World Cup 2006

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 16 Jun 2006 13:37

Max gets a red card for his post.
Which chant sounds better?
Europe Europe Europe
or USA USA USA USA

crazy hooligans.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Jun 2006 22:25

Nobody chants Europe. I agree with Max that American football is boring - I don't mind watching highlights but when you watch a full game it seems to me that there is more time spent not playing than actually playing. Anyway clearly soccer (futbol) owns all other sports based on how many people actually care about the sport. People care more about ice sculptures than they care about footbag.

Anyway I've been watching like every game. Australia v Brazil monday night should be good. I hope Brazil play like they did against Croatia and we might get a point out of it.

Argintina look shit hot right now!

Iain · Post by **Iain** » 16 Jun 2006 23:13

mexico tieing with angola makes group D real interesting now. I'm curious as to how it will turn out. i'm really happy netherlands beat ivory coast. That was a really hard group and i feel ivory coast def deserves to be in the second round. But hey, there can only be one winner and i'm rooting for the netherlands all the way.

The games i'm looking forward to are ecuador v germany, sweden v england, netherlands v argentina, and any of australia games(cause i missed the first one).

sniikeri · Post by **sniikeri** » 17 Jun 2006 12:03

What happened to the Czech Republic? First playing really well (only Argentina has played better) against USA (was it USA?) and now Ghana comes and destroys the defence time after time! Asamoah had like 10 very potential scoring opportunities, including a penalty kick, scored only once but it was a huge game for him. Kingson made a couple of really great saves.
Peter Cech played really well too, after today he's in my eyes probably the best goalkeeper in the world. Finally he couldn't hold the team up just by himself, the Czech defence did nothing and the midfield didn't come to help.

2-0 to Ghana, I'm so happy it won. This'll make things very interesting.

Uranos · Post by **Uranos** » 17 Jun 2006 13:35

After watching Portugal vs Iran, i have to say CHristiano Ronaldo is the biggest hog and overrated player. All he did when he received the ball on left wing was just dash straight and sook free kicks. And his fakey mirage dexes dont seem to be any effective at all, and when they were within 25 metres of goal he didnt pass at all.

Go Deco!

Canthraxsoldier · Post by **Canthraxsoldier** » 17 Jun 2006 16:31

Australia also need to play for the whole game instead of just 8 minutes to have a chance against Brazil.

BenRea · Post by **BenRea** » 17 Jun 2006 18:47

come on jeremy! there is no tackling or excitment in european football!!!! all they do in europe is pass the ball with their feet, i've never even seen a game go over 4 points.....BORING!

SandWraith · Post by **SandWraith** » 17 Jun 2006 18:55

futbol >> football.

Though I can't say I'm at all anticipating the US getting very far, I'm pissed at the officiating in the US vs. Italy game. The red card against Italy seemed legit, though an italian player said that De Rossi told him that it wasn't an intentional elbow. However, the two red cards against the US were bull. If you didn't see the game you might say this is biased, but the announcers and the post-game all said that that ref will probably never be allowed to call a World Cup match (he had even been suspended in the past for unsubstantiated calls).

Overall, I'm hoping Germany wins, but I'd hate to see the US go out in the first round, especially cause they could have and should have won the game today.

brian relly · Post by **brian relly** » 17 Jun 2006 21:45

BenRea wrote:come on jeremy! there is no tackling or excitment in european football!!!! all they do in europe is pass the ball with their feet, i've never even seen a game go over 4 points.....BORING!

That's because the goals are actually just worth that -- one point! Baseball is just as low-scoring as soccer. Tell me why the fuck goals in American football are worth 6 points (3 for field goals). What a bunch of arbitrary shit! If you counted just the actual goals, and not the points, you would see that many games have about the same number of scores.

in other news:
-fuck yes ecuador
-holy fucking shit ghana
-lol CZR
-lol Argentina

Iain · Post by **Iain** » 17 Jun 2006 22:56

SandWraith wrote:Though I can't say I'm at all anticipating the US getting very far, I'm pissed at the officiating in the US vs. Italy game. The red card against Italy seemed legit, though an italian player said that De Rossi told him that it wasn't an intentional elbow. However, the two red cards against the US were bull. If you didn't see the game you might say this is biased, but the announcers and the post-game all said that that ref will probably never be allowed to call a World Cup match (he had even been suspended in the past for unsubstantiated calls).

When u slide INTO a player with BOTH legs STRAIGHT, u get a red card, no questions asked. That kind of tackling can break legs and is completely unnecessary. If he would have had his legs bent he would have only gotten a yellow. Pope early in the second half deserved his second yellow as well. Any tackle from behind like that gets you a yellow. FIFA told all the player and refs that is what should and will happen. No excuses. I was hoping for the US to win, but they fucked up. When you come into the second half with a man up, u make sure u don't get carded. Did you notice that towards the end there were very few penalties given out? That's because the players learned they aren't gonna get away with that shit.

I'm not trying to praise the ref, cause there were some penalties that shouldn't have been, but he called 43 penalties! I'm sorry, you cannot blame a ref for that.

sniikeri · Post by **sniikeri** » 18 Jun 2006 00:16

Brazil vs Australia today.

I read from the paper about the comments of the Brazilian press after the game vs Croatia. Ronaldo didn't get much understanding there. Headlines were something like
"The best possible result with 10 or 9 players" (they thought it would have been the same to play with Ronaldo and Adriano on the pitch as without them, I had the same feeling after the game).
The Brazilian coach isn't still going to change the starting line-up, I hear. Australia showed they can be dangerous, Brazil can't afford to play lazily today. Hope it'll be a good game.

King Monkey · Post by **King Monkey** » 18 Jun 2006 10:56

Well i thought it was a pretty entertaining game, but i dont watch much football and havent watched any other World Cup games so far except first half of Oz v Japan (i fucking fell asleep and missed all the action

)

The score line in the end (2-0) really didnt reflect the way the game was played, esp in the second half when Australia really started to take it to them with some good shots on goal (a few that were the worst rip-off misses haha) Brasil didnt look like they really had things totally under control throughout the game, the Aussies kept finding gaps and players out of position which kept it interesting. Obviously you cant knock Brasil's skill with the ball up close but the Aussie defenders did a hella job IMO

But then i dont know much about football. I was pleased with the game despite the result. 1-1 would have seemed more realistic to me.

mahhkohh · Post by **mahhkohh** » 18 Jun 2006 13:01

france vs south korea 1:1

south korea rocked them hard, the fans were so loud all the time, and then when they score that one goal like 10 min before the end of the game they went so crazy, man, i wish iw ould have been in that stadium and singing and jumping with lots of korean guys... crazy soccer in the last 15 to 20 minutes.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 18 Jun 2006 20:55

Australia put up a pretty good fight, I was impressed. Roberto Carlos looks so old and slow now.

I only watched a bit of France-Korea, and was so disgusted by one play, that I tuned out. The French scored a second goal; the korean goalkeeper caught the ball BEHIND the posts, but the refs weren't watching, so it didn't count. Sickening.

World Cup can be pretty cool, but I think the officiating needs to be way better for me to bother investing any emotion in spectating.

mahhkohh · Post by **mahhkohh** » 19 Jun 2006 01:40

yeah, in soccer its sometimes that way that you score a goal and noone sees it... remeber wembly goal, was clearly behind the line. but noone was able too see it correctly so englang was world champ and not germany...

but what do you want to do with the refferee´s job? get instant video stuff in the game like in the nfl??? man that would defenatly kill the sport, thats how it is, they had a goal, but the ref´s assistant(the guys at the sidelines(they are responsibly for seeing stuff like that(and standing on the sideline and call such a close thing.... its not that easy as for us as we watch it in slo mo 5 times from 5 angles)) so i think soccer has a good rulebook... and the offiv´ciating is ok...imho

wolfpac444 · Post by **wolfpac444** » 19 Jun 2006 01:45

I never saw a definitive angle that showed the entire ball crossing the plane either.

max · Post by **max** » 19 Jun 2006 02:30

yeah that second goal (the one that was refused) was a tough call for the refs. But then again not one single French player claimed the goal either.. that doesn't help. All in all I'm very dissapointed by the level of play that the French showed yesterday.

krawallier · Post by **krawallier** » 19 Jun 2006 03:27

mahhkohh wrote:remeber wembly goal, was clearly behind the line. but noone was able too see it correctly so englang was world champ and not germany...

it still isn't clear whether wembley 66 was in or not.

the ball yesterday was. glad that s.korea won though!

sergio · Post by **sergio** » 19 Jun 2006 03:34

France only played well during the first ten minutes. I guess they're too old to keep that level of play during a whole game.
I think they are dissapointing, but they also have so much rotten luck! France should've got a penalty in the first round, and now a refused goal in the second round... Something has been bothering in football for at least ten years : WHY DON'T THEY F****** ALLOW VIDEOS TO HELP THE REFEREES????? It works so well in rugby why not in football?

The referees in general are really bad. I think only two penalties have been given during the competition so far, but there should have been at least 5 or 6. Ivory Coast should've been given at least 2 against the Netherlands. The problem is that referees don't call the small fouls in the penalty area because they're not 'worth' a penalty. A foul is a foul, no matter where it happened, that's the official rule. Because of that you can see so many defenders systematically and intentionnaly holding opponents in the penalty area, because they know the referee won't call a penalty for a small foul like that. It just spoils so many actions and potential goals and it's very frustrating..

max · Post by **max** » 19 Jun 2006 04:33

glad that s.korea won though!

they didn't. It was a 1-1 draw