Topic: 2010 FIFA World Cup Thread

Yes, and as Pnin observed, our American torpedo-egg is clearly optimized for launching by an arm, so I'm aware of the absurdity of calling it football.

I'll nip this in the bud right now.

The real name for Soccer/Football is "Association Football" - due to it resembling an earlier version that was played across English villages with hands and feet. The game was codified and the use of hands was prohibited (but retained obviously in it's Rugby offshoot), hence the term As soc iation Football becomes " Soc cer" as was the practice of public school boys (who codified the game) to give a slang name to a sport or activity. Rugby becomes "Rugger" if you're especially posh.

I learned this in College and can be backed up with this wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_Football

And to speak about my feelings after my own team's game today (and in summary), why did Capello give Heskey so much play time, why did he give up on Green and why the HELL were we promised in England that our players are "the sh#t" (paraphrasing, obviously), when most of them couldn't keep the ball long enough to shoot on target (and when they did, it was a shot straight into the keeper's hands).

But at least I won't be giving up my time to watch any more world cup football on TV (I only support England) and (after following James Corden's England World Cup challenge of not shaving until England have won or are knocked out) now I can shave my beard off.

The England team is blaming the ENTIRE game because of the missed call? Oh give me a break, save the classlessness for France.

The refs didn't cause you to give up four goals to Germany, who just ran right past you time after time.

Soccer does need to catch up though. It's behind the times. There's been several crucial mistakes by the officiating staffs so far in this World Cup and that's inexcusable for such a big event.

I can understand if this were a couple local high school teams - in which the officiating would actually probably be much, much better - but this is the World Cup, the best players all around the world don't come to get screwed. They could stay home for that.

Getting ready for Netherlands vs. Slovakia this afternoon.

I'm pretty confident that we can win, but then again, they DID manage to knock out Italy. I know Italy wasn't very good this year but Slovakia still beat the world champion. Too bad Rafael van der Vaart is injured but with the fully recovered Arjen Robben we saw last Thursday we should be OK.

When you think about this, if the game was 2-2, England would have played with more motivation, but yes, alot of Englanders at the moment are sore losers, except for the ones who accept their team is crap.

Yea, that's how I felt about Mexico's game, Aviator. I don't believe that second goal would have happened if they hadn't been so distracted by their anger at the undeserved first goal a minute before. Then the game would have been tied, and who knows what would have happened the rest of the game. Granted, Argentina was playing better, from the half hour or so I watched, but that one awful, awful call (seriously, was he not looking at all?) was a huge game changer in more ways than just the individual goal. I didn't watch England's game, so I can't comment on their performance, but I've lost all interest in any more games in this tournament. Might as well just have a coin flip to decide, it'd be about as fair.

_{Still too embarrassed to comment. I'll see you all in four years yeah. Bye!}

Or after the world cup

_maybe

@Machu...so, we BOTH had crappy World Cup weekends. I was hoping to jump on England's bandwagon after we crashed and burned...oh well.

Bye 'Chu!

Germany v. Argentina is going to be a tremendous match, there may not be any better throughout the World Cup.
Then again in the nearer future Spain v. Portugal should make for a great match. They both play very skillful "beautiful" soccer.
The winner of the Uruguay/Ghana match will be this WC's dark horse. (Chile, Paraguay, and Japan are also nominees).

2-0 for Brazil at half-time.....

We're f*cked next Friday.

3 - 0 for Brazil! And Chile isn't a team to be taken lightly.

You forgot Brazil vs Netherlands that should be an exciting match, especially if Brazil players (Robinho and Kaka) get their game together.
@Rensch
Friday should be a good game. I can't wait.

Argentina and Germany were the better teams

It's not like the US game where the goal happened at the very last minute and the refs got it wrong.

This just gives England/Mexican fans an excuse to say 'Oh yeah it was all because of that one screw up. That changed the ENTIRE game'.

Alrighty then. But any soccer 'experts' out there, that don't favor one side or the other, will tell you neither missed call ultimately decided the game.

@Alex: I know a lot of England fans and none of us are saying 'Oh yeah it was all because of that one screw up. That changed the ENTIRE game'. Chill!

Yes, the game would have been different if we'd gone in at half time level at 2-2. But, at 2-1 we were still in it and didn't have to throw it away quite so spectacularly.

If you saw my previous post my problem is more that the coach (and I've seen a couple fans online..) specifically said that in the interview after the match.

Ah well, I've been on a media black-out since the match and hadn't seen or heard any of that. Only plugged back into the world this morning and that was reluctantly. :/

It was a game of two halves. The first half was an embarrassment to football. The second half was an embarrassment to England.

edit: And GO JAPAN!!!!!!!! edit edit: ah booooo

Stinks that a team like Paraguay can advance to the quarterfinals with little challenge (Japan was their toughest match) and a team like Portugal needed a result against Brazil, Ivory Coast, and to score plenty of goals against N.Korea for goal differential with an added must-win match against Spain to get to the quarter-finals.

It is worse that United States had the easiest possible draw to get to the semi-finals but couldn't capitalize on the opportunity. Needing a win against Slovenia, Algeria, Ghana, and Uruguay isn't too bad for a World Cup semi-final berth.

Yeah the US blew it. I don't think anyone will argue they had a tough schedule. lol

And that is unfortunate, but it's the same for all sports.

Should the Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays deserve to go to the playoffs? Probably, but since they're in the same division one will be left out, and a lesser quality team will get in.

Not that I ever thought the US would make it to the end, I was at least hoping we would get a little farther. I have NEVER been so upset over a sports event. On another note, at least my home club won their home opener in their brand new stadium!