World Cup 2010 [Includes Match Result Spoilers]

I imagine there are a number of smashed televisions in the SWA compound as 78th ranked New Zealand held 5th ranked Italy to a 1-1 tie. NZ had like four total shots on goal while Italy had north of 40, but Italy just could not get through NZ's defenses.

France might be having one of the biggest meltdowns ever,just when you think you've hit rock bottom they prove you wrong

After news broke out that Anelka insulted Coach Domenech he was asked to leave the team by the french federation,the players disagreed with the move and out of protest the players refused to practice today,when the head of the the french delegation learned the news,he decided he had seen enough and announced his resignation.

2002 is nothing compared to this.This is one EPIC fail.

On the US side of things,there was also an epic fail from the ref that cost the US a 3rd goal and 2 crutial points.

Yeah, Kara and Noël are both tearing their hair out with Italy and France doing so lamely. Anyone know how Japan is doing?

They need a win against Denmark to advance.

Personally, I'm on edge for the next two days in hopes that my beloved Beaners take out Uruguay for a top seed.

Englands team royally sucks,if they don't win their next game they're going to be coming home

Awinnell wrote:Englands team royally sucks,if they don't win their next game they're going to be coming home

France,England,Italy,Germany,Spain...

Old europe is really sucking thus far,those 5 teams have combined for 1 win,5 draws and 3 losses

They were plagued by injuries from the start and it just steamrolled downhill from there. Much of South America isn't much better.

This is why I'm so excited about this years cup, Mexico has a honest to God shot at the cup!!

Kiskaloo wrote:I imagine there are a number of smashed televisions in the SWA compound as 78th ranked New Zealand held 5th ranked Italy to a 1-1 tie. NZ had like four total shots on goal while Italy had north of 40, but Italy just could not get through NZ's defenses.

and alot of happy Kiwis!

I swear, the North Korean team are gonna end up shoveling shit and salt in some gulag.

Well some of them are evidently ringers from foreign countries, but I am sure the coach will be shot. I just found it amusing they had to pay Chinese nationals to play the role of North Korean fans because no North Korean could afford to fly to JNB.

They did? Oh man, that's hilarious.

US wins with a goal in the 90th minute to advance!

England also wins and advances.

Mexico lost to Uruguay, but still advances on points. Man, I really hoped they would win their group thus getting a better seed.

Nachtsider wrote:They did? Oh man, that's hilarious.

What I heard was that since they don't allow people to leave the country,they preffered hiring chinese people instead of making an exception to the rule.

It reminds me of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, held in Manchester - half of the Sierra Leone team actually melted away and went underground in England rather than go back to Africa!

Yu seems pretty happy with the results so far:

Robert Frazer wrote:Yu seems pretty happy with the results so far:

Well the Japanese team have done well for themselves...

And now it's Ghana that gets the overtime goal to defeat the US 2-1.

So I'm back to supporting Japan.

England lose 4-1 to Germany,told you we sucked !

What makes it worse is that we were disallowed a perfectly legitimate goal... BUT we had to go and ruin even that, and lose the moral victory as well as the actual one. If the match had ended 2-1 we could have kicked up a bloody scandal with a stolen tournament, and it would have entered the annals alongside Maradona's Hand Of God as examples of blatant grudgeworthy unfairness. However, when we went on to concede two more goals we lost even that excuse - England were just crap. You know that you're bad when even the BBC Sport commentators turn on you...!

The incompetent linesmen definitely tainted the game and changed its timbre - and that, combined with the referee actually getting in the way of the ball at one point, must mean a severe demotion for the refereeing team. Nonetheless, England seemed to have the wind knocked out of their sails by the episode when they really should have just knuckled down and got on with it.

I was thinking of you two as I watched that game...hope you were both drunk at least.
For the next 20 minutes or so it seemed that England would respond to the injustice by taking the game over, but things just fell apart in the second half.

One silver lining is that this very public screw-up by FIFA might finally provide enough public outcry to bring video replay into international matches.

One silver lining is that this very public screw-up by FIFA might finally provide enough public outcry to bring video replay into international matches.

Hmm. There was an apology from the FIFA president for the error and I understand that the referee and linesmen for the game have been dismissed from the tournament, but I can't see it going any further than that. There'll be a lot of hemming and hawing but not much else.

The main argument against technology in the game is that it would disrupt the flow - football is a very cosntant and fluid game unlike the stop-start nature of many other sports, and the theory goes that appeals to the fourth official would slow the game too much and rob it of its essential quality. I don't really agree, though - at the goal-line, there's usually delays of ten or twenty seconds or so while the goalkeeper gets a hand on the ball and so on anyway, which is easily enough time to review a clip and radio a decision to the referee without impinging on gameplay.

In an ironic twist on the saga, though, I was watching the news yesterday and apparently while the England squad has come back home the English referee in the World Cup has been praised for his perceptivenes and quality and is being tipped to officiate at the final!

In any case, I don't want to ring home for a few days... my brother's a referee himself and I'm sure that this whole farrago will be leaving him sick as a parrot for at least a week...

apparently Nigeria's Ruler has banned its national team from overseas games for the next 2 years as a result of their poor performance in the world cup !

Awinnell wrote:apparently Nigeria's Ruler has banned its national team from overseas games for the next 2 years as a result of their poor performance in the world cup !

He could always invent a new game that nobody else plays, and then declare it the "World Series" of Nigeriaball.

Oh wait...the US already does that.

Professor Voodoo wrote:

Awinnell wrote:apparently Nigeria's Ruler has banned its national team from overseas games for the next 2 years as a result of their poor performance in the world cup !

He could always invent a new game that nobody else plays, and then declare it the "World Series" of Nigeriaball.

Oh wait...the US already does that.

almost, Baseball has roots in several old European games,Basketball is the one truly American created ball game thanks to Dr James Naismith !

Awinnell wrote:
almost, Baseball has roots in several old European games,Basketball is the one truly American created ball game thanks to Dr James Naismith !

There are plenty of examples...the ones you cited, American Football, circle-track motor racing (i.e. NASCAR). Americans don't seem to embrace a sport unless they get to win every time. It's disappointing...I'd rather see the US engage in international sport to a greater degree.

We haven't had an F1 World Champion since 1978 (and he was Italian born).

Well...there was that one time we kicked around the Soviet's in hockey.

I still like John Stewart's suggestion that if the US had won the World Cup, the world would have had to call the game "soccer" for four years.

As for Formula One, there are kids who have the drive to compete, but since auto racing in the US is NASCAR, finding the support to move up the ladder is difficult, especially since said ladder is effectively concentrated in Europe. Even when you effectively get a free ride through the ranks and into F1 (as Scott Speed did thanks to Red Bull), it's a cut-throat business.

I also think Michael Andretti soured things on both sides of the Atlantic for a long time. Part of it was the testing ban instituted when he went over, which hurt. But it also didn't help he decided to stay in PA and commute to McLaren once a week on Concorde.

Professor Voodoo wrote:

Awinnell wrote:apparently Nigeria's Ruler has banned its national team from overseas games for the next 2 years as a result of their poor performance in the world cup !

He could always invent a new game that nobody else plays, and then declare it the "World Series" of Nigeriaball.

Oh wait...the US already does that.

Don't worry, the US's not Robinson Crusoe there... Australia has a habit of making up its own sports as well (though I don't think we have a "world series" yet).

What we wound up with was AFL, which, despite living in the country I've yet to quite figure out how to play... things I do know:

- You can't run more than ten paces holding the ball, so you have to dribble like in basketball... that's more difficult that in sounds as you're playing on an un-even grass field and the ball is oval.

- You have to kick goals, running through the goalposts doesn't count.

- You are allowed to run up other peoples' spines to get to the ball first:

Netherlands-2 Brazil-1...now that's an upset! Unless there's someone I've forgotten, Tommygunner is the last of the frequent posters who still has his team in this.

Alfisti wrote:What we wound up with was AFL, which, despite living in the country I've yet to quite figure out how to play... things I do know:

- You can't run more than ten paces holding the ball, so you have to dribble like in basketball... that's more difficult that in sounds as you're playing on an un-even grass field and the ball is oval.

- You have to kick goals, running through the goalposts doesn't count.

- You are allowed to run up other peoples' spines to get to the ball first:

That's awesome. I need to make that game popular in the US.

Australian Rules Football used to be shown on cable here in Seattle back in the 1990s on Saturday mornings and I used to love watching it.

Possibly OT, but I bought a vuvuzela today. Now I'm enjoying the hell out of walking through strange neighborhoods and annoying random men, women, children and stray dogs.

Yay for Germany! I thought they would lose this game but it´s nice that they won ^__^
Oh, Nachtsider be careful with that vuvuzela! My sisters friend brought one and if she uses it one more time I swear to god I`ll strangle her with that damn thing x__X

Triela-Chan wrote: My sisters friend brought one and if she uses it one more time I swear to god I`ll strangle her with that damn thing x__X

Strangled with a vuvuzela...that's one hell of a death. I'm not sure how exactly you'd go about that so make sure to post pics!

The real heartbreaker match was the Uruguay-Ghana contest...I really thought the crowd favorite could take it but too many missed oportunities in the last few minutes. It was still the most exciting game I've seen yet this year.

Professor Voodoo wrote:The real heartbreaker match was the Uruguay-Ghana contest...I really thought the crowd favorite could take it but too many missed oportunities in the last few minutes. It was still the most exciting game I've seen yet this year.

Since Ghana punted the US, I shed no tears watching them go down.

Netherlands defeating Brazil is what shocked me.

Nachtsider wrote:Possibly OT, but I bought a vuvuzela today. Now I'm enjoying the hell out of walking through strange neighborhoods and annoying random men, women, children and stray dogs.

Annoying/Terrorizing stray daogs/cats has always been a p(ass)time of mine.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1292113/Teenage-football-fan-shot-dead-neighbour-annoying-playing-vuvuzela.html

Uh-oh.

parent of shot kid wrote:'If he thought my son was a criminal he should have fired a warning shot, not shot him three times.'

That person has obviously never been to Texas.

KodokuRyuu wrote:

parent of shot kid wrote:'If he thought my son was a criminal he should have fired a warning shot, not shot him three times.'

That person has obviously never been to Texas.

Even in Texas most criminals are unlikely to be trying to rob your house whilst blowing a 140 decibel trumpet !

And Spain defeats the Netherlands 1-0 to win the 2010 World Cup, scoring in the 116th minute.

As an FC Barcelona man, this works.

I'm pleased that this didn't end in another shoot-out like 2006. It wasn't the prettiest game, but it's always better to end it will all players on the field.

Holland must be lamenting those two breakaway opportunities that failed to result in a goal.

Viva Espana !

Paul the Octopus = God.

I don't know whether to file this under idiotic or insane but Paul the octopus has received death threats.

I guess you're not truly famous until somebody wants to kill you.

I was reading this fortnight's Private Eye (a British news magazine) and it made a particularly astute observation about how Nike has a lot of egg on its face after this World Cup.

In the runup to the tournament Nike debuted a glamorous marketing campaign, centring on this filmic ad-event: