World Cup 2010

[don_quixote]

2-0 seems insurmountable to americans? could have fooled me on friday. almost feel like adding a condescending wink again!

comebacks happen more at lower levels. i wish 2-0 felt insurmountable when i watch forest.

 

[bandshell]

Great football from Brazil and a few little sparks from the Ivory Coast. Fabiano was on good form but that second goal should not have counted. A blatant double handball. The referee made some appalling decisions. The offside from Drogba, Fabiano's second goal and Kaka's red card were all ridiculous.

Way too much diving and appeals for fouls going on from both teams. Fabiano was on the floor so often, blatantly milking it, as were many other players. Keita falling to the floor with his hands over his face was low. Kaka's arm was nowhere near his face.

Kaka had an interesting game. At first it looked like he was lost. Fumbling the ball and losing possession far too easily. He played a key part in the two legitimate goals though. Credit to him for that.

The Ivory Coast were just outclassed overall really. Drogba and Gervinho were predictably great but they had to carry the rest of the team.

 

[computer_rock]

Apart from the blatant handball the worst decision was the 3 minutes additional time. The ruckus at the end lasted more than 3 minutes + there were 4 substitutes in normal time + Elano's injury and various other incidents where players went down writhing around in agony.The correct amount would have been approaching 10 minutes. Of all the things to fuck up you don't expect world cup referees to get their timekeeping so horribly wrong.

Not a good week from the french. I don't think we'll be seeing Mr Lannoy again any time soon.

 

[bandshell]

Apart from the blatant handball the worst decision was the 3 minutes additional time. The ruckus at the end lasted more than 3 minutes + there were 4 substitutes in normal time + Elano's injury and various other incidents where players went down writhing around in agony.The correct amount would have been approaching 10 minutes. Of all the things to fuck up you don't expect world cup referees to get their timekeeping so horribly wrong.

Not a good week from the french. I don't think we'll be seeing Mr Lannoy again any time soon.

Yeah, true. There must have been at least 10 - 15 minutes wasted. It seemed that more time was spent lying down than playing, at times.

 

[scottdisco]

probably just because it's fresh in my memory (i do have a shit one), but that game now (only caught the arse-end, but saw highlights, and missed NZ-Ita, damn! - except for last five), the absurdly card-happy guy in charge of Ger-Ser, and the overly fussy showing for USA-Slvn, have been the three worst performances from refs thus far i can recall, three in, what, the same 56 hour spell?

great Drogba header, just steering it in.

as we've all been saying, this gloriously erratic WC is shredding predictions but i will say i don't think Por or Chile will have as hard times tomorrow against the North and Suisse as the group seeds did, although the organisation and discipline from both the latter was admirable in their openers. (also the only good Clive T comment i've heard thus far in the prior NK match when he noted Jong Tae-Se's penchant for Tupac.)

 

[don_quixote]

can i make this point clearer

current second round draw as i see it:
uruguay - south korea
mexico - argentina
england - germany (optimism eh..?)
usa - serbia
holland - italy
japan - paraguay
brazil - spain
portugal - chile

leading to qfs
uruguay - germany
argentina - serbia
holland - brazil
chile - paraguay

leading to sfs
germany - brazil
argentina - chile

seriously - this is with brazil winning the group. could they, would they, fix it so they avoid running spain, netherlands, germany and get chile, paraguay, argentina instead?

still, if spain get out of their group it'll be a tough run. i can see the swiss fucking up against chile and only drawing against honduras. but maybe not.

 

[grizzleb]

seriously - this is with brazil winning the group. could they, would they, fix it so they avoid running spain, netherlands, germany and get chile, paraguay, argentina instead?

I hope they do and get pumped. The groups are turning out mental - who's guaranteed a place so far? Brazil and The Netherlands?

 

[don_quixote]

yes and cameroon are the only team definitely out

 

[don_quixote]

of course if spain lose tomorrow and chile win, then chile are definitely through and spain are definitely out.

i really really want chile to do well. but i also want spain to go through.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

in re: Brazil-IC & in general I thinkone of the biggest reason Americans can't get into footie isn't so much the lack of scoring (tho that doesn't help) as the fact that a 2-0 lead is usually insurmountable. comebacks are a major tenet of pretty much every popular American sport: bottom of the 9th; miraculous 4th-quarter turnarounds; the inevitable comeback run in pretty much every NBA game ever.

This is perhaps because the scoring systems allow for greater fluctuations, reflecting changing patterns of dominance during a game more closely or just being an expression of randomness (in which case, it might be fairer to equate a 2 goal comeback with one of 20 pts in gridiron, for instance) and also because, being even more spectator-oriented than European sport, the organisation of American sports is geared towards fostering competition through levelling policies whose scope is unmatched over here.

I don't think I've ever seen a ref give 10 minutes injury time - it just isn't done.

 

[grizzleb]

This is perhaps because the scoring systems allow for greater fluctuations, reflecting changing patterns of dominance during a game more closely or just being an expression of randomness (in which case, it might be fairer to equate a 2 goal comeback with one of 20 pts in gridiron, for instance) and also because, being even more spectator-oriented than European sport, the organisation of American sports is geared towards fostering competition through levelling policies whose scope is unmatched over here.

I don't think I've ever seen a ref give 10 minutes injury time - it just isn't done.

I've seen a ref give ten minutes injury time after a leg break I think.

 

[grizzleb]

of course if spain lose tomorrow and chile win, then chile are definitely through and spain are definitely out.

i really really want chile to do well. but i also want spain to go through.

Yeah exactly - same deal with Germany Ghana...

 

[scottdisco]

I don't think I've ever seen a ref give 10 minutes injury time - it just isn't done.

I've seen a ref give ten minutes injury time after a leg break I think.

happens all the time at Old Trafford, and for the most mundane of reasons

 

[hucks]

yes, that was a typo. i both watched the game & happen to know the difference between a piece of the former SFRY & one that used to be attached to Czech. the condescending wink is much appreciated tho, b/c of course all Americans are ignorant of E. Eur geography.

C'mon man, that was a reference to how English people don't know the difference. I still don't

On my way home tonight I befriended my Brazilian neighbours and they took me in as their pet neanderthal English football fan. I've been invited round on Friday for hooooj Brazilian barbecue. Would love to invite them round mine but Wednesday is private grief. Sorry.

 

[baboon2004]

I know you kinda have to say that but do you - or does anyone, really - find it more likely that you guys will beat Slovenia than that we'll beat Algeria? I mean certainly it's possible but I can only say I like our chances to go through (to most likely be eliminated in the 1st rd, but whatever).

On a normal case-by-case basis, no, but avoiding outright humiliation is something that, at least in the World Cup, the English seem to do quite well, by pulling themselves together just when it matters.

I'd go for 2-0, Gerrard and Rooney.

Given the history involved, I can't see Portugal and Brazil being anyhing other than a hard-fought grudge match, surely?

In the Brazil match, i think the ref was trying to atone for his earlier "Did you handle it? No? That's okay then" moment.

 

[grizzleb]

Given the history involved, I can't see Portugal and Brazil being anyhing other than a hard-fought grudge match, surely?

In the Brazil match, i think the ref was trying to atone for his earlier "Did you handle it? No? That's okay then" moment.

Surely if stuff like that matters then it would be contended from an official point of view.

I used to think that it was a good thing for refereeing in football to be as it is - with decisions taken without any replays etc, but it annoys me in loads of games when I see obvious mistakes like that. It's pointless and changes outcomes, why shouldn't replays be taken into account when coming it potentially significant decisions? In pretty much every other sport that system is used as standard (?). I can see maybe at a league level where decisions even themselves out over longer periods of ttme, and provide talking points then maybe it's not a bad thing, but in tournaments where it can basically change the outcome of something entirely then I think it's daft practise.

 

[Sectionfive]

FIFA's line on video refs was that the rules should be the same everywhere.
And its unpractical to expect the poorer leagues/clubs have all the technology. So, the football is the same in the world cup as it is in the park on Sunday.

Id say it will change when enough of the 'right' teams lose out. But it will take years.

 

[luka]

can we please ban baboon from dissensus for just jinxing england irrevocably. cheers.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

happens all the time at Old Trafford, and for the most mundane of reasons

Ha!

I wonder if refs are less inclined to add on time for player melees because both teams are considered to be complicit.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I hear that the mystery England fan might be getting a year inside for the heinous crimes of a) walking into a room through an open door and b) talking to a celebrity.

Ridiculous.