Official World Cup Thread - Page 9

Uh, tension raises, who else can't bear the time without ...

He was not hurted to the face, but to the chest. For me if he hurted his face, it's because he lost a good occasion.

That's said I am OK for video, but unfortunately Blatter is against it : he fear that the game might be slowed down.
Note also that you need several cameras in order to have an opinion : one can show something, while other show something else.

I am not saying video DURING the game...but after the game. Have a panel review the game and then suspend the divers and whoever overdramatized a play a-la-Rivaldo in 2002 or Henry in 2006.

And as far as camera angles go, I agree with you. But isn't that the same thing for refs and linesmen? Mistakes will be made, nobody's perfect. But that works towards cleaning up the game of divers and cheats anyways.

Don't wanna get banned? Play like a man, behave like a gentleman and don't try to cheat.

Video examining for fouls cheating diving whatever afterward doesn't
make any sense. Btw, afterward video examining is current practice anyway.
A lot of players get punished afterward, in that case that the ref haven't
seen the foul within the match.

Btw i think modern football (and any kind of sport of greater
significance) is heading toward real time video observation.
This is an inevitable development and possibly brings on more
justice.

Anything that helps stop the diving and fake injuries makes a lot of sense to me. Why doesn't it make sense to you? And video examining like this is not current practice....at least not that I'm aware of. Have a link?

In the Premiership it's mostly the FA's initiative when they deem something that happened during a game deserves a closer look. i.e violent behavior, misbehavior, inciting the fans, inappropriate conduct, spitting, wrong yellow etc. There's a difference. I speak from what I know about the Premiership.

Don't worry, of course it makes sense.

In German "Bundesliga" it is current practice, that players can be punished
after the video examination revealed a very bad foul (which the ref
didn't notice) or very unfair behaviour.

Actually, recent matches (e.g. Italy vs. Australia) pretty much revealed that
diving and nasty hidden fouls and such eventually can decide an entire
match. Hence i am all for video examining WHILE the play is taking place.

The Argies were just playing volleyball with the ball. Germany has been dominating and it is no wonder they score. I have to travel in 15 minutes and will miss the OT if it goes that far. BUMMER!

reg

Germany march on!

Well deserved - insane substitutions by Argentina though and a disgraceful fight at the end. We really don;t need that sort of ungraciousness in defeat, soured the tournament imo.

Well, the great Germans were unable to beat Argentina in regular time... Well done, Argentina! Most of the more exciting shots on goal were by Arg, too. The Germans did put on a powerful 30 minutes in the 2nd half.

However, I wonder how much the ref was being paid by Germany. There were gross mistakes made in Germany's favor and it was pathetic. Argentina should have had a PK with the foul in the penalty area (unless I am blind); the ref got a thumbs up and a pat on the back for that one.

And to the booing... Though I thought England had the World Booing Cup under wraps, they may have lost the title to Germany, who made that a very difficult match to watch. They boo a downed player who had to be carried off, and every time Arg got the ball, period. Sick. Just sick.

The more we watch soccer, the less appealing it becomes. I think I'll stick with yachting.

If your opinion of the alleged penalty kick and the 'biased ref' is anything to go by I'd say that was an excellent idea....

I grew 10 years older the last 120 min.
Unbelievable.

The argies have always been like that. Their society encourages diving and trickery...they call it "picardÃ*a criolla"...they then are the most classless losers and probably the biggest crybabies aswell( tight fight for the top spot with Italy). Every tournament that they lose and there's medals involved, they take them off after they're awarded to them.

I was disappointed in Germany. While they never shot on goal once in the first half, the argies completely dominated possession. In the second half, considering how much shorter the argies are...they get scored on a corner kick!


And how pathetic were the Germans who couldn't make any decent crosses? Of course, fortunately for them, Ballack makes a decent cross and they tie the game up. Nice goal.

Don't cry for me......

Well said.

Your problem is that you don't have a clue about footie. That has more than been established already. Even the commentators (mexicans and openly rooting for the argies) agreed it was a dive. Please, stick to...yachting.
Here we go again with the booing. What the hell is wrong with you? Did your older sisters scare you with BOOO too often when you were young or something?

Goodness. Here's a clue for you. The fans thought, and justifiably so because they were pressuring the argies for a tying goal and well, the argentinians are master divers and tricksters, they thought that the goalie was faking an injury to waste time. Are you that dense?

You missed they most important point: granted the Argies
somewhat dominated the first half, they were not able to put
this domination into success, say, goals. They were not able to
press The Germans back. Anyhow, The Germans somewhat dominated
the second half, which brought the goal. That was inevitable.

The same with the 3rd and 4th half. Without Goals.

Dito.

Where did you see that? Also, what's wrong about to boo fiercly
against a Diver ?

Somewhat???? Bergermeister is that you??? Here's your somewhat. Try 67% to 33%!!! My goodness. And for the whole game...here's your "somewhat"....argies 58% to Germany 42%. And that is the official FIFA match report.
Actually it is you who doesn't get it. That was argentina's game plan....too bad you can't read spanish because then you could read it yourself from their sports websites. And you don't "somewhat dominate" anything. You either dominate or you don't.

Besides, you are wrong aswell because if that had been the case...after a half in which argentina completely dominated possession(67-33) to still end up with a 16% deficit in possession after a whole game would've meant Germany being the only team on the field in the second half and that wasn't the case. Heck, even after germany tied it was argentina doing the bulk of the attacking. How blind can you be?

All in all, it was Germany playing at home, in front of their own fans...and they still couldn't attack much at all except for about 10 mins. in which they went forward to get the equalizer.

It was their obigation to attack more than the argies...and they couldn't do that. Argies 12 shots . Germany 10. 5-5 tie in shots on goal.

No it's me. Well, please, i clearly said, yes! the Argies
dominated the first half. To put "somewhat" aside is
jerky at the most. You are right. BUT, and hopefully you admit
it, Domination and stats about possession etc, are pretty often pretty wrong.
At least they don't tell something about Tactics etc.
The Argies didn't find any Gap to go through, not even the
tiniest gap. That's it. Sorry for that. I didn't say, the Argies
sucked big time. No, the opposite is true. The Argies are
playing eventually the most advanced "Fussball" right now.
But they missed the purpose, which is scoring Goals. No?

No reason to get offensive, right?

If Domination doesn't lead into "GOALS", (that's what this Game is
strictly about), than Domination is glaring worthless.

I agree with Vox... TOP does not seem to really mean that much (they can increase the TOP by crossing in the backfielf like Brazil did in their last match). If you have a low TOP but do the right things, you can still win the game.

Arg did dominate the first half, Germany the second and the first half of ET and Arg the second half of ET. Germany put on one heck of a lot of pressure in the 2nd, but only got one goal. With that pressure, I expected another goal in ET, but Ger couldn't manage it.

Any stats for the 2nd half control?

Goodness, I just explained this to you. It was argentina's tactic from the get go to try to maintain possession. Sure, that doesn't necessarily translate into scoring chances...but guess what...and I'm sure this is new to you: If you don't have possession you can't score (germany).
Neither team did. We agree there.

So did germany. In fact it was argentina who were closer to score number 2 than germany. I recall a rodriguez shot that barely missed the post, a header that Lehman had to save on the line and a ball that hit the crossbar. Germany? Not much at all. Only crosses that sailed 20 feet over everyone.

I just explained it to you. One more time. If you don't have possession, you can't score. That was argentina's tactic. Maintain possession and keep it on the ground. They "kept" the ball and it almost worked. It almost worked in overtime aswell. When germany desperately went forward to try to tie, they dominated possession for about 10 minutes.

Do you recall ANY saves by the argentinian goalies?

Italy is up 1-0 very early.

Interesting thing about the roster was Italy has three players with yellows starting, and two with reds listed as subs. Ukraine has no yellows or reds.

Ukraine is a very innocent team. They lack both the talent and the experience. Here's hoping Sheva gets ahold of one (or two) and scores.

I wonder how germany feels about facing Italy. They got stuffed by them 4-1 in March. Ouch.

Goodness. He had Sheva unmarked in the middle of the box and decided to try and score it himself.

The Ukraine goalie is not very good is he? I'm watching the game in spanish and for those who know their footie, Jose Luis Chilavert is providing the commentary. Chilavert was the colorful Paraguayan goalie voted best goalie in the world 3 times. Needless to say, he wasn't very generous in his analysis of the urkranian goalie.

Right, almost. Take it easy.

Of course I'm right. I'm surprised that someone as knowledgeable as you could miss their tactic. I could provide you links that talked about it prior to the game...but then again something tells me you want to remain wrong....and they're from the argie, brasilian and spanish media=different languages anyways.

58% to 42% possession. As much as I wanted argentina to lose, that's pretty sad for a host nation in the quarters.

In my opinion Argentinia lost this game the minute
Pekerman rendered these very obscure substitutes.
Come on, leaving Messi on the bench is a sakrileg,
do you agree?
Not to mention pulling Riquelme. Was he injured?
I guess not, Pekerman choosed to get over with 1:0,
that was a big mistake, if you ask me seriously.
He obviously underestimated the German believe to win.

Not playing Messi is sacrilegious? lol Well, I'm sure a lot of people would agree with you. I think he's gonna be a great player for many years, but I'm not sure he would've made a difference because both teams were playing not to lose as opposed to playing to win...waiting to capitalize on a mistake by the opponent. The substitutions will be something to talk about. As of yet, I haven't seen any controversies about it. We'll see about tomorrow.

I honestly don't know if Riquelme was injured, but he certainly had been missing in action for two games. The argies either love him or hate him. Pekerman chose to "defend" the result. I don't think he underestimated the German will to win. I think he was just going by what Germany had done to that point....not much....so maybe he thought his team would be able to keep the germans from scoring.

What I can tell you is that I read that Riquelme had been getting dead tired in the last 15+ minutes of most games(and his passing had become erratic because of that) so it would make sense to take him out while leading and bring on a defensive midfielder. It obviously didn't work, but if Riquelme had been exhausted, it would've been even worse in extra time.

Now ENG vs. POR

Pretty boring, both of them play not to lose instead to win.
Maybe they gonna change their tactics a bit in the 2.
half. I guess both of them have pretty bad memory about
shot-outs, so they have to score in regular time.

Agreed... a slow game.


Wait. Beckham's crying on the bench (replaced with a painful leg).

Wait again... Rooney got a red card. 11 on 10 now.

Extra Time. Portugiese roll it.

Shot-out!

I've seen an awful kick so far. I am a bit disappointed
about Portugal. I guess Brazilia will crush either team of them
in the upcoming semi finale. .

Edit: Well, France should crush them too, if they pass through
the next level.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hooooo hoooo hooooo!!!!!!

Portugal sends England home!


Not the greatest match, and very nerve-racking at the end. England also for the first time that I have checked fouled many more times than their opponent; usually they are very clean.

Hargreaves had a few fouls back to back which lead us to a question: is there a limit as to how many fouls a player can commit?

Actually both teams had more shots on goal than the abomination of the first half of yesterday's arg vs. ger game.

From the get go Eriksson, as usual...clueless. One play in the first half that told the story: Rooney controls a long pass and there is not one teammate within 60 feet of him while he's surrounded by 6 defenders.

Man, England are terrible at penalty kicks. lol And I can't believe they chose Carragher to be one of the first kickers. If you see the good in the bad....at least English fans should be happy Eriksson won't be around anymore. Props to England. Even with 10 men they had 3 or 4 clear chances to win it: Lampard totally unmarked in the box on a corner kick.

Cole kicking it over the bar from 7 yards, Lennon not being able to bury his shot with his left foot inside the box, and Terry's kick rebounding just over the crossbar. Portugal didn't have as many shots inside the box and they only forced the english goalie to make maybe 2 saves that were actually on goal. Will Portugal choke yet again?

Bergermeister: you make such a ridiculous issue about booing...(understandable for someone who is probably watching his first sporting event outside of yachting)... and now you come here to boo a team AFTER they lose. Pretty weak and cowardly. You're no better than the same fans you criticize so much for booing.

Here's a little hint for you. Booing happens in all sports. Baseball, rugby, football, basketball, hockey ,even in tennis.

France and Brazil starting soon... Though I would like to see France win, and Brazil has been slightly out of pace so far, I think Brazil will win 2-1. Any other calls?

For me it's 50 / 50 .
Anything can happen.
I will bet, that this match will be great, and at the contrary of england vs Portugal there would be goals before the end