Don't forget: Spain looses 0:1, France looses 0:2. I could live without the Italian team though ^^ sorry Jake but I don't like the way they play...
I see the England team managed to disgrace England again. Notice I didn't say they disgraced themselves as I was expecting nothing more from them. There seems to be a feeling amonst fans that England should be a force to be reckoned with, even if not the very top echelon. I have no clue why this is - admittedly we have a world respected premier league, but almost all the players in it are foreign and that's not exagerating. My guess would be 90%. LoL, some of the players we do have don't /sound/ English. Rio Ferdinand? Emile Hesky? They might be English now, but even they were imported Shit, we can't even field an English manager.
Most of the western European teams are actively disgracing their countries in this cup. Aging prima donnas who act like they don't want to be there, no construction in the play, no actual star player who can make a difference, coaches who refuse to confront reality, players we don't identify with (sleeping with underage prostitutes or qualifying with a handball, for instance), etc. Yesterday, USA-Slovenia was the first actual soccer match I've seen in this competition, with hungry teams on both sides, a dramatic comeback, a refused pivotal goal, etc. It's normal that soccer goes through cycles, now the Figo-Zidane-Beckam-Raul etc generation is gone, hopefully by 2018 if they would please all start over, we all have teams again Yeah, what is wrong with English managers? You guys had a Swede last time and an Italian this time, and you seem to have plenty of competent ones in your championship. Although I'd happily trade any nationality for our French one. At least we can entertain ourselves with some predictions for whatever group your team plays in. Here's mine for group A: South Africa-France 1 0 ; Mexico-Uruguay 1 1. So final order: Uruguay 1st - Mexico 2nd - South Africa 3rd - France 4th. Best regards, Emmanuel
As usual, and this might be part of it, we had a supposedly piss easy free pass into the next round. Something that in the past we've been rather good at and might explain why we occasionaly make the competition proper. USA, Slovenia, Algeria. I still can't believe we're having trouble in that group, even given what I previously said about our team. With only Slovenia left to play (I can only roughly guess where that is on a globe, btw) I'm hoping they do us 1-0 so we can get the spotlight of our embarrasing let downs. I do confidently predict that we'll win that match with a fluke goal or something, so that once again we can make the knock out stage and all kid ourselves for just a little longer that this year might be our time. Zzzzz If our group had any three of the hosts, Mexico, France or Uruguay that we would have been out of the running as soon as statistically possible. Even if your lot come 4th, it's no disgrace - that's a tough bunch.
The "problem" is that some teams, like Algeria, use the tactical scheme 4-6-0. Yes, 0 attackers It's quite hard to score when you have someone defending so well. Even the top brazilian players had troubles with the poor North Korean players because they were all defending. It's crazy, but I think teams like England would play better against Brazil or Argentina (other teams that attacks and not just defend in 11 players). Seeing other results, I'm starting to believe that the italian 1-1 vs Paraguay isn't a bad result after all
Actually I thought Algeria did quite a bit of attacking for saying, I think it was when they realised just how crap we were so they thought they might as well have a go of it same with the USA. Apparently Slovenia play 4-4-2 so let's see if you're right, Jack. I think the problem with England, and probably the rest of the supposedly top western european teams, is that they're a bunch of over-paid primadonnas who can't play as a team. They seem to think that because they're paid stupid money then that means they're better than anyone else. I actually mostly blame the clubs who only reluctantly release their players for national duty, that's probably because the top clubs are all foreign owned and managed so there's no sense of national duty. Actually I think we do have some very good managers, Stuart Pearce for example I reckon would make a very good England manager even though he might not be so good at club level. We're not the only country to field a foreign manager, ROI also have an Italian manager. I would like to see Fifa make a rule that the national manager must be of that nationality as well (a nationalised citizen would count to be fair).
You know, I'm fine with that. I think football should be a sport of finesse, feints, dexterity; not a game always won by bigger, stronger, faster players, which I feel has become lately. This is why we're seeing boring matches - most teams use a brute force approach.
I agree with Gabriel on this one. If you played soccer professionally (or even as amateur as I did) you know well how easy is to get injured if the referees don't prevent those hard tackles. Having seen all the fouls of that match in slow-motion, only the 2nd yellow to Klose was a bit exaggerated but all the others were absolutely bad fouls (when you are hit so close on the ankle you can easily be injured and have to go out of the field).
I completely agree with bad fouls to be punished. But I think that a referee should at first try to calm down the moods. It's like with my children, if I punish them directly the feelings stay bad, but when I talk to them and explain them strongly the consequences if they continue like this and give them the chance to calm down and behave then usually I don't have to punish. And don't tell me football-players aren't like children
I like that we're still in the world cup. Our chances of going through to the semis is so close to zero it isn't funny, but at least we avoided the wooden spoon. On the top of red cards, our recent one was just stupid, and Ghana seemed to get away with some pretty bad stuff.
Today italy match vs NZ was the worst match I've ever seen in a world cup ever. Netherland must hope Italy qualifies as 2nd place at this point so they'll have an easy win
Boy, was the ref for the Chile-Switzerland game terrible. Complete nonsense straight red early in the game, and then allowed an offside goal. At least he correctly booked the Chilean attacker for diving at the very end of the game, but still, he should never ref a major international game again. The whole card system in soccer is flawed... the criteria for giving a red are the same throughout the game, but a red in the 10th minute is basically game over, while a red in the 85th minute is not the same thing at all. Should be more like hockey if you ask me, but with longer penalties; yellow card equivalent fouls should send you off for 5 minutes + 5 for every previous one you've had, straight red equivalents for 15 minutes + 5 for every previous "yellow." Something like that. You could still eject someone for the whole game for something really horrible, like throwing a punch, but as it stands, an early red card has way too much of an impact on the game for something as subjective as what the Swiss player was thrown out for.
The hockey idea is great. Why don't they use cameras as proove of evidence? Why aren't there not my co-referees who only inspect all camera material to help the main referee. I saw a scene in american football where the trainer could demand a camera inspection of a scene. I don't know why football is so backwards and against modernization...
Exactly my thoughts Alex! I'm telling for years that it would be a good idea to have time penalties like in hockey. The ref was really terrible (yes, i'm biased. I'm from switzerland). 10 Cards in a match that wasn't really brutal is too much. A little bit of holding and pushing isn't a yellow card for me as there would be no player left after 45 minutes. I'm ok with the goal on the other hand. Even in slow motion and with the visual aids it's difficult to see if it's offside or not. Very hard to spot during the game. I would say, regular goal. 1-1 would have been a fair result. But hey, Eren Derdiyok had the chance... I'm against Video evidence. Or at least only in special situations (goal or no goal). Otherwise the ref would have to consult the videos every 5 minutes...
Not at all, I believe in american football the trainers have exactly three times to demand a video evidence. What if the wembley goal wouldn't have been counted
I don't watch American football too much but I believe it works like this: if you have any time outs left you can get a review of a play. If the outcome of that review is not in your favor, you lose a time out. So you can only ask for so many reviews and you are penalized for being wrong. I personally think soccer could do pretty much the same thing but with substitutions.