The Official 2010 World Cup Thread

[Guest Mirezzi]

Miroslav Klose pours a bit of salt in the wounds:

 

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5335527/ce/us/germany-miroslav-klose-says-england-play-team?cc=5901&ver=us

 

"We came out with confidence and as a unit and we were present in the game from the opening whistle. I did not have the impression that England came out as a team," Klose said. "I expected them to come with the bit between their teeth, but after five or seven minutes it was clear to me that it wasn't the case."

 

"On paper, they have better individuals. But it's what happens on the field that matters, as you saw yesterday. It's how you come out as a team."

 

Then again, hard to argue with either point.

[GORDO]

football needs to start worrying about the contact aspect of the game, it has become so much of a contact sport that it also gives the refs a hard time, and it makes the game much more difficult offensively and easy defensively, with the addition of the current implementation of the offside rule which makes the field tiny the game has reached quite a tactical stalemate.

 

More of a contact sport?? If anything there's less and less contact allowed. thanks to the rules you are barely allowed to touch another player. if you do, they go down, ref gives a foul. the hard tackle has all but been eliminated from the game thanks to the over zealous refs. It's spoiled the game and the more the refs try to clamp down on challenges the more the players are going to dive.

 

wtf are you on about? are you watching 1950's soccer or something? evidence of what I say is on every single corner quick, there's enough stuff going on there that could justify penalty kicks if the ref wanted to. nowadays refs barely even give yellow cards for what used to be clear red cards. it used to be like this: if the foul was intentional then it's a red card, period. it still should be like this. hard (shoulder) tackles are still legal, not sure wth are you talking about.

[Guest Mirezzi]

Watching this game is really agonizing. I'd LOVE to see a Slovak equalizer. Ugh. They're coming so close...

[Guest Mirezzi]

wtf are you on about? are you watching 1950's soccer or something? evidence of what I say is on every single corner quick, there's enough stuff going on there that could justify penalty kicks if the ref wanted to. nowadays refs barely even give yellow cards for what used to be clear red cards. it used to be like this: if the foul was intentional then it's a red card, period. it still should be like this.

GORDO, you can't be serious man.

 

We've already seen what you're talking about. Games with 14 yellow cards are absolutely unwatchable. If fouls were called the way you suggest, every game would look like the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons from the 2004 era.

[Guest Mirezzi]

God damn, Jan Mucha is playing right out of his fucking skin.

[Guest Rambo]

Football has almost become a non contact sport unfortunately. The only exception is on corners and freekicks where the defenders and attackers are flirting like crazy.

[Guest Mirezzi]

Vittek.

[Guest Rambo]

 

If that happened in the premier league it would be in the news for days and Heinze would be in all sorts of trouble.

[GORDO]

the point of a rule is to determine the behavior of the player. so no, games wouldn't be like that at all i think, there'd be less contact -> less fouls awarded -> less interruptions -> more game. that's what i'm thinking anyway. also something could be made with the yellow card red card system, because as cute at it is, it is also quite silly.

 

the amount of contact allowed is part of what makes defensive football the winning formula of today's football. not to mention the ambiguity of what can be called or not makes ref'ing accurately a contradiction.

[goDel]

I just biked in to say:

 

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

 

MEXIFAIL.

 

ENGFAIL.

 

REFERFAIL.

 

GOAL LINE TECHNOLOGY FAIL.

 

FIFAIL.

 

what football needs:

 

3. VIDEO REPLAY

 

 

and some other stuff

 

7. no more faking injuries, ya fuckin pussies.

 

7. Part of the sport, unfortunately.

 

another reason for video replay: players faking (= ronaldo) will be spotted instantly

[jules]

less contact is not the problem. when i was in h.s. soccer, there was plenty of contact. constant pushing and jersey tugging. that's a part of the game that should not be interrupted. they should start giving cards for obvious flailing about, that's annoying as hell. i hate when you see some guy laying around like his leg broke and then he realizes the ball is still in play near him so he pops up looking for a pass.

[Guest Dirty Protest]

Right i'll bite, David Cameroon reckons technology is a good idea and he likes the Smiths, so it must have value.

Theres no reason why there shouldnt be goal line tech, its instant. But replays? The last 20 minutes of a game were a team were winning 2-0 say, would be spent with said team calling every throw in, offside, save to be replayed to try and eat time, on top of that maybe 3 subs. No more scum winning champions leagues in the last few seconds of the game, because the stop start will have killed the match well before then. It works in tennis, because tennis is a start stop game.

Jesus, the world cup just invites reactionary non opinion.

[Guest Rambo]

Theres no reason why there shouldnt be goal line tech, its instant. But replays? The last 20 minutes of a game were a team were winning 2-0 say, would be spent with said team calling every throw in, offside, save to be replayed to try and eat time, on top of that maybe 3 subs.

 

If you are talking about situations where a request is made for a replay where everyone has to wait, then i would limit that kind of thing to 2-3 calls a game.

[Guest Dirty Protest]

Same problem the team that is winning most probably hasnt used their calls becuase they havent had to until time wasting.

Then when is the match stopped from? Yesterday after the non goal Podolski almost scored in the same passage of play, so what you saying that bit didnt happen? Or if someone breaks an opposition leg in the middle of the park before the next stop, no card then because that wasnt during the game? Its not the feckin matix, its football.

[Guest Rambo]

Im amazed at these responses to be honest. Take the wrongly disallowed goal yesterday, we score a goal yes? Germany take the ball down the other end and for the purpose of this discussion they score. If the right decision was made, they don't have the ball to score. So it's tough shit, i dont see where the quandary comes from.

 

If i am wrongly awarded a corner and score from it, i simply dont deserve the goal but by your (and others) logic the goal should stand. Mentalism.

 

Also, if someone does a reckless tackle and breaks someones leg then it doesn't matter what the situation is, they should be sent off.

[GORDO]

okay how about this then: instead of one ball give them two balls, or better yet let 4 teams play with 4 balls but two of the teams are american football teams, also, place a cage all around the field and give some of the players machine guns.

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

pretty bad results this weekend. first usa. then england, then mexico. the next round is looking to be pretty fucking hot though. having a shitty england team in there would only ruin it.

[Guest Dirty Protest]

Im amazed at these responses to be honest. Take the wrongly disallowed goal yesterday, we score a goal yes? Germany take the ball down the other end and for the purpose of this discussion they score. If the right decision was made, they don't have the ball to score. So it's tough shit, i dont see where the quandary comes from.

 

If i am wrongly awarded a corner and score from it, i simply dont deserve the goal but by your (and others) logic the goal should stand. Mentalism.

 

Also, if someone does a reckless tackle and breaks someones leg then it doesn't matter what the situation is, they should be sent off.

 

Bit like saying a penalty after an offside is still a penalty.

[Guest Rambo]

Exactly, that's what im saying. Of course a penalty after an offside isn't a penalty.

 

cause guess what comes first...... the offside. I mean how difficult is it?

[Guest Dirty Protest]

But a foul after play has been stopped is a foul? Is it professional? Keep writting caveats and send them to FIFA.

[Guest Rambo]

if i foul after full time it's a red card

 

doesn't matter when it happens if it's a sending off offence

[Fred McGriff]

during the us - ghana match, some massive totally wasted douche was chanting "ghana sucks! ghana sucks" after we were down 1-0. really? do they? his next chant was "ghana's for fags! ghana's for fags!" total facepalm, but whatever. drunk meathead fuckface. then he started chanting, and encouraging others around him to chant, "ghana has AIDS! ghana has AIDS!" and so i snapped and yelled at him to shut up as loud as i possibly could. i was fully prepared to stab him with a broken bottle (i was about 8 whiskeys deep). he quited down and then went on to his friends about how he was "twice the size" of "that faggot up there" (me). but his next chant was just "white sox suck" (i was wearing a backwards white sox hat." i didnt give a shit. his friends told him to shut the fuck up. at halftime i went over and was like, hey man let's put this under the rug and do a shot. he shook my hand. i got us a shot of jameson. immediately after i was like, one more, so we did another. we were high fiving each other and america fuck yeah-ing about, and i go, game's about to start, one more shot, so we did another. he left for the bathroom and i never saw him again. for once my borderline alcoholism saved the day.

 

oh, at another point, this was before the game started, someone came up to me and was like "how'd you get such a great table so close to the tv" and i was like, i dont know, i got here earlier than you? and he was all insistant that we trade tables so i told him if he could name the starting lineup for the US i'd gladly trade him and he goes "donovan's all i got" and then walked away.

 

i would've loved to see the crowd that a US quarterfinal match would've drawn...

 

so anyway, i just biked in to say go Holland really. my original pick to win the tourny. i've had a day to recover from ghana peeing in our butts. now it's time to get behind a real soccer team. holland v brazil (presumably) will be a fun one to get fired up for.

[Guest Dirty Protest]

if i foul after full time it's a red card

 

Why would you try and win the ball after full time? Curiouser and curiouser. Watch one hightlight show of any league and at least once an attacker is brought down illegally after an off side. In normal play this would be a red card and a penalty, but play has been stopped so the keeper takes the free kick. In this bit of play that youve created, that isnt atually happening, these fouls which are professional because they stop the opposition playing the ball, no longer become professional because there is no play. This is going to make the game easier and fairer how exactly?

[Guest Rambo]

This is going to go on forever.

 

Like i did with Chen, were just going to have to agree to disagree because if you dont want video technology, you'll just find something, anything to focus on in order to say its a bad idea. You could pick apart all rules if you wanted to. I think after a few years of video technology, it will blow peoples minds that we actually let world cups and european cups be lost on wrong decisions. I'm not even blaming the refs, give them the fucking help, it's retarded.

[Guest Richy]

It would be impossible to enforce in football. goal line technology would work for those situations, but for offsides, penalties, fouls, dives etc etc where do you draw the line. The offside rule would be impossible to officiate using a video ref. Eventually it would turn the game into a shambles, with players constantly harassing the ref to check with the video replay. They do a good enough job as it is, occasionally they get it wrong but there's nothing you can do about it.