VeeshanVault

Voronwe my friend, what the fuck did that last post mean? You totally lost me...

USA did well to come away with a draw, keeping their dreams alive for the tournament, a gutsy performance given the 9 men they had for second half.

All in all, Italy are a bit shit compared to the Italy team of about 10 years ago, but it does show how the USA have improved that they can scrape a draw with the italians.

Brazil/Argentina ftw still imo.

He was replying to a post made earlier by Miir. Stating that the 2002 US record during group play, wasn't spectacular. Which it wasn't but we still could have made it to the quarters, if it hadn't been for the German defender that Voronwe referenced.

the day i take a lecture from a Canadian on fucking soccer is the day the Canadian men's team can beat our women...ie fucking never

Haha never seen Voro so angry! World cup ftw! And wikit Kahn is a goalie mate

All in all, it's been an awesome start to the world cup though!

yeah apologies to Miir for being nasty

Miir obviously being the soccer knowledgician, was joking syaing the US was lucky to beat the Mexicans, as he knows outside of Azteca stadium (altitude, smog, urination, etc), the US has won 9 of the last 10 matches the two sides have played in international competition.

The Uruguay official who had this match was suspended for 6 months in 2002 for corruption.

all of sudden he is giving out red cards for Italy, the most corrupt soccer nation on the planet today. 1+1=2525q24523451513astas;a25235fuckitalia

haha you can't keep your whining to one thread?

Miir has stayed out of this thread for a while. I'm guessing he never did see the matches...

Vive la Korea

HOPP SUISSE !!!!!



The next game gonna be sooooo important...we need to beat or to get a draw with Korea and France need to draw or loose to Togo !

So Swizerland and Korea (i love em ! ) are going further !

Passed through the cafeteria a little while ago and saw the score...I am guessing that the Ukraine was taking out their frustration on the Saudi team after Spain whipped up on them.

Ukraine is getting Sjevtsjenko back in shape after his knee injury. That alone will scare a lot of teams, he is an amazing player.

Shevchenko is one of the greatest players at that World Cup.
From my point of view Argentina look in the best position to win the thing, good strong solid defence and scoring goals for fun.
and although my heart says England will win, my brain is saying no chance, purely because of the tactics we adopt. 02 showed it all when we went 1-0 up and switched to ultra-defensive, although i credit Sven's record i dont htink his tactical mind is as up to date with the likes of Hiddink and Perreia.

I was up the other night and saw part of the France-South Korea match and have a question for you guys who watched: did France score a second goal or not? If so how large does this loom being as Korea actually came away with a 1-1 draw?

The replays clearly showed the Korean goalkeeper behind the goal line but from the camera angles it was pretty hard to say if the ball made it all the way over. The US crew was jumping up and down that it was a goal and the French were robbed, but the British crew on the other channel seemed much more subdued.

I mean I was cheering for Korea (fuck France always and everywhere) but I was surprised that for such a large scale event:

a) there were such shitt camera angles
b) there was talk about "putting chips in the balls to signal a goal" but nothing about instant replays... its not like they can't add the minute or so on the end in injury time as they do with other things...

In my opinion (and in the opinion of the 2 people commentating here and the 4 expert commentators in the studio): Yes it should have been a second goal. France got robbed. They also got robbed off a penalty kick in the first game.

of course another easy 3-1 win for spain against tunisia giving them a place in an easy 2nd round game (against france switzerland or korea (revenge!))
they by far have the most entertaining and the best offense i have seen play in this world cup

im not impressed with brazil at all, and france ever since their victory have 100% sucked, they wont go far, australia has a lot of surprising potential, i see them making 2nd round easily

Bah let s hope switzerland can avoid Spain...if not we will just beat 'em

Xzion wrote:of course another easy 3-1 win for spain against tunisia giving them a place in an easy 2nd round game (against france switzerland or korea (revenge!))
they by far have the most entertaining and the best offense i have seen play in this world cup

im not impressed with brazil at all, and france ever since their victory have 100% sucked, they wont go far, australia has a lot of surprising potential, i see them making 2nd round easily

Did we watch the same game? Yeah, 3-1 sounds like a decisive win, but the fact is that they were struggling for a long while. Down 0-1 for 71 minutes...ouch.

Drolgin Steingrinder wrote:

Xzion wrote:of course another easy 3-1 win for spain against tunisia giving them a place in an easy 2nd round game (against france switzerland or korea (revenge!))
they by far have the most entertaining and the best offense i have seen play in this world cup

im not impressed with brazil at all, and france ever since their victory have 100% sucked, they wont go far, australia has a lot of surprising potential, i see them making 2nd round easily

Did we watch the same game? Yeah, 3-1 sounds like a decisive win, but the fact is that they were struggling for a long while. Down 0-1 for 71 minutes...ouch.

lol, that was shitty, but regardless of the goal they dominated the game

i heard they had possesion 71% of the game, which watching the game it would make a lot of sense, and our offense still managed that goal when almost the entire tunisian team was on defense, i was greatly impressed with that offense, more then any other team ive seen play, and despite how they sound, tunisia is a very good team

No, Tunisia is not a great team. Spain was FAR from impressive in this game.

England - Sweden should be interesting tonight.

The finishing was shabby on Spains part, but Tunisia were really solid on their defense. They got a lucky break on the early goal and did damn well defending against it for 63 minutes, in my opinion. Roger Lemerre played just the right tactic against the fast spanish wingers and I sort of hoped they'd pull it off.

Good ! Both Sweden and ENgland are through !

Next match against germany is going to be hell for sweden

2-2? holy crap. I was leaving the office early and picked up a drink while England put themselves up 2-1. It was about 40ish into the second and yet they only tie? Far be it for me to pay attention to these things but that's a pretty long streak that England hasn't beaten Sweden

Fucking useless cunts! Don't get me started. I'm not sure who i hate most: Our "dont turn up for the second half" team, the "plan A, and if that fails, er plan A!" coaches, or our retarded fucking supporters who sing that dirge of a national anthem every time Sweden scored.

I was quite amazed at how poorly our defence played! Normally thats our most solid position!
Owen's out for 5 months, thats a big problem.
if we wanna go far in this tournament we need to defend better - thats my main concern at the moment.

Linaminu wrote:I was quite amazed at how poorly our defence played! Normally thats our most solid position!
Owen's out for 5 months, thats a big problem.
if we wanna go far in this tournament we need to defend better - thats my main concern at the moment.

And find some strikers that can score.
Or play 4-6-0.
We might scrape past Ecuador with luck but we'll be fucked in the quarters.

Sven's idea of playing Gerrard as a support striker is good but that would mean we had our two (arguably) best players both trying to play a free role. Crouch isnt good enough in my opinion to do the business so it would have to be Rooney and Gerrard seen as Sven's plan of taking 2 strikers one injured player and a kid hasnt exactly worked out

- Saying that not seen Theo in the world cup yet... we can only wait and see (if he even gets the chance)

I'm with Tanc.

England are a world class team until it comes to finding strikers that have the balls to actually finish goals off.

They have been unconvincing against crap teams like Paraguay and Trinidad and as soon as Sweden got that first goal back England resorted to their usual "let's just bottle it and give in" bullshit. Giving Sweden that equalising goal in the 89th minute was a fucking joke. They will be fucked if they get even as far as the quarters. They need to literally grow some balls (not the football ones either) and not turn into petulent ignorant fucks anytime they are put under pressure.

There are some great players in England carrying the rest of them, I blame the other players more than the manager.

Ashley Cole gave the ball away to Sweden literally EVERY time he got the ball last night, Lampard is bottling it bigtime, Beckham is lazy, Ferdinand is lazy, Owen was shit in his games and I don't think it's a huge loss to the team that he's out.

He's been given more chances than his form deserves. Rooney was crap although thats understandable as he is not really match fit right now. Cole, Terry, Gerrard and that sub winger that came on in the last match have carried england this far. Robinson is a fucking shit goalkeeper as well.

On a positive note, Joe Cole's goal was arguably the best goal of the World Cup yet. (although I missed the argentina 6:0 game so there may be a better one there).

They're not winning unless they change their personal attitudes bigtime.

Partly agree with you. Ashely Cole has been hopeless and Lampard has been pretty bad as well. I've thought Ferdinand was overrated for as long as I remember heh. Owens was getting better imo though and will be a loss to the team. If nothing else because you don't have replacements. I disagree on the Beckham lazy comment, he has worked hard both backwards as a ball winner and has had quite a few very good moves forward as well. He was bad the second game but so was everyone else heh. He was good against Sweden imo. Crouch.. not my kind of player.

Don't get me wrong, Beckham has been playing relatively well compared to the other players, but he should be leaps and bounds better. His natural skill with long balls and awareness outshines everyone on that team and the only guy that is as good as him at creating chances is Rooney.

He should be playing better than he is, this is the World Cup after all! He has the ability to be the best player in the world, maybe the shithead attitude of some of the other players isn't allowing him to be as good as he can because he's having to shoulder their responsibilities as well. The same could be said for Owen, but I'm not a fan of lazy fuckers who just sit in the box waiting for chances to be given to them, especially if they never convert them and blame everyone else for this.

I think Beckham has had to make up for other players a bit, he has done some very tiring runs back on defense which, imo, other players on the team are better suited for. Also a shame that so many of his passes have gone to attackers who have done nada with them.

Granted, I might be a bit biased. I really like Beckham as a player. I love players who can play with speed and skills and not just power. But it doesn't make sense to have him make long exhausting defensive runs when he can be THE difference maker in attacks.

No I totally agree, I guess it may be down to the shitty attitude of the players around him. However, his set pieces have been a bit crap.

Pretty much most long set pieces for all teams have been crap in the tournament. I think the new ball is really affecting the top guys (Beckham, Ronaldhino, etc.) on delivering good set piece balls. Maybe this is why so many teams have been playing short corners (which I hate to see, seems like a huge waste to me most of the time).

Hopefully this will improve as the tournament continues.

Animale

Good point about the ball. That thing is friggin all over the place heh. Also, as I have said before the grass has not been watered enough.

i dont think i've ever seen something good come from a short corner....

but anyway while you are trashing English players, what about that Crouch guy...outside of being tall he is about useless...

due a due!

Cole's goal was one of the finest in this WC.

Hmmmm....

i see a pattern.

The US ties a game and takes the advantage...

Ref comes in with bogus call within 5 minutes to restore order handicapping US.

phantom penalty given to Ghana pretty much is going to send the US home.

Can't wait to hear about the checkered past of this official (like the Uruguan one who was previously suspended for corruption who officiated the US v. Italy match).

Voronwë wrote:Hmmmm....

i see a pattern.

The US ties a game and takes the advantage...

Ref comes in with bogus call within 5 minutes to restore order handicapping US.

phantom penalty given to Ghana pretty much is going to send the US home.

Can't wait to hear about the checkered past of this official (like the Uruguan one who was previously suspended for corruption who officiated the US v. Italy match).

That call was totally bogus indeed.

I am really disagreeing with the formation that Arena put out there this afternoon. Why in the world would you start a 5 - 4 - 1 knowing you have to score goals. You have quality strikers like Ching and Johnson sitting the bench, for what reason.

The penalty was bogus. But the US' goal was offside heh. And Arena is an idiot for not playing Johnson more.

Convey should have been in the whole game...

USA is out.. Figures..

But the US' goal was offside

Mhh was it ? I don't think so and....it was indeed a powerfull shoot

I was hoping to see a little more attacking US team. Im not too disapointed as i like when african teams pass though the groups, they give the opportunity to see a different football style.

I wish Italy didnt pass...i dont like them.

Ghana VS Brasil now....GO GHANA

Kelshara wrote:But the US' goal was offside heh.

I wholeheartedly disagree. It was a good clean goal. And no, I'm not a fan of the US team ><

YAY! NO MORE SOCCER FOR FOUR YEARS!

masteen wrote:YAY! NO MORE SOCCER FOR FOUR YEARS!

How many US fans are actually posting here? Or, were you referring to the US media attention? The team I have supported from the start is advancing!

How much longer does the World Cup last?

1 month total. June 9th to July 9th.

I think the best thing about the World Cup, at least up here in Canada, is that it plays on the stations dedicated to sports so it's not forced on you and pre-empting everything else. The fact that it's a global tournament that trumps the Olympics in terms of entertainment helps too

I've been watching a lot at work...and since there's no cable on the tv there we have to watch on Telemundo, which is surprisingly way more entertaining than ESPN and abc. after the game all it is is beautiful muchachas dancing in tight jerseys of the winning team, lots of bouncing. i recommend it to the bilingual or slightly bilingual

Brazil is going to give the poor Japanese keeper a heart attack before this game is over.

I think they said he had been credited with 9 saves at around the 23 minute mark

25:03 intot ht ebrazel v. japan game and the fucking japan goalie is a fuckign hero! what amazing stops. brazil is firing away on him and he keeps coming up with the saves.