Monthly Archives: February 2022

There is an aspect of football with which everyone in football is acutely familiar but nobody will ever experience again. Its the silence from the home crowd that engulfs a stadium when an away goal is scored and with it, the sudden realisation that a tie has profoundly changed. Paul Parker remembers it when Manchester United conceded three goals against Galatasaray in the Champions League in 1993.

It was the worst feeling in football, the former right-back says. It had an effect on the game like nothing else, just changing the atmosphere in the stadium.

Liam Brady remembers it from the other side, and the satisfaction of Arsenal scoring a late goal in Turin after Juventus had spent 90 minutes defending their 1-1 from Highbury in the 1979-80 Cup Winners Cup semi-final. You could hear a pin drop, Brady chuckles now.

All of that made the rule virtually unique in football. Its even arguable that the away goal singularly defined European football, making it different and more sophisticated than every other part of the game. The wonder now is how the level is going to be changed after Uefa abolished the rule from all competitions last summer.

It certainly makes this Champions League knockout stage different, and may well divert a few games down unexpected directions.

For over five decades, since its 1965 introduction, the rule offered an incentive that deepened the intensity of continental ties. There was always that extra fear, as well as that extra reward, that made European matches more tactically complex.

Added to the meetings of different football cultures, Parker believes, it gave European games an edge. It was what most made the level cat and mouse.

Managers didnt just have to prepare for the opposition, after all. They had to prepare for circumstances where the spirit of a home leg, and the crowd encouraging a team to attack, went against the cold rationale that conceding could be so costly.

There were more layers to it, more problems to solve. Ferguson often struggled to sleep trying to figure it out in those early years of the Champions League.

For the manager, it was just about not giving up space, Parker says of the former United manager. He didnt really need to say it to us before the games. Everyone knew it anyway, the implications were so great.

Alex Ferguson looks on during Manchester Uniteds tie against Galatasaray in 1993

(Getty Images)

The implication of this rule change is that this edge has now been instantly smoothed. Managers no longer have to consider it and can just concentrate on playing as they do.

Its possible that was already starting to happen, though, which is one of many reasons Uefa decided to abolish the rule.

The evolution of the games tactics speaks to the evolution of the away goals effects. The rule was initially introduced at a time when teams had to go to much greater lengths to scout European opponents. That created a natural inclination to just sit deep and protect themselves in unfamiliar surroundings. With away teams refusing to give anything away, the away goal was brought in to bring them out. You could see why it was needed. One 1979-80 European Cup tie between Ajax and Cypriot club Omonia brought 14 goals, but all of them scored by the home team as the Dutch champions won 10-4 on aggregate.

By the 1980s, this developed into home sides becoming too defensive, due to the cost of conceding. Teams would never come over the halfway line, Brady explains. Guus Hiddinks PSV Eindhoven infamously won the 1988 European Cup on away goals, as they reached the final through 0-0 draws at home in both the quarter-finals and semi-finals.

That is almost unthinkable now, as the globalisation of both the game and pressing football has led to many stadiums feeling as familiar to players as their own ground. Uefas own research cited a continuous reduction in the gap between the number of home/away wins (from 61 per cent /19 per cent to 47 per cent /30 per cent) and the average number of goals per match scored at home/away (from 2.02/0.95 to 1.58/1.15) in mens competitions.

A huge difference can even be seen in recent years.

Taking four-year blocks from the introduction of the Champions League last-16 in 2003-04 to the last season before the pandemic in 2018-19, the average number of away goals in knockouts have gone up from 25.3 to 35.3.

This doesnt just mirror how football has become more attacking, further reducing the premium on away goals. It makes outcomes that bit more random.

Andres Iniestas late strike saw Barcelona defeat Chelsea on away goals in 2009

(Getty)

If a tie sees goals raining in across two high-scoring legs, it no longer seems fair that one team goes through just because they scored more of their goals in one stadium, even though they were overall as porous. It makes it a shootout, rather than any kind of tactical calculation.

A classic recent example was Pep Guardiolas first season with Manchester City, where they went out after a 6-6 aggregate against Monaco, or even Tottenham Hotspurs astounding 3-3 away-goal comeback against Ajax in 2018-19.

In the latter, it could even be argued it was unfair on the Dutch side that they happened to be at home at a point when a high-intensity tie was veering towards a period of high chaos, and more chances. There was certainly no tactical calculation on the away goal there. It was just a free-for-all.

That touches on two other potential consequences of the rule change. The first is that there will now inevitably be more penalty shootouts, since the away goals rule so often prevented them. It might also, however, result in fewer epic comebacks.

The latter was one of the counterintuitive consequences of the rule, fostered by modern circumstances. It has almost been as if the very size of some leads have been so monumental like Ajaxs over Spurs in 2018-19 or Real Madrids over Juventus the season before that the trailing side had nothing to lose, so just went for it.

Theres at least an argument that the different psychological feel of just being two or three goals down rather than three goals with one an away goal doesnt inspire the same intensity. The scale of the effort was directly connected to the scale of the task and the manner in which those leads were cut with every goal added to growing senses of momentum and fear.

The rule wasnt quite Europes great leveller, but the continents great disruptor. It skewed the field.

Kylian Mbappe scored as Monaco shocked Manchester City on away goals in 2017

(Getty)

The abolition of the rule may now suit Guardiolas City. It just brings a bit more normality, and the English champions have probably been the best team on the continent when things go as normal. Guardiola, at the least, has one less complicating factor to think about when preparing for these games. Liverpool can meanwhile thunder forward with even less risk.

It might work against the great disruptors in Atletico Madrid, though, since one of their signature tactics was an away goal complementing a dogged home display. They were among the last sides to attempt that PSV 1988 tactic. Atletico have kept 11 clean sheets in 13 Champions League knockout home legs since Diego Simeone took over. They were the masters of it. That approach just wont be as effective anymore, since it is likelier to lead to extra-time, and more exhausted displays.

It may play into Manchester Uniteds hands in this seasons last 16. It is certainly going to condition all of these ties, perhaps much more than is immediately obvious.

Im glad its done with, Brady says, but Parker feels European football has lost something. There wont be that moment that just kills or transforms a tie. There wont be that silence. Were all set for a lot more noise, in terms of goals, and the responses.

See the rest here:

How scrapping the away goals rule will change this seasons Champions League - The Independent

The Tamil Nadu Assembly recently re-adopted the anti-NEET bill, making it the first time the state has re-adopted a bill returned by the governor without making amendments.

As per the Constitution and rules, the governor cannot return it a second time and will have to send it to the President for his assent.

On February 8, in a special sitting at St George's Fort, the TN assembly reintroduced the The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021 (popularly known as the anit-NEET bill) which seeks to permanently dispense with the National Eligibility Entrance Test for TN students seeking admission in the UG degree courses in Indian medicine, dentistry and homeopathy. Instead, the bill provides that medical aspirants for these courses be admitted based on the class XII scores.

The bill was first introduced in September 2021 after a nine-member committee headed by retired High Court judge A Rajan submitted a 165-page report stating how NEET would impact medical aspirants from rural areas.

The report claimed that NEET in its current form was discriminatory to medical aspirants from rural areas and Tamil medium students. It said that NEET, being the sole criterion for medical admissions, worked to the advantage of wealthier students from urban areas. It implied that NEET took away the effectiveness of a formal school education system and favoured those who could afford private coaching.

Noting that there has been a decline in the enrollment of rural students to medical institutions following the implementation of NEET, the report said it could lead to a shortage of doctors in rural areas and affect the healthcare system of Tamil Nadu badly.

It further said that the examination could take healthcare back to the pre-independence era as it found that 70 per cent of PG graduates chose to work with private corporate hospitals, and this was not the case pre-NEET.

The bill was first introduced in September last year against the backdrop of three suicides in connection with NEET within a span of a week in September 2021. In 2020, at least 14 suicides were officially reported in connection with NEET.

Abolition of NEET was a poll promise of the ruling DMK, but now almost all other parties including the opposition AIADMK are in favour of the bill. The sole exception is the BJP.

Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin accused Governor RN Ravi of not performing his constitutional duties by sitting on the bill for too long, almost five months, instead of sending it to the President immediately for assent. The governor had returned the bill on February 3, stating that the legislation was against the interests of the students, especially the rural and economically poor students of the state. With the reintroduction of the bill, the governor will now have to send it to the President for assent.

The face-off between the government and the governor has prompted Stalin's West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, who also found herself in a similar row recently with the State's governor, to call for a meeting of Opposition Chief Ministers to discuss the 'constitutional overstepping and brazen misuse of power' by the governors of non-BJP ruled states.

See the article here:

Stalin Locks Horns With Centre on Anti-NEET BILL - The Citizen

Today at the Editors glance: Weather: Partly cloudy. A 20 percent chance of showers in the morning. Highs in the mid 70s. East winds 10 to 15 mph. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy. Areas of fog after midnight. Lows in the upper 50s. East winds 5 mph.

The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall. Take 5 Car Washh is requesting a special exception to locate a franchise in the General Commercial (COM-2) zoning district at 5055 State Highway 100 E. The car wash is proposed to be located between the existing Culvers restaurant and the Taco Bell in the SE quadrant of Belle Terre Boulevard and State Road 100. The board will also hear a site plan application for the Kings Crossing self-storage facility on 36 acres at 125 Old Kings Road North, which is located on the west side of Old Kings Road about 1.4 miles north of Palm Coast Parkway. The projects Technical Site Plan shows it to be comprised of one-story Building A with 10,011 sq. ft. and two-story Building B with 59,730 sq. ft. totaling 69,741 square feet. There will be a total of 838 individual internal storage spaces that will be available to the public. See the full planning board agenda here.

The Flagler County school districts Dress Code Committee holds a pair of Community Town Halls to collect public comment. The first of these meetings is Wednesday, February 16th at Buddy Taylor Middle School. The second meeting is Thursday, February 17th at Indian Trails Middle School. Both meetings begin at 6 p.m. and will be LiveStreamed on the Flagler Schools Website. See details.

Flagler Tiger Bay Club February Meeting with Kevin Doyle, Consumer Energy Alliance VP State Affairs. $35 for members and $40 for guests. 11:30 a.m. at Channel Side, 1 Yacht Club Drive, Palm Coast.

Notably: George F. Kennan, one of the ablest and far-seeing diplomats in American history, was born on this day in 1904. He was the author of the so-called X telegram that, to his lifelong dismay, set in motion the Truman Administrations cold war policy of containment through military and economic means. He disliked cars, reactionaries and sex for sexs sake. Stripped of its ennobling part in human intimacies, he wrote in his memoir, Around the Cragged Hill, which lacked neither for crags nor lyrical eloquence, the sexual urge is one of the most tedious, monotonous, at times ridiculous, and least interesting of human proclivities. He was 101 when he died in 2005.

Nick Klufas special: Global Electric Car Sales Doubled in 2021, From Statistas Daily Infographics: China in particular had a breakout year in 2021, almost tripling electric car sales from 1.2 to 3.4 million. Europe remains the second largest market for electric cars, with new registrations increasing by almost 70 percent to 2.3 million, roughly half of which were plug-in hybrids. In the United States, sales surpassed half a million for the first time, but the overall market share of electric vehicles remains far below that of China and many European markets. According to the IEA, China, Europe and the United States account for roughly 90 percent of global electric car sales, illustrating that e-mobility isnt advancing at the same pace globally.

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One of the oldest and perhaps the noblest of human aspirations has been the abolition of poverty. By poverty I mean the grinding by undernourishment, cold, and ignorance, and fear of old age of those who have the will to work. We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but, given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last 8 years, we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this Nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man. That is the primary purpose of the economic policies we advocate.

From Herbert Hoovers 1928 Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention.

The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.

More here:

The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, February 16, 2022 | FlaglerLive - FlaglerLive.com

(Translation of report file with Tokyo Stock Exchange on February 15, 2022)

Notice of Difference between Non-Consolidated Financial Results and Actual Results for the Previous Fiscal Year and Distribution of Surplus (Dividend Increase) for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2021, and Abolition of Shareholder Special Benefit Plan

Hyogo, Japan-February 15, 2022-Toyo Tire Corporation (President & CEO: Takashi Shimizu)

announced today differences between its non-consolidated business results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 and the actual results for the previous fiscal year. Please also be advised that its Board of Directors, at a meeting held today, resolved to propose, as follows, the year-end dividend for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on March 25, 2022, as well as to abolish the shareholder special benefit plan.

1. Difference between non-consolidated results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 (January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021) and actual results for the previous fiscal year

(1) Difference between non-consolidated results and actual results for the previous fiscal year

(Units: Millions of yen)

Operating

Ordinary

Net income

Net sales

Net income

per share

income

income

(yen)

Results for the previous fiscal year

(ended December 31, 2020)

184,998

20,289

18,374

2,204

14.32

(A)

Results for the current fiscal year

(ended December 31, 2021)

226,324

26,002

35,603

22,813

148.20

(B)

Amount of change (B-A)

41,326

5,172

17,229

20,608

Percentage change

22.3%

28.2%

93.8%

934.7%

(2) Reason for difference

Although the current business environment remained challenging, mainly due to soaring raw material prices and rising ocean freight rates caused by a shortage of containers, net sales, operating income, and ordinary income exceeded the previous fiscal year's figures due to strong demand for tires, especially in the North American market, a weaker yen, and the effect of cost reductions.

In addition, the amount of provision for product compensation, product compensation expenses, and loss on valuation of stocks of subsidiaries and affiliates under extraordinary loss was lower than the previous fiscal year's level. As a result, net income for the fiscal year under review exceeded the previous fiscal year's level.

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2. Distribution of surplus (year-end dividend)

(1) Details of year-end dividend

Latest dividend forecast

Results for the previous

fiscal year

Amount determined

(Announced on

(Year ended December

November 12, 2021)

31, 2020)

Reference date

December 31, 2021

Same as on the left

December 31, 2020

Dividend per share (Yen)

56

25

25

Total amount of dividends

8,620

3,848

(Million yen)

Effective date

March 28, 2022

March 31, 2021

Source of dividends

Retained earnings

Retained earnings

(2) Reason

We consider the return of profits to our shareholders as a critical management issue, and have been paying stable dividends every fiscal year. In the future, we will continue to meet the expectations of our shareholders by linking dividends to our business performance while maintaining our financial soundness and adhering to this policy of stable dividends.

While we are considering setting a consolidated dividend payout ratio of more than 30% during the period of our medium-term management plan, "Mid-term ''21 Plan" (FY2021-FY2025), we will achieve a stable and performance-linked return of profits by adjusting non-recurring and special gains and losses included in net income and linking the ratio more closely to the Company's profitability.

The Company has decided to pay a year-end dividend of 56 yen per share for the fiscal year under review. As a result, the annual dividend for the current fiscal year will be 76 yen per share (dividend payout ratio 28.3%).

This matter is scheduled to be discussed at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on March 25, 2022.

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3. Abolition of shareholder special benefit plan

(1) Reason for abolition

We have been implementing the shareholder special benefit plan to show our gratitude to our shareholders for their daily support and to increase the attractiveness of our shares so that more people will hold our shares over the medium to long term.

However, as a result of careful discussions from the perspective of a fair return of profits to our shareholders, we have decided to concentrate on returning profits through dividends and abolish the shareholder special benefit plan.

We will continue to position the return of profits to our shareholders as a critical management issue and work to enhance our corporate value, and we appreciate your understanding in this matter.

(2) Timing of abolition

The Company will discontinue the shareholder special benefit plan after its implementation for shareholders who hold 100 shares (one unit) or more as recorded in the Company's shareholder registry as of December 31, 2021.

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Disclaimer

Toyo Tire Corporation published this content on 15 February 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 15 February 2022 02:16:02 UTC.

Publicnow 2022

Technical analysis trends TOYO TIRE CORPORATION

Income Statement Evolution

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Toyo Tire : Notice of Difference between Non-Consolidated Financial Results and Actual Results for the Previous Fiscal Year and Distribution of...