Roiling football blather

L

Lewis

Wild Horses
D

don_quixote

Trent End
ok, almost certainly these will be the world cup pots based on the fifa world cup 2006 draw. there is no inclination that it could go differently, although fifa rankings may play a heavier part. in this case, holland would be seeded, probably at the expense of england.

pot A:
south africa
brazil
england
spain
germany
italy
argentina
france

pot B:
ghana
paraguay
cote d'ivoire
chile
cameroon
nigeria
algeria
uruguay

pot C:
holland
denmark
switzerland
slovakia
serbia
greece
slovenia
portugal

pot D:
north korea
south korea
japan
australia
usa
mexico
honduras
new zealand

random draw time:
a: south africa, paraguay, greece, japan
b: germany, nigeria, switzerland, mexico
c: italy, cote d'ivoire, slovenia, australia
d: spain, uruguay, serbia, usa
e: brazil, cameroon, denmark, north korea
f: argentina, algeria, portugal, south korea
g: france, ghana, holland, honduras
h: england, chile, slovakia, new zealand

england would be as pleased as punch with that. group g is group of death, group d contains some dark horses, italy vs australia rematch! and the potential minefield of nigeria vs germany on telly...
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Even England couldn't fuck that up.

But - England, Ghana, Portugal, Mexico, would be a toughie. If England get seeded, can't see them failing to make the last 16 (have they ever not escaped the group phase once they've qualified? England are good at negotiating groups.).

Can't believe the Ireland game last night. If that had been England, can you imagine the shitstorm? Ireland just have to sit there and take it, essentially, being a 'smaller nation'.
 
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droid

Guest
Undefeated in qualifying in a group containing the world champions and we lose out in a playoff to a shit French team who cheat their way into the final.

The Henry goal started with 2 offsides, followed by a foul on Dunne and 2 handballs. Its an absolute travesty.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
The offside thing is true, but i guess is excusable by the officials, cos sometimes they just get it wrong. But the handling is so blatant - i say bring in video refereeing for goals, cos if the officials can't see offences like that then we obviously need it. As previously discussed, bringing it in for everything would slow the game down horribly.

Normally I'd say it was just football, but when it gets into big country/smaller country power structures in this way....well, obv it means a lot to a nation as a whole to get to the World Cup.
 
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droid

Guest
Id agree if it was offside in open play - but offside from a free kick? if the linesman cant see that he's useless.

FIFA don't even mention the handball in their account of the match. They got what they wanted - France in the world cup, so screw the Irish.

The real tragedy is now we've missed our chance to knock England out!
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I just think people should be rioting in the streets, it was an absolute disgrace. There's very few things that get me absolutely livid, but to see corruption played out in front of your own eyes, it's just disgusting, and it disgusts me that what it's come to is people just sitting and moaning about it, rather than taking direct action. The FIFA headquarters should be bombed.

One of the really sad things is that Ireland would have brought more money to South Africa had they qualified than France will do.

I see William Hill is refunding any bets on Ireland to win, which at least shows some grace.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Well, Thierry Henry's really fucked his legacy up, that's all I can say.

Apaprently he said to the ref he had handled it - maybe he should have insisted a little harder.

Sean St Ledger:

"He's said it hit his hand accidentally but, if you look at it, you can see it hits his hand twice. I'm not sure Henry's reputation has been tarnished. It doesn't look great but he's got his team to the World Cup finals. If it had been one of our team, we'd have probably done the same."

DON'T SAY THAT!
 
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tom lea

Well-known member
fifa's just a horrendous boys club, same with uefa. ive always thought henry seemed like a cunt too, strutting round his pristine apartment in that renault ad - you can tell he's the sort to own every mc solaar album and go on about how he likes his hip-hop 'jazzy'.

his twitter's shit too.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
tom lea said:
fifa's just a horrendous boys club, same with uefa. ive always thought henry seemed like a cunt too, strutting round his pristine apartment in that renault ad - you can tell he's the sort to own every mc solaar album and go on about how he likes his hip-hop 'jazzy'.

his twitter's shit too.
Click to expand...

I believe you just got merked, Thierry Henry!

"Are you watching, Robespierre, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Gustave Eiffel, Johnny Halliday...MC Solaar, can you hear me? Your boys took one hell of a beating!"

And then you cheated and got through.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I had alot of time for Henry, I thought his way of playing was beautiful, that's tarnished now.

Yay to Dermot Ahern, Irish Justic Minister, he's getting stuck in :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/8368100.stm

Also point them to point one of Fifa's Fair Play Code :

"Play fair. Winning is without value if victory has been achieved unfairly or dishonestly. Cheating is easy, but brings no pleasure. Playing fair requires courage and character. It is also more satisfying. Fair play always has its reward, even when the game is lost. Playing fair earns respect, while cheating only brings shame. Remember: it is only a game. And games are pointless unless played fairly."
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
What's changed since France got knocked out of the WC by Israel and Bulgaria even though it was a team featuring Cantona?! The French are in no way indispensable to the World Cup...

Sucha pity none of the 'big' teams failed this time. Plenty of them were ripe for the taking.
 
D

droid

Guest
Er.. France did 'fail' they were much worse over two legs and qualified through blatant cheating... they could only score from a fluky deflection and a handball. The worst team qualified.

As for fair play:

26/02/2005 - 16:44:11
Thierry Henry has been appointed as FIFA’s senior ’fair play’ ambassador to campaign against racism in football.

Arsenal’s French striker has launched his own anti-racism campaign to which FIFA president Sepp Blatter today gave his support.

Blatter said: “FIFA will nominate ambassadors for fair play and Thierry Henry has agreed to be the doyen of those ambassadors, and he and other people will participate and try to work against racism.”

Henry’s campaign is being run in conjunction with sports goods manufacturers Nike, and Manchester United’s defender Gary Neville earlier this month voiced concerns about their involvement, saying: “We have just got to be aware that it is not cheapened slightly by companies like Nike getting a lot of PR out of it for nothing.”

Read more: http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/ambassador-role-for-henry-191225.html#ixzz0XJEZlyc2
Click to expand...

Also - as well as having no mention of the handball the fifa site has also disabled comments for their article - all the other news articles have comments:

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/newsid=1136804.html#gallas+breaks+irish+hearts
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
"To rank the incident in Paris alongside Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" in 1986 is misleading. That was a street kid's instinct, acclaimed by his compatriots as revenge for Antonio Rattín and the Malvinas. Henry may come from Les Ulis, a quartier difficile outside Paris, but he is a sophisticated man, and a much decorated one. A chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur should have done better – by his opponents, by himself, and by the game."

Ah, at least all this gives the Guardian the opportunity to indulge their extraordinary patronising opinions of how people from different backgrounds/societal strata really are. As they did with Zidane.

Cunts.
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
FIFA should already be in the dock for having changed the qualifying arrangements during the competition, to seed the big teams - that was blatantly unjust and involved far more premeditation than Henry's handball did.

Tho' maybe FIFA have a point: it is ethically best that France and Russia qualify, seeing as their qualifying benefits more people than the qualification of smaller nations does.

That a tiddler like Slovenia somehow sneaked in to the Finals is shocking: with only 2 million inhabitants, how many people are likely to care whether they succeed or not?
 
D

droid

Guest
mixed_biscuits said:
FIFA should already be in the dock for having changed the qualifying arrangements during the competition, to seed the big teams - that was blatantly unjust and involved far more premeditation than Henry's handball did.

Tho' maybe FIFA have a point: it is ethically best that France and Russia qualify, seeing as their qualifying benefits more people than the qualification of smaller nations does.

That a tiddler like Slovenia somehow sneaked in to the Finals is shocking: with only 2 million inhabitants, how many people are likely to care whether they succeed or not?
Click to expand...

I think you meant 'financially' rather than 'ethically' there.

The Irish diaspora amounts to about 80 million fwiw.
 
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