THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: Inlander on 11 Jun 2010, 07:03
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I don't think the World Cup can be contained in a mere Sports Thread. So here is a World Cup thread.
First game is South Africa vs. Mexico and it's kicking off . . . NOW!!
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South Africa's number 10 is a guy named Pienaar. I wonder if he, too, will be played by Matt Damon when they make the movie of this South African World Cup?
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Pienaar.jpg/170px-Pienaar.jpg) (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Damon_cropped.jpg/200px-Damon_cropped.jpg)
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I'm now hoping he gets a good solo effort, so I can imagine the commentators yelling "Matt Damon, still Matt Damon, Matt Damon, Maaaatt Daaaaamon!"
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He just had a free kick!
He sprayed it way over the bar. I believe that's traditional at a World Cup.
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So I understand, I believe getting knocked on the bonce by such a ball is a sign of fertility. Mexico have also begun the grand traditional of 'getting booked because you refuse to understand that once the referee has made a call he isn't going to change it even if you keep trying to get the ball off the opposing team and whine a lot'.
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Apparently the new ball is pretty wack so people missing stuff that they should really be able to do at range is gonna be par for the course this tournament.
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Mexico are having a good period in the match, as the commentator phrased it. One of their players just put a ball across the face of the goal which, again to use the commentator's words, was neither a shot nor a centre. Actually, that's from Hamlet, isn't it? Act 1, scene 3: "Neither a shot nor a centre be". Actually I believe more than one eyebrow was raised when Mexico signed up Polonius as their head coach for the World Cup, but clearly they're following his instructions to the letter.
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South Africa are a cool team, but god damn it someone needs to take those horns off of their fans. Really, really annoying.
Really though I can't not love a team who sung and danced their way down the tunnel.
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GOAL CELEBRATION DANCE YESSS
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Hang on, was that the Macarena?
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The South Africans are playing much better technical football than I expected; great, crisp short passing; excellent movement and positioning and that goal was fully deserved on the way they've started the second half.
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Damn it Mexico why you gotta ruin a party?
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GOAL MEXICO!! It's 1-1 now.
Incidentally I was, of course, being facetious when I said earlier that Mexico were coached by Polonius. Turns out their coach is actually - and this is honest-to-god true - a guy named Aguirre.
I've seen that movie and frankly I don't know if putting a guy named Aguirre in charge of your team is a good idea.
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That's it! Game over. South Africa had a great chance in the 90th minute but hit the upright while the Mexican keeper was busy doing star-jumps.
Which reminds me of an intractable debate I once had the misfortune of overhearing, between two inebriated gentlemen in a pub in Surrey. The topic of discussion was whether a shot that hits the woodwork counts as "on target" or "off target". I never did find out the answer.
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Gotta feel for South Africa. I had my head in my hands when that shot bounced off the post.
This is why I love the World Cup. Take two teams, neither of whom are known for playing particularly good football, yet somehow because it's the World Cup they manage to create a fantastic game of football. Tshabalala's goal was absolutely perfect.
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Hey now, Mexico usually manage to produce a pretty high standard at World Cups. They just don't win very much. They're like the Portugal of the Americas.
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I think the draw was the fair result in the end although I must admit I was wishing that last chance to go in for South Africa to start in a flash of glory.
Mexico are known as a decent footballing team though and have been for a while. Sure, they don't play the glittering football of their South American counterparts nor the tactical football of the better European nations but they have great confidence with the ball at their feet and are always an attacking threat. Defensively though, they are pretty pants.
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I was fully expecting South Africa to lose so I am happy with this result.
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Just sucks for them they gotta continue hosting the event after such an early defeat. At least in '06 everybody had the courtesy to let Germany get to the semis.
I'm still pissed about THAT loss, man, 4 years apparently isn't long enough between World Cups for me to get over my grudges.
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They're not out yet! They drew against a good side most people seemed to be expecting them to lose to. If they can take momentum from that and avoid repeating the shaky start they had against Mexico they could still sneak a second place.
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Yeah, I really don't think they did that badly. I saw them play for a bit and they seemed to have it together. I really had them pitched as the worst team in their Group, but the fact that they managed to draw, and nearly outplay, what I thought was the second best team in their group is a really good sign to me.
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Yeah, South Africa played fantastic football. They took some time to settle down, but once they got their game together they absolutely kept up with Mexico who are a far better side on paper.
If S. Africa can play against Uruguay the way they did against Mexico they should run all over them. Similarly, if France keep up the form they showed tonight Mexico will make them look utterly worthless.
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South Africa moves homeless, squatters, poor into concentration camp to spruce things up for the world cup (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/01/south-africa-world-cup-blikkiesdorp).
Hope you're enjoying the football! I am personally thrilled to know which team of eleven millionaries will win.
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I've seen that movie and frankly I don't know if putting a guy named Aguirre in charge of your team is a good idea.
Couldn't be worse than Maradona.
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Khar, it's a long established fact that the political situation, the human rights situation, and the racial situation in South Africa all leave more than a little to be desired.
I mean dude it's still fucking legal for somebody to use chlorine gas and flamethrowers as a carjacking preventative measure. Statistically, rape is as common as a fucking handshake, and it even (especially!) happens to infants. Assault, burglary, mugging, murder, drug-related crime, arson all happen every day. This is the least of South Africa's worries.
Can I go back to not giving a fuck and watching my game now?
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I doubt it, considering the entire point of his post was to take a shit on your apathy.
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I am enjoying the football and I am also excited to see which team of millionaires wins.
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I am disappointed that SA & Mexico drew. I had called Mexico winning 2-0 :(
Had also put in a prediction of France beating Uruguay, so I am pretty disappointed so far!
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I didn't see Uruguay vs. France, but based on match reports and on the South Africa vs. Mexico match, it seems like South Africa and Mexico could be favourites to qualify from that group. Mexico's goalkeeper looks like a disaster waiting to happen, though . . .
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Can I go back to not giving a fuck and watching my game now?
So you like being an awful human being? That's cool.
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Is there actually anything we can do without there being some kind of link to something bad?
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hugging?
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Don't you realise how many children around the world don't have mothers to hug, you ignorant fucking jerk!?!
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Is there actually anything we can do without there being some kind of link to something bad?
There are levels of bad, though. And some of the actions of South Africa in relation to the world cup are pretty high on the general scale of badness.
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Well maybe go make a thread in discuss.
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Like, I appreciate that South Africa is a pretty bad place but it's going to keep being bad whether the World Cup is held there or not and none of us really have any say on whether the SA authorities govern their country well or shoot babies or what have you, so can't we just talk about sport instead of getting into a fucking stupid argument that won't change anything about the underlying situation?
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I live in a hall with about 10 koreans, the just scored.
they are going batshit insane, this might be good.
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Man Greece are such a terrible football team. I dislike them but watching them lose is still no fun because they're just so bloody boring about it.
Excited for the Argentina game. First top-class side to play in the tournament; here's hoping they turn on the flair.
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Argentinian team hairstyle news: greasy, unkempt, and unwashed locks are out this World Cup; ponytails are in.
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Today is like sport ULTIMATE here: not only are the UK playing but it's also the Bumps so if you're not into football you can get into rowing. It's crazy in town.
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Several years ago my
beloved appreciated tolerated Queens Park Rangers had a pretty handy defender with the inifinitely cherishable name of Danny Shittu. I always wondered what happened to him after he left QPR; turns out he's playing for Nigeria!
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I for one cannot wait for the surely inevitable confluence of Messi and Shittu.
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Argentina score!! In the thoroughly un-Argentinian manner of a header from a corner; but on the other hand, the guy who scored it is called Heinze so I guess it's pretty fitting in that regard. I remember when Germany beat Saudi Arabia 7-0 or 8-0 or something, and all but one of their goals came from headers from corners or free kicks. (Heinze's header was better than any of those tedious efforts, though.)
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One of my most abiding football memories is of a match played between Argentina and Australia. It was the final qualifier for the World Cup, way back in the days when Australia qualified through Oceania and then, having finished putting seventeen goals past the Solomon Islands, had to try to beat the fifth-placed South American side to win a place in the World Cup (or World Cup Finals if you want to be technical). Anyway, Australia were playing Argentina, and in the Argentian team was a certain gentleman with flame-red hair and the palest of pale skin. His name? Carlos McAlister.
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Today is like sport ULTIMATE here: not only are the UK playing but it's also the Bumps so if you're not into football you can get into rowing. It's crazy in town.
The UK are not playing. </false patriotism>
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Good thing, too: if they were playing they might have to pick some Scottish players!
Funnily enough, once upon a time when football was first getting started, Scottish players were prized by English teams for their skill. Or so a T.V. show I saw years ago told me.
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The thing with Scotland is that they're really not that bad. They just suck at winning the matches that matter.
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Like, I appreciate that Nazi Germany is a pretty bad place but it's going to keep being bad whether the Olympics is held there or not and none of us really have any say on whether the Nazi authorities govern their country well or shoot babies or what have you, so can't we just talk about sport instead of getting into a fucking stupid argument that won't change anything about the underlying situation?
Godwin'd yr post.
Seriously though, can we? You really don't think it is dreadful to be crassly enjoying a corporate-sponsored bread and circuses event that has caused suffering to thousands of people? By supporting the World Cup uncritically and 'just talking about sport', you are basically saying to the SA authorties, and everyone else, that this behaviour is absolutely normal and fine. You're shitting on real fucking living people who are having their lives destroyed for the sake of a glorified playground game. I'm sorry you don't want to think about that, but I don't think you can somehow claim that I'm being some sort of deliberately obtuse fly in the ointment just because I care about other members of the human race!
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Good thing, too: if they were playing they might have to pick some Scottish players!
Funnily enough, once upon a time when football was first getting started, Scottish players were prized by English teams for their skill. Or so a T.V. show I saw years ago told me.
Scotland are still the all-time world champions (http://www.ufwc.co.uk/). Kinda.
Shame about their league/players/team/everything in the last 50 years though.
After all the hype around this England/Team USA USA USA game I have a sneaking suspicious it'll be a bore draw or a 1-0 from a Terry header, can't wait to be proved wrong though.
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Seriously though, can we? You really don't think it is dreadful to be crassly enjoying a corporate-sponsored bread and circuses event that has caused suffering to thousands of people? By supporting the World Cup uncritically and 'just talking about sport', you are basically saying to the SA authorties, and everyone else, that this behaviour is absolutely normal and fine. You're shitting on real fucking living people who are having their lives destroyed for the sake of a glorified playground game. I'm sorry you don't want to think about that, but I don't think you can somehow claim that I'm being some sort of deliberately obtuse fly in the ointment just because I care about other members of the human race!
Crassly enjoying is stretching it. One of the grand tragedies of football is that the very people who find it most important are the same ones who get shat on by it. One article I read about a community of people who'd been promised improvements to their village that never materialised and had their entire community covered in dust due to nobody feeling it worthwhile to even tarmac the road still bought tickets to matches when they could scrape the money together. Football's a weird split between largely working class fans and (in some countries) large companies who profit from what are basically (or at least should be) community institutions. So sometimes you get those beautiful acts of resistance to the whole affair like FC United Of Manchester or AFC Wimbledon, and on the other hand there's the World Cup resulting in people getting bumped off for knowing about corruption in stadium building, Arsenal fleecing its fans or the haggard face of the Portsmouth fan I saw giving a talk about the destruction of his club by owners who couldn't care less.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about the really horrible shit that's been going down of course, but talking about all of that and still enjoying the football is sort of the point for me. I don't think it's an insult to watch the games because of what's been done to people in South Africa since that's exactly what a good number of those people who got done over will be doing.
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ouch. that must have been painful.
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My it is such a good day for US DOMINATION
BP GO HOME
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(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/6/10/1276190910492/South-African-boys-blow-t-006.jpg)
These things were really annoying.
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I have Argentina in the office sweep, so hopefully I'll be winning at least a tenner.
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(http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7120/greenfumble.gif)
It just gets funnier each time.
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Which Brit made the bigger mistake?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/12/itv-england-world-cup-goal-gaffe
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(http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7120/greenfumble.gif)
It just gets funnier each time.
its like playing with a cat but keeping the toy just out of reach as its chasing it.
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I wrote a blog post about the football!
http://panzerdivisionjohncandy.blogspot.com/2010/06/fussball-fussball-uber-alles.html (http://panzerdivisionjohncandy.blogspot.com/2010/06/fussball-fussball-uber-alles.html)
It's prety scathing.
I guess I hate the working class or something pack of wolves?
I mean, I dunno, I guess a lot of working class people feel very strongly about Roman Catholicism but would you really try and support that particular institution?
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Oh for fuck's sake. Yeah, because the SA govt is rounding up millions of people and trying to kill them. They put a few thousand homeless people into temporary accommodation during the World Cup. Oh no, that's fucking horrible.
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That goal is just so painful. It's so incredibly painful to watch.
You just know that that guy's career is pretty much ruined.
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Oh for fuck's sake. Yeah, because the SA govt is rounding up millions of people and trying to kill them. They put a few thousand homeless people into temporary accommodation during the World Cup. Oh no, that's fucking horrible.
That's not really what they did at all!
Yeah I know you got to break a few poor, disenfranchised, ultimately expendable (you seem to believe) eggs to make an omelette, but that's life right?
This is bad because I was pretty sure you were actually a nice person?
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The blog post started well and the news article therein is an important read but the fascism bit is kind of a stretch, at best.
That goal is just so painful. It's so incredibly painful to watch.
You just know that that guy's career is pretty much ruined.
It's even worse than the Neville/Robinson OG from the Euro 2008 qualifiers 'cos at least that match was 2-0, so England would have lost anyway. This time it lost 'em 2 points.
Having said that, a draw tomorrow and both teams will fancy their chances at qualifying from the group. You'd still have to assume that SLO/ALG are the weaker 2 sides of the 4 I reckon.
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Khar, I read the article you linked to and that is what I got from it. They moved a bunch of homeless people/squatters into a shanty town. South Africa and other countries like it do this pretty much any fucking time without anything to provoke it, so yeah of course they're gonna do it come an event like this.
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Oh, and when I saw that goal I kinda hoped the US had won as a result. Football doesn't get as much attention as it should in the US, but as with everything people get interested in success, so success at this year's cup will help with that.
(Also because I had put $5 on the US winning due to it being 7:1 on odds)
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Khar, I read the article you linked to and that is what I got from it. They moved a bunch of homeless people/squatters into a shanty town. South Africa and other countries like it do this pretty much any fucking time without anything to provoke it, so yeah of course they're gonna do it come an event like this.
So? None of that means that the occurrence isn't worth noting and getting angry about. You could say something pretty much the same about damn near every bad thing that ever happens.
I wrote a blog post about the football!
http://panzerdivisionjohncandy.blogspot.com/2010/06/fussball-fussball-uber-alles.html (http://panzerdivisionjohncandy.blogspot.com/2010/06/fussball-fussball-uber-alles.html)
It's prety scathing.
I guess I hate the working class or something pack of wolves?
I mean, I dunno, I guess a lot of working class people feel very strongly about Roman Catholicism but would you really try and support that particular institution?
Oh come on, you know I never implied you hate the working class. And although football is pretty different to Catholicism there is a useful similarity in that how a religion like that functions on an individual level is very different to what those that run it want you to think. For one thing, I've never personally known a straight Catholic. Their reasons for sticking with a religion that officially condemned them for what they saw as their natural and not at all sinful desires were complex. Just like enjoying football. God knows I've no reason to stick up for FIFA, but enjoying football isn't as clear-cut as you're making it out to be.
And I know you weren't talking about club football, but with your fascist comparison in that blog post you do kind of skirt around the fact that by far the easiest way to identify an anti-fascist in the UK is if they're sporting the name of a professional football club:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3501/3849989778_3f24e419a9.jpg)
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The blog post started well and the news article therein is an important read but the fascism bit is kind of a stretch, at best.
You deny the fascist aesthetics associated with large international sporting events? Here is a quote from yesterdays Sun newspaper
WAYNE Rooney urged the whole nation to get behind England tonight - roaring: "Your support will drive us on to glory."
The Three Lions talisman was last night raring to take on the USA in the first of our World Cup group games.
And he begged fans to play their part - as he said of England's chances of going all the way in South Africa: "We're not scared of anyone."
Only the nation united, without dissent, can spurn our mystic elites on to the righteous victory the deserve. DO NOT THINK. ACT. ENGLAND ENGLAND ENGLAND.
Yeah I was specifically talking about not just international football but a certain class of international sports events with national teams. I'm not really making statements about enjoying football, although I'd still say the premiership type of football is more corporate sponsored bread and circuses than anything else. The difference between Manchester United and St. Pauli is the same as the difference between Coldplay and Stiff Little Fingers.
I would say the fact that I find football incomprehensible allows me to be more objective about it, or at least as objective about it in the opposite way as you are, if that makes sense.
Also I think you mean 'gay catholic'.
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sports to fascism is quite a leap
that's like working in a office, then deciding to take lion taming as a career.
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It's less fascism and more nationalism.
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Troll effort: 0/5
Troll effect: 4/5
Halfway there, Khar, halfway there.
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I'm not trying to troll?
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I build everything ever myself to avoid that kind of problem.
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You would listen to an iPod wouldn't you? FASCIST!
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In about 8 or 9? hours I'm heading over to a mate's place to watch Australia v Germany and do an exceedingly early breakfast BBQ and probably drink espresso-themed alcoholic drinks or something. We know we're gonna lose, but we'll watch anyway.
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sports to fascism is quite a leap
They're not trying to harm anybody but it attracts Those People.
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And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
ugh i hate whitman
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It's less fascism and more nationalism.
Yeah exactly. The merits of which are debatable at best, but even though football is one of the more gaudy and obnoxious displays of nationalism on the calendar, it's merely an expression of it and not a root cause.
Besides, quoting the Sun is too easy because the tabloids are over-simplistic and nationalistic about anything.
Anyway, more importantly, today's predictions:
ALG 2 - 2 SLO
GER 3 - 1 AUS
SER 1 - 0 GHA
If either team wins the other match from England's group, you'd have to fancy them with an outside chance to progress if Eng or Team USA USA USA slip up in their remaining fixtures.
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I hope someplace with a hella shitty reputation just completely fucking rips Serbia apart, I think it'd be funny after all the nationalism and ethnic cleansing over the last billion years
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Algeria's goalkeeper just completely fluffed an attempted save and let Slovenia take a late 1-0 lead in their game. He probably did it to make Rob Green feel better. What a nice man!
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Yeah that was really odd, from his position he looked like he had it completely covered then it just slipped round him.
Still think Green's was worse but good to see some international GK solidarity.
Strange red card too.
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Khar, whilst the situation in South Africa is obviously not desBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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Yeah I will admit it was pretty cool how the match sounded like a Lustmord album.
Also I saw a car sticker in a shop today, which had an outline of Africa with an England flag inside it and the strapline 'Football's Coming Home', which would seem even to the footy lover, I hope, slightly unfortunate given the history of the British Empire.
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It's less fascism and more nationalism.
Fascism is basically nationalism taken to the most mindless extreme. There are sports fans out there for whom the comparison is pretty apt, unfortunately. All the alcohol flying around doesn't help either, but ultimately you shouldn't care enough about the outcome of a game that you need to be pepper sprayed to stop fighting with other fans whether you're drunk or not.
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While this is true, it's (hopefully, anyway) going to be less relevant at the World Cup. The worst hooliganism generally involves gangs, essentially, who use football as an excuse to kick off rather than doing so purely as a result of their team losing. Far more common in league football between ultras etc. from different regions of the same country.
Not that I'm suggesting for a minute that there has never been any trouble as a result of a football team losing a match, which is pathetic, but terms like 'fascism' tend to get somewhat devalued by being tossed around in situations where it's either an exaggeration or doesn't tell the whole story.
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GERMANY!
GERMANY!
GERMANY!
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Games got better as the day went on;
Slovenia will be optimistic about being able to scrape through the group in second if they can hold the US.
Ghana are much better without Essien than I expected. Far more so, Germany without Ballack. England will have to win their group if they want to get past the round of 16, because Germany will be winning theirs and going a fair way further, on that form.
Fairly odd to have a red card in every game today too; especially as the first two were down to utterly incomprehensible behaviour from the players involved, and Australia's was probably undeserved.
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I think you're kinda missing the point of fascist aesthetics but ok w/e.
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I hope someplace with a hella shitty reputation just completely fucking rips Serbia apart, I think it'd be funny after all the nationalism and ethnic cleansing over the last billion years
Hey guys guess what sorta barely happened
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Germany without Ballack.
Fuck him. Nobody needs him.
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Oh my God, apparently the Australian loss to Germany is a DISASTER now. I don't even know where to start
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I think disaster is pretty accurate. There was a lot of hope for the Socceroos and it was a huge blow to Our* pride. It's killed a lot of hype for the World Cup and generally everyone I've seen today has been glum or grumpy. Sure it's not a tsunami but there are degrees of disaster.
*I feel I'll need to explain this but exactly what I mean is kinda hard to pin down and I should really be studying.
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Who the fuck thought we would beat Germany? Seriously people, how deluded do you have to be?
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Sure it's not a tsunami but there are degrees of disaster.
GOAL-NAMI
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I dunno man it's partly that horrible watering down of the word disaster but I'm used to news programs doing that shit by now. Really it is more that I am surprised everyone is so surprised, or something?
Like, I do not know much about soccer at all but Germany are really good, right? As in, may actually win. I think maybe I was always quite prepared to write 2006 off as an anomaly and that Australia should consider every World Cup we actually make it to as a blessing, let alone making it past the group stage.
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And while we're at it, does anyone else feel that it's kind of anticlimactic now that we're qualifying through Asia? Instead of playing a whole bunch of ridiculously easy games against island nations and then having to travel half-way around the world to play a South American team which was several leagues in class above us and all the teams we'd been recently playing against? Being in the World Cup this time doesn't really feel special.
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I don't think anyone thought that we'd win it cleanly. 2 - 1 would've been cool. 2 - 0 would've been ok, but 4 - 0 and a red card against a headline player and the German coach's shrugging us off completely is more of a blow than anyone prepared for. We have a villain now though, so even if we don't make the finals (and then be up against what, England probably?) we have up to four other teams to barrack for.
Harry I think that's part of why people had such strong hopes: We qualified against much better teams and it's easier to feel like we're on par, instead of punching far above our weight.
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Germany without Ballack.
Fuck him. Nobody needs him.
Couldn't agree more mate.
Khedira looks great in that role and they've got more than enough fresh young talent up front to worry anyone. I know it's a lil' early to judge but they look like a class team.
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ahahahaha
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Are those shopped? I do not know.
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Like, I do not know much about soccer at all but Germany are really good, right? As in, may actually win. I think maybe I was always quite prepared to write 2006 off as an anomaly and that Australia should consider every World Cup we actually make it to as a blessing, let alone making it past the group stage.
There were a lot of doubts about Germany. Klose had a poor season in the Bundesliga and I think Podolski hadn't had a great one either. Talk seemed to be about Germany being in a transitional period and not at previous heights, so Australia weren't being delusional by thinking they had a shot or at least would give them a tough game. To be fair I don't think Australia played badly, Germany were playing like they could rip anyone apart.
Paraguay are currently leading Italy 1-0 as the second half starts, and they're playing tough defensive football so I'm hoping they can hold this lead until the end. I love a good upset, and this will be much more fun than a couple of the big teams being held to draws.
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Are those shopped? I do not know.
no way
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It's just so amazing the way that the people in the crowd froze so completely between the photos!
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Aw, Italy got back into it through a corner and it ended 1-1. Good result for Paraguay, but I imagine they'll be gutted knowing they were close to taking that.
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So I was reading some articles this morning and apparently a whole bunch of AIDS/Malaria/etc. charities are using the World Cup as an opportunity to reach out to and educate many of South Africa's poor and oh hey also football has long been a vector (http://www.mg.co.za/article/2007-07-18-soccer-on-robben-island-was-a-way-of-survival) for (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/07/how_soccer_defeated_apartheid) revolution (http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-06-08-soweto-symbol-of-freedom-and-football) in Africa, and at it's base nature football is an egalitarian sport which has allowed upward mobility for many poor folks who may well have died young otherwise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Eto%27o) and well jeez it's like there's two sides to this story!
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oh so Khar was wrong
at least partially
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i thought we all knew that
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yes but look evidence
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No, Khar was right, at least in his initial post. Dovey is also right.
This is not difficult people, keep up.
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oh right i forgot this is a conversation with actual merit instead of just khar yelling at people for
watching professional sports listening to lady gaga
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It's Khar making a very good point which is really awkward and which none of us want to think about because it makes us uncomfortable so instead of trying to deal with the complexity of our emotions we just say "Ah, fuck it" and get angry at him and then he gets angry back at us and then no-one's talking to each other 'cause we're all too busy sulking.
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i think apathy has to figure in there somewhere. i mean i'm not watching the world cup but i do watch american football religiously even though i'm aware that way too much money is poured into it as an industry.
then again you could say the same thing about hollywood, etc.
basically the world is fucked up and i'm too lazy to change it?
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I'm not apathetic, just overwhelmed (http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=generation_overwhelmed).
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that article is pretty spot-on actually
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That article puts into words what I have been trying to express for a while now.
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Yeah I made that post in a bit of a rush so I didn't get to expand on it heaps but the basic idea is that the bullshit that accompanies events like this and the Olympics are more a symptom of the generally awful way human beings treat each other due to power differentials and it doesn't matter if it's over sport or, well, any other large corporate sponsored cultural gathering and to write the whole thing off as some sort of symbol for everything horrible in the world (rank capitalism, mob mentality et. al.) takes some pretty willful denial of the way football's appeal to people of all social strata is being used for good.
I also didn't get to point out that the way Khar is saying that getherings of football fans is like Nuremberg or something when metal and industrial bands overtly conjure fascist imagery all the fucking time oh yeah and also-
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a55/ddovey/BURRRZZZZUMMMM.jpg)
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I don't give two hoots about the football but if someone blows one of those plastic horns near me tomorrow night it will be thoroughly stomped by my five-inch stilettos.
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Thomas Friedman is kind of a joke. Maybe the second least successful NYT editorialist, behind Ross Douthat. Anyway, the ineffectiveness of modern protest was one of the things that Baudrillard predicted would happen back when people actually considered it effective (post-'68 Paris). These days protests are really not particularly challenging to powerful entities nor are they particularly well-suited to gaining public support, and they are fully accepted (and expected) within social discourse.
The Simpsons and Football (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-gUXl7usc&feature=player_embedded).
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I also didn't get to point out that the way Khar is saying that getherings of football fans is like Nuremberg or something when metal and industrial bands overtly conjure fascist imagery all the fucking time
There's a difference between using fascist imagery, actually being a fascist, and engaging in behaviours which chime with fascist style of aesthetics, which is what the World Cup and the Olympics do. They are not designed to set up a thousand year reich, but they could very easily be incorporated into one: just look what Leni Reifenstahl did to the Olympics. Also I think it's pretty rich to say that football is awesome because it leads a very small amount of people out of poverty. By that metric the national lottery is pure socialism. Who gives a shit about the way the vast majority of players are duped by false hope into spending money week in, week out on tickets that they maybe can't even afford. The great thing about NSBM is that the nazis would have hated it; it's anti-social, degenerate art and half the bands are Slavs anyway. True fascist spectacle is about fitting in, about erasing your individuality as much as possible by losing yourself in the euphoria of mindless mass experience, which is why I bought the whole thing up.
Fascism, or whatever it will be called next, won't come round again wearing jackboots and waving a swastika. You just have to look at some genuine examples of fascist type movements arising outside of Europe, like Lyndon LaRouche since the 70's. He's an arch fascist: conspiracist, anti-semitic, elitist, mystic, industrialist and so on, but you'll never hear him mention Mein Kampf or even Mussolini. If you reduce the discussion of actual, perhaps even accidental, occurences of fascist aesthetics and modes of being in modern society to HERP DERP NO SWASTIKA'S SO NOT FACIST, or even if you actually believe that fascism is just a more extreme form of nationalism (it's not at all), then you are refusing to learn from history and it would be pretty fucking dreadful to have to repeat that particular bit, especially.
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Also I think it's pretty rich to say that football is awesome because it leads a very small amount of people out of poverty.
I wasn't saying that, I was saying you were taking it too far in the opposite direction. Shades of grey and whatnot.
True fascist spectacle is about fitting in, about erasing your individuality as much as possible by losing yourself in the euphoria of mindless mass experience, which is why I bought the whole thing up.
Once again, that sounds like a negatively slanted retelling of the way a lot of metalheads describe the feeling of being part of a huge pit.
Edit: Just to make it absolutely clear, I don't think Wacken is any more fascistic than the average soccer match. I'm trying to point out your bias and the way you can read these sorts of things into anything, if you decide beforehand that you hate it cos it's a horrible tool of oppression etc etc.
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I'm not apathetic, just overwhelmed (http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=generation_overwhelmed).
That article really is full of nonsense. For a start there wasn't a lack of different issues in an earlier period, the writer's just choosing to remember a few big ones. Then there's the idea that there's simply nothing that can be done except writing an email to somebody or taking part in an insufferably polite protest. Er, how about direct action? Strikes? Sabotage? Site occupations? Blockades? You'd think these were new and novel ideas instead of being over a hundred years old. The problem isn't the over-saturation of news in the digital age, it's that if something might work it's also going to be scary and very possibly illegal.
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I'm not entirely sure that the writer is saying that there were less issues back in the day, more that the average person was exposed to less, and those that they were exposed to were of more immediate impact.
At least, that's how I read it. It is entirely possible that the writer did actually think less bad/scary/controversial stuff was happening a few decades ago and that it has exponentially increased in the past ten years for reasons unseen. Either way you are right in pointing out that the article is a load of old tosh. I'm just being pedantic (what's new).
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I'm not entirely sure that the writer is saying that there were less issues back in the day, more that the average person was exposed to less, and those that they were exposed to were of more immediate impact.
No that's exactly what the article was saying.
The problem isn't the over-saturation of news in the digital age, it's that if something might work it's also going to be scary and very possibly illegal.
Yeah well excuse us if we aren't trying to line up for jail
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Hey, the idea of a night in the cells scares me witless, never mind actually serving time. But you can't change anything without an element of personal risk. The problem with that article is that it isn't asking "what can we do" it's asking "what can we do that will have no negative repercussions on my life whatsoever"? Civil rights activists literally did line up for jail, they knew the jails couldn't hold them all and that it cost a fantastic amount to imprison so many, but they wouldn't have got anywhere if they weren't willing to put themselves on the line like they did.
I'm not entirely sure that the writer is saying that there were less issues back in the day, more that the average person was exposed to less, and those that they were exposed to were of more immediate impact.
I'm not sure the average person was exposed to less. Sure, given infinite time the internet would allow for more issues to come to someone's attention, but I doubt most people have the time to consume more news than people did when they just had newspapers, radio and television.
Anyway, back to the football. FUCK YES NEW ZEALAND! Sure Slovakia weren't playing at full potential but NZ worked hard, played well as a team, didn't give up when they went behind and totally deserved their equaliser. And what a time to do it, just in the dying seconds of the game!
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I'm not sure the average person was exposed to less.
Yes, we were. Even though there were more papers and we listened to the radio, the pace of reporting was slower even in times of crisis; there was much less emphasis on foreign or world-wide stories as well. Doesn't mean we couldn't get worried - about nukes, for instance (think Cuba, or the CND's glory days) - but there wasn't the ubiquity of concern that is prevalent these days.
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So um how terrible were Portugal?
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Shit, for the 2nd time since the World Cup started, I've come to this thread to get a nice update of whats going on in the football and ended up reading about the politics behind it all.
Please go and do this in the Discuss! sub-forum?
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Why don't you take your whingeing to the Qc discussion subforum, where such sentiments belong.
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Yeah well excuse us if we aren't trying to line up for jail
Haha, moderates.
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Shit, for the 2nd time since the World Cup started, I've come to this thread to get a nice update of whats going on in the football and ended up reading about the politics behind it all.
Please go and do this in the Discuss! sub-forum?
North Korea just scored an incredible goal against Brazil.
This is literally more interesting than every other word on this page.
Fair play to them too, they forced Brazil to score two inch-perfect goals to beat them. Nothing inferior was getting through.
Basically DPRK are one of the best teams we've seen so far, in terms of organisation at least.
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Well, yeah. They may actually be playing as if their lives depended on it in a literal sense. I remember the stories of Iraq's soccer team back when it was being run by one of Saddam's sons.
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I doubt they're quite Iraq levels of "win or else" but yeah quite possibly.
Hope that match marked an upturn in quality and not just a blip anyway.
edit: heh you put in the Iraq bit as I typed. Great minds/fools etc.
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I was really impressed with North Korea in that game, not just because of their great organisation but because every player was comfortable with the ball at either foot. So many times you see great players waste chances because they won't use their weak foot but the Koreans didn't have that problem at all.
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No one has said anything about New Zealand NOT LOSING. Pretty incredible.
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Pretty fucking great, Kat. I was watching it last night & got pretty excited about them scoring at the last minute and the dude whipped his shirt off and was booked for doing so but didn't care because OMG HE JUST SCORED A GOAL AND THEY DIDN'T LOSE IN THE WORLD CUP WOOOOOOO
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Everybody on the North Korean team is getting executed for losing to those other folks.
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Wait, what? Spain 0 - Switzerland 1 at the hour mark?
Damn, shouldn't have been watching that shitty State of Origin match I recorded. Let's see how this pans out!
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Pretty close from that freekick, but Spain seem to be playing with very little oomph near the box.
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Oh god, Switzerland have been defending really well but now there's five minutes of stoppage time and I quite like Spain but I really really hope the Swiss can hold on.
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THEY'VE DONE IT!
Unbelievable. And after all, a World Cup just isn't a World Cup without one massive upset.
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Torres definitely looked out of form unfortunately. The big names are yet to shine at this WC really.
(Not taking anything away from Switzerland, that was a fantastic performance, be interesting to see if they can keep it up compared to 2006 when they qualified comfortably from the group then just kinda faded away.)
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Well, I'm sure the Spanish are going to be crucified for that result but I didn't think they played badly, just that Switzerland were great at shutting them down.
That said, Jesus Navas was much better than Silva, who was probably the poorest player on the Spanish team and there was no need to play Busquets and Xabi Alonso. There was also the option of playing the other Fernando Torres (Torres Llorente of Athletic Bilbao) if Torres wasn't able to play from the start and they probably should have too because they had zero aerial threat before he was brought on.
Sometimes you just need to get the job done though, no matter how you play and Switzerland did that today. North Korea made a good attempt of it against Brazil too and with the low goal average so far it may well become the optimal tactical style for this World Cup.
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BBC commentator: "if they lose this game they're on the plane home"
South Africa probably won't need a plane tbh it's not far.
e: well they can book that non-plane now. They need a win vs. France who always start slow and will improve. RSA and Mexico are fucked.
Shame that it's the home nation but that's what happens when you book a WC in a country with a crappy ranking and about 3 decent-ish players.
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I'm not sure about France. They're not the team they once were, and haven't looked at all impressive in qualification. They should still beat South Africa, but I can see Mexico really causing them some problems.
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Nigeria were walking all over Greece, but Kaita just got sent off for inexplicably deciding to aim a kick at a Greek player after the ball had gone out of play. He didn't hurt him, don't think he even touched him, but a straight red because you really can't pull that kind of shit. That got Greece back into it and they've now equalised, I think with their first ever world cup goal.
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Yeah it is their first. That Nigerian guy will be kicking himself, they would have won with 11 men and stood a fair chance of qualifying in 2nd.
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While the red was inevitable, I feel like the Greek player also deserved booking for the shameful dramatics as he fell over from a kick that barely made contact with him, if at all. But I guess the ref couldn't tell how bad it was, from where he was standing.
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This Nigeria - Greece game is just odd and kind of thrilling. We've seen horrible errors from both goalkeepers which have directly led to goals, but we've also seen both goalies pulling off some amazing saves; we've seen some lovely passing play from both teams and some useless hit-and-hope crosses and long-range shots; and we've seen sheer lunacy. It hasn't been the highest quality game of the tournament (I think that still goes to South Africa vs. Mexico) but I don't think I've enjoyed a game more so far: it's like one of those books or films where shit just keeps happening, and none of it really makes sense, but you just go along for the ride because you can't help admiring the straight-out audacity and ridiculousness of the thing.
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Nigeria didn't look so hot in the final 20 minutes, from my viewpoint. Several shot attempts from over 30 meters, and none of them were even all that close. You'd think they'd know better than to take such an enormous risk with the final 15 minutes. If you have an opening, you push through it as far as possible, THEN shoot, so you're closer to the goal and have a wider margin of error. I saw several opportunities there and they really disappointed me.
Enyeama was a complete badass in the second half, which is all I saw, and I feel privileged to have seen him play. The Greek goaltender wasn't so shabby either, very nice deflection right over the crossbar +/-25 minutes before game end.
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Enyeama was also the only reason the Argentina game finished with a respectable scoreline too. Hell of a keeper.
Sadly the potshots from range are a fairly standard sign of a less-disciplined side losing their cool under extreme pressure, the hero from the first RSA game spanked a long shot or two well over the bar when they could've at least attempted a comeback against Uruguay, too.
Hope one or two of the African teams make it out of the groups at least, although really only Ghana stand any great chance. Might seem like Andy Townsend levels of obvious given that they're the only African team to have won a game in the first round, but looking at the others.. Algeria are a shower, Cote D'Ivoire will really struggle against DPRK and (one would assume) lose to Brazil, and Cameroon are carrying a loss to the most beatable team in their group.
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I think Ghana can do it. In a way they've already had their toughest game since I'm anticipating everyone in that group losing to Germany, Australia were looking thoroughly beatable and will be without Cahill when they face them. I think this year might be more about Asia than Africa, on the pitch anyway. South Korea, North Korea and Japan are all in with a healthy shot at the knock out stages. Given the quality of their game I wouldn't be surprised to see North Korea make the quarter finals either.
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If DPRK qualify at the expense of Team CR9 I will laugh for days.
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it's like one of those books or films where shit just keeps happening, and none of it really makes sense, but you just go along for the ride because you can't help admiring the straight-out audacity and ridiculousness of the thing.
eg. all Michael Bay films
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YES! Mexico are up 2-0! And there's not much more than ten minutes to play! France are in massive danger of crashing out now. Come on Mexico, don't fail me now.
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I'm not sure about France. They're not the team they once were, and haven't looked at all impressive in qualification. They should still beat South Africa, but I can see Mexico really causing them some problems.
Oh hey look at that.
I've grown up loving French football, but after the way they qualified for this tournament, I'm taking great pleasure in watching them crash and burn.
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Satisfying, isn't it? That horribly cynical tackle by Toulalan that stopped the Mexican break at the close of the second half didn't help improve my thoughts on them either. At the rate they're going it would be a brave person who'd even bet on them beating South Africa. I think they're now utterly fucked, they need a lot to go their way in a match neither Mexico nor Uruguay needs to win and to absolutely destroy SA when they're playing shite and SA are going to be desperate not to go out without a win.
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On the basis of the way they've played so far, I don't know if France can even beat South Africa. They'll need to score a goal first, something they have failed to do so far. To be fair to Toulalan he had to make that tackle, cynical though it was. 4 on 3 break with half-time fast approaching, someone has to stop the attack regardless of taking a booking in doing so.
I am looking forward to the Germany v Serbia game tomorrow though, the best team so far against a decent footballing nation. It's a real chance for Germany to show that they have that class in the squad to give them confidence to maybe go on and win the whole thing.
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Mexico: form team of the tournament so far? They've played two consistently entertaining and adventurous games. Obviously Germany's put in the single most impressive performance of the tournament, but of the teams that have played twice Mexico has looked the most impressive to me.
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I like Mexico too, I just wish they'd get things on target a little bit more. They at least produce a huge amount of "oh!" moments. I hope they can make the quarter finals at least. I missed both their matches, but what about Argentina? They've been getting the results at least, but I'm unsure how well they had to play to get them.
Looking forward to seeing how Germany deal with opponents who (I would hope) can actually threaten their defence.
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Uh who the hell is this referee and what is he doing in a world cup match?
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Ruining football, basically.
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I'm fully expecting there to be less than 20 players on the pitch at the end of the game.
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I wouldn't be surprised. There's, what, five booked players still on the pitch? And Serbia are finding the ball so alluring they can't restrain themselves from giving it a loving stroke with the hand. They got damn lucky German didn't punish them with that penalty.
Edit: and it's over, Germany never managed to pull themselves together and Serbia have scrambled to keep themselves in contention to progress. This world cup's really starting to throw up some surprises.
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You know Germany are having a bad day when they miss a penalty.
The red card clearly rattled them, and I'm not surprised. Klose has never been sent off in an international game, and the whole team just looked shellshocked because of it. Podolski, even when he wasn't taking awful penalties, had plenty of chances and just couldn't hit the target.
I'll be very surprised if Germany don't go through anyway. They've done all this before, and I fully expect them to shake this off as one of those days and then make up for it by destroying Ghana.
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Yeah, I can't see them losing to Ghana. They'll rally, and they know that unlike France they didn't just get outplayed. Then again, I thought Spain vs Switzerland was a given for Spain and that Serbia had no hope today so maybe Ghana will beat them and finish top of the group with Serbia second.
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I really hope Ghana wins tomorrow.
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yeah well I hope your legs are eaten by cougars
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Evil cougars
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robbed.
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Dear Germany
What the fuck are you doing
<3,
Me
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choosing the wrong player for a penalty kick is one thing they were doing.
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omg slovenia wtf?
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Yeah, I am having a hard time believing that ref was not in some way bribed. Since when is a face a hand? WHY WON'T YOU TELL US WHY YOU DISALLOWED OUR GOAL? YOU ARE NOT A YELLOW-CARD PRINTING MACHINE I'M SO AAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
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I cannot believe I just wasted 90 minutes of my time watching England being given the run around by Algeria. That was ridiculous.
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Yeah their matches have been the worst so far. Still laffin' that Slovenia is gonna top the 'easiest group ever' for England.
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Hehe yeah, England do suck a lot
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That terrible decision against the US earlier was a crying shame 'cos it capped a fantastic comeback but it's gonna make the final 2 games very exciting.
Results-wise that is, by no means am I suggesting that England labouring to a bore draw against that one that isn't Slovakia is going to be exciting viewing.
More importantly, tomorrow is the second world title defence of the World Cup, meaning Japan can become world champions without even leaving their group (http://www.ufwc.co.uk/2010/06/netherlands-vs-japan-the-rematch/).
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I'll be very surprised if Germany don't go through anyway. They've done all this before, and I fully expect them to shake this off as one of those days and then make up for it by destroying Ghana.
If I spent $100 on a Bastien Schweinsteiger shirt and Germany don't at least make the quarterfinals, I will cry.
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Oh Australia...
(I've got a fiver on Ghana winning so I'm kinda laffin' but two straight reds in two consecutive games is harsh shit)
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And Cahill's red was kinda ridiculous.
As of course, was Klose's.
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Yeah not sure which of those two was worse; Cahill's was just one ridiculous decision whereas the Ger/Seb ref killed the whole game and happened to tag the same player twice.
On reflection Klose's was almost certainly worse 'cos they would've drawn or won with 11 whereas Aus were fucked regardless.
I love watching Kevin-Prince Boateng play. Much like every african attacking mid/winger at the WC he's kinda shit but at least he does a bunch of pointless stepovers on the way to failure.
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I watched the world cup last night with David Icke. That dude can sure knock back G&T's.
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Well, Australia and Ghana have drawn 1-1. Everyone here will be livid over the referee, but the fact is that the only thing that prevented Australia from winning was themselves. They had a tonne of chances in the second half including a one-on-one between Wilkshire and the goalkeeper, and they can't blame their own inability to put the ball in the back of the net - which has been a problem with the team for longer than I can remember - on the referee. As for the red card - the real question is, how the hell did the Australian defenders let Ghana put the cross that led up to it in in the first place? Kewell never should have had to be blocking a shot at all.
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Damn right Harry, although if you listen to the SBS propaganda brigade, Australia deserve to be handed the World Cup right now for their obviously Herculean effort.
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Well, Australia and Ghana have drawn 1-1. Everyone here will be livid over the referee, but the fact is that the only thing that prevented Australia from winning was themselves. They had a tonne of chances in the second half including a one-on-one between Wilkshire and the goalkeeper, and they can't blame their own inability to put the ball in the back of the net - which has been a problem with the team for longer than I can remember - on the referee. As for the red card - the real question is, how the hell did the Australian defenders let Ghana put the cross that led up to it in in the first place? Kewell never should have had to be blocking a shot at all.
I feel like you could rewrite this entire post about Germany yesterday. Yeah, the ref made a mistake sending off Klose, but they missed a PK in the second half, and hit the woodwork more times than I can remember.
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Gonna write to Asamoah asking for my £5 bet back 'cos he fucked up every Ghana break by shooting from 40 yards. I mean seriously guy, if Xabi Alonso and Wesley Sneijder can't score from outside the box with this ball you've got no chance. Maybe run a bit more and pass it to the other guys yeah?
Awesome game all-told though. Hope Eto'o plays through the middle for Cameroon later 'cos the guy does not work as a right winger when everyone to the left of him plays for Cameroon as opposed to Inter.
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Still laffin' that Slovenia is gonna top the 'easiest group ever' for England.
That would be pretty fun. But England have a history of sucking at first, then not sucking quite so much and scraping through the group stage and first knockout then getting beaten by a good team. I think they'll beat Slovenia, which is a shame because Slovenian fans would probably be ecstatic just to top the group or go through let alone maybe get to the quarter finals, but England fans will bitch for years if they don't at least reach the semi finals.
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While this is true, this doesn't look like a team that can shift through the gears in a hurry. Rooney looks out of form, freakin' Carragher is at CB and Gerrard should never be playing. England fans will bitch 24/7 anyway and they've started already. Really want Slovenia to go through on merit, not bothered which of England and USA join them.
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This England squad is probably one of the worst in a long time in proportion to the quality of the Premier League. Who other than Gerrard and Rooney can be considered world class? Lampard doesn't do major tournaments, Terry is good but I wouldn't call him fantastic and the rest are just pretty poor. The decisions made about who to take were wrong too; Barry is not good enough to play international football and was injured anyway yet managed to take a spot from the more deserving Huddlestone or Adam Johnson; Heskey does a job but what is the point of playing a forward who can't score?
freakin' Carragher is at CB and Gerrard should never be playing.
Gerrard was easily the best England player against USA but his central position was usurped by the utterly dire Barry for the second game and he is wasted on the left wing. As captain he really should be used to his full potential at all times. As for Carragher, who is a better choice than him to play alongside Terry in the center of defence? He isn't the most technically brilliant player but he knows how to defend, reads a game brilliantly and doesn't fail to give everything to prevent goals.
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Carragher is an absolute liability. The number of penalties he would give away at club level if he wasn't playing at the kop end with a weak ref is appalling. Back when he threw his toys of the pram for not being selected and retired was semi-ironically the only time at which he should ever have been considered for international duty, so really the notion of 'Jamie Carragher, England Defender' should have been moot from then on.
He's lost all of his pace, commits stupid fouls or lets people through as a result, and generally looks out of his depth against your average Burnley winger, let alone anyone England would face on the offchance they slithered out of their group. Better choices? Dawson, Upson, Shawcross, Rio on crutches, Ledley King with both of his legs amputated above the knees, a stationary foam training man.
As for Gerrard, he plays in a position where he gets noticed a lot but frankly he contributes nothing. His passing has been atrocious for awhile, constantly picks the wrong option, and his shooting has been dire even by Jabulani-era standards. Nevermind that he's a thug and a cheat, great choice of 2nd captain.
The only way to use him to his full potential would be to play a 4-5-1 with him behind the striker and hope he successfully dives for a penalty around the 85 min mark but that would make other parts of the field significantly less effective.
The only world class players in that team are Rooney and, much as it pains me to say it, probably Ashley Cole. There aren't many clubs or countries for whom he wouldn't walk into the starting position at LB.
edit: I'd have to disagree about Barry 'usurping' the midfield slot because that's where Barry plays where fit, and playing at the more defensive end of midfield isn't Gerrard's usual brief at all. Barry and Gerrard played in those positions throughout England's absurdly successful qualifying run, and the left-sided inside forward position is far closer to where Gerrard plays his best stuff for Liverpool. The problem is that accomodating him at all then unbalances the team as he's not a real winger. Barry had one of his worse games yesterday because England as a whole were so feckless that he kept wandering forward to try and start something, but as a whole he's one of the more assured starters. The way to rebalance the midfield IMO would be to drop Lampard or Gerrard, ideally both, keep Barry central and chuck an actual left winger out wide, or at least Joe Cole.
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I hate Liverpool players.
Hahahahaha
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Damn right Harry, although if you listen to the SBS propaganda brigade, Australia deserve to be handed the World Cup right now for their obviously Herculean effort.
I've been really disapponted with Craig Foster's jingoism this World Cup, especially last night. If you hear him talk about any other game in any other competition he's an exceptionally rational, clear-eyed, and astute analyst (by sports analyst standards, at least), but apparently give him Australia playing in the World Cup and he's no better than your average drunken boor watching a game at the pub.
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Well, it's not SBS if you don't see a tit late at night. And there was a few absolute tits (forgive my nationalistic bullshit, but the most prominent one was the umpire).
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I take it SBS is like HBO in that way
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Wasn't a red card. Red requires intent, and there was no fucking intent there, he was trying to block a shot with his body and it hit his arm instead. I could have handled a yellow card and a penalty making it 1-1 with 11 men still on the field, but after that we were fucked.
Also, how the hell was the card directly after it for a fast, dangerous tackle from behind not a straight red, especially how Cahill got a straight red while trying to pull out of a tackle from the side in the previous game? A tackle from behind = straight red. I've heard refs mention in the past that their hands are tied when something like that happens because FIFA has a zero tolerance policy on tackles from behind.
So yeah, other than that it was an enjoyable game to watch. Australia showed a lot more spirit than in the Germany game, and regardless of having an absolute mountain to climb to get out of the group stage I feel a lot better about our team. If they had played like this during the Germany game we would have at least gone down fighting, which was my main gripe.
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Having your arms sticking out by your sides like that is considered deliberately making yourself larger to block the ball, and therefore deliberate handball. Kewell made a mistake and was rightfully sent off. He denied a clear goalscoring opportunity and that is always a red card.
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I disagree that it was done deliberately. If you watch a replay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5z8fqaqpPQ) in slow motion it looks like he is in the middle of trying to spin his chest toward the ball to block it, but the ball comes at him quicker than he was anticipating and he didn't get his chest to it. There's no arm movement independent from his body, he's trying to spin his chest around.
In determining whether a player deliberately (direct free kick), or accidentally (no offence) played the ball, the referee has several different considerations- whether the arm moved towards the ball, how long the player had to react, whether the player had his eyes on the ball and whether the players arm is in a "natural" or an "unnatural" position.
He did not have very long to react and his arm is in a natural position for someone trying to pivot his body to face a ball, so it shouldn't have been taken as being deliberate.
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Yeah but the referee doesn't get a slow-motion replay (and that's a whole different argument, so let's not go there). I agree that it probably wasn't a deliberate hand-ball and that Kewell was probably trying to chest it away, but if you look at the front-on shot in that video you can see that Kewell's first movement, in twisting his body, causes his arm to fly out away from his torso. Imagine if you're the referee and you see that in real-time: it's going to look dodgy as hell. If you're going to defend Kewell by saying that he didn't have time to react properly because the ball came fast then you have to also take into account the fact that the referee is trying to interpret what he's seeing within exactly the same time frame.
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Also:
Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force and endangering the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play.
Advantage should not be applied in situations involving serious foul play unless there is a clear subsequent opportunity to score a goal. The referee must send off the player guilty of serious foul play when the ball is next out of play.
A player who is guilty of serious foul play should be sent off and play is restarted with a direct free kick from the position where the offence occurred (see Law 13 – Position of free kick) or a penalty kick (if the offence occurred inside the offender’s penalty area).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLy6U3nubao
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Also, I'm not saying that it's some big conspiracy or anything, just saying that it didn't look like Kewell meant to do it, and it was one of the seemingly many bad calls so far at this World Cup.
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I hate Liverpool players.
Hahahahaha
Nah most of them are very good :)
It's just a shame that this man (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVb2gbMtN3I) is our national team captain right now and I don't have anything personal against Carragher but I do genuinely think he's a liability. He does get away with a lot in the league, which is debatable I guess, but the reason he's in that position in the first place is he no longer has the pace to catch up with any attackers trying to say, run past him and score a goal. Personally I don't like that in a centre-back.
Read this (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/19/england-0-0-algeria-tactics/) for why neither Gerrard nor Lennon suited the type of wing-play required against Algeria's formation. Both drifted inside, meaning the full-backs were up against 2 or 3 opponents apiece, when Johnson and Ashley Cole are actually very good attacking full-backs. But this was completely nullified by the wingers ahead of them not doing their jobs properly.
Whilst I don't think he should have been selected, that's a personal opinion, but the best way to accomodate Steven Gerrard is to rejig the formation completely and play a Liverpool-esque 4-5-1 with him in behind Rooney. While Emile Heskey is in the squad, Stevie G will never function for England I'm afraid. You need that extra midfield player so you can push him forward, because he's in his element as an attacking mid. It's disingenuous to compare him to Barry because Barry is an out and out defensive mid while Gerrard and Lampard play more similar attacking roles for their clubs, which is why the formation gets muddled when you play them both in the centre. Hence it making sense to select Barry over one or the two because even though both Lamps and Stevie G are more effective, when on their game, at setting up attacking moves, they tend to get in each other's way, so you need that more defensive mindset alongside one of them, with the other either further forward or on the bench (anywhere but the wing).
Frankly I'd rather see a central 3 with Carrick. See the quote from that ZM article from Xabi Alonso; one of the game's most intelligent and gifted deep-lying playmakers who played with Gerrard week in, week out and knows how to get the best out of him. Sometimes it makes tactical sense to play slightly less creative players (your Barrys and Carricks) if it suits the system as a whole. England aren't Real Madrid, they can't afford to just throw any player who can play a decent through ball in the midfield somewhere and hope it works. :)
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He did not have very long to react and his arm is in a natural position for someone trying to pivot his body to face a ball, so it shouldn't have been taken as being deliberate.
But his arm does move towards the ball and he can see it coming. His arm is in a natural position but an unnatural one would have let the ball in, and the fact that he was trying to get his chest in the way isn't much of a defence either because why wouldn't he be doing that. Basically, if he had meant to do it (which I seriously doubt, he's surely not that stupid) his arm would have moved in exactly the same way. Referees have to be a bit flexible and in that situation you've got to assume intent unless there's something to indicate otherwise, such as the ball coming from where he can't see or it bouncing up without any time for him to react. The onus is really on the defender to keep his arm out of the way since it wasn't just an opportunity, the ball would have been in the net if not for his arm.
I'm with you on that tackle, it was dangerous and given the precedent this tournament he should have been sent off. I don't think the refereeing has been that bad at all this tournament though, aside from a couple of notable instances such as that USA goal being disallowed. Unfortunately you're always going to get a few of those given the number of games played and how easy it is for a ref to make a mistake.
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Paraguay beat Slovakia in a fairly dull game to all-but knock them out. Goals were sweetly taken but about the only other noteworthy action was the ref booking the wrong Slovak player..
looks like being a slow day for goals today.
lol nevermind. Go NZ!
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France is in complete disarray. Team refusing to practice and trainers are quitting. Domenech has absolutely ruined that team.
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I don't think the refereeing has been that bad at all this tournament though, aside from a couple of notable instances such as that USA goal being disallowed.
Thankfully, it appears that asshat is probably not going to be refereeing for the remainder of the cup.
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Amazing game between Italy and New Zealand. Just imagine if NZ hadn't given away a penalty kick. NZ's GK also was amazing. Multiple saves in the final minutes to confirm the draw.
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There's a lot of bullshit that comes out of Europe about how there are too many teams in the World Cup, about how there should only be 16 instead of 32, about how the small countries don't deserve to be in the same competition.
Fuck that. New Zealand 1-1 Italy. THIS is why the World Cup should have 32 teams from all corners of the planet in it.
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Talk about tactics
See, the error in playing him on the wing is what I mentioned but I also said that Barry usurped his position because Barry really shouldn't be playing in the centre of the England midfield if they want a chance at winning the World Cup. Xabi Alonso was perfect for Gerrard because there was a great bond between them; Gerrard knew that Alonso could hold that defensive position behind him because of how good a player Alonso was/is. Carrick could probably do a better job than Barry but there is no real defensive midfielder in the England squad worth a damn so the 4-5-1 formation is not really going to happen (counting Carrick as a central midfielder rather than a defensive one).
I guess it comes down to the Gerrard/Lampard debate again in which I would pick Gerrard over Lampard every single time because Gerrard is able to play effective football over much more of the pitch than Lampard. Sure, Lampard scores more goals but only when the players around him are able to provide him with enough chances.
As for Kewell, handling on the line is going to get you a red card regardless (unless of course you are the GK) no matter what your intentions were for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity.
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Definitely agree Gerrard should start over Lampard. It's about making the system work and there aren't too many permutations of the players available to Capello where they can all shine, so in order to bring the best out of England's attacking options, which is what they need for the 3rd game, I personally think the best way to set the team up would be as much like Liverpool 08/09 as possible, to get the best out of Gerrard and the striker. Especially since Rooney has vastly improved since he starting playing regularly as a lone striker. Cole (J.) on the left, Lennon right, Gerrard tucked behind Rooney and a back-of-midfield pairing of Barry (in the Mascherano role) and Carrick as a makeshift Alonso. Can't honestly think of any other way to solve the left-wing problem.
Absolutely no Lampard or Heskey mind.
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Brazil vs Ivory Coast
what the fuck is up with these last 5 minutes.
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Ya, honestly that was downright pathetic sportsmanship from pretty much everybody (except maybe Drogba).
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tragedy in south africa today as a guy coincidentally brushes into Kaka's elbow at the exact same second he gets shot full in the fucking face by the Soccer City Sniper
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Dammit Terry you know how much I hate agreeing with a member of the Socialist Workers Party!
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This would be the same Terry Eagleton who stands in opposition to the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett in righteous defense of faith (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching)? Yeah somehow I'm not buying his argument about the new people's opium while he seems positively cuntstruck by the old one.
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The last 10-15 minutes of that Brazil - Ivory Coast match were ridiculous.
Ivory Coast played terribly.
Edit: well, that was disappointing.
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That was painful to watch, not the least because i live with several south koreans who suddenly appeared to be channeling jackals
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Man I am seriously worried about those North Korean players right now.
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I also live with several chileans, in the 10 mins the game has been going, i have heard
Ref: "fuckin fag"
"fuckin kebab maker"
Player: "fuckin chocolatier"
"fuckin clockmaker"
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Terry Eagleton wrote a hilarious little piece about football (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/15/football-socialism-crack-cocaine-people) in The Guardian.
"Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished."
well done, terry.
Yeah, we need to abolish music, theatre, cinema and literature as well. They're just distractions, can't have people ever enjoying themselves. Being politically radical has to be a dour, joyless business dedicated to a world without fun.
Or on the other hand we could listen to Emma Goldman instead. Hmm, tough choice that.
The referee in the Chile - Switzerland game was brutal, some great calls like booking Valdivia for diving but with some of them it was hard to work out what the card had even been given for. It ended up a scrappy but compelling affair, Chile kept pushing and deservedly got a goal but they could have done better and may have needed to. If both Spain and Switzerland can beat Honduras the places for progression could end up being decided by goal difference if Spain beat them, and their slender victories might not be enough.
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I think Chile's gung-ho football will play into Spain's hands so as long as they beat Honduras (ESP that is) they'll be fine.
edit;
Spain: 1-Iker Casillas; 15-Sergio Ramos, 3-Gerard Pique, 5-Carles Puyol, 11-Joan Capdevila; 22-Jesus Navas, 14-Xabi Alonso, 8-Xavi, 16-Sergio Busquets; 9-Fernando Torres, 7-David Villa.
Spain is starting with two strikers and a somewhat baffling midfield for the Honduras match (Xavi on the other wing opposite Navas presumably?) as opposed to their usual 4-5-1; nice to see a stronger team adapting their strategy to an underdog rather than playing a habitual conservative formation and crying when they draw. Hope it pays off for them.
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It did, apparently.
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Yeah I called the formation wrong, they did essentially play 4-5-1 with Villa pushed right up the left flank and welp, it seemed to work out quite well for him..
The Chile game will hopefully be a massacre, 4-2 ESP I reckon.
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So Group A's going nuts tonight. Everybody was talking about Mexico and Uruguay playing for a draw to ensure they both go through, but at half-time they're both going balls-out for a win. Mexico had the better of the first half, probably, but Uruguay got the goal and at half-time it's 1-0. Meanwhile . . . in the other game South Africa are leading France 2-0! France, of course, are basically a bunch of empty shells after everything that's been going on in this camp, but if South Africa keep hammering them and Uruguay beat Mexico then South Africa and Uruguay will be going through to the second round and Mexico will miss out. (France will miss out too but who cares about them, they're shit and they deserve to walk home.) Mexico have been my favourite team of the tournament so far, partly because they've been great to watch and party for sentimental reasons, but it'd be great for South Africa to go through, too - after all, they're the host and they were just as good as Mexico in the opening game. Damn you, World Cup! Don't make me choose between the two of them!
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Well, France scored a goal to make it 2-1, which means Uruguay and Mexico go through to the next round. Mexico vs. Argentina in the next round should be a cracker, though frankly I don't give Mexico much of a chance.
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Such a shame that South Africa didn't manage to write that fantastic story that the first half promised, but hey at least France came bottom of a seriously weak group. And of course to top off a truly pathetic campagin, Domenech refused to shake hands with the South Africa manager. Au revoir, you prick.
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Well, France scored a goal to make it 2-1, which means Uruguay and Mexico go through to the next round. Mexico vs. Argentina in the next round should be a cracker, though frankly I don't give Mexico much of a chance.
Sleeper pick for best game of the second round: Uruguay v South Korea.
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Poor Nigeria. How do you miss a shot from 3yds out. I agree with the commentator in that its got to be harder to miss than to make it when your that close. Well at least they got a penalty kick right after that.
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feed the yak and he will
score eat
Well that was a fairly exciting way for the group to finish exactly the way everyone knew it would, I guess.
Tomorrow England should win by lining up: Johnson, Upson, Terry, Cole, A.; Lennon, Carrick, Barry, Cole, J.; Gerrard; Rooney. This would probably clinch a 2-1 against Plucky Little Slovenia.
Actual predictions:
England (in a bore 4-4-2 with Heskey) 1 - 1 Slovenia
USA 2 - 0 Algeria
Australia* 1 - 1 Serbia
Ghana 2 - 2 Germany
USA to win the group on Goal Difference and face Ghana in the round of 16. Plucky Little Slovenia to book their plane tickets as soon as they realise they face Germany in said round. The Sun to explode when England do not progress (that's the shit tabloid not the literal Sun obv.)
*unless they get a comedy red card early doors
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feed the yak and he will score eat
Funnily enough it was Shaun Goater day yesterday.
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Am I right in understanding that somebody finally scored from a free-kick in the Nigeria-South Korea game? Sheesh, it's only taken 36 games to get there!
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Yeah, we need to abolish music, theatre, cinema and literature as well. They're just distractions, can't have people ever enjoying themselves. Being politically radical has to be a dour, joyless business dedicated to a world without fun.
I don't think you can say 'people enjoy it' is a real valid argument to shield professional football from all possible criticism. The fact that you can't reallly criticise football or hold it to any sort of moral standard without being shouted down because football is fun is probably one of the reasons football is such a gruesome fucking mess. It's certainly the reason no one really gives a shit about the resettlement camps and shit in South Africa. Yeah it's bad but FOOTBALL NA NA NA NA NA NA. I really can't believe you don't have some thoughts about the incredibly capitalistic nature of football, and the ghastly nationalist aspect of the world cup. Seriously. I know I don't enjoy the game but I think you should at least be able to see where I'm coming from. Wayne Rooney earns more money every week than a teacher, nurse or university lecturer does every year. Do you think a society in which this is the case is in any way healthy?
As for whoever it was who compared my critique about the World Cup being totalitarian to a rock concert, yeah, that is very clever! Because, say, if there is a Rolling Stones concert then everyone in the country puts out Rolling Stones flags, gets shouting angry at people who do not like the Rolling Stones, they have lessons about the Rolling Stones in school, every other advert on television references the Rolling Stones, chocolate bars are renamed after the Rolling Stones, there are adverts reminding you how awesome the Rolling Stones are on fucking cash machines, etc.
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As for whoever it was who compared my critique about the World Cup being totalitarian to a rock concert,
I think they did that because nobody is taking you very seriously any more.
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Oh hi there.
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Wait, who the fuck are you?
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Hey Khar
The world's problems started before soccer was ever invented
Now can I just talk about the fucking game like the thread was pretty clearly intended?
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Thanks for making my point pretty well there Patrick!
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I don't think you can say 'people enjoy it' is a real valid argument to shield professional football from all possible criticism. The fact that you can't reallly criticise football or hold it to any sort of moral standard without being shouted down because football is fun is probably one of the reasons football is such a gruesome fucking mess. It's certainly the reason no one really gives a shit about the resettlement camps and shit in South Africa. Yeah it's bad but FOOTBALL NA NA NA NA NA NA.
Humans are dicks. The South African government may be dicking on their population right now because of the football, but I'm pretty certain they were being dicks before the World Cup arrived, and I'm pretty certain they'll continue to be dicks afterwards.
Yes, football is big piece of shit when it comes to the stupid wages the players make and such, but you can't use it as a scapegoat for the problems that were pre-existing in South Africa. The fault lies with the government, not the sport, which is why most people aren't giving a shit.
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I believe the "people are dicks" argument has been made already. I know I said something like that to him and I was called a retarded piece of dogshit for my efforts.
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Governments all across the world are being absolute tossers to their people, but right now we should feel worse for the South Africans because there is football there and Khar doesn't like football.
Honestly, do you think if we abolish sport completely the world will suddenly become a magical land of rainbows and bunnies where everyone is happy and free?
If you're watching the world cup you're a fucking corporate tool who's supporting the direct and indirect oppression of thousands or millions of people so you can watch a load of fucking millionaires kick around a fucking ball. Fuck you.
I also find this last bit of your blog to be ridiculous. I could complain about how your smoking supports the tobacco industry which routinely fucks the third world, but I won't because I know you wouldn't give a damn because you enjoy smoking. Stop getting all high and mighty about the oppression in South Africa just because you hate football.
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So nervous right now for the US. I know we should win this match but who knows in this WC.
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Hey Khar
The world's problems started before soccer was ever invented
Now can I just talk about the fucking game like the thread was pretty clearly intended?
Actually the split between Rugby and Association Football caused the Holocaust, and FIFA is the only corporation in the entire world which exploits poor countries.
So nervous right now for the US. I know we should win this match but who knows in this WC.
Not looking good..
Pretty embarrassing watching England play League 2 keep-ball against Slovenia but whatever works.
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Oh hey there America, finally.
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Man those Slovenians must be so bummed, that whole game they were like 'we're losing but it's all good' then denied at the last.
Good to see the US progress though 'cos in fairness they have been the most entertaining team in the group and should've beaten Slovenia 3-2 anyway.
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And they should have won that match 2-0, refs don't seem to like the US scoring goals.
England should really not have gone through, and the problem is that now they'll continue winning.
Tossers.
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And they should have won that match 2-0, refs don't seem to like the US scoring goals.
England should really not have gone through, and the problem is that now they'll continue winning.
Tossers.
England are nowhere near as good as the press makes them out to be.
Plus they're probably gonna play Germany, so I guess that'll be it for them.
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Lucas Podolski missed a penalty in that one game recently.. there is still hope !!
Group D is tight as fuck anyway, could get anyone out of Gha/Ser/Ger. A week ago winning Group C was obligatory to avoid the mighty Germans, then a ref fucked them and suddenly finishing 2nd might not be so bad.
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of course we had to wait till the last possible moment to score but at least we did and are advancing. Im predicting Germany beating Ghana and Serbia beating Australia so that should have us playing Serbia in the next round with England playing Germany. Not too bad of a schedule.
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I predict Ghana beating Germany and Australia beating Serbia 9-0.
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I don't think you can say 'people enjoy it' is a real valid argument to shield professional football from all possible criticism. The fact that you can't reallly criticise football or hold it to any sort of moral standard without being shouted down because football is fun is probably one of the reasons football is such a gruesome fucking mess. It's certainly the reason no one really gives a shit about the resettlement camps and shit in South Africa. Yeah it's bad but FOOTBALL NA NA NA NA NA NA. I really can't believe you don't have some thoughts about the incredibly capitalistic nature of football, and the ghastly nationalist aspect of the world cup. Seriously. I know I don't enjoy the game but I think you should at least be able to see where I'm coming from. Wayne Rooney earns more money every week than a teacher, nurse or university lecturer does every year. Do you think a society in which this is the case is in any way healthy?
But his argument wasn't to restructure football so that clubs are non-profit organisations, or at least must be majority-owned by supporters' trusts. He was arguing that it should be abolished because it provides a distraction from the horrors of capitalism. Which isn't true, anyway. In mainstream society football supporters are one of the groups most keenly aware of the havoc that private owners can wreak upon something you care about. Others have shown how much better clubs can be when taken away from private enterprise, such as AFC Wimbledon and FC United Of Manchester (who have remaining non-profit and resisting commercialisation written into their constitution).
I've heard the exact same argument made by others who were arguing that music etc were terrible for the working class because it takes people's minds away from what capitalism is doing and makes them feel better. His argument is just as nonsensical as someone saying we should get rid of DIY music because major labels are terrible things. It stems from the elitist statist notion that the working class are sheep that need a strong party to come down and show them the divine light, the intellectual elite will lead us to the promised land and we should shut up and do as we're told, but in order for that to happen life must be barren so that there is nothing to mask the workings of capital. The exact same thing that Emma Goldman called bullshit on when she was told it wasn't seemly for a revolutionary to dance. I think you can see why I have utter contempt for his position.
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Governments all across the world are being absolute tossers to their people, but right now we should feel worse for the South Africans because there is football there and Khar doesn't like football.
I'm only being on topic. Jesus.
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Yay for Australia!
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Sunday will be an amazing day of football.
England v Germany in the afternoon, Argentina v Mexico in the evening.
Definitely a day for the pub.
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I'm only being on topic. Jesus.
why would you ever be on topic in this forum
that's just not how these things work
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I see your point, Wolves. I don't particularly agree with that article at all. I don't know if it's always obvious when I'm joking. However, I would note that you keep talking about all these great clubs owned by their supporters or whatever (most of which seem to be pretty minor league?) yet you're still watching the world cup. Isn't that kind of like wearing a Poison Girls shirt to a Spice Girls gig?
I have never actually in this thread said all football was bad, all sport was bad, football should be banned, etc. I've just said the world cup is a mega-capitalist nationalist dickwagging contest, that the way it is celebrated is disquietingly close to fascist aesthetics, and that it and other sports competitions on the same scale, particularly the olympics, come almost pre-packaged with abuses of human rights and civil liberties which are never properly called to account because they are sacred cows which no one has the balls to touch.
Of course sport or music or any other liesure activity is not inherently bad, but its modes of production and distribution can be. I'd say that high level football is pretty fucked up, same with a lot of other big sports. The big clubs are cynical money-making machines. Same with most of the music industry, probably to a deeper level than in sport. Same with the vast bulk, economically speaking, of the movie industry. And the publishing industry. And so on. There is a distinct difference between the will of the people, shallow populism, and laying back and begging capitalism to shit down your neck.
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Whether sport or music has the worst set of corrupt apparatus surrounding it really depends on how wide of a net you want to cast, but my money is on sport. PEDs/disregard for safety, organized crime & gambling, and some third world farm systems make for an unholy mess sometimes. There's obviously a lot of good things about sport, but when you add in money, corruption and pride, you sometimes end up with shit like the Andrés Escobar murder. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Escobar) And as Khar pointed out, just because something is fine in principle doesn't mean we should ignore it when some fuckwits go and stick their dicks in it.
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to kinda give credit to you argument there was a special on Current TV's Vanguard about Africa's "lost boys". it was a good documentary
http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92495403_soccers-lost-boys.htm (http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92495403_soccers-lost-boys.htm)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeVhSMUSlnQ
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youtube added a vuvuzela button
click the soccer ball icon
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Awesome. I've been reading the Guardian online's minute-by-minute reports, and for one of the games they mirrored the report to a version that had a constant vuvuzela drone in the background.
I must admit I've been guilty of occasionally doing a brief vuvuzela impression over mundane events in public places in the last few weeks.
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Vuvuzela en chamade stop on a recent organ...
(http://cassland.org/images/Vuvuzela_en_chamade.jpg)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeVhSMUSlnQ
What's great is hitting the vuvuzela button over the top of that guy's NNNG-GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
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Also for the record that guy's NNNG-GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL's went for (in order):
11 seconds
12 seconds
and 9 seconds
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Turning tables (http://www.theonion.com/articles/south-african-vuvuzela-philharmonic-angered-by-soc,17625/)?
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I see the All Whites are wearing all black for today's game. Does that suggest that they mean business?
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I do believe I just saw a New Zealand player doing some stepovers! Take that, Ronaldo!
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Etymology of the name (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/the-origin-of-the-word-soccer/)
Interesting, I didn't know this stuff!
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That reminds me of something I heard from a historian on the radio just before the last World Cup, or the World Cup before it: apparently the term "football" was coined to refer not to a game played with the feet, but to a game played on foot - as opposed to on horseback. Hence so many sports that don't have much kicking at all in them being known nonetheless as football.
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“Rugby” was also once known as “Football” and originally had almost the same set of rules as Soccer, though over time increasingly diverged. The name “Rugby” comes from Rugby School in England. Legend has it, during a Football match at that school, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball in his hands and ran with it over the goal line. It didn’t count as an official goal, as you weren’t supposed to use your hands; but the referee remarked, it was a “jolly good ‘try’”, which, according to legend, is where that particular Rugby scoring term comes from. The official Rugby Union was then formed in 1871 with a split in 1893 forming the Rugby League.
Haha that's so British
"you're a cheat but good show old chap"
Honda of Japan just ended the decent free-kick drought and was instantly compared to Cristiano Ronaldo by everyone ever because no one else scores free kicks.
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This is one of those times were i wish i had a time machine. If i could have placed a bet saying Italy will finish last in its Group I'd be a rich man. Not too mention the money i would have made off of the Swiss beating Spain. O'well nice to dream.
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Okay. I am excited for today's matches, especially for the USA v Ghana one.
I feel like Ghana will have the support of the spectators, but the US has been playing really well.
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No offence to all my American friends but I'd really really love Ghana as the only remaining African team to go as far as they can in the tournament.
Also after last night's shameful performance I really really want Brazil and Portugal to get punished for their footballing sins now. Mexico and Uruguay managed to play a hell of a game in very similar circumstances, why the fuck couldn't the Portuguese speakers?
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Apparently an octopus named Paul, from the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in Germany, has been successfully predicting the results for the World Cup matches. The octopus has a 100% success rate on his predictions.
srsly
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/World-Cup-Psychic-Octopus-Predicts-England-To-Lose-Match-To-Germany/Article/201006415654817?f=rss
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Yeah, but, I mean, let's face facts: it doesn't take a psychic octopus to predict that England will lose to Germany in the knock-out stage of a World Cup.
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Honda of Japan just ended the decent free-kick drought and was instantly compared to Cristiano Ronaldo by everyone ever because no one else scores free kicks.
I could swear I was in a stadium where that Giggs fellow scored from a free kick, but I suppose not.
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It's a well-established fact that octopi are smart motherfuckers
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Well no surprise here that the USA team was beaten. As usual we gave up an early goal and then had to struggle to get even. Ghana goals we're nice and they deserved the win just sucks we can't seem to make it past the 1st round of knockout stages. Well time to start cheering for my backup team. Go England!!
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Your backup team is England?
I hope you have a backup backup team.
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Is it just me, or were those Ghana players really slide-tackley? Either way, I'm not happy with how the US handled the overtime period, but I feel there were more than a few missed yellow cards in that game.
And yeah, England is completely boned.
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They were extremely slide-tackle-happy and luckily one was bad and we got the PK. Sadly yes England is my back-up team but i think they are gonna finally wake up and take Germany even if Swartsteger(sp?) is gonna be back. If they lose than off to Uruguay i go
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I see your point, Wolves. I don't particularly agree with that article at all. I don't know if it's always obvious when I'm joking. However, I would note that you keep talking about all these great clubs owned by their supporters or whatever (most of which seem to be pretty minor league?) yet you're still watching the world cup. Isn't that kind of like wearing a Poison Girls shirt to a Spice Girls gig?
Fairly minor for the most part, yeah. I think the highest placed team that's supporter owned is Exeter City in League One (that's the third level down, due to the insanely confusing ranking of English football). Some draw decent crowds though, and clubs only tend to get taken over or set up by supporters when something disastrous happens so they'll be starting out from a low position and most of these takeovers/start-ups are fairly new.
But onto the world cup. One of the things I find fascinating about football is the duality of it. One the one hand you have the private businesses that care only for profit who run the clubs and the world cup. Then there are the fans. For them these institutions are permanent entities created essentially by the fans, but exploited by private enterprise. The teams they support simultaneously transcend and are in thrall to capital. Because capital gets everywhere, seeping into the fabric sometimes unnoticed. This duality gives rise to another interesting duality: simultaneously supporting football and then cataloguing and resisting its abuses against people. That's why a thread about the world cup should contain not only discussion of the game on the pitch but what human rights abuses are being committed in its name. The passion for the former actually seems to fuel the anger against the latter for many. For example, if you want to read about the horrible crimes committed by Premiership football clubs a good place to start would be 'The Beautiful Game; Searching For The Soul Of Football' by David Conn. A book by a committed Man City supporter, nobody but a football supporter would have done that level of research into Valley Parade, Hillsborough or Arsenal's move from Highbury to the Emirates. Or there's 'When Saturday Comes', an excellent football magazine that devotes a large amount of its pages to detailing the terrible things done in the name of football. For many, critique of football itself goes hand in hand with being a football supporter.
Football teams differ from bands or other forms of entertainment in that so much is about geography. I'm anti-nationalist but I don't have a problem with people having some friendly regional competition. Football teams form a focus of belonging, a way of asserting regional identity without actually (or perhaps I should say necessarily) doing any harm to anyone from another region. Like York City being described by Conn as a focus for working class people who live in a place that's become massively built around preserving itself as a tourist attraction for outsiders. But the football club is theirs, to its fans it belongs to the locals and allows them to show a different face to the outside world. So for a small example from the world cup, there was an England fan being interviewed on TV after the drawn match with Algeria. He was saying he'd been hanging out with Algerian fans after the match, and they'd said their team had played with heart but the English side had lacked passion and he'd had to agree with them. The important bit there is the hanging out with the Algerian fans. Ordinary people from two different countries coming together to slag off England's inability to score. Or then there's the humanisation of North Koreans. When it comes to the game the dictatorship isn't so important for a little bit and the men on the field are treated as fellow human beings. The regime most of them live under isn't brushed under the carpet but the political conditions of their country isn't the only significant fact about the team and their fans anymore. They're fellow football supporters, to be commiserated with when they too take an all-too-familiar kicking at the hands of Portugal. I'm pretty thoroughly drunk, but I hope that at least suggests some reasons why I find enjoying such a sponsor-drenched and abuse-laden event as the world cup acceptable.
I'm looking forward to England vs Germany. I reckon Germany will most likely win, but I have high hopes England will get it together enough to make it a good match. They don't usually bow out without a fight.
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Wow. Germany are playing some nice passes but England's defence is just awful.
EDIT: Oh hey, so's Germany's! Fancy that. Also, expect another press release tomorrow about how FIFA/Sepp Blatter definitely absolutely no way no how will never ever introduce goal-line technology because it's not needed.
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It's enough to make me want to support England.
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God fucking damn it Blatter.
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On S.B.S. here in Australia Les Murray (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xs1lUK4jas) was trying to start up the video technology debate, but Craig Foster, mercifully back to his usual excellent, calm, rational self now that Australia's been knocked out of the tournament, made the excellent point that all you really need is another official whose only job is to watch the goal area and make decisions on everytnhing that happens in there.
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they are already doing that in UEFA.
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Yeah, I think his point was
"Sepp Blatter's an idiot" "If they're doing it in the Europa Cup, why not in the World Cup?" Specifically, he was refuting Blatter's arguments that it was impossible to change things because technology would be too expensive, difficult to implement, couldn't be implemented equally at all levels, blah blah blah.
Anyway enough on the computer, it's 3-1 now and I'm going back to watch the match!
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Okay so at this rate that disallowed goal's going to be pretty much irrelevent anyway.
Sentence nobody ever thought anyone would say until this World Cup: "I really do enjoy watching this German team play football."
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Germany outplayed England. The English are going to bitch and moan about that goal, but the fact is that their defense was .... shit.
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Germany's attacking play was awe-inspiring. They deserve to go far. No disrespect to Mexico, but Ger/Arg would have the potential to be the game of the tourney.
The best thing you can say about that England team is that most of the worst offenders will have retired by if not Euro 12, at least the next WC. Should stop humouring the press and the star names and get started on replacing them now or they'll have the same problems for another 10 years with the next 'golden generation.'
Re: the goal lines, I believe the idea with the extra Europa officials is to essentially adopt that as the new model of officiating, they just had to try it out somewhere first. So hopefully the next major tournament will have 'goal line judges' or whatever it is they're called (it is pretty funny in the Europa when they wander onto the pitch and just kinda hang out with the fullbacks, so I'm all for it).
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The disallowed goal will ultimately provide comfort to English fans because it will allow them to pretend, at least to some extent, that they were cheated out of a chance to be competetive in a match in which, in reality, a youthful and enthusiastic opponent ruthlessly exposed their almost complete lack of meaningful defence.
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Hurrah, all the english speaking nations have been knocked out so I guess we can close this thread. Mods?
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The disallowed goal will ultimately provide comfort to English fans because it will allow them to pretend, at least to some extent, that they were cheated out of a chance to be competetive in a match in which, in reality, a youthful and enthusiastic opponent ruthlessly exposed their almost complete lack of meaningful defence.
I don't know about that, I think this World Cup has proved that English fans are more than willing to call out the national team on their poor performance. As much as Capello might try to claim that the poor decision turned the momentum against England, I think it's clear to most fans that the team has consistently played well below its potential. It would be ridiculous to argue that a match where England were lucky to lose by three rather than six hung on a single goal being disallowed. I fully anticipate the blame being laid largely at Capello's feet. One of the biggest benefits of hiring foreign managers is that the nation can always blame someone foreign for their disappointment, rather than examining what is so wrong with English football as a whole that has led to increasingly dismal performances from apparently world class players over the last half a century.
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Hurrah, all the english speaking nations have been knocked out so I guess we can close this thread. Mods?
In my experience roughly 90% of Germans are fluent in English, so hold your horses, happy boy
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anyway. karma('66) strikes back.
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Guys I think it's time we stop glorifying Mexicans from all over playing a Satanic game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBkbj_S3etY&feature=player_embedded).
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I was really hoping he was going to ask "What letter does smurder start with?"
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Hurrah, all the english speaking nations have been knocked out so I guess we can close this thread. Mods?
NEIN
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Iie.
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Ja!
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Well, it appears the nation of strange porn has been eliminated by Paraguay. Bummer.
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I was in Holland when they beat Slovakia and I was keeping track of the match from the sound coming out of the pubs. There were just waves of cheers every time a goal was scored or nearly scored, and at least 30% of the people I saw were wearing orange. It's such a patriotic country, I never knew!
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Ronal-D'OH!
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Guys there is more at stake here than some simple nationalism and sport.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/larissa-riquelme-lingerie_n_629975.html#s108048
I'm going to have to withdraw my support for Germany, and throw it staunchly behind Paraguay.
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Where can I get an iPhone holster like that is what I want to know.
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A plastic surgeon could hook you up, provided you're talking about the bolted on boobs and not a girl.
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Jesus woman just buy clothes with pockets.
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let's not be drastic here
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That is a pretty common solution; it's what I did with my phone during the last Ball I went to.
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Jesus woman just buy clothes with pockets.
everything about this post is just so horribly wrong
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Excuse me for wanting to ogle her breasts without looking at product placement.
Also it is just one of the things that annoy me about ladies fashion because I get sick of hearing my girlfriend complaining about having to put things in her bra because her jeans only have fake pockets.
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that is a legit point actually.
dear girls' jeans: stop being stupid; love everyone. even the girls that wear you.
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Actually advanced science has produced something to solve all of these problems (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=handbag&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)
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It'll never catch on.
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carrying things is so 2004
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Or, you know, just get Levi's 510s. They are fairly unisex. By that I mean I've seen women wearing them and they look just fine. And I know they have pockets, because I am wearing a pair right now. I have a wallet, three pens, a lighter, my passport, and a pack of cigarettes sitting in my pockets.
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Fashion <---phoneboobs--------------------------non-flattering pocketed garments--> function
There is no compromise, only an endless struggle between aesthetics and sensibility.
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I like Dovey's revolutionary idea better than pockets. I also like that the world cup thread somehow turned into another fashion thread, you guys rock.
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Fashion <---phoneboobs--------------------------non-flattering pocketed garments--> function
There is no compromise, only an endless struggle between aesthetics and sensibility.
What, you think Levi's 510s are unflattering on womenfolk?
You and I are looking at different womenfolk I think
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pscht, women's clothing is like buying a cover to put over your TV. :rolleyes:
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hup holland!
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The Netherlands have been building quietly through this World Cup, they haven't really been too impressive but they've managed to be consistent, and now they're about fifteen minutes away from knocking out Brazil, who've just had a player sent off. We don't normally see Brazil under pressure like this - turns out they crumble pretty quickly, perhaps because they're not used to it and they don't know how to handle it. I wouldn't be surprised if they finish this game with only nine players on the field, though the Netherlands have to be careful not to get drawn into anything nasty.
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Brazil looked to have got over the shock of going behind now, and it looks like the last ten minutes could be pretty full-on for the Dutch. Mind you, the Brazilian defence still looks a little shaky.
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THE NETHERLANDS HAVE WON!!
Amazing. They had a couple of great chances in the last ten minutes to score a third goal, only to be denied by superb last-ditch tackles - but by then it was too late for Brazil to be defending well, because their defence had already let them down twice for two goals. The Netherlands have a couple of players who'll be suspended for the next match, and van Persie really needs to start just shooting at goal when he gets the ball instead of dithering over it (and he really needs to stop taking free kicks), but they'll have huge confidence and self-belief after this, and that can carry a team a long way. As for their performance in this game, I really liked the way they kept chasing after a third goal instead of just trying to defend their lead. Ballsy stuff.
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Yessss!
I was shocked to see Brazil crumble that badly once they weren't winning anymore. It felt like they were getting pretty riled up, and as a result lost control of the game for half an hour. By the time they recovered the Netherlands were just killing time.
I feel like Netherlands could have widened that gap a couple of times, but that they didn't really put enough effort into doing that.
Might turn out to still be a European final? I hope not, but I don't see much chance of either Ghana or Uruguay defeating one of the teams that has proven itself consistently good throughout this world cup, even if they will be down a couple of players.
Anyways, Argentina v. Germany tomorrow should be good.
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Yeah, it was really amazing to see Brazil act like a third-tier team when things started going against them. Melo's stomp on Robben (I think?) to get sent off was extraordinary. Sense of entitlement, perhaps?
I'd really like to see Ghana keep going because I love watching African teams play, but I feel they've reached their level. Uruguay have been building quietly in the shadow of the bigger teams, much like the Netherlands, and they could go a long way. They've got World Cup pedigree - albeit a long, long time ago - and I doubt they'll fear any of the other teams. I'm still leaning towards either Argentina or Germany to win the tournament, though - and I'd be happy with either, as both teams have been playing with a real sense of joy and enthusiasm.
What's the other game? Paraguay and Spain? That seems like a pretty obvious result. Spain are another team that's building to a crescendo, I think. It seems like at this stage of the tournament we've got a lot of teams who've been pacing themselves nicely, and it all seems pretty even, and given that so many of the usual suspects are absent (Italy, France, now Brazil), for the neutrals such as myself this looks like being the best end-phase of a World Cup in ages.
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Man, I have to wonder if the Dutch simply did not cover "what do you do when you slipped through the defense" in their trainings. They had some incredible chances to score with which they did literally nothing; specially towards the very end when i think 3 strikers were basically alone in front of the keeper and... they passed and lost the ball?
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I heard the shortest dude on the team got a header into the net
A+ for the Brazilian defense!
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What a game the Uruguay v Ghana tie has been. Starting off slow and then exploding into action, a missed penalty right at the end of extra time. Now onto a penalty shootout.
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As much as I hate to say it, Van Persie was the weakest link in the Dutch attack. I was constantly surprised by his lack of quality in the Brazil-Netherlands game last night, and I think that if Huntelaar was on instead of him the result could easily have been 3-1 or higher what with the number of duffed chances he had.
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Also, the Netherlands have easily the ugliest fonts for the numbers on their shirts of all the teams at this World Cup.
This is important in deciding which team to support.
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Argentina needs to calm the fuck down. I mean, I'm rooting for Germany (the team which I called as the winner of the Cup from round one and haven't wavered in that belief yet) in this game but even I'm finding it annoying to see how sloppily and emotional the Argentines are playing.
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The Argentines? Emotional?
Nooooooo
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I don't think there's any question that this has not been the great game we were all hoping for. Obviously Argentina having to chase the game from such an early stage had a huge impact on the tenor of the game, but I've been surprised by how comprehensively Germany have outplayed them. Argentina have basically had Tevez and Messi in this game and then just nine other guys. Germany, on the other hand, have any number of standout players.
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I'm not surprised at all by Germany this game. From the very start of the Cup they've been one of the most efficient, well rounded teams. They move the ball the best for sure and have utilized pretty much the whole team consistently throughout. As such, today's game just seems to be a continuation of that trend. That being said, I agree that this game has been a little dull, especially in the last third or so. I was hoping for more of a "Godzilla vs. King Kong" kinda feel to it but instead got "Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster," a good but not nearly as compelling battle with the winner rather predictable almost from the very beginning.
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Yeah, other teams (most conspicuously the Netherlands) have been building steadily throughout the tournament in the traditional way, but Germany have gone the other route of just cruising at a consistently high level right from the start. If we ignore the aberration against Serbia, they've basically looked untouchable and they haven't ever even looked like they're under pressure. For the record, they've now scored four goals in three games at this World Cup. All that, and they're great to watch, too! I for one would be more than happy for them to win the tournament - they certainly deserve to based on their performances so far.
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Definitely. Of all the teams that I've watched play, Germany deserves the title.
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I don't think there's any question that this has not been the great game we were all hoping for.
I think it was another impeccable display of ruthless efficiency by the Germans. Their best game yet. Against England their defence was unconvincing but today the whole team compacted and then launched as one solid unit. I expected them to score goals but I assumed Argentina would too. As it happened, the South Americans were scarcely given a chance to shine. If you watch the goals they scored against Australia, England and now Argentina look at the relative simplicity of their attacking play. Pass, move, pass, move. Create space and hold the ball while waiting for overlapping players to become available. They play to feet practically every time and no one player seems to have any interest in keeping the ball for a moment longer than necessary. It's so effective that I genuinely believe they can frustrate and eliminate any of the remaining teams in the tournament, including Spain and Holland.
Argentina have basically had Tevez and Messi in this game and then just nine other guys. Germany, on the other hand, have any number of standout players.
This was the crucial difference today. Argentina are a group of incredibly gifted individuals but they never looked like a team. Germany are a well-drilled unit.
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Watching Germany v. Argentina was like watching a battle between an A-10 and a schoolyard full of kids with slingshots
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After seing the team that Maradonna had picked for the Germany game it was fairly clear that they didn't have a chance.
That 3 man midfield consisting of two wingers and Mascherano never really had a chance against Schweinsteiger, Khedira and Oezil and they took control of the game very early on.
Argentina's front three is their main focal point but without service you're going to see Messi and Tevez coming way too far back for the ball and then losing all shape, in all very tactically inept.
And on the German front I feel the Ballack injury has done wonders for the Germans as now they don't have to pander to their star man and play as more of a cohesive unit.
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And on the German front I feel the Ballack injury has done wonders for the Germans as now they don't have to pander to their star man and play as more of a cohesive unit.
Yes Yes Yes, best thing that could have happened. This is basically the first time in my life that I'm rooting for Germany.
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Interested to see how Germany fares without Muller. Like I said, the whole team is really strong and plays well as a unit so I don't think it should be too much of a problem but it is a cause for concern potentially.
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They've got such an absurd wealth of fresh young talent at the midfield/deep attacking position, I think they'll be fine. Reckon they'll stroll the semi and he'll score the winner in the final.
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They've got Schweinsteiger
They're in the fucking clear dude
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SCHWEIIIIIINSTEIGER!
(okay yeah I paid $100 for his jersey and now everyone's saying he's playing amazing, which uh, he is. The run on Friedrich's goal?)
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Pig Climber is awesome.
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I tried translating it out once and it just came out as "Pig steiger". Climber, hmmn.
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DAMNATION! Damn that Forlán guy!
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I tried translating it out once and it just came out as "Pig steiger". Climber, hmmn.
I've heard 'jumper' and 'climber' from other people but don't really know tbh. That's my favourite version though.
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Netherlands is kicking the pants right off Uruguay! 1-3 with like ten min to go
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I tried translating it out once and it just came out as "Pig steiger". Climber, hmmn.
I've heard 'jumper' and 'climber' from other people but don't really know tbh. That's my favourite version though.
More colloquial would be pig fucker.
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2-3 final score, S.Amer made one more in overtime. The Netherlands obviously had the stronger game, but I wish they could do it without slinging fouls left and right.
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I think Germany would thrash Holland though if both teams continue to play as they have been.
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WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE IN THE FINALS!!!! \o/ :D
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I've been rooting for Holland ever since I saw their patriotism while I was there - a country that passionate about football deserves to win!
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I didn't completely catch what was said as the signal for ITV is so poor in our flat that the audio kept cutting out, but I could've sworn one of the commentators for tonight's match suggested that Holland would be popular in South Africa on account of their languages being so similar. Genius.
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Gee thanks Tommy, now that I know there's another important bit of history I know nothing about, I'm going to have to go and hunt through the library for more books! I spent today learning about the Russian revolution and Indian independence, and clearly tomorrow is a Holland and South Africa day.
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I didn't completely catch what was said as the signal for ITV is so poor in our flat that the audio kept cutting out, but I could've sworn one of the commentators for tonight's match suggested that Holland would be popular in South Africa on account of their languages being so similar. Genius.
Among the many reasons why Clive Tyldesley is literally the worst person alive.
I'd rather watch ITV's matches with a basshunter soundtrack and a vuvuzela jammed up my arse than listen to their commentators. All woeful to a man.
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I didn't completely catch what was said as the signal for ITV is so poor in our flat that the audio kept cutting out, but I could've sworn one of the commentators for tonight's match suggested that Holland would be popular in South Africa on account of their languages being so similar. Genius.
Among the many reasons why Clive Tyldesley is literally the worst person alive.
I'd rather watch ITV's matches with a basshunter soundtrack and a vuvuzela jammed up my arse than listen to their commentators. All woeful to a man.
I'd have loved for the mauling of England by Germany to have been on ITV, just to hear Tyldesley grow more and more despondent before throwing himself off the Free State Stadium screaming about 1966. All the better if James Corden would have joined him.
Although in all honesty the rampant favouritism in the first game that climaxed in a near-physical orgasm from the commentator when Tshabalala scored against Mexico probably got on my nerves more than Tyldesley and Mowbray's incessant witterings about 'Engerland'.
Looking forward to seeing what Germany can do tomorrow night - they've been outstanding this tournament, Serbia game excepted. I just wish my heart'd have over-ruled my head when it came down to going to the bookies and actually betting on them to win it rather than Brazil.
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Glad to see Netherlands getting to the final for once. I've actually been calling a Germany v. Netherlands final from the very start and since I'm expecting Germany to beat Spain, I kinda wish I had put money on that. Ah well, lets see if Holland can avoid being crushed by the brutal efficiency of the Huns come July 11 (outlook: not good).
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I've been rooting for Holland ever since I saw their patriotism while I was there - a country that passionate about football deserves to win!
This is kind of exactly the reason I don't want the Netherlands to win. They're on par with the English for blind football patriotism and loudness.
They have been playing well though (although the first half of the second half (??) I was very much thinking "what the fuck are these guys doing, they're better at passing than this", and I'm glad that the two teams that have proven themselves to be consistently good have found their way to the finals. I'm not surprised the Netherlands made it through, since they're the only group on that side of the knock-out stage seen play particularly well.
I'm rooting for Germany in the next game, for exactly the same reason. Also, I'm glad that Uruguay is out because they do not really deserve to be in the semi-finals.
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I've been rooting for Holland ever since I saw their patriotism while I was there - a country that passionate about football deserves to win!
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
And the level of patriotism is probably the one thing I'd change about the Netherlands.
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Schweinsteiger sounds like a beer.
I would definitely drink Pig Climber
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If it comes down to a Germany-Netherlands final I'm going to be really torn. Germany deserve to win because they've been the best team across the board and they've done it by ditching their normal (and very succesful) style which takes some guts; on the other hand Germany have won the World Cup enough times in the past and it'd be great to see the Netherlands win it for a change, because as a footballing nation they deserve to have at least one World Cup to their name - but not with this team, which is probably the least likeable team they've ever fielded.
Of course Spain might get to the final instead of Germany, but it really looks like it'll take something phenomenal to roll this German team and Spain haven't really shown that yet.
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Exactly my thoughts. Nobody deserves the cup more than GER and they're playing some very enjoyable football so there's not really any good reason to dislike them but yet still, gah, Germany again? Boooring
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I'm extremely upset I'm not going to be able to watch the final.
Hopefully the scottish are football obsessed enough that they'll be showing it at T in the Park, but I doubt it.
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They never showed the 2006 World Cup Final at T in the Park, and I don't think they intend to change. It's a right kick in the balls.
I've always supported Spain growing up, but I put money on Germany winning this tournament... I'm torn. :(
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Watching the Germany-Spain game in an English pub this afternoon. Anticipating some grumbling since I'm rooting for Germany and all the British fans are probably still butthurt.
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Hey hey hey, two out of three British nations laughed hysterically when England got put out of the World Cup.
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almost as nowhere near as much as the Irish did for the entire duration of the French "team"'s "campaign"
in anticipation of tonight's battle for the right to face Uruguay for the title of Third Best In The World, here is fernando torres' only contribution to the World Cup so far:
(http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/2417/torres.gif)
must be pretty embarrassing being David Villa and having to line up next to this chump at the world's most prestigious football tournament!
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Hey hey hey, two out of three British nations laughed hysterically when England got put out of the World Cup.
There are 4 British nations, 3 of whom all laughed when England were knocked out. Then there was also me who laughed because I am tired of the overhyped, overrated crap that call themselves international class players.
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I have watched that video in slow motion as it loaded and several times at full speed and I just can't see what made him fall.
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His right ankle hits his left calf as he's running.
However, the way in which he throws up his hands and tosses his head is a pretty clear indication that it was extremely deliberate.
Basically, he was trying to cheat by drawing an undeserved penalty.
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If you look closely you can see that he kicks the Chilean players knee which knocks his right foot onto the back of his left calf. Not a foul and certainly not worth the card which got the Chilean player sent off but I'm not sure about cheating. Also, it was at least 5 yards outside of the penalty area so there is no way it would have been a penalty anyway.
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gaaaaaaaaah...
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Hup hup Holland! :D
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I'm still betting on New Zealand to clinch it this year.
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Man Germany looked like a completely different team today. They were tired, they were slow, they weren't making those amazing crosses they did so well in almost every other game. In this game alone, they deserved to lose. Still, and I'm saying this not so much as a fan but as someone impressed with their skill, they really deserve to be in the final and it's kinda sad that they're not. That being said, I'm still rooting whole heartedly for Holland.
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are.you.kidding.me. Goddammit Germany. Sat next to a bunch of awful yuppie Spaniards too
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As a decidedly non-football lover (unless it's the US kind) I am extremely happy that the germans did not make the final.
When that happens, a final between the Netherlands and Germany, people feel free to drag all sorts of horrible stuff out like it's a revenge match for WWII, cheapening the suffering of millions and reducing it to the importance of a football game. And I hate that.
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If you look closely you can see that he kicks the Chilean players knee which knocks his right foot onto the back of his left calf. Not a foul and certainly not worth the card which got the Chilean player sent off but I'm not sure about cheating. Also, it was at least 5 yards outside of the penalty area so there is no way it would have been a penalty anyway.
I dunno, maybe it's legit, but association football is so known for diving that it's tough to see it from a North American perspective and not think something pretty lame is going on. It's bad enough that flopping has increased in basketball as well and it really alienates a lot of potential fans. Probably doesn't help that I'm from a hockey obsessed area. Taking a dive isn't exactly part of the culture.
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If you look closely you can see that he kicks the Chilean players knee which knocks his right foot onto the back of his left calf. Not a foul and certainly not worth the card which got the Chilean player sent off but I'm not sure about cheating. Also, it was at least 5 yards outside of the penalty area so there is no way it would have been a penalty anyway.
I dunno, maybe it's legit, but association football is so known for diving that it's tough to see it from a North American perspective and not think something pretty lame is going on. It's bad enough that flopping has increased in basketball as well and it really alienates a lot of potential fans. Probably doesn't help that I'm from a hockey obsessed area. Taking a dive isn't exactly part of the culture.
It's not legit. It's a terrible dive.
Even if he makes any contact whatsoever he takes another stride before flopping like a pansy. Pure cynicism to get the other guy sent off.
(After all this he'll score the winner in the final now...)
Also: (http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/2402/6pujy1jpg.gif)
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Even if he makes any contact whatsoever he takes another stride before flopping like a pansy.
Eh, I was trying to be diplomatic, but yeah, I do think that too. I've hacked at too many skates to think a guy goes down to that sort of contact very easy.
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Oh, and for the record, I am aware of the irony of a guy who just admitted to tripping on several occasions complaining about people flopping fouls. I have no real defense for this. Call it an ethical blind spot.
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Tripping, hooking, and slashing the opposing team is just mean, where as diving in any sport to fake a penalty caused by the other team is passive-aggressive, callow, and unmanly conduct.
Also you look ridiculous doing it.
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If you look closely you can see that he kicks the Chilean players knee which knocks his right foot onto the back of his left calf. Not a foul and certainly not worth the card which got the Chilean player sent off but I'm not sure about cheating.
It doesn't look like there's any contact with the Chilean player at all to me. Also, and most damningly, a player who's tripped stumbles and tries to keep his balance and generally just falls in a natural manner. Torres in that clip leaps into the air in the most ridiculous and artificial way. I've never seen a more obvious dive.
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The back of his foot bounced off the Chilean's knee, but its natural trajectory was probably not going to lead it to his ankle. And even if it was, it was clearly not an attempt to go for his legs.
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I don't think there was any contact. To me it looks like Torres is a few inches further away from the camera than the Chilean player; their legs are overlapping but I don't think they ever touch. Apart from anything else, there's absolutely no reaction from the Chilean player other than when he turns around because Torres's spectacular dive catches his attention. Getting hit on the knee is a pretty uncomfortable experience, and I would expect some kind of reaction - even just a wince - from the Chilean player if Torres's heel had hit his knee with enough impact to send Torres's right leg ricocheting into his left leg.
EDIT: actually looking at it again maybe the Chilean player does flinch a little; nonetheless the manner in which Torres falls is an out and out dive. Maybe he felt some impact but what he chose to do with it from there was pretty outrageous.
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Viva España, bitches.
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Hey hey hey, two out of three British nations laughed hysterically when England got put out of the World Cup.
There are 4 British nations, 3 of whom all laughed when England were knocked out. Then there was also me who laughed because I am tired of the overhyped, overrated crap that call themselves international class players.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, not Great Britain.
And god damn it Germany.
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Paul is still 100% on the money in his predictions. Sussing the math out they say his odds of getting to this point by sheer coincidence were less than 2 in 100.
I'm back to being interested in the World Cup, now that the clear odds-on favorite to win (Germany) has been knocked out. I find affirmations of conventional wisdom in sports to be the most boring thing. So I'm curious!
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Me too!
Noted Ridiculous Man Fernando Torres aside, I do hope Spain wins.
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Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, not Great Britain.
As citizens of the UK they are deemed to be British though the Belfast agreement allows them Irish nationality too.
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British, yes. But still not Great Britain.
I learnt all this about two months ago for an exam. I am surprised it was never covered in my geography lessons but it's understandable, all we learnt in geography was that earthquakes are like sex and that if you try to demonstrate transnational economic trading by assigning each person a country and giving them sweets to represent their economy, the world will very quickly be broke.
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Holland, do me a favor and demolish Spain for being buckets of shit through the whole tournament
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Holland, do me a favour and demolish Spain for being buckets of shit through the whole tournament
Hup Holland!
If Xavi breaks his entire body in the process all the better.
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Aw, I always thought Xavi was one of the more likeable characters in the Spain side. He's had a quiet tournament mind.
Still hoping for a Dutch win. Hope Sneijder scores a wicked Lampardesque deflection so he can take the golden boot despite scoring about 1.5 real goals (no disrespect, I love Wes, he's a great player, but he's been a flukey lil' fucker this WC).
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In a development that more or less sums up football fandom in the modern age, Paul the Psychic Octopus has received actual death threats (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/08/psychic-octopus-received_n_639160.html) from Argentinians following their loss.
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(http://img9.abload.de/img/1278875sdsdrshg.gif)
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God, this Dutch team is horrible. I was split before the match on who I wanted to win this game but now I'm going to be really disappointed if the Netherlands wins.
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I was actually leaning somewhat towards the Dutch side in the run up to the match, but I completely agree with you, Harry - they've played some of the must unpleasantly violent and cynical football I've seen in some time. It's particularly uncomfortable as it is echoed pretty consistently across the team, rather than just being the fault of one or two unruly players.
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Yeah, it's so clearly a team policy to go out and foul Spain out of the game. Let's call it "total non-football".
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And now it's giving the Spanish a real chance to milk even the weakest challenges for free kicks.
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SPAIN HAVE SCORED!
Thank god for that. I don't know whether I'm more pleased to see the Netherlands lose, or just to see this awful match end.
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Nooo, if the Netherlands loses then everyone following Bobbi Eden on twitter won't get blowjobs!
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I am pretty happy to see that match end and glad that Holland didn't win because they placed disgraceful football; Johan Cruyff must be boiling over with rage at that performance.
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Spain won fair and square, but neither of the yellow cards on Heitinga were valid and he shouldn't have been sent off. That drop-kick should've been an instant red, though.
That being said, I feel like the theatrics in general need to be taken down a notch.
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What are you people on about? The Dutch played in a way which gave them the best possible chance to win, it was a world cup final, there's a lot more at stake than playing pretty football.
If you don't set out a combatative midfield then Xavi and Alonso take utter control of the game and pretty soon you find yourself a few goals down.
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What are you people on about? The Dutch played in a way which gave them the best possible chance to win, it was a world cup final, there's a lot more at stake than playing pretty football.
If you don't set out a combatative midfield then Xavi and Alonso take utter control of the game and pretty soon you find yourself a few goals down.
I'm not saying it wasn't an effective approach. Hell, it took Spain until the 110th minute of the game to score a goal and but for some better finishing/worse goalkeeping the Netherlands could have won the match! But it was absolutely vile to watch, utterly unsporting, a betrayal of a very fine Dutch footballing tradition, and something that I in no way wish to see rewarded.
some completely bizarre refereeing decisions helped them along the way at the end.
Obviously there should have been a corner to the Netherlands instead of a goal-kick to Spain immediately before Spain's goal, and it was pretty hopeless of Howard Webb and co. to miss that, but I like to think that it's more than balanced out by the fact that the De Jong wasn't sent off for leading with the studs straight into a guy's chest.
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Spain is the team that had three players drop simultaneously in a synchronized dive.
Neither team played dirtier than the other, they were both atrocious.
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Spain won fair and square
lolololololololololol
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DAMN THAT OCTOPUS!
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Frankly, I came out of this final wishing the 3rd place match was the final instead and thinking Germany deserved this Cup more than either of the finalists.
But whatever, Germany didn't play up to snuff enough to get into the finals and Spain did take this one as fair as anyone can. This match was still a disgraceful game regardless and most of the fun was derived from seeing how many Dutch players could get a card before one was thrown off. The fact that it took until the second half of extra time was pretty impressive!
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The third-place game is always infinitely more entertaining than the final because both teams in the third-place play-off want to win it, but neither particularly cares if they lose.
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I had to leave home at the 85th minute because I was working TV crew for a playoff soccer game for a regional pro league (http://www.nationalpremiersoccerleague.com/teams/21727632/21729811-21727676/TEAM.html).
After all the World Cup games I've seen, I wasn't quite ready for a game score of 7-3 (home team won).
My general camera role was to try to keep a relatively tight shot on the ball with the immediate group of players (3 or 4), and man, is that a tough assignment (as opposed to the wide shot of most of one half or the other). The ball would shoot away from my screen, and it would take me a few moments to find the ball on the pitch and refocus on whatever new group was playing it.
It's always interesting seeing exactly how coverage of a particular sport comes together from the inside like that. Of course, we only had 4 cameras instead of 5 zillion, but that's still enough to capture the essence of what's going on, and provide additional angles for replays and closeups of players. A cool experience.
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How will the World Cup impact South Africa economically? Odds are, it'll hurt pretty badly (http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5371309).
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How will the World Cup impact South Africa economically? Odds are, it'll hurt pretty badly (http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5371309).
I think you might've missed the ten pages where it was pretty much agreed that quality of life South Africa has always sucked and probably will always suck
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Do you not think there might be some correlation between the quality of life in a country sucking, and that country's government choosing to spend vast quantities of money on a month-long sporting tournament instead of, say, housing and public health schemes?
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I think Patrick was merely alluding to the fact that the WC Finals were a continuation of a long history of international interference, astonishing financial mismanagement and desperate poverty.
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Yeah the money that went on the WC probably wasn't going on public housing no matter what
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So that's AWWW-RIIIIIGHT!
(http://images6.cafepress.com/product/238599686v5_350x350_Front.jpg)
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Hey Khar I'm bumping this thread
I'm bumping it for you
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I'd like to say that for me about 25-50% of the entertainment value of the World Cup final came from the fact that anything played back on the tv broadcast was invariably put into slow motion.
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Yeah the money that went on the WC probably wasn't going on public housing no matter what
No, but it could have been. I'm trying to say that one of the reasons why so many countries/states/cities throughout the world are so fucked up is because their governments/councils prefer to spend public money on short-term, attention-grabbing big-ticket items such as sporting carnivals instead of less glamorous but more essential public services. It happened here in Melbourne earlier this year: the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, announced that some obscene amount of money would go into adding a roof or something to the Melbourne Tennis Centre - meanwhile there are thousands of homeless people on the street, the public transport is steadily sliding towards a fiasco, and the housing market is out of control. The fact that money that gets spent on things like World Cups was not ever going to get spent on anything else isn't a justification - it's the actual problem.
Listen, I love the World Cup, I look forward to watching, but if FIFA really wants so badly to have this thing maybe they should just pay for it themselves instead of latching parasitically onto a new host country every four years.
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Isn't the influx of tourism and commercialism supposed to yield an awful lot of money from world cups and olympic games for a country? Or is it impossible to break even on these kind of events?
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Yeah the money that went on the WC probably wasn't going on public housing no matter what
Exactly.
Also, what is the point in bitching to people who have no sway over the decisions of the South African government? None of my money goes to South African companies as it already stands, I have no intention to ever purchase a diamond for any reason (and not just because I don't plan on ever getting married), I don't have a vote in their elections, and I don't have an army with which to dismantle the current ruling power there.
While I'm not disagreeing with your principles, Khar, your demonstration is, in effect, falling on deaf ears.
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Do you, in any way, hold any power over the decisions of the South African government in regards to the treatment of their people?
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I'd say that we all do, in the collective. If we as citizens put sufficient pressure on our representatives, they in turn will be forced to put pressure on other governments. The reason that governments spend a lot of time talking about education, health and taxes in their own country is because that's what they know the voters care about. If they knew that the voters also cared sufficiently about the same issues in other countries to vote on that basis, they'd sit up and listen.
That's the theory anyway.
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Isn't the influx of tourism and commercialism supposed to yield an awful lot of money from world cups and olympic games for a country? Or is it impossible to break even on these kind of events?
The justification for them is that they do, and to that end private businesses like to fund ventures they otherwise couldn't begin to afford with taxpayer money under the guise of "economic expansion", since they're supposed to boost tax revenue and pay for themselves. The amount of money that's extorted from states and cities in the US from major league teams that want new stadiums is pretty staggering. I did some research on the last time the Broncos threatened to leave Denver after their back-to-back Superbowls if they didn't get a new stadium. Third-party research found that tax revenues stayed pretty much the same (actually dropped slightly as I recall) and taxpayers were left with the bill and a team that all of a sudden couldn't make it to the playoffs. But it keeps on happening because people love sports and the threat of losing it in their cities is significant for them. Just last year in CO we spent dozens of millions of dollars to build a fuckin' NASCAR track, and CO is in the toilet financially, as are most of the states. Corporate welfare at its finest.
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Not saying that we shouldn't have rage folks, just that directing that rage at FIFA for accepting the government of South Africa's money as opposed to the actual government of South Africa is maybe a bit wayward? There seems to be a lot of people here who get that but suggesting that the World Cup should not exist because someone might go and spend a bunch of money that might (but actually really won't) be used for more altruistic purposes is needless distraction.
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Do you, in any way, hold any power over the decisions of the South African government in regards to the treatment of their people?
...yes? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporting_boycott_of_South_Africa)
Alright. Then boycott China, and boycott just about every other nation in Africa, and boycott Turkey, and boycott Israel and every country within 500 miles of it, and boycott Russia, and boycott Serbia, and boycott every country with any Roma people in it since they all get treated like shit and the government doesn't care.
Just so we don't set any double standards here.
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no offense patrick but is there anything at all in your worldview that isn't completely hopeless
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Not a thing
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"You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of
vices," Finkle-McGraw said. "It was all because of moral relativism. You see,
in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others-after all,
if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for
criticism?"
Finkle-McGraw paused, knowing that he had the full attention of his
audience, and began to withdraw a calabash pipe and various related supplies
and implements from his pockets. As he continued, he charged the calabash
with a blend of leather-brown tobacco so redolent that it made Hackworth’s
mouth water. He was tempted to spoon some of it into his mouth.
"Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are
naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’
shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it
from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see,
even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise
another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually
done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the
correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour-you are merely
pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all
political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out
of hypocrisy.
"You wouldn’t believe the things they said about the original Victorians.
Calling someone a Victorian in those days was almost like calling them a
fascist or a Nazi."
Both Hackworth and Major Napier were dumbfounded. "Your Grace!" Napier
exdaimed. "I was naturally aware that their moral stance was radically
different from ours- but I am astonished to be informed that they actually
condemned the first Victorians."
"Of course they did," Finkle-McGraw said.
"Because the first Victorians were hypocrites," Hackworth said, getting it.
Finkle-McGraw beamed upon Hackworth like a master upon his favored pupil.
"As you can see, Major Napier, my estimate of Mr. Hackworth’s mental acuity
was not ill-founded."
"While I would never have supposed otherwise, Your Grace," Major Napier
said, "it is nonetheless gratifying to have seen a demonstration." Napier
raised his glass in Hackworth’s direction.
"Because they were hypocrites," Finkle-McGraw said, after igniting his
calabash and shooting a few tremendous fountains of smoke into the air, "the
Victorians were despised in the late twentieth century. Many of the persons
who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefandous conduct
themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were
not hypocrites themselves-they took no moral stances and lived by none."
"So they were morally superior to the Victorians-" Major Napier said, still
a bit snowed under.
"-even though-in fact, because-they had no morals at all." There was a
moment of silent, bewildered head-shaking around the copper table.
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I'm saying that unless you're actually going to organize a protest, what's the point in complaining about it to a web forum where you are most likely not going to find anybody motivated enough to do it themselves?
I'm not saying that nobody on here is motivated enough to do anything about it. People are motivated enough to complain about it to their friends, that's what I see happening here. I'm saying that realistically, who is going to actually do anything that will actually help the situation? May's got the right idea here:
I'd say that we all do, in the collective. If we as citizens put sufficient pressure on our representatives, they in turn will be forced to put pressure on other governments. The reason that governments spend a lot of time talking about education, health and taxes in their own country is because that's what they know the voters care about. If they knew that the voters also cared sufficiently about the same issues in other countries to vote on that basis, they'd sit up and listen.
That's the theory anyway.
But out of everyone who reads that post, let's realistically assess the number of people who are going to do this.
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I'm not saying you should dedicate your life to hating the World Cup just for the sake of validating the discussion here. I'm saying that it's ineffective at best.
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I'm not defending South Africa's actions at all, and yeah, that sounds plenty reasonable. I'm just saying, talking about it on the internet clearly isn't enough to keep South Africa from being dicks to their own people. They bulldozed homes to build stadiums and they put 'undesirables' into concentration camps. I understand that and I disagree with this practice.
I'm just saying that going onto an internet message board, saying "South Africa are dicks! :x" and agreeing with each other clearly isn't enough. It still doesn't change the fact that statistically speaking, girls getting raped is more likely to happen than girls learning how to read. It doesn't change the fact that statistically speaking, 1 in 4 South African men has committed rape. It doesn't change the fact that out of those, half have raped more than twice.
Find me a sitting member of South African government who gives a fuck what the world has to say, and I personally guarantee you will receive a hen with teeth in the post within the week. Same goes for finding me a sitting member of the South African government who doesn't get bribed on the daily.
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By the same token, discussing how a football match went, or how bad a refereeing decision was, or who should win the tournament, or what a dick a certain player is, does absolutely nothing to change the outcome and yet people, including you and I, still do it! You're returning to the argument that "talking about shit ain't never gonna change nothin'!" which Jens has already pretty convincingly countered by pointing out that no one thinks it is going to change anything, beyond perhaps a few people's minds. But that's cool, because that is the spirit in which most people are entering into the conversation. You are the only one insisting that it's just not good enough.
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I hope for ideals to be realized and am constantly disappointed, forgive me.
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But the point is that open and frank discussion is pretty important to the development of ideals, like Jens said, we cannot all be protesting on the streets all the time. In fact, I feel like I am just repeating everything Jens said because you seem to be wilfully ignoring it.