CombatWombat

Well obviously with a stern talking to from Infantino, this whole unpleasantness is completely resolved:

Infantino, whose attendance at Tuesday’s game was unannounced, added: “I’ve seen the team, I’ve spoken to the players and the coach, so everything is fine.”

Will a new coach be enough to lift Ghana over Los Canaleros?

Ghana, who are preparing to play at their fifth World Cup, also face Panama and Croatia in Group L this summer.

I'm not sure if it's the "official" one (or if there is an official one), but I found them for sale here: https://www.crenchpaw.com/product-page/mn-rebel-loon-hockey-jersey-fundraiser

I will never not love the socceroos nickname:

More than 50 World Cup aspirants have been in Socceroos camps over the past year, so ahead of Tuesday’s send-off match against Curacao in Melbourne, the final squeeze is on.

It's just a little guy:

Curaçao will become the smallest nation to play at a World Cup, in population (about 156,000) and land area (171 sq miles) and Rutten is looking forward to the challenge. “The excitement is already there,” the 63-year-old says. “You wake up with it and you go to bed with it.” Sadly for Rutten, his first game in charge ended in a 2-0 defeat to China at the Accor Stadium in Sydney on Friday.

With Curaçao part of the kingdom of the Netherlands, where many of the squad were born, the federation’s almost exclusive use of Dutch coaches for more than 10 years is no shock. The technical director, Khalid Sinouh, was a reserve goalkeeper under Rutten at PSV in 2011-12 and put him forward.

It's certainly disrespectful:

“For you as a woman, why will you be tested to prove that you fit?” Semenya said, calling the new screening “a disrespect.”

“You know, it’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports,” she continued.

Seems a pretty straight ahead even value trade.

No thought for the players and staff of the participating nations?

I'm not sure I would describe the playoff race as "heating up," given that 75% of the playoff berths are effectively buttoned up:

Behind the trio of top teams however, is where the real race resides. Despite expanding to eight teams this season, the PWHL decided to maintain a four team playoff system. With their regulation win over last place Seattle, coupled with Toronto's regulation loss to Vancouver, the Ottawa Charge vaulted into the fourth and final playoff spot where they sit with 33 points in 23 games. Toronto now finds themselves in fifth place with 31 points in 24 games. The two teams will play each other three more times this season in what nearly amounts to a play-in style showdown.

Every day? How many people post to lemmy every day? It's gotta be zero, right? No-one's dumb enough to post daily.

I was wondering why teams couldn't trade draft picks but turns out the reasoning makes a lot of sense:

One limiting factor on the PWHL trade front is the fact that the trading of draft picks is still prohibited. Draft picks can be traded only on draft day. Why? The primary reason is because neither teams, nor the league, know exactly what the draft will look like. Will there be six rounds? Seven? Five? What will the draft order be? Will a first round pick traded by a top team be the 8th overall selection, or the 12th? Will expansion teams pick at the top of each round, or like last season, the bottom? Will there be two expansion teams or four? Until the league can ensure a consistent draft structure year over year, picks are a currency that will remain off the table.

I mean it depends on what you mean by internet. There were BBSes but the world wide web didn't really start taking traffic from the general public until 93. HTML hadn't even been invented in 90.