mattie g

I hadn't even thought of that. Makes perfect sense now!

Walking back from the bus stop this morning gave me more of a chill than I was expecting.

So what? Let him lurk.

Simply put: F*ck yes.

Good thing I don't see his posts.

Yup. If that happens, it's going to be almost unwatchable.

He’s one of their better attacking players, so it could well make a difference, especially if we get a lead and they have to push for a goal or two. The bigger potential miss is Sardar Azmoun. If his calf injury is still nagging him (as rumored), then they could really miss him as an effective outlet if they sit deep and defend.

Low off the Canadian Maritimes reforms off the Mid-Atlantic due to a massive pig block? I could see it happening.

100% with you on that. We definitely have it in us to do it, but it's always hard to break down teams who are looking to nullify any sort of attack and who aren't looking to attack in their own right. If Iran gets a first goal of the match, then it's going to be grim viewing, but if we can somehow pick one up first then we may be able to slice them up as they come out of their shell.

Shitting bricks (again) already

I’m honestly not sure what you’re saying in this post. That timeframe has been showing up as having higher heights over much of the eastern 2/3 of the CONUS for days and days now. It’s five or so days later that the Scandinavian Ridge retrograde and we see higher heights established all across the higher latitudes.

One small step ahead of you

At this point, I’m just keeping an eye on the ensembles to see if there’s any variability at or around December 7. Loving that pig NAO and the EPO doing their thing consistently run over run.

I’m not changing my snowfall predictions (not yet anyway ), but LFG!

If you told me that we’d have a “win against Iran and you’re through” scenario going into this tournament, I’d have happily taken that option. Iran will be a tough game, but we have to be confident after the England match….and with such a young team I can see us going into it with a really positive attitude. We looked fantastic yesterday. I feel really good about Tuesday, but of course my optimism is very guarded.

Getting nervous now for the US game...

^ Yet I love that people are complaining about the NFL moving this weekend's Bills game.

Here you go

That late decision is complete bullsh*t on the part of Qatar. They had agreed to provide the same fan experience as always (including selling beer at stadiums), but they just went ahead and made a unilateral decision to not do so. I'm sure Budweiser is thrilled! I've been watching a couple documentaries this week - one about FIFA corruption and the other about the controversy around the Qatar World Cup - but the latter does a really good job going into the details of the labor issue. Basically, as far as I'm concerned (and I think most people feel the same), the whole thing is a massive f*ckup and it should never have gone down this way. But...money buys votes.

For sure on both counts. Maybe a bomb helps with the "creating its cold air" thing, but how likely is that?

Energy stuck in the Southwest.

10-14 days later, that may work out. Ridge axis through Idaho, 50/50-ish Low, nice block (though a +AO). It's so close.

This is exactly what we're hoping for in regards to a reload. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but patterns generally stick around for a good period of time, but they will relax here and there. If this pattern is now just beginning, we probably have about through the turn of the new year to cash in, but we have to accept that we won't go wall-to-wall. Pattern relaxes a little around Thanksgiving, then if we reload we get into much less hostile (even if not prime) climo.

Yup. I was also really surprised by how uniform the distribution was - pretty crazy.

They're not just accommodating the US audience though. There are nine Western Hemisphere teams in this tournament; most of their games are the later ones. Also, they have to play four games per day because this World Cup is condensed this year (because it's stupidly in Qatar in the middle of most club seasons around the world), so they have to spread them out throughout the day. Finally, the TV times are much better in Europe than they are here. If you're saying that we shouldn't play at 2:00pm in the group stage, then I have to disagree. There's no harm in having US games at that time as it doesn't affect TV times for any of our opponents except Iran. Those 5:00am EST games are being played at 2:00pm Qatar time. They could have started earlier, but that's not good for TV in Europe, and definitely not for viewership in the Western Hemisphere. East Asia is screwed for TV times, which isn't unusual at all for World Cups. I stayed up at night and watched many of the 2002 games (didn't hurt that I was in grad school and slinging beers at a pub at that time). Definitely good times, especially because we made a great run in that tournament!