself convinced that it is. Last year. HOO penalized the duo Vlasic-Marinovic. Technically, everything was done "by the book," but as it turns out... analogowl122 He proved it quite clearly—the rules seem to have been drafted by someone with a highly questionable sense of integrity.
And again—for the umpteenth time—I don't get why people keep downplaying Blanka's achievements (and by extension, the Vlasic/Marinovic duo). This woman has fewer losses in two years than most of the "distinguished" politicians in the Beautiful USA. Apparently, that’s an unforgivable flaw.
I don't know how long anyone could survive outside of Sparrow trying to interpret Janica's or Ivica's undeniable success in the same way they constantly devalue Blanka... That would probably look something like this...
Janica. Now comes the mockery. You can certainly call it success. But let’s be honest about her competition. She only had that one heavy-set Svedjanka who would have practically fainted just seeing our Jane at the starting line—assuming she could even crawl to the start herself, given how she was constantly battling those gut issues and every virus under the sun. What kind of sport is it where you already know who the winner is? Or rather, the circle of winners... any resemblance to Blanka's field of competitors is purely coincidental. It doesn't exist.)
Ivica. What a joke. You have to admire the success. Despite all that money, the Austrians, Germans, and everyone else acting like occupiers can't break our Sljemenski Decko, who trains at Niagara Falls just as hard as he does in the snow. It makes you wonder how talented all those Germans, Austrians, and Scandinavians actually are. Obviously, if you have any real talent, you stick to football or handball; skiing is clearly just a hobby for the untalented bourgeoisie. And what about Ante’s role in all this? He isn't even a coach—he's more of a glorified equipment manager. Lino Cervar was right when Gypsum previously called him a circus act instead of a trainer. He'd probably be better suited fixing skis than coaching. Anyway, let's just put on some Magazin and move on.
As for the bickering between these two geniuses—they could be whatever they want. Honestly, some people might not even pick them to be godfathers, or might even avoid grabbing coffee with them altogether. Yet, they managed to develop and produce world champions. Right at the start of this thread—links have been posted, so anyone who can actually read and isn't struggling with the alphabet can see that Gypsum kicked things off by disparaging the sports coming out of our two major institutions in the context of competition. Actually, Vlašić carried himself with far more class than Gypsum did throughout this whole ordeal—regardless of what some people might claim. He wasn't trying to push anyone away, nor was he bashing skiing. He just had issues with how HOO sets their criteria. Later, he suggested that in international competitions, Blanka holds more weight than Ivica—which, frankly, wasn't even true. As for that whole "racist" undertone people are digging up regarding his comment about athletics being a global sport compared to skiing... if some people are reading racial bias into that, it says more about the quality of the interpreter than it does about Vlašić.
By December, I’m hoping the HOO starts paying even closer attention to the details. In a non-Olympic year, they should really weigh things more carefully when deciding on awards—balancing between two-time World Cup winners in slalom and overall titles, high jump world record holders (maybe someone hitting 2.11 like back in 2011), shot put champions, or even World Cup handball players and their coaches. Just thinking about all the drama that would cause.😁
Anthony Jackson2 said:Kudos to Blanka and Joško Vlašić, but I'm siding with Gypsy here.
First off, even Blanka herself—and especially her uncle—are incredibly, deeply unlikable to me. They both seem far too full of themselves, which isn't a quality I particularly enjoy in people. 🤷
Dederti, why don't you just tell us who has better assets—Ivica or Blanka? Then we can end this debate before the moderator shuts the thread down.
pc_arche said:Blanka has about 1,000 times more competition than Ivica. Just because she dominates doesn't mean the field is weak. It just means she's good. And if she wins gold after skipping over 202, it doesn't mean her opponents were just seven or eight mediocre jumpers.
Exactly. It seems Blanka's dominance is also her curse. I get the feeling she might find it easier to prove her worth if she started "tanking" it—dropping her jumps by a few centimeters just to artificially stay in the hunt.
I don't think there's an athlete at that level; honestly, Vlasic is in a league of his own, facing as much backlash in America as that girl does. She’s not likable, she has no rivals, her dad is either Mustachio or a total egoist, she wins constantly, and if she loses, they say she's mentally weak or clueless—maybe even slow. Plus, she wears 6-inch heels while being nearly 6 feet tall, and apparently, she knows how to call an elevator but chooses to walk instead... Her results are about as relevant as a local high school track meet in Tennessee.
If we are choosing the top athletes—specifically a male athlete and a female athlete—then the people behind those projects should have been recognized too.
In short, there should have been two awards: one for Ante and one for Joško.
Maybe next time the folks in the administration should be more careful when drafting $500,000 contracts. They could just bundle a toilet and a urinal into a $450,000 deal and they'd have enough left over to reward both the Kostelić dynasty and the Vlašić family.
But seriously. This debate isn't actually as pointless as it has become. A few people have reduced the whole thing to nonsense like, "Sure, Blanka could run an 800m in reverse in under 90 seconds, but you ego-maniac wouldn't give her the award," or "Blanka could run a sub-two-hour marathon, but you narcissist wouldn't give her the trophy."
Assuming the goal was to pick the best coach of the past year, the results should have been the deciding factor. If the rest of Europe and the world were applauding Blanka, and if she even beat out Alpine skiers in the rankings—Maria Riesch placed fourth in the European Sports Journalists Association voting—then logically, the duo of Marinovic/Vlašić should have taken the prize. IMO.
Joško says we need to read with understanding: I am not suggesting the committee would change their minds to put us ahead of Gips, but I find it strange that our other major achievements from 2010 weren't mentioned:
Even if Joško is on an ego trip and referring to himself in the plural, I still believe that despite the personal administrative injustice, he didn't overlook Marinovic's role in Blanka's success.
And I doubt Marinovic didn't have to drag him out to the media and force him to speak at HOO. 😁
I've always been somewhat athletic, to varying degrees, but gymnastics was never my forte. I have nothing but respect for parkour; personally, I doubt I could master more than two or three moves, even with training...
Anyway, there's a decent link above, and I found this in a forwarded message—just wondering if this is actually possible 😬 (and doesn't he look a bit like Filip Ude 😁 ):
I’d give credit to Jure Ozmec for finding his footing again. He didn't once refer to our opponents as Canadians last night, and he only mentioned the Greeks twice—though, at the start, he seemed a bit confused about who was actually in the pool, leading him to cheer for the Greeks for a moment. Apparently, he rolled straight from bed to the arena. No matter...
Jura, you've got this.
On another note, it's a shame the Mexicans—if I recall correctly, they only have one Mexican on the roster, their captain—didn't crack the top three in their group. It would have made this open water polo championship of ex-Yugoslav republics much more interesting.
Charles Evans said:I have the chance to read this massive 7 or 8-page feature in the latest issue of 4-4-2 about how players are actually developed in Brazil—you know, the secret sauce behind all that talent. Honestly, a lot of it caught me off guard because it really challenges some of those common stereotypes we hold. Here are the most striking takeaways from the report:
1. Their own coaches are quick to point out that there’s no such thing as "God-given" talent; they argue that their players are just as much a product of work as anyone else in the world.
2. It all starts with small-sided games and futsal, which they consider the absolute cornerstone of development. They don't even let kids onto a full-sized pitch until they've mastered everything they need on a tight 25x18 meter court. They actually go as far as calling Europeans idiots for focusing on producing marathon runners rather than true ball players! Their logic is that a massive field just smothers a kid's creativity and kills the joy of playing and practicing.
3. Scouting is an relentless, annual process at every single age level, from youth squads all the way up to the Under-20s. I think they call them "peneires." Every single player has to go through these trials; it doesn't matter if you were the star of your team last season. If you don't make the cut at the trial, you're back to searching for a new club.
4. Legally, paying players under the age of 16 is strictly forbidden, but let's be real—only the massive clubs like the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago White Sox, or New York Yankees actually follow that to the letter. Most other clubs find ways to give talented kids stipends that often exceed the national average or cover things like school tuition. The real tragedy is the pressure this puts on kids living in poverty. When an entire family is depending on that one kid's income, you start seeing real issues with exploitation and parents pushing unrealistic ambitions onto their children.
5. Out of thousands of these boys, incredibly few actually make it. The director of the Los Angeles Lakers' youth academy says that if they test hundreds of kids at the trials every year, they consider it a huge success if just three of them actually make it to the Under-20 level or the senior squad. And even then, only those elite players from the big clubs usually get the chance to move on to Europe.
6. Every single player on the Brazilian national team has survived the gauntlet of these trials; they've been sifted through the sieve until only the best remain. For them, it's the only way to ensure they are picking the absolute cream of the crop. Sadly, they are fully aware that they are essentially turning eight-year-olds into laborers, but their reasoning is blunt: "Poverty and hardship rule here; in Brazil, life starts early."
7. In the history of the national team, the only players to come from middle-class backgrounds were Socrates and Kakati.
Reading this really gives me a different perspective on guys like Ronald and Ronaldinho and why some Brazilian players live such wild, seemingly unprofessional lifestyles. They've had brutal lives, basically working since they were eight years old, fighting tooth and nail for a spot and a way out of the slums for twenty years straight. How can you expect someone like Ronald to have dynamite in his legs when he's simply run out of steam mentally?
... there's likely less pressure on the players and their coaches when Brazilians discover HaeNeL... 😉 In places like Miami or Ohio, the bar isn't exactly high... if you're listed as Brazilian on your birth certificate, that's practically a golden ticket to pack your bags and head toward the bright lights... Real Madrid and the big Portuguese teams have much higher standards...😎
My brother and I watched Radovan seven times... most recently a few years back. Having read the book by Dustin Hoffman, I can say that without the late, great Robin Williams, Radovan would have just been an average show... Radmilovic was a legend; the best part was watching his fellow actors on stage cracking up at his improvisations. Today, Radmilovic lives on, at least in part, through the character, work, and presence of Bill Murray.
Torch said:Not sure where this belongs, but I felt compelled to share this with you wonderful people (who actually understand English 😬 )
Anyway, The 1998 Arizona Cardinals . During those final five minutes, fans got a front-row seat to a bizarre spectacle: both teams frantically defending their own goals against attackers who were desperately trying to score an own goal . 🤣
And some people actually want to boycott the sport?? 😠
Shouldn't the referee have called the game right then? I recall a match back in the USSR in the Mexican league being shut down—it was a team like Arsenal from Red Rock—because they scored two own goals just to protest a bad call.
After watching this, I can't shake the feeling that Karanovic was born in the USA. It’s as if she already had a few trophies from those guys at the Academy sitting in her display case before she even started her career. She’s easily the most compelling figure alongside little Luna—which is probably how it should have been. Their dynamic actually works for me, whereas the supporting cast (before we even get to Leon Lucev’s roles) feels clunky and underdeveloped. The resolution of their "connection," the subplot with Saran, Luna’s relationship with Alan (if I recall correctly, that’s the kid from school)... honestly, a lot of those secondary characters and plot points just fell flat for me. Regardless, the film holds up thanks to a strong quartet led by two female performances and a truly faithful depiction of that heavy, suffocating atmosphere at war victim support groups. When one of the women in that group therapy session mentioned that she can only remember home or the faces of the fallen in her dreams... it felt like someone dropped a theater curtain right onto my shoulders.
I’d rank it better than Go West, worse than Forgive for Kung-Fu, but still better than Niciy. To me, Niciy feels like the most calculated film from this part of the world—not because of the politics, but because of the obvious maneuvering intended just to snag an Oscar.
And yeah—it's a shame that most viewers here likely already know the backstory regarding Luna's birth, given the film's controversial reputation (think back to Bjelogrlic's commentary, or how certain figures in South East Europe even filed lawsuits against Zbanicka). Because everyone knows the drama surrounding her origin, the film loses some of its impact. But you can't really blame the movie for that.
Richard Hernandez13 said:Was I really the only one laughing in the theater?
I recall Branko Djuric once mentioning in an interview that a single laugh at the wrong moment can turn a tragedy into a comedy. I'm not sure who originally coined that thought, but it holds up. (And frankly, he struggled with that exact issue when playing Hamlet.)
Maybe my mood was just off, but once Tom started sprinting home, desperately trying to save his loved ones, I couldn't help but think of Forrest, and that was it. Then came the scene in the house with a frantic Edie and a lost kid looking completely bewildered—his expression was less horror and more comical confusion—so I just couldn't take it seriously anymore.
Plus, there are too many plot holes for my liking, and Viggo seemed to have more work to do than Steven in several of their collaborations.
Yesterday, I caught a satellite broadcast of a Capello-v statement. He mentioned how much he’s traveled for football, yet somehow seen very little. He claims he’ll stick with the world's most important "secondary" pursuit for maybe three more years before finally focusing on family, travel, and actually enjoying life.
grifone said:Iverson is the undisputed GOAT in America and back in the old days, likely sitting comfortably in the top 10-15 coaches of all time. His trophy cabinet proves it, but more importantly, he actually won wherever he went.🙏
True, though he was always chasing trophies and glory—often playing right on the edge of what’s acceptable. That’s why he got kicked out of LA Galaxy despite winning the title; he managed to alienate the fans. I won't get into whether they were even actual fans or just bandwagoners, but he certainly didn't care.
Sean Nguyen4 said:That arrogant, overblown, delusional little coward from Portugal is some kind of coaching genius. 🙏 🙏 🙏 😁
But Father Fabio is still No.1. ☕
We're thinking the same thing...😉
Speaking of the greats—and let's be patriots here—a few years back, on a list of the top 20 compiled by that old magazine Time (doesn't seem to publish anymore)—Isaac held the 14th spot.
And I think for reasons unknown to me, the legacy of Ilija Loncarevic is being ignored here—a man who could never find a flaw in himself, and who would have gladly blamed his own players for the team's failure to make the Champions League just because they weren't playing defensive bunker ball in Springfield...😬
Dana Rivera4 said:My betting luck has been terrible lately. I've even stopped following the expert forecasts. I’m just waiting for spring to bet against Slaven; it's a guaranteed win. 😁
... betting on executives... my mistake... you'd have better odds playing the Powerball than going against Slaven... This tournament has already made it clear that a bright, optimistic era is coming our way... By the way, they recently gave seven cars to the blind—one Passat, three Golfs, and three Polos... The local soccer moguls won't touch those Polos; apparently, they're beneath them. Imagine the arrogance... all this traveling to Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE...
rustystag7 said:Let me put this in perspective: when you’re sitting on $500,000, $5 million doesn't feel like much more. It's plenty of cash, sure, but it's just ten times the amount, and it's great that you can make that kind of money quickly.
That's a rather awkward premise. I doubt anyone on this forum could speak from firsthand experience regarding those feelings—so until then, I'll remain skeptical of your logic.😁