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thefoxboy 
"Four your eyes only."
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 Posted - 06/29/2010 : 23:15:24
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quote:
Originally posted by rabid kazook
quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
Germany hasn't played a quality team yet, can't see them getting past the next game.
Some teams play better when matched with more quality teams and on the other side are prone to being defeated by smaller (but tactically apt) ones. I think that is from The Art of War. 
I agree, Italy do that a lot, they just couldn't scrape into the round of 16 this time.
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bife 
"Winners never quit ... fwfr ... "
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Posted - 07/03/2010 : 02:00:59
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| Hup holland hup! |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 07/03/2010 : 14:53:42
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quote:
Originally posted by bife
Hup holland hup!
I can identify with that. |
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rabid kazook 
"Pushing the antelope"
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Posted - 07/03/2010 : 17:05:04
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Schland O Schland!!!
'So wrong, so glad. |
Edited by - rabid kazook on 07/03/2010 17:06:26 |
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Koli 
"Striving lackadaisically for perfection."
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Posted - 07/04/2010 : 12:44:54
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quote:
Originally posted by lamhasuas
quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
So glad the French are out, not as glad as the Irish.
Ha!
Great to see karma in action. Doesn't happen very often.
Paraguay are my team because I drew them in the sweepstake at work. The South American sides are looking good compared to the European ones.
It's just as well I didn't join this thread during the group stage, because any predictions I made then would be looking a bit silly now. I would, for example, have highlighted the fact that South American teams topped several of the groups. But look what happened: all but one of the sides in the semi-finals is European. Spain didn't look too good in their match against Paraguay, but Germany were extremely impressive in their defeat of Argentina - and it's interesting that their margin of victory was greater than in their defeat of England. (In fact it flatters England, even though we should have equalised at 2-2 but for a duff refereeing decision.) Holland took quite a scalp when they knocked Brazil out, but I can't see them beating the Germans, who are formidable at the moment.
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Edited by - Koli on 07/04/2010 12:46:18 |
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thefoxboy
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 07/05/2010 : 00:32:05
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OK, Germany has shut me up, they made Argentina look Serie Z
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rabid kazook
"Pushing the antelope"
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Posted - 07/05/2010 : 13:50:31
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quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
OK, Germany has shut me up, they made Argentina look Serie Z
I just wish my satellite dish wasn't broken, it would've been so much better watching the commentaries of the game in German. Not to mention the awesome pre-shows, post-shows.
Apparently Germans restructured their work with young players after the demise in Euro 2000 by investing millions into this field and by opening 30.000 ne football centers all over Germany.
I've seen this for years now in their quality national league. Bundesliga is really fun to watch (it's the springboard for many "Easterners" too), and even their 2nd league is highly watchable, it's often mentioned as the best 2nd/B league in the world.
An i'n' this the best song of the WC
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Edited by - rabid kazook on 07/05/2010 13:51:05 |
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bife
"Winners never quit ... fwfr ... "
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Posted - 07/05/2010 : 13:58:44
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bugger, just had to change my travel plans for this weekend, instead of being away til sunday night we will now be away until monday night. How the hell are we going to find a babysitter til 5am in Penang?
Linda might never forgive me if holland are in the final! |
Edited by - bife on 07/05/2010 13:59:01 |
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ci�nas 
"hands down"
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Posted - 07/06/2010 : 23:46:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Koli
quote:
Originally posted by lamhasuas
quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
So glad the French are out, not as glad as the Irish.
Ha!
Great to see karma in action. Doesn't happen very often.
Paraguay are my team because I drew them in the sweepstake at work. The South American sides are looking good compared to the European ones.
It's just as well I didn't join this thread during the group stage, because any predictions I made then would be looking a bit silly now. I would, for example, have highlighted the fact that South American teams topped several of the groups. But look what happened: all but one of the sides in the semi-finals is European. Spain didn't look too good in their match against Paraguay, but Germany were extremely impressive in their defeat of Argentina - and it's interesting that their margin of victory was greater than in their defeat of England. (In fact it flatters England, even though we should have equalised at 2-2 but for a duff refereeing decision.) Holland took quite a scalp when they knocked Brazil out, but I can't see them beating the Germans, who are formidable at the moment.
Ah yes, the future makes fools of us all.
Perhaps my arse is partly covered by my praise of the Germans on the first page of this thread, & I hope they win it because they�ve played attractive attacking football throughout. Normally you could rely on the Dutch to play like this, but the side that has just knocked out Uruguay are dully methodical & physical.
I seem to have followed my standard trajectory with this year�s World Cup: mild initial interest escalating to full obsession that tapers away as I get pissed off with events on & off the field. The England side didn't acquit themselves well & were greeted back by a tabloid press baying for their blood � because they�d failed to live up to expectations that the same papers had helped to raise so high in the first place. Hey. It's a game. They played poorly. End of.
And, for me, all the skill on display on the pitch gradually & inevitably gets eclipsed by what the pundits would call �cynical� theatricality. During the run of play it�s often difficult for viewers to distinguish genuinely dirty fouls from milder fouls from non-fouls because the slightest bodily contact is likely to cause robust professional athletes to behave like attention-seeking 4-year-olds, rolling on the ground in agony clutching the damaged knee or ankle in order to win free kicks or penalties.
Worst of all is that it now seems to be acceptable for players to plead with the ref to book or dismiss opponents for some transgression (real, exaggerated or imaginary). When did this shit become OK? It wasn�t OK 4 years ago.
(Give me rugby any day.)
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Edited by - ci�nas on 07/06/2010 23:54:13 |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 07/12/2010 : 00:40:58
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OK, does anyone know what some of the Netherlands players were so animated about after Iniesta's goal? When he was passed the ball he was onside (by 1-2 meters), did they think it was offside? I don't geddit.  |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 07/12/2010 : 04:00:18
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| I think they did, or rather were so desperate that they thought they'd try their luck, especially in terms of playing on referees' fears in this tournament of making a major error. |
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ci�nas
"hands down"
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Posted - 07/12/2010 : 10:23:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
OK, does anyone know what some of the Netherlands players were so animated about after Iniesta's goal? When he was passed the ball he was onside (by 1-2 meters), did they think it was offside? I don't geddit.
No, even the Dutch couldn�t claim that was offside. I can�t recall the sequence of events exactly now, but the Dutch felt that they should have had possession � a throw-in or a corner following a tackle at the other end of the pitch. Instead, Spain retained possession, which was the start of the movement that led to the goal being scored.
So glad Spain won.
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BiggerBoat
"Pass me the harpoon"
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Posted - 07/12/2010 : 18:29:09
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They were arguing that it should have been a free kick up the other end and that a goal kick was given moments earlier when the ball plainly deflected massively off a spaniard and should have been a corner.
Shit World Cup.
Shit final.
Happy for Spain but my suspicion that marketing is slowly killing the game was fully realised. It will kill all sports in time I think, football just happened to come first. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 07/12/2010 : 23:34:49
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quote:
Originally posted by BiggerBoat
They were arguing that it should have been a free kick up the other end and that a goal kick was given moments earlier when the ball plainly deflected massively off a spaniard and should have been a corner.
Ahh, so they were still going on about that, which by then was a historical event...quote:
Shit World Cup.
Shit final.
Happy for Spain but my suspicion that marketing is slowly killing the game was fully realised. It will kill all sports in time I think, football just happened to come first.
I fear you're right, but the thing that kills my interest in soccer (yeah, I said it, SOCCER!!!) are the things that have always killed it for me:-
a) It's too fucking hard to score! Watching a scoreless 90 minutes of soccer is no more interesting than watching a cricket batsman play for 90 minutes without scoring.
b) Given a), results are too often wrong. I.e., the referee will turn 0:0 into 1:0 or 1:0 into 0:0 by missing something important that everyone knows about 5 seconds later but nobody can do anything about.
c) Also given a), the onus is then on players to gain advantage any way they can, including blatant cheating (playing football with their hands to avoid defeat or diving to gain a penalty etc).
Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I like men's sport to be an explosion of testosterone and a celebration of manliness. I can never take seriously a sport where the best thing a grown man can do for his team is to fall over at the touch of a finger and cry like a girl. When I was a kid we had a word for any other kid who failed to show manliness on the playing field, although political correctness prohibits me from saying it here.  |
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Chris C
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 07/13/2010 : 13:09:09
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| Piss-poor final to finish a not particularly good tournament. I thought the Dutch would be better than they were. Had that been a Premiership game I would have switched off at the end of the first half. |
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World Cup
