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Not to mention football pundits and former players like Ian Wright.

LOL! It's a funny thing how worked up we can get about the fortunes of people whom we don't know and perhaps would not much relate to if we met them in real life. It's as though they represent an ideal, a way of doing things. Maybe a justification for some.

Maybe it's even more abstract than that. I'm not usually much of a follower of football or any other sport but it's almost as if it's possible to flick the "care about the fortunes of my tribe" switch in the brain, and then I start watching matches with great anxiety and jumping and shouting with the rest of the tribe when they score.

This is all well and good, but who ate all the pies? (attendence at football matches required to make sense of this).

Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 10th, 2018, 4:33 amMaybe it's even more abstract than that. I'm not usually much of a follower of football or any other sport but it's almost as if it's possible to flick the "care about the fortunes of my tribe" switch in the brain, and then I start watching matches with great anxiety and jumping and shouting with the rest of the tribe when they score.

I know the feeling. We talk about the problem of other minds and the fact that we have these mental domains locked off from the rest of the world, but the infectiousness of moods in groups suggests permeability.

I worked out why soccer players fall over after just being touched - the electrorepulsive force. If you think of each player as an electron and consider what would then happen on contact, the surprising trajectory of players after the slightest of touches becomes comprehensible.

Greta wrote:I worked out why soccer players fall over after just being touched - the electrorepulsive force. If you think of each player as an electron and consider what would then happen on contact, the surprising trajectory of players after the slightest of touches becomes comprehensible.

Interesting theory. If all players on both sides are electrons, and not, say, electrons on one side and positrons on the other, then it also shows that, underneath those different coloured strips they're really all the same.

Actually, though, I do quite like the theatrics particularly of some of the Latin-American players. Particularly the way they can be rolling in agony as if they've been shot and the next second, as soon as it's clear they're not going to get a free kick out of it, they're fine. No pretence of gradually fighting through the pain barrier back to fitness or anything. Just instant recovery.

Rederic wrote:This is all well and good, but who ate all the pies? (attendence at football matches required to make sense of this).

You fat bastard, you fat bastard, with all due respect I put it to you that it was you who ate all the pies.

See also the "piegate" incident.

If it's England v France in the final I look forward to lots of fantastically xenophobic and tasteless chants from the crowd. "If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts!" (to the tune of "She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes") is one that springs to mind. Although its historical accuracy is debatable to say the least.

Have been rooting for Les bleus since the US couldn't even make the tournament. Folks here in Paris went nuts last night. Waiting to see if it will be a channel match against the pommy ba5tards.

LuckyR wrote: ↑July 11th, 2018, 1:52 pm Have been rooting for Les bleus since the US couldn't even make the tournament. Folks here in Paris went nuts last night. Waiting to see if it will be a channel match against the pommy ba5tards.

England's mood after the match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7lV6-iKiwQ

Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 11th, 2018, 4:58 am

Greta wrote:I worked out why soccer players fall over after just being touched - the electrorepulsive force. If you think of each player as an electron and consider what would then happen on contact, the surprising trajectory of players after the slightest of touches becomes comprehensible.

Interesting theory. If all players on both sides are electrons, and not, say, electrons on one side and positrons on the other, then it also shows that, underneath those different coloured strips they're really all the same.

Deep, Steve - the One Player Universe, where the uniformity of each player means it's essentially one footballer moving through time.

Note that Neymar, being a special player, is more akin to antimatter so when he makes any contact he is not just repelled but entirely annihilated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS2545hg3vs

I'm actually leery about this "all electrons are the same" jive. Nothing else in nature is exactly the same. They might have small features and structure that we can't yet probe.

Steve3007 wrote:Actually, though, I do quite like the theatrics particularly of some of the Latin-American players. Particularly the way they can be rolling in agony as if they've been shot and the next second, as soon as it's clear they're not going to get a free kick out of it, they're fine. No pretence of gradually fighting through the pain barrier back to fitness or anything. Just instant recovery.

Theatrics = theatre :)

As with children screaming until they get what they want, this is just a matter of a subject appealing for benefits or mercy from a master, and of course we clever and imaginative hominids will find any possible way of manipulating any given situation.

Greta wrote: ↑July 11th, 2018, 6:58 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑July 11th, 2018, 1:52 pm Have been rooting for Les bleus since the US couldn't even make the tournament. Folks here in Paris went nuts last night. Waiting to see if it will be a channel match against the pommy ba5tards.

England's mood after the match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7lV6-iKiwQ

Good luck against Belgium today. Everyone here is watching Macron at Bastille day, making plans for tomorrow

*cries into beer*

I worked out why soccer players fall over after just being touched - the electrorepulsive force. If you think of each player as an electron and consider what would then happen on contact, the surprising trajectory of players after the slightest of touches becomes comprehensible.

*back to cries into more beer*

Yeah, Paris is wild...

How cruel - Croatia were comfortably the dominant team in general play but bad luck and their inability to finish their moves as clinically as France was the difference.

When you sober up, Lucky, could you fill us in more about what's happening in Paris ATM? :)

Greta wrote: ↑July 15th, 2018, 7:46 pm How cruel - Croatia were comfortably the dominant team in general play but bad luck and their inability to finish their moves as clinically as France was the difference.

When you sober up, Lucky, could you fill us in more about what's happening in Paris ATM?

Several observations: of course everyone "young" went to the grounds around the tour de eiffel (the champs de mars) to see the match, average folks watched in bars, cafes etc. Afterwards several hundred thousand went to the champs elysees. Wall to wall pedestrians walking on the grands boulevards, tons of honking scooters but no cars, folks walking carrying road flares and setting off smoke bombs in red or blue. This lasted in the streets from about 7 local time to about midnight. The team will have a victory parade this evening at 5 down the champs.

Folks on tv news are making a deal out of the fact that the team is 60% children of immigrants and it was very obvious that Macron made a big deal of embracing Mbappé like a son. Pundits are hopeful that the Le Pen effect will be countered at some level.

Les Bleus just entered the Champs