don_quixote
Trent End
scariest thing about hiddink is that he's taking over at russia. who are englands qualifying group for euro 2008? /o\ /o\
tatarsky said:Think this is a bit much. There's no denying that Ferdinand, Terry, Ashley Cole, Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney (and Becks back when he was any cop) can all be described as world class players, that would get in to pretty much any top European club team.
Player for player, there aren't many better sides in the tournament. That isn't media manipulated guff - it's almost an undeniable fact.
They deserved to win because they were slightly the better team on the day that's all - not because of entitlement of empire or having better players on paper or anything else. There is no "irreason" in saying that England were better, I'm just describing what I saw. I agree that there is no point in jingoistic bias but it's equally worthless to say that Portugal outthought or outfought a poor England side when they simply didn't. I'm trying to describe it as fairly and disinterestedly as possible, what I find infutiating is a lack of ability to understand that."this 'deserved to win' stuff is infuriating, even in defeat the english sense of entitlement is undimmed this time founded on two fallacies - that they played well enough to win (an element of irreason there) - or that portugal had mediocre players and should have had the good grace to concede"
foret said:sure, i wasn't trying to smear you with imperialistic bias or what have you (i wasn't very clear) by saying they deseved to win
they still blatantly didn't deserve to win, as reflected by the fact that they dind't ;-)
IdleRich said:I seem to have got myself into the position of defending the England side when that's not what I was intending at all. I merely stated that they were slightly better than Portugal, having had marginally more and better chances and that saying so is not necessarily down to one-eyed bias, sorry if I was touchy there Foret. Overall England were rubbish and dull and I'm fed up of talking about them - I'd much rather talk about the glorious come-back my seven-a-side team made last night, 3-2 down with five minutes to go and after my equalizer gave us belief we pulled clear to win 5-3. The fact that they were down to six men after one or our players crunched their winger in no way impacted on the result and in any case it was their fault for not having a sub.
don_quixote said:the most violent act i've ever seen on a football field.
Italy's coach Marcello Lippi last night insisted Marco Materazzi said nothing to provoke Zinédine Zidane into the extraordinary head-butt that led to the France captain's late dismissal. Lippi claimed the referee Horacio Elizondo had received help from an official on the sidelines for "a flagrant breach of Fifa's rules" before sending Zidane off. "You will realise it was not Materazzi who got the attention of the referee," said Lippi. "It was the fourth and fifth officials looking at the video at the edge of the pitch. We did not do anything. They saw it and they called the attention of the referee."
FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday ruled out the use of video evidence to deal with controversial refereeing decisions. The issue came out again recently after France claimed that Patrick Vieira had had a good goal ruled out when his 32nd minute effort seemingly crossed the line in the 1-1 draw with South Korea in their World Cup Group G in Leipzig on Sunday. "I don't think that stopping the match (to make a decision) to be the ideal solution," Blatter told French radio station RMC. However, Blatter favours the "smartball" which contains a micro-chip and was trialled at the world under-17 championship in Peru last year.
I wouldn't go that far but it wasn't spectacular in the end - I think that teams were too cautious in the knock-out rounds which meant that there weren't many goals."crap world cup"
That's a bit strong, it was a clear sending-off but what about that Leonardo elbow or Schumacher close-line and those are just from previous World Cups. It did bug me the way that Zidane acted so hard-done-by and the coach clapped sarcastically, apparently they are still saying that Materazzi over-acted to get Zidane sent-off which is a bit cheeky. I agree with what you say about the video evidence though Ness."possibly the most violent act i've ever seen on a football field"
IdleRich said:I wouldn't go that far but it wasn't spectacular in the end - I think that teams were too cautious in the knock-out rounds which meant that there weren't many goals.
That's a bit strong, it was a clear sending-off but what about that Leonardo elbow or Schumacher close-line and those are just from previous World Cups. It did bug me the way that Zidane acted so hard-done-by and the coach clapped sarcastically, apparently they are still saying that Materazzi over-acted to get Zidane sent-off which is a bit cheeky. I agree with what you say about the video evidence though Ness.
I just think it's a shame that the final was decided on penalties, it's disappointing enough when a team is knocked out on penalties but it seems to be very anti-climactic when the whole tournament ends that way. Obviously I would say that as an England supporter but I do think that it would be good if they could find another way (I haven't got any decent suggestions though).
Not to take anything away from Italy but it does seem to taint the win in a way, same as in 1994 when Italy were the losers on penalties. I don't know why I feel that with the final more than in the knock-out stage but for some reason I do."Agree completely about penalties - the short-term drama is a pretty poor pay-off for the long-term disappointment of the match being settled in such a way."