WORLD CUP 2010

[Fluffywolf]

or otherwise dope prices will spike outer-dimensionly for foreign german citizens

Lol, you bet they will.

On the other hand, we might give it out for free if you lose. To help you deal with the trauma.

 

[JocktheMotie]

Congratulations to the netherlands, the played a good game. In a semi-final of a world cup its not really enought to have the better technical prowess to win, cause if a team gets this far the motivation is so high that they play beyond all expectations, so Uruguay fought till the last second.

I've a bad feeling that Spain will recover its talent and motivation they couldnt find all the cup long tomorrow :/. Nevertheless I hope we spank their asses too, but then Germany has to loose against Netherlands in the finals or otherwise dope prices will spike outer-dimensionly for foreign german citizens

Whenever David Villa has the ball I'm not going to be able to breathe. Spain does have a habit of trying to be too perfect with their balls up the middle and pull off something beautiful, while ignoring the flanks. Like Argentina, their attackers are insanely creative and skilled, which is what you need to break the German system defense, but unlike Argentina Spain seems like they actually have tactics and defense. Although I haven't been following Spain terribly closely.

Missing Mueller is awful

 

[tcda]

Well I was worried about jinxing them, but I can change my avatar now.

All the idiots who criticized him when he was at Man United (despite him having a very good ratio of goals to minutes played due to always starting ont he bench), must be re-assessing their footballing knowledge right now.

Also, I tip Spain tomorrow to cause a shock. :-0

 

[MacGuffin]

Fidel Castro thinks refs are biased against South America - Dirty Tackle - World Soccer

LOL

Fidel Castro is apparently still alive. And he's been watching the World Cup! According to Goal.com, he even has some views on the tournament that are exactly what you'd expect from the Puma jacket-wearing former Cuban leader:

"The vast majority of football fans do not even know what continent Uruguay is in but it seems to me that the referees are biased against the South American sides," Castro was quoted as saying by reporters.

So, wait, do the referees not know what continent Uruguay is in, either? If so, it sounds like that might be good news for Uruguay.

"It happened when Brazil lost to Holland, when all the decisions went against them and they were sent down to 10 men at a crucial time, which should never have been done."

I'm going to assume Fidel dozed off during the part of the match where Felipe Melo stomped on Arjen Robben's thigh while the Dutchman was laying on the ground.

"But a final now, between two European countries, will be as colorless and unhistorical as any since the sport was born in the world."

Well, if we're assuming that the Netherlands will advance to the final, you can't say it will be colorless. And if the Dutch and Spain end up playing each other, we'll be guaranteed a first-time winner. Not exactly "unhistorical."

 

[Ginkgo]

I say the world just needs to hold soccer tournaments in lieu of war. Also, we should use all of the capital that would normally be spent on war to make soccer balls instead. However, I think the dominance of different nations would be completely different, and this probably would not make me as a person very happy.

 

[ragashree]

I say the world just needs to hold soccer tournaments in lieu of war.

You think this sublimination of intergroup competition into a less lethal form isn't what's happening already?

Note the England rivalry with Argentina and Germany, in view of (relatively) recent history, for example!

Also, we should use all of the capital that would normally be spent on war to make soccer balls pay the players instead, it would make waging war impossible for any nation if diverted from the defense budgets. However, I think the dominance of different nations would be completely different, and this probably would not make me as a person very happy.

Fixed

 

[Ginkgo]

Fixed

Poor soccer balls, I never knew thee. How defeat licks her lips at a battle that was never waged. *goes out back and mourns imaginary soccer ball KIAs*

 

[ragashree]

Poor soccer balls, I never knew thee. How defeat licks her lips at a battle that was never waged. *goes out back and mourns imaginary soccer ball KIAs*

You just can't spend a whole defense budget on a few scraps of inflated leather. Not like you can on Ferrarris, mansions, clubbing and dining at the vulgar celeb hotspots, bling, supermodel arm candy, ghostwritten autobiographies, self-subsidised pop singles, etc. A few thousands of social and intellectual nothings with good ball control skills and no BETTER idea of what to spend their money on could absorb that money quite handily however. Even one top ranked player could put several modern jet fighters out of comission through a lifetime's expenditure, maybe half a squadron if you take into account transfer fees.

 

[Ginkgo]

You just can't spend a whole defense budget on a few scraps of inflated leather. Not like you can on Ferrarris, mansions, clubbing and dining at the vulgar celeb hotspots, bling, supermodel arm candy, ghostwritten autobiographies, self-subsidised pop singles, etc. A few thousands of social and intellectual nothings with good ball control skills and no BETTER idea of what to spend their money on could absorb that money quite handily however. Even one top ranked player could put several modern jet fighters out of comission through a lifetime's expenditure, maybe half a squadron if you take into account transfer fees.

If you gave your entire defense budget to Wilson for a single soccer ball, do you think they would take it? Prices aren't as rigid when you have freshly printed money lining your reserves and certain big name companies who would happily take it for nothing. However, we're not talking about money, we're talking about the expenditure of capital and goods, as that is one outcome of war that is necessary for our current economic systems to keep rolling. So I say we use steel, coal, and hard plastics that would normally used to make jet fighters and war ships to make our new soccer balls. The game would be much more interesting and still fair. Maybe make a small propulsion system for the ball?

 

[entropie]

Whenever David Villa has the ball I'm not going to be able to breathe. Spain does have a habit of trying to be too perfect with their balls up the middle and pull off something beautiful, while ignoring the flanks. Like Argentina, their attackers are insanely creative and skilled, which is what you need to break the German system defense, but unlike Argentina Spain seems like they actually have tactics and defense. Although I haven't been following Spain terribly closely.

Missing Mueller is awful

Spain wasnt that good so far in the cup, more like bad. They lost 1:0 to the Swiss, but Germany lost too against Serbia. Where Germany always has problems with eastern european teams, like the cup when they lost 3:0 to croatia and later made it still to the finals: Swiss could be a problem for Spain too. So pretty hard to tell.

On the paper the spanish players are all little Messis and Spain was the big favourite from the start to win the cup. Spain bet Germany in the finals of the europe cup 2 years ago: 1:0. In that time German offense was bad, we just lacked the goal-getters, who callously put a ball into the goal corner when its necessary. Plus Spain has maybe the best defense in the World at the moment.

But as I said they havent shown their potential yet really in the current cup. Their best game was against Portugal, but those two teams do know each other and their tactics, so you cant really take the game into comparism.

We gonna see, the big advantage Germany has atm is, we have an offense. With Klose on his peak level of performance, Podolski having good ideas and doing the occasional free kick goal + Özil looking for clever opportunities I bet this gonna be a great game. Another huge advanatge is Per Mertesacker and Arne Friedrich, who play the games of their lifes. We can even afford to play without Müller atm, cause the others score goals too; they just work pretty good as a team.

Arne Friedrich is my favourite player atm in the team and he comes from Hertha BSC Berlin, who last year went into relegation, you have to imagine, so Friedrich basically had a ultimatively shitty season and now he plays like a young God .

Partly objectively analysed ( as far as possible ) I see perfect chances for our team and I'ld say they beat spain with a good 3:0

I am gonna watch this tonight with 100.000 fans in our city center that gonna be a nude fight in the mud

 

[JocktheMotie]

I am gonna watch this tonight with 100.000 fans in our city center that gonna be a nude fight in the mud

Haha, I wish! I'll be watching at work, freaking out my coworkers. 3-0 seems a bit confident. I'll say...2-1 Deutschland!

Podolski has actually been pissing me off though...I still think he doesn't really have the midfielder's touch and vision. He's really a second striker. Which is fine with me, but I often wish he'd just pass to someone else and try to make a run instead of trying to be a facilitator, because Schweinsteiger and Ozil are just so much better at it.

 

[Qre:us]

It is officially now the Europe Cup! Grrr....

:steam:

 

[tcda]

It is officially now the Europe Cup! Grrr....

:steam:

It's a shame. But the South American teams can all hold their head high. Especially Uruguay and Paraguay.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

It's a shame. But the South American teams can all hold their head high..

Not Brazil and Argentina, their performance was very disappointing according to their own and the South American standards.

Especially Uruguay and Paraguay.

They have done better than they were expected to.

 

[Qre:us]

Deutschland is gonna kick some Spaniard Scheisse!

*glued to TV*

Btw, tcda, Brazil was an embarrassment [and I say this as a long-time supporter of Brasilia]....Argentina lost horribly to Germany. So I dunno about all South American teams being proud of their FIFA 2010 accomplishments. Are you Latino by any chance?

 

[tcda]

The defeat against Germany was deserved, but the performance was not so bad to deserve a 4-0, it's just that the players were shell shocked after the 2nd Germany goal and gave up. This wasn't through lack of passion, it was from too much passion. Many people in Argentina were proud of the team overall for showing the world some beutiful football.

I am not trying to take away from Germany at all. They fully deserve to make it to the final (though I am not saying they will).

Regarding Brazil, I am no Brazil supporter so it's not really my place to talk. Personally I think they played very good football and should be proud of that, but they just committed suicide against the Netherlands. Perhaps due to the pressue.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Argentina lost horribly to Germany.

Although the score surely makes it seem so, I'd have to disagree. Argentina wasn't dominated by Germany in terms of possession or scoring chances. It was an even contest throughout the game. Germany won the game because they have taken advantage of their scoring chances and made fewer defensive mistakes. If this game was played in the group stage, the score likely would have remained at 1-0 because Germany scored the last 3 goals on counter-attacks. The Argentinians would not have attacked the German goal with such desperation in the late stages of the game had the game been in the group-stage rather than in the knock-out round. Germany simply took advantage of the weaknesses of Argentina's defense that resulted due to the team pushing too many men forward and because of that the 4-0 result exaggerates the quality of the German side. I don't think that their last 4-0 score is a reliable predictor of the result they will get against Spain today.

 

[JocktheMotie]

I'm deathly afraid of Spain scoring first. Young team, deep into the tourney, not sure how they'd respond.

 

[FDG]

Although the score surely makes it seem so, I'd have to disagree. Argentina wasn't dominated by Germany in terms of possession or scoring chances. It was an even contest throughout the game. Germany won the game because they have taken advantage of their scoring chances and made fewer defensive mistakes. If this game was played in the group stage, the score likely would have remained at 1-0 because Germany scored the last 3 goals on counter-attacks. The Argentinians would not have attacked the German goal with such desperation in the late stages of the game had the game been in the group-stage rather than in the knock-out round. Germany simply took advantage of the weaknesses of Argentina's defense that resulted due to the team pushing too many men forward and because of that the 4-0 result exaggerates the quality of the German side. I don't think that their last 4-0 score is a reliable predictor of the result they will get against Spain today.

I absolutely agree. 1-0 would have been a "fair" score, 1-1 wouldn't have been particularly suprising.

Brazil didn't play a bad game, either. First goal was auto-goal by Felipe Melo, second goal the man that should have been marked by Felipe Melo was left completely alone, then Felipe Melo almost purposefully got himself a red card. I would go as far as saying that it was one of the very few matches where a single player led a team towards losing. Of course, Netherlands played a relatively flawless game and thus "deserved" to win, yet Brazil's performance can't be compared to, say, Italy's or France's - those are teams that I would consider as embarassing to watch.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

1-1 wouldn't have been particularly suprising either.

Yes, if Argentina played calmer and made fewer errors due to sloppiness and anxiety, they would have had a greater chance of equalizing the game.