NBA "Greatest Comebacks in History!"
Starting off with last night's unbelievable, historic come back by the NY Knicks.
MUST view video on UFC fights at the White House
Started by metmike - June 12, 2026, 3:44 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/120777/
Congrats World Champion NY Knicks!!!!
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7355407/2026/06/13/knicks-nba-championship-game-5-win/
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https://abcnews.com/GMA/Culture/us-defeats-australia-2-0-2nd-world-cup/story?id=134040823
The U.S. men's team has not won back-to-back games at a World Cup since the first tournament in 1930, according to FIFA.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIFA_World_Cup_finals
The team that wins the final receives the FIFA World Cup Trophy, and its name is engraved on the bottom side of the trophy.[4] Of 80 nations that have appeared in the tournament, 13 have made it to the final, and 8 have won. Brazil, the only team that has participated in every World Cup, is also the most successful team in the competition, having won five titles and finished second twice.[5]Italy and Germany[n 2] have four titles each, with Germany having reached more finals than any other team, eight. Current champion Argentina has three titles, Uruguay and France have two each, while England and Spain have one each. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands and Croatia have played in the final without winning. Only teams from Europe (UEFA) and South America (CONMEBOL) have ever competed in the final.
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Look at the list below for the top 3 places. There were 22 total World Cups(4 years apart). They skipped 1942 and 1946 because of WW2.
Where is the United States????
Scroll down.........scroll down more.........scroll all the way down to the bottom. The very first year for this awesome event/sport, 1930. There's the United States finishing the best ever, in 3rd place.
https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/history
| YEAR | CHAMPION | RUNNER UP | THIRD PLACE | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
HOST COUNTRY
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The 2026 FIFA World Cup knockout stage format, criteria and rules for qualification. Find out who’s in and who’s out.
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https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/standings
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https://www.foxsports.com/stories/soccer/2026-world-cup-odds-how-far-will-team-usa-go
Before the tournament began, the U.S. was +5500 to win the World Cup. Now, after its dream start, its odds have surged to +3300.
So when will the USA lose? Or, especially after its group stage dominance so far, will it even lose at all?
Let’s take a look at the updated odds for the United States’ stage of elimination at FanDuel Sportsbook as of June 20.
Team USA — Stage of elimination odds
Last 32: +170 (bet $10 to win $27 total)
Last 16: +200 (bet $10 to win $29 total)
Quarterfinals: +270 (bet $10 to win $37 total)
Semifinals: +800 (bet $10 to win $90 total)
Runner-up: +2200 (bet $10 to win $230 total)
Outright winner: +3300 (bet $10 to win $340 total)
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/25/nx-s1-5869807/2026-world-cup-fifa-usmnt-turkey
World Cup
Bracket of 32 remaining countries:
Before yesterday’s game, which was the start of the knockoff portion:
-16 had been eliminated after each team played 3 games
-single elimination from that point forward
-this was first WC with >32 teams starting
-first WC was in 1930
-all winners have been from either Europe or S America
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Update: Canada beat S Africa yesterday, leaving 31 teams still in it.
Excellent, informative post, Larry!
Go Canada too!
The U.S., with them one player short for the last 35 minutes due to a red flag penalty, hung on to win 2-0. This was the first full soccer game I’ve ever seen! I became interested after reading about the WC history a few days ago.
Edit: I realized only this morning that a red flag penalty means that player also can’t play in the subsequent game, he (Balogun) is the U.S.’ highest scorer in this WC as well as one of the highest scorers of all time for the US, and the one making the call is Brazilian with Brazil also still in this and it having won more WCs (5) than any other country! In addition, it didn’t appear to be intentional.
Thanks extremely much, Larry!
Sounds like a bias. I wonder if this can be contested/appealed?
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There was no soccer around when I grew up, so I competed in Football, track, baseball and a little basketball.
When my sons were growing up, I was head coach for ALL their baseball teams (and was treasurer for the league) and was the basketball commissioner for their league after coaching them for the first few years.
But soccer had become a huge deal.
So I went to a couple of soccer coaching clinics and coached their soccer teams too.
Soccer was in the Fall. Basketball in the Winter, then Baseball(my favorite by far) was in the Spring/Summer.
It's often a challenge to recruit volunteer coaches, mainly dads to coach teams on recreation teams. In the case of basketball and baseball, all the dad's played when they were growing up and had a good understanding of the game, including me.
In the case of soccer, NONE of us had ever played or knew that much about it. This was 20-30 years ago. Times have changed a bit since then with soccer being popular for so long.
There was no internet in the beginning either. So we just had to read material they passed out at the coaches clinics(that would be a week long in the Summer) as well as learning what they taught us. The league did a wonderful job helping us to be good soccer coaches and build a huge soccer playing community since then.
Things sure have changed!
Soccer is an awesome sport!
USMNT's Folarin Balogun has red card suspended by FIFA, available to face Belgium
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49277378/usmnt-folarin-balogun-red-card-suspended-belgium
Yipeee!
Thanks, Larry.
Due to this reversal going against precedent and DT being involved, this opens up Pandora’s Box, especially if the U.S. beats Belgium tonight, despite the red flag being obviously an absolutely horrible call.
Exactly, Larry!
While we are all celebrating because this is the USA and it was a bad call, this looks especially bad and at a time with historical losses in the credibility of the United States already, so people are NOT going to give us the benefit of the doubt.
Instead, they will interpret this to be another example of Donald Trump's corrupt, authoritarian regime.
Is it the place for a president of the hosting country to call the FIFA up and pressure them to reverse a call?
Even a bad call? One can only guess what the verbiage was that Donald Trump used.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fifa-infantino-trump-red-card-folarin-balogun-criticism/
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Re: Re: Allied Countries helping Trump
By metmike - July 2, 2026, 12:45 p.m.
June 23, 2026
metmike: Blue=UNreliable below
Our neighbor and closest ally, Canada for instance has gone from having just 16% of their people seeing the United States as UNreliable before Donald Trump's presidency, up to 65% now........and rising.
That's 4 times higher and the MAJORITY. Entirely the result of Donald Trump's profoundly failing foreign policies.
This is stunning and easily unprecedented AND GLOBAL and extremely damaging.
https://time.com/article/2026/07/06/trump-inserts-himself-in-world-cup-call-with-global-blowback/
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The ironic thing is that the person who thinks of himself as the most brilliant man around(as do his adulators in MAGA) and constantly calls others that disagree with him "low IQ" people.
Constantly makes the most catastrophic blunders over and over because his massive ego and objective to make himself an historical legend over ride his brains and judgment.
With this situation, for instance. A corrupt but SMART president would have contacted FIFA, made the request and insisted they not mention the Donald Trump's role.
FIFA could have stated that they reviewed the incident and made the ruling based on what they saw and how important it was to get the ruling correct.
But that wouldn't do for Donald Trump. He had to let everybody know that he was involved with the process because his brain only interprets things in a way that end up demonstrating to the world how powerful he is.
No way could he suppress his ego here. In fact, he constantly manufactures things that don''t exist to brag about them.
In this case, he REALLY DID cause them to overturn the penalty and he is never so proud of it. So it was inevitable that he would brag about it on Truth Social(that has lost close to a billion dollars the past 2 years).
Having ZERO clue about how bad it actually makes him look to MOST of the world and throwing FIFA under the bus as just another one of his adulating organizations that will do anything to please the most powerful man in the world......including violate ethical codes.
Donald Trump adulators continue to look like fools who have abandoned their ethical codes, ability to tell the difference between right and wrong and respect for other human beings.
But Donald Trump revels in this and the damage done to them because it's exactly how he generates his power. The more fools he has adulating him, the more powerful he is.
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As this continues to backfire badly. In an unprecedented way in history, actually, Donald Trump and Fox news loudly proclaim that America is back. The world finally respects our country again thanks to Donald Trump's brilliant leader ship!
This isn't just a blatant lie. It's the diametrically opposed, polar opposite of the truth!
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Sadly, no matter how well the US does, most of the world will remember this incident and many of them will feel that the US played with an illegal player because of Donald Trump.
The US men's soccer team deserves everything they earned and will earn, regardless of this incident so its a shame that this will tarnish that.
That’s all she wrote for the U.S.! Belgium dominated and wins 4-1.
The US team did great this year.
Congrats to them!
Belgium kicked our behinds and the previously red flagged guy, Balogun, was no factor! They were extra motivated to win based on controversial reversal of his suspension. I bet US would have done better without reversal, especially since Balogun did nothing of note.
The incredible irony is that Balogun was able to be on the U.S. team only as a result of birthright citizenship! He was born in NYC because his pregnant mother was visiting her sister and was deemed to be too far pregnant to be allowed to fly. Then at one month, she returned to Britain with him when he was one month old. Truth is stranger than fiction:
That's pretty crazy, Larry.
And that Donald Trump wants to take that right away from people BORN IN THIS COUNTRY!
