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BiggerBoat 
"Pass me the harpoon"
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 Posted - 07/13/2010 : 18:04:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
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. 
I can't agree entirely with your points Sean as I think it should be difficult to score (adversity being the mother of invention and all that) and there can (to me) be absolutely engrossing nil-nil games - but I get your point.
The cheating point I do agree with. You could argue that cheats have always been in the game and are here to stay, but these days it seems that they're all aware of how to gain an unfair adavantage (almost like it's been drilled into them on the training pitch). 'Cheats never prosper'...except in football it would seem.
I think FIFA, if they've got any balls, will introduce a video ref and start penalising players for cheating and simulation. Once they know that they can't get away with it, they'll stop doing it. As far as I'm concerned it's the only way to save the game.
What is more difficult is to work out when a player has gone down too easily (stay away from here you innuendo fans). Ideally you only have refs who are ex-players so they understand the physics of a challenge rather than reacting to an over dramatic tumble.
Once they start listening to me I might return.
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rabid kazook
"Pushing the antelope"
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Posted - 07/14/2010 : 20:33:32
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quote:
Originally posted by BiggerBoat
The cheating point I do agree with. You could argue that cheats have always been in the game and are here to stay, but these days it seems that they're all aware of how to gain an unfair advantage...
The overabundance is because every game is important in these big tournaments. WC won't be for another 4 years (Euro in 2 years though).
There's much less of the trickery (witchcraft I say!!!) in club football.
By getting an opposing player to be ejected you get a 30%, 40% better chance of winning/making through. It's like corporate business.
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Airbolt 
"teil mann, teil maschine"
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Posted - 07/14/2010 : 21:50:32
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At least will never have to listen to a Vuvuzela again! |
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 07/15/2010 : 10:04:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Airbolt
At least will never have to listen to a Vuvuzela again!
Well, you in the US may not, but those of us who live in countries where football is a game played with the players' feet, suffer these all season long, every season! |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 07/18/2010 : 01:27:58
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
yeah, I said it, SOCCER
Say it as often as you like. It's officially called football even in New Zealand now.
quote:
It's too fucking hard to score!
That's what's good about it -- each point is not just an inevitability that will come within a few minutes at the most.
quote:
Watching a scoreless 90 minutes of soccer is no more interesting than watching a cricket batsman play for 90 minutes without scoring.
I'm not a big sports fan, but I can happily enough watch international games if Great Britain, England or Wales is playing: when they don't score, there's nothing to look at in cricket; that's not the same in football.
quote:
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.
Once Sepp Blatter goes away, that will all be fine. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 07/18/2010 : 01:29:56
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Well, you in the US may not, but those of us who live in countries where football is a game played with the players' feet, suffer these all season long, every season!
What?! Really?! I think that's unusual outside South Africa. I had never heard one before a few weeks ago. |
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thefoxboy 
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 07/18/2010 : 23:11:38
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
quote:
Originally posted by Airbolt
At least will never have to listen to a Vuvuzela again!
Well, you in the US may not, but those of us who live in countries where football is a game played with the players' feet, suffer these all season long, every season!
I was drinking beer through them back in Fremantle for the 1987 America's Cup. Well, they were the same size and shape and sound.
Great to get a beer down fast. :)
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Chris C 
"Four words, never backwards."
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Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
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Posted - 07/22/2010 : 09:06:57
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Who won?  |
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Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
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Posted - 07/22/2010 : 09:08:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
Actually if NZ has anything other than 3 first-round losses then I'm gonna claim absolute, total World Cup victory! 
Congratulations to NZ the only country not to lose a single match at the World Cup. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 07/22/2010 : 12:21:33
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Didn't win any either. 
Still they did 17,658 times better than I'd expected and jumped from 78 to 54 on the FIFA rankings (the biggest upward mover) as a result. |
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Topic |
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World Cup
