2006 World Cup

[speedy11309]

anyone here watchin it besides me? i cant wait for '10. im goin to south africa to watch it.

so far i think the only expected thing was that germany would do well, which they have so far. england needs to pick it up a bit, they looked terrible, imo. im really curious to see how the u.s. will fair against the czech. if nothing else comes from this world cup, i'd like to see mexico finish dead last. just because they chanted "osama bin laden" the entire game when we played them in mexico. other than that, i just wanna see great games. oh and the u.s. to win it all.

im also taping all the matches on my comp. i missed today's argentina v. ivory coast match. i came home about 35 minutes into it and decided not to tape it. id like to find a torrent of the games if i could just incase i miss one. which i will because theres a span of like 5 days where there are 2 games going on at the same time. kinda annoying if you ask me.

well lemme know your thoughts on the world cup.

[Ace]

Had bloody work today so missed our match vs Paraguay. Well, I managed to get down the pub and catch the first 6 minutes over a pint before I got called off of break, which was enough for me to catch the only goal of the match.

I think we (England for you US peeps) looked pretty good at the beginning of the first half, but then some stupid substitutions coupled with our typical complacency led to it looking like a bit of a **** match. We're up for it, make no mistake about that. Beckham looked on form and Crouch just had a lot to live up to following our friendly against Hungary.

Mexico don't deserve to finish last just because of some political taunts. We taunt Americans all the time because of the general apolitical nature of the country resulting in the political mess it is now. So do most countries. *Shrug*. It's not like Americans have anything at all to be proud of politically speaking. Every country has its pros and cons, and every country gets taunted one way or another. It just so happens that America has one very big glaring con at the moment which is having a huge impact on the whole world. A few political taunts... meh, lets have demonstrations and impeachments!

Football isn't really the US's game, but who knows - I know nothing about the US side, so why not tell us English folks how you think the US might do this year? Good luck on Monday, I'll try to catch it if I'm back by then.

[dog2525]

i think Brazil is going all the way. unless people want Germany to get first since its in their country

[speedy11309]

quite honestly, people over here dont like mexico for more than just that. (this isnt political either). i honestly dont like them because they like to cry about every little thing when we play them. kinda ticks me off.

it is true that most people over here dont follow soccer, let alone know that the world cup is going on but there are a lot of us who follow it. it is growing however, which is nice.

i think itll be interesting to see what happens for englan when rooney comes back. he is a terrific player. i got to see him play twice when they came over here to the states and hes the real deal. im just wondering if he'll make a huge difference over crouch. i guess we'll see in the second round of play since he most likely wont be play until then because he wont be needed.

us on the other hand, i think we have a decent shot of getting out of the first round. a few key injuries on the czech side gives us a decent shot to beat them. i have a feeling were going to lose to italy, for one thing weve never beaten them before. and ghana is a wildcard here. honestly, i consider this world cup a success if we get out of the first round. the only problem is if we dont get out of the first round. i fear that heads will roll and they will rip apart the program. this would be a huge mistake as i see this program finally going in the right direction. well we'll just have to see what happens.

im really interested to see how it plays out. i dont think brazil will win it all. i think they can be beaten, just havnt figured out by who yet.

[NotMyBest2Day]

I've been watching the Road to the World Cup matches on ESPN2...and Tennis. *shrug* I'm bored.

I like what Bill Maher said a few weeks ago: "So the World Cup is coming soon, and guess which country isn't allowed to paint their flag on the bus for fear of being blown up? ::raises hand::"

[Devils00Champs]

Been watchin almost every match so far. Personally Im hoping that the US gets knocked out in group round so they stay away from a sport thats not theirs and play their own version of "football". Germany played very well in their first match and have a great shot at winning it all. Id like to see the English squad take it this thou.

[speedy11309]

yea, except for the fact that soccer used to be really popular here. back in like the '30's. if were going by your reasoning, no team but south american teams should win because thats wheer the game was invented. and also, there is debate as to whether or not baseball was invented in the u.s. or in england. so any team in the world baseball classic should lose other than the u.s. or england. /shrug.

in any case, the games today werent all that great. they werent bad, they just werent as good as the first two days. im really interested in the u.s.'s game, obviously, and really looking forward to how the italians do. i think they have a decent shot of taking it all. theyre my darkhorse pick.

[NotMyBest2Day]

I always laughed about competitions that start with, or have "world" in it somewhere.

World Series (for baseball)...only American teams ever make it, but they have players from anywhere...

Superbowl...(what the Americans call "football")...only American teams period.
Then there's the basketball thing...again..only American teams.

At least hockey has at least one team from Canada mixed in.

Then there's the competitions that I like. World Cup...world-wide participation. World Series of Poker..world-wide participation. Anything with International and League in the name..world-wide participation.

Man, America is dumb. Pff.

[speedy11309]

lol. thats why we have the baseball world classic. but in any case, the toronto blue jays won the world series about 13 years ago if i do remember correctly.

the superbowl is also for the...national football league...aka usa.

what the hell is this hockey crap? we dont have that here...

and basketball has teams from canada...ala toronto raptors.

lol none of this is meant to be flaming you either. its 3:09am and im a lil...f-ed up.

[Rudegar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football#The_establishment_of_modern_codes_of_foot ball
here they say that the brits was thef first to play football

[speedy11309]

thats also wikipedia. how do you know i didnt put that there. lol. i didnt mean the actual, modern game of soccer, i meant the idea of it. I've seen a couple documentaries that say it came from the aztec's maybe? i may be wrong on exactly who, but they all said it was one of the ancient civilizations in south america and a game like soccer and when the europeans came over and saw it, they brought it back.

in any case, the australia - japan game just finished and all i have to say is wow. 3 goals in the final 8 minutes to win the game after the ref blowing the call on japans goal. just wow.

[Ace]

Yeah it's generally accepted to be us brits, dunno about going back that far though.

I think what Devils was getting at when he said that he'd rather the US didn't win was that there are loads of countries where huge portions of the population are religiously & diligently routing for their team to win, and it's much nicer that one of those countries wins rather than a country like the US, where a decent proportion of the population don't even care/know about it. I can say as a part-time shop assistant that in England, during our England/Paraguay match, the shops were empty. Full stop. The odd female wandering around, but that was it. And this is peak-time on a Saturday, when the shops are usually jam packed. The pubs were full to breaking point :)

[speedy11309]

yeah i get what youre saying. its actually starting to become like that over here. with our match today, a LOT of people took off work. i saw a news report today on a local news station saying that 32% of the work population today called in "sick". and i know its not because they all have a case of the mondays. it may still seem small compared to our football or baseball, but it is quickly becoming very popular. if we put up any sort of showing in this world cup, i gaurantee it will be in the top 3 most popular sports here. its heading that way anyways, that will just accelerate it. as long as we dont finish last...again. -_-

[NotMyBest2Day]

lol none of this is meant to be flaming you eitherNo, it's fine. It's obvious that I don't follow sports all that much, eh? :p I'm a racing fan anyways, so that's what I know best is many forms of auto racing.

Pisses me off that Speed channel does like 10 hours worth of f'n Nascar BS per day instead of focusing on the other great series like WRC and F1. Okay, so they do squeeze in some F1 every now and then, but they'll air the Friday practice, maybe Saturday qualifying live, and you have to wait until the off-weekend to watch the tape-delay race...if they even air any ofthat race.

Fricken' Nascar needs to get its own channel and leave the others alone, but then the people that don't have digital cable or satellite will b!tch and complain 'cause they can't get the Nascar channel on basic cable. My brother used to complain about this all the time 'cause he didn't have cable period, and I told him that most of the races are on Fox (sometimes Speed or FX), and that's a local broadcast station. Hook the rabbit ears up and watch it.

[speedy11309]

haha yeah i hear what your sayin. i'm not much of a nascar fan but if theres a f1 race one, ill watch it. ever see the show pinks on speed channel? now thats a cool show.

well it looks like were getting our asses kicked. lookin really slow out there and not much into it. i think we will come out and get a goal in the opening minutes, just a gut feeling. now that kollers out, i dont think the czechs will have much offense and we should just put constant pressure on the rest of the match. we need to play quicker. most importantly, when we have free kicks, WE NEED TO STOP FRICKIN CROSSING IT TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FIELD EVERYTIME. hasnt done anything yet, and im pretty sure it wont.

oh and yeah, this ref is whistle happy. everytime we touch someone we get whistled. atleast hes not yellow card happy like the one ref yesterday was.

[speedy11309]

yeah well that just sucked. i dont think they couldve beat my cousins U10 team. i think it wouldve been more beneficial to put pylons in place of the defence, because thats about all they amounted to. our midfield was nowhere to be found. i think i took more touches on the ball than donovan did. i did, however, lose a bet on this game. no, not on the outcome, but on when in the match reyna would get hurt. i bet hed get hurt in the first 30 minutes.

the only one who actually did anything was eddie johnson. other than that they looked like a crappy gym class.

i give them about a 5% chance of getting out of the group now.

[Ace]

I think we'll just say that football isn't quite America's cup of tea :p

[§hinoßi]

I always laughed about competitions that start with, or have "world" in it somewhere.

World Series (for baseball)...only American teams ever make it, but they have players from anywhere...

Superbowl...(what the Americans call "football")...only American teams period.
Then there's the basketball thing...again..only American teams.


yeah, cuz theres plenty of countries outside of the US and Japan that could play baseball and football at the level of MLB/NFL (and thats giving japan alot of credit on the NFL side)


At least hockey has at least one team from Canada mixed in.


Makes sense, Hockey is Canadas major sport, and most American teams are full of Canadians


Then there's the competitions that I like. World Cup...world-wide participation. World Series of Poker..world-wide participation. Anything with International and League in the name..world-wide participation.


We have created leagues for basketball, football, and baseball because games are exteremely lucritive for the teams owner, the city, etc. There is no worldwide football league because nobody would make money off of it. You have worldwide leagues for soccer because alot of European/South American Countries worship the sport, just like we worship football/basketball/baseball


Man, America is dumb. Pff.


yeah um, im not sure the word "world" is in "Superbowl" or "NBA Finals" but I'm no English Teacher.

I find it kind of funny how you create an idiotic post, and then accuse others of being dumb

At least im smart enough to say you're an idiot, and not your entire country, dont call America stupid because we embraced some sports and pushed them to the professional level they are at now, and now other countries would not be able to compete.

There is a reason why people like Dirk Nowitski grow up in their country playing basketball, and then play in America professionally. Because playing for a german team is not competetive.

[Ace]

Let's calm it.

It wasn't an idiotic post, but just not too well worded perhaps. America has a rather isolated set of sports which not too many other countries get seriously involved with. They don't tend to compete that much on the international stage. It kind of mirrors Americans' *general* disinterest in world politics, the world stage, world geography, world climate etc. America is a huge and quite diverse country, and Americans tend to view themselves as a single unit rather than one part of an international community. It's not altogether that surprising that America has almost its own set of sports and events. We can argue over exactly how much they've involved in international events and how international their own events are, but the general trend holds true.

It is however true to say that the statement "America is dumb" isn't exactly spot on. A country can't think, let alone have the characteristic of being dumb. Whether the generalisation "American people are dumb" is another matter. Americans aren't generally dumb, although the international community can perceive Americans as dumb as in general they're politically apathetic, politically naive and the main example of consumerism gone wild, which arguably (and coupled with their mental isolation from the rest of the world) has led to a loss of care about the planet. This isn't dumb, but there are a few different issues at play here.

[speedy11309]

lol. so how bout that italy ghana game, eh? i definetly think ghana had their chances to score early on. i kinda fell asleep during the second half, so i sorta missed it. thats ok though, i have it recorded on my comp. this goin to bed at 5am and getting up at 8:30am to watch the first match just isnt working out too well. im pretty sure tomorrow im gonna just record the togo south korea game and sleep an extra couple hours. ill definetly get up to hopefully watch france get spanked. i love seeing them lose.

and ofcourse, im not missing brazil.

[Ace]

France get spanked? Uh... you'd need to be smoking something pretty potent to see that :p

I thought ghana started off really well - 1st 20 minutes they were pretty good. It all seemed to go downhill after that, and then when Italy scored their first goal it all just crumbled. It's clear they haven't really got the experience of world cup standard football yet, but they didn't do too badly overall. Their goalie was pretty good, as long as they keep him on elastic... sometimes he seems to think he's a defender.

Italy started awfully, but got better over the match. They were playing reasonably well at the end. Fair result.

[speedy11309]

yeah that goalie...sheesh. where was he going on a few of those crosses/corners? hes kind of a loose cannon if you ask me.

oh and as for france...how did they fair in the last world cup?

[Devils00Champs]

Damn ive started a whole rant on this subject here. The US looked like they qualified for the World Cup by winning some Special Olympics football tournament. On the other hand Czechs might have taken a huge blow to their squad with the loss of one of their best strikers. Im hoping Germany looses on wed to a team im rooting for.

Go Oils

[§hinoßi]

"The US looked like they qualified for the World Cup by winning some Special Olympics football tournament"

....LOL!!

[Ace]

That match was close! ****! (UK vs. Trinidad & Torbago). We 0wned the whole way through, I couldn't believe we didn't get a goal until t e80th minute! Insane. Anyway, 2-0, another 3 points, woohoo!

[speedy11309]

honestly, i think england looked like crap the entire game, minus the last 10 where they actually realized they were actually supposed to be doing something. i also think that the reason they played well was due to t & t being quite tired, which was quite obvious. england is lucky to get out of there with 1 point, let alone 3. crouch played like crap for all but 2 seconds of the game.

that being said, i think t & t should be quite proud of themselves. they took it to sweden and for most of the game, stunned england. im curious to see how england will fair against a legit team. they more i see them play, the more i think theyre this years spain. all the talent in the world and are just gonna piss it all away.

[Ace]

huh? did you see the game? they didn't stun england! we played the whole game in their half, if not in their box! we got more goal chances than i've ever seen in a match! it was nothing short of a miracle we weren't 10 goals ahead at the end of the first half! they only got 1, count them, 1 chance in the whole match!

True, I don't know how we didn't get a goal earlier, but by no stretch of the imagination were T&T good, we played the whole damn game in their box. True, Crouch disappointed, but I don't think he should have started. lennon was amazing when he came on. It was more a game to give owen and rooney, the two injured players, some time on pitch.

[Devils00Champs]

Refering to yesterdays games. god damn Germany got lucky in the final minutes to score that goal, i thought we would come out with a tie and still have a chance at advancing with a win over Croatia, but with Ecuadors win today we got eliminated.

[speedy11309]

by playing well, i mean they kept them from scoring for x amount of minutes. quite honestly it doesnt matter how well you move the ball around, how many chances you get, how many shots you take, or anything if you cant put the ball in the back of the net. you may have played the whole game "in their box" as you say, but then shouldnt that kinda scare you that you only had 2 goals? and the fact that they came after the 80 minute mark? if england is going up against a team like brazil, or germany, or the czechs, taking 26 shots, only 8 on goal, and scoring 2, isnt going to fly.

honestly i was completely stunned when they pulled owen off. crouch sucked all game long. i mean cmon, youre wide open in the middle of a box and you shank a ball off a volley that badly? thats just horrible. i woulda pulled him over owen. so far this tourney, he hasnt really shown much to me.

i still think they need to play well for more than 10 minutes in a game against a team that was at odds of 1000 to 1 to win it all. remember, england SHOULD dominate them. i really dont think that game was anything to get excited over as a england fan, that shoulda been a walk in the park!

[speedy11309]

Refering to yesterdays games. god damn Germany got lucky in the final minutes to score that goal, i thought we would come out with a tie and still have a chance at advancing with a win over Croatia, but with Ecuadors win today we got eliminated.

agreed. i was hoping poland would come out with a result. being half polish, i definetly wanted to see them stick it to germany. their keeper did play exceptionally well to keep them in the game for that long though.

[Ace]

by playing well, i mean they kept them from scoring for x amount of minutes. quite honestly it doesnt matter how well you move the ball around, how many chances you get, how many shots you take, or anything if you cant put the ball in the back of the net. you may have played the whole game "in their box" as you say, but then shouldnt that kinda scare you that you only had 2 goals? and the fact that they came after the 80 minute mark? if england is going up against a team like brazil, or germany, or the czechs, taking 26 shots, only 8 on goal, and scoring 2, isnt going to fly.

honestly i was completely stunned when they pulled owen off. crouch sucked all game long. i mean cmon, youre wide open in the middle of a box and you shank a ball off a volley that badly? thats just horrible. i woulda pulled him over owen. so far this tourney, he hasnt really shown much to me.

i still think they need to play well for more than 10 minutes in a game against a team that was at odds of 1000 to 1 to win it all. remember, england SHOULD dominate them. i really dont think that game was anything to get excited over as a england fan, that shoulda been a walk in the park!

Well, it was highly bizarre that we didn't get a goal until 80 minutes yeah. It seems we're uncapable of controlling this new, lighter match ball (like many other teams actually, but even so). 90% of our shots were on target but too high - darn new match ball, but the team should be suitably acquainted with it by now.

I think it also highlights our main problem - we don't have many strikers. Owen's barely match fit, Rooney IMO isn't match fit, Walcott is a wildcard, and Crouch is a bit temperamental in his play. That's all we've got to choose between. And Crouch had a bit of a poor match, a number of missed chances he should have taken, but everyone has their off days. We'll see. (e.g. Ronaldo :p) And I don't knbow if you saw the friendly England vs Hungary the week before our first world cup match last Sat, but Crouch was legendary. He's proven he can play, and he does show a bit of magic every now and again. Consistency is the key though. We'll see.

I'm not saying we played brilliantly, but I'm also saying we didn't play badly. At no point (well, aside from the one chance they had on goal) did they ever look in a strong position. If we can get our strikers sorted out - get Owen back to 100%, give Crouch a kick in the crotch, get Rooney a replacement foot & send Walcott home, then we're sorted.

To be fair though, Cole, Lennon and Terry all played incredibly that match. It just so happens they're not strikers though ;)

[speedy11309]

wow. that may have been the worst officiated game ive ever seen. 3 red cards!?!?!?!? the italian guy deserved it. that was flagrant. our straight red was obviously a make up call. we had seen 3 or 4 worse tackles already and he gives him a straight red. eddie popes red i blame on bruce arena(the coach). my dad said in like the 40th minute that he will get his second yellow no more than 2 minutes into the second half if he starts. sure enough, bam, cya.

even the line judges were horrible. blowing offsides calls left and right. some werent even close that they were calling offsides that were clearly not.

aside from that i definitely think the u.s. played exceptionally well. a lot better than against the czechs.

speaking of the czechs, boy did they get man handled. they were lucky they only lost by 2, shouldve been atleast 4. i strongly feel that the italians will beat them on thursday. i really hope they do cause then if we beat ghana, were goin through.

but yeah, that center ref should be put back on suspension, which is why he didnt ref in the 2002 cup, and shouldnt be allowed to ref another world cup game. :fighty:

[Ace]

Lol I feel like I may have a less optimistic assessment of the US' performance, but I didn't see it (was working), so I can't pass judgement. Well done for beating them anyway. As for the red cards, refs have been throwing cards about the whole tournament so far like they're children's toys. That's how it is in European football watched over by FIFA. Everyone's getting harsh treatment.

[Devils00Champs]

Just one question, What the hell was that ref doing? 2 red cards in first half and calling almost anything till the 75th minute then there were almost no calls, even on tackles from behind

[NotMyBest2Day]

So what'd you guys think of the Mexico v. Angolia match? It was a scoreless tie, but Ang was pretty strong the whole game. In the first minute, they had a goal attempt and it was again..too high by a few inches. Pretty exciting match, I thought.

[speedy11309]

yeah, that ref had no sense of "a dive". i mean, its kinda crazy when the us has 20 fouls against them 25 minutes into the game. meh, whatever, they played well and atleast got a tie out of it.

i didnt quite see the entire mexico match. i kept falling in and out of sleep. but from what i did see, angola did play well and i'm quite glad they did, as im not much a fan of mexico.

as for the cards in this game. i've seen all but 3 of the matches(i have seen a decent portion of the 3 however, theyre on my comp) and none of the games were officiated anywhere close to this match. anyone who saw it will tell you that all but 1 or 2 cards were actually warranted. and most of the fouls that were called were crap. not just against the us, but against italy as well. and it wouldnt have been as bad if he was consistent with the horrible calls. hed call one thing against the us, then let it go for italy, and vice verse.

i personally am waiting for the brazil game. im interested to see how they do after their last not-so-spectacular performance.

[AzN]

well....... you shouldnt expect less from a ref that got suspended from the last world cup for bad calls.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Well as the commentators said about Angolia, a tie is just as good as a win for them, 'cause this is only their second World Cup, and now it's the first time they've made it past the first game. Huge, huge tie for them. I was amazed to see Mexico have such a...lackluster performance considering they should've done much better than that.

[Devils00Champs]

not world cup related but GO OILERS

[speedy11309]

so heres a question i thought of. ok the teams in this dont matter and just know that its the first round and group play with 4 teams in the group. say each game played in this group tied 0-0. that means each team has the same number of points. the first tiebreaker is head to head, which theyve all tied. the second tiebreaker is goal differential, which is all the same...0. so my question is: what is the third tiebreaker? do they just like pull cards from a deck and whoever gets the highest card goes through? or how does it work?

[§hinoßi]

they finds the square root of charles barkley, and multiply that times alissa milano, then they say Brazil can go through...but not before they throw red cards at charles barkley for "tackling" his shoes when he puts them on

*looks around*

What?

[speedy11309]

i think the answer to that equation is 7. i came up with that number because you will notice that equation is equivalent to the IQ of one John Madden. Therefore, the answer is 7. how the hell 7 determines who goes through to the next round, well thats beyond me. -_-

btw, a guy named Fred scored for brazil yesterday. just because they have a guy named Fred, and thats all hes listed as, on the team, they automatically advance.

Fred's a stud (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/players/international?id=47265&league=fifa.world&season=2006&cc=5901)

[§hinoßi]

whatever team determines Fred's last name will advance...

[Ace]

Overall a positive performance from England against Sweden. I think it was unfortunate that it ended a 2 all draw. We played much better in the first half, and I'd say it was roughly even in the second. Both our goals were impressive, compared to one relatively impressive goal from them and one scrappy goal. Still, on we go. Just a shame about Owen. We're now running dangerously low on strikers.

[speedy11309]

yeah i agree that england played an excellent first half. bout time they showed what theyre capable of. now if they could only be consistent with it.

that is really a shame about owen. i was really looking forward to what him and rooney could do, but i dont think it will be able to happen again this cup, which is a shame.

to be honest, i was hoping england would win this game and then trinidad and tobago would win their game so they would go through. i guess it wasnt meant to be though.

[speedy11309]

wow so i just found out owen tore his acl. thats a horrible loss for england. hes going to be out for awhile.

[Ace]

Yeah it's awful news. Looks like we may have to, uh, chance Theo upfront for a bit of the next match. He better be as good as Sven claims. No pressure 17 year old kid ;)

The whole pub cringed as one when Owen went down, and on every replay afterwards. It looked *so* nasty. I'd not all that surprised. It's a real shame for Owen, and indeed for us. But, I guess it could have happened to anyone. Very unfortunate.

[speedy11309]

yeah the way it happened was just strange. ive watched people tear their acl before, but ive never seen it happen like that before. thankfully its never happened to me, well tearing my acl that is. i tore the ligaments on the outside of my left ankle about 2 years ago when someone slid into me after i had landed on my left foot after i crossed the ball with that foot. funny thing is, i took all my stuff off that leg, and i saw that it was like the size of my head, and dumbass me, tried to talk my coach into letting me back onto the field. he said no on account of the fact that i couldnt quite stand up, let alone run. when i got to the hospital, they only did an xray and said it wasnt broken. 5 days later, after walking on it straight for that long, they finally did an mri and told me i tore ligaments. fun times. hope he has a speedy recovery, but it doesnt seem likely.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Anybody catch the Ivory Coast game today? Looked pretty interesting. I like the third goal IVC got at the end. The goalie dove the wrong way to block it. IVC ended up winning that match..not just a tie like so many others.

[speedy11309]

let me just say this: landon donovan may be the most overrated player in the world. hands down, hes horrible. followed closely behind him is demarcus beasley. i put beasley behind donovan because he actually made 1 play today. thats 1 more than donovan has done this entire tournament.

aside from that, this is hands down the worst i have seen the united states play since they took last in the world cup. and no, its not because the other teams are that good or were that bad. i think they just got full of themselves and thought that everyone would just bow down to them. the results are justified by the amount of work they put in. against the czechs, they were still in their hotels and it showed. italy they played with passion, with heart, like they cared. and they got rewarded for it. against ghana here, theyve looked lathargic, lazy, and generally dissinterested.

granted they have been screwed by the ref on multiple occasions. i.e. the pk given today was absolute bull.

ok so its the 90', and donovan had the ball in the box...with no one on him. all he has to do is cut to his right and shoot. does he do that? no. he passes it to ben olsen who has it stolen. wasted opportunity. wow he fricken sucks.

i guess the only thing thats left now is for me to root for the countries that my ancestors came from. so since the czechs are out, poland is out, and italy went through. go italy.

[Devils00Champs]

Couldnt be more happy with the result of the US game today. They just showed the world that they do not belong in this tournament or anywhere near a stadium. The only result that I wish went the other way would be the Italy v Czech game, wanted to see the Czechs and Italy advance.

[speedy11309]

that may be one of the most assanine things ive ever seen written. we have just as much right to be there as anyone else. if no one else beats us from our region, then why shouldnt we deserve to go? it doesnt matter if the masses dont follow the sport, if were good enough to get there, then we deserve to be there. just because its not popular here doesnt mean that it wasnt the most popular sport here at one time. because well, it was. so as long as anyone can make the world cup, we have just as much right to be there as england or france or germany or anyone else.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Woooow. Excellent first goal by Japan. That one was like a sniper shot. Right after that goal, the stat came up: Teams that make the first goal are 27-3-3 for this year's World Cup. Brazil keeps going way high for their shots. Not just a foot or so too high, but like 20 feet too high. Definately an exciting match, as most of them are.

[speedy11309]

yeah i agree. this game is really good. nice to see ronaldo actually do something. i hope the goalie was screened or something on that second goal, which just happened like 2 minutes ago.

speaking of goals, croatia just scored their second goal. wow, what was the goalie doing on that one? that was a horrible mistake on the goalies part.

btw, i do have 3 tvs infront of me...2 on the brazil game, 1 on the croatia game. i like this setup, i dont miss any action.

edit: brazil just scored. what a beautiful ball by ronaldhino. a just as nice finish by gilberto. theyre really picking it up now. i think they just really didnt try in the first 2 games. i think this games being used to send a message.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Yeah, it looks like Brazil is going to win this one. Japan only has 30 minutes to pick up two goals to make a tie. Guess that stat of 27-3-3 is going to go 27-4-3 pretty soon here.

I'd probably watch two at the same time if I had two TVs in front of me though. ESPN2 is a bit grainy/fuzzy for me right now. Usually it's one of the clearest channels I have. GD Comcast.

Actually, I'd need at least four TVs. Two WC matches, golf, and F1 is on this weekend, too. Talk about a trifecta.

[speedy11309]

haha. i could bring up the 2 tvs in the basement if i needed too.

but wow. ronaldo's second goal. that was a fricken bullet. and thats all i have to say bout that.

[marcopolo]

I'm sick and tired of pudgy boy Ronaldo..and even more sick of people talking about Brasil and samba football.
Tired of it ...so brasil has it's beaches and slums full of youths playing football on the sand barefooted. I get it.. I know ..already..they are great ball handlers ..ect..ect..well, guess what football is not owned by Brasil..there is rest of the world besided damn Brasil...Argentina will take the Cup this year...unless Allemania will stop them.

[speedy11309]

anyone see the portugal netherlands game today?!?!?! wow...16 yellow cards...4 red cards.... i hate to say it but, that dude was worse than the one in the us-italy game.

[Ace]

Holy... no, i missed that one. How ridiculous. I pity the playeres who felt his wrath. Which was just about everyone on the pitch by the sounds of it.

Verdicts on the england-ecuador match? A stronger performance from England, but what the hell was Sven thinking with that 4141 formation. We kept sending long balls up to Rooney, which he didn't have a hope in hell of getting, let alone putting in the back of the net. Robinson's goal kicks were driving me insane. URGH.

[speedy11309]

but what the hell was Sven thinking

my thoughts exactly. thats about all i have to say on that one, lol.

as for the cards this cup, wtf weve already bypassed the previous record for yellow cards in an ENTIRE cup, which was like 272, and currently were at like 296 and were only half way through match 53. frickin nuts if you ask me. they really need to get their act together and not thing every frickin dive is a murder attempt.

it better not be like this in 4 years in south africa because imma be pissed when i go and its like this. imma have to crack some skulls if its this bad. :fighty:

[speedy11309]

that was a great game between germany and argentina. argentina kinda screwed themselves by bringing in their "defensive" subs at the end. they should have brought in messi to help control the germans up top. they just started to dump the ball in and sit back and wait for the attack. shame that they had to lose the way they did though.

[speedy11309]

tough loss for england today. wtf was up with beckham?!? and quite honestly, i dont know which thing rooney got tossed for. if it was for stepping on the dudes junk, thats fine. but if he got tossed for pushing him, which i think it was, thats crap. what are people saying about ronaldo over there after he ratted rooney out and scored the winning pk?

honestly, ricardo played amazingly in goal during those pks.

but how about brazil losing? that really fricken sucks. i really dont want to see france do anything. i really dont like them. and their coach bothers me. he just looks so smug.

[Devils00Champs]

Is it just me or does Barthez (French GK) look like Rob Halford?

[omga14]

who was shocked to see Italy win over Germany in overtime? had to crush the locals since now they have to watch all the other countries finish the Cup in there country with no representation.

[NotMyBest2Day]

Oh yeah, I've been talking about that one for days. I called it an "epic thriller". I mean, I was standing up like three feet away from the TV watching that one. Two goals in the last three minutes of OT2 to take the win.

Something a friend of mine agrees with me on is that penalty kicks are like free points, and it sucks to have to lose to one of those. Every PK I've seen so far in this WC, the goalie dives the wrong way, hence why it's a free point. One could argue though, that it's part of the challenge/competition to keep the other team from getting the chance to do a PK though, but still, it's a bad way to lose.

[PimpMySystem]

who was shocked to see Italy win over Germany in overtime? had to crush the locals since now they have to watch all the other countries finish the Cup in there country with no representation.

I did so i had no time to prepare for the worse, damn it wasnt all that bad fortunatly. But half my village is ittalian wich is about 1300 anf there would be 3
points that they would gather damn good thing it ended late. But those morons were blocking ther road :curse: if there was an ambulance comming i would have gone mad :mad: and i only managed to sleep for 3 hours cause about 60-100 morons were partying if they will win the final i will be sure to have a patato shooter and spikes for the unimportant road those stupid olive sh*tt*rs

[omga14]

someone is angry:D well who thinks Italy will beat France in the final? i'd like to hear why either way. i like soccer but don't watch it much. not much coverage here in the states.

[speedy11309]

go italy! f*ck the french. my reasoning: france sucks.

i support freedom fries

[Rudegar]

well brits call them chips
here we called the pomfries named after some places in germany i think

but belgiums claim they invented the stick shaped oil fried potato things

and you americans have an unhealthy obsession with the words freedom and liberty :P

when is this football thing finish anyway ?
and will germany or port win 3th place ?

p.s. i care little about the sport and never watch it
even if this country is playing

[speedy11309]

and you americans have an unhealthy obsession with the words freedom and liberty :P

no its just a way to piss the french off. maybe if france wins theyll actually have something to be arrogant about....

[NotMyBest2Day]

I didn't get to see the rest of the Germany v. Portugal match, but when I had to leave, Germany was up 3-0, so I figured they won it. :p I saw those first three goals though, and the first one, the Port. goalie did like a Matrix move when they showed it on slo-mo. The ball almost got him in the head and he kind of turned his head and layed it back, and the ball went right through his arms.

Looking forward to the match for 1st and 2nd place tomorrow.

[NotMyBest2Day]

So how 'bout that win? Italy winning the penalty kicks 5-3. Italy hasn't beaten France in any of the matches in World Cup since 1978 (I think that's what they said). Awesome.

Now TV is going to go back to sucking for a while since there's not WC games on.

[speedy11309]

yeah, im glad to see that italy won. thank you zidane for the headbutt of god. i would love to know what materazzi said to zidane.

my materazzi does 185.

[Devils00Champs]

F*cken stadium replays, they shouldnt be allowed till a call is made. That side ref didnt she anything till after he watched the replay.

[dog2525]

nooooooooooooo
france lost. why!!!:fighty:

[chris000001]

F*cken stadium replays, they shouldnt be allowed till a call is made. That side ref didnt she anything till after he watched the replay.


Zidane still deserved to get the red card stadium replays or not

[Devils00Champs]

Zidane still deserved to get the red card stadium replays or not
Yes, but he wouldnt have been seen therefore wouldnt have received a red card. In every sport players attempt to cheat and gain an advantage. Zidane got screwed because of that damn replay. Its all doin of Italy, without Italys meddling in replays Germany's Frings wouldnt have been suspended for taht game against Italy, and it would have been Germany in the final match.

[PimpMySystem]

Damn i hate it if Italy or Turkish (Turkey :D) win, TALK ABOUT NOISE !!!!
after the last shot it didnt take 6 seconds or i heared the first shout on the street gave it another 13 and the italian cars where riding with flags and making noise as wel ofcourse damn my bro told me they already had there car running warm and theyre gate open