World Cup 2010 Thread

[therockbox]

It's IMMEASURABLY harder to qualify from UEFA than it is from CONCACAF.

I agree with you completely but it's not like England has been Brazil or Italy at the World Cup. Their supporters talk a lot of crap but haven't exactly been setting the world on fire. That is why the arrogance is annoying.

Thank fuck for that.

And Quasi Juice, who started this debate, is Dutch.

[sahyder1]

No, we haven't been Italy. We got out of our group.

I get annoyed with the arrogant pricks too, and I'm well aware that I have my moments when it comes to being one of them. But it's not like Americans are completely innocent either. Fact is, it's going to happen. Patriotism and all that. I'm sure not everyone believes that crap they come out with, they just say it to get a rise out of the opposing fans, and it usually works. From both sides. It's just a part of sport.

They're definitely not but the Americans in this thread have actually been reasonable. Aside from DMN, who I think himself would admit doesn't watch soccer but we all know he goes a bit over the top for all of his teams (just go check the NBA thread sometime). Heck, I've even been sticking up for HTTK in this thread (sometimes).

I honestly have no problem with people going all out in support of their teams. It is about nationalism. I do have a problem with the whole "x doesn't know what he's talking about because he's from y" attitude that certain people have. Get over yourselves (and by that I don't mean you Reil). I live in the US but I never support the US in any team sports ever but always do make an exception for soccer. To this day in every other sport I support Canada and Pakistan.

It's IMMEASURABLY harder to qualify from UEFA than it is from CONCACAF.

I agree with you completely but it's not like England has been Brazil or Italy at the World Cup. Their supporters talk a lot of crap but haven't exactly been setting the world on fire. That is why the arrogance is annoying.

Thank fuck for that.

And Quasi Juice, who started this debate, is Dutch.

Even better. When was the last time they won a World Cup? Exactly!

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

Two decisions that on another day could of gone the other way.

Either way, disgraceful isn't the word to even describe it all. Lippi was a hero in 2006 and is now a villain in 2010. People gave his decisions a chance and they've ALL failed. Cassano, Miccoli, Del Piero, Totti, Balotelli, Rossi and so many more left at home. Meanwhile, Iaquinta and co make it, despite the fact they've been utter horrendous to be quite frank. Lippi has just got the selection and the starting eleven wrong in all of the games, leaving it too late to change things. Iaquinta and Pepe were just terrible, didn't turn up in this tournament.

So overall, fair result without a doubt. Gutted, but just not good enough. Hugely exciting final game though.

Hold on a minute, the entire time during the World Cup, everyone has been ragging on Italy for being OLD AS FUCK, and yet you want them to bring in even OLDER players to the World Cup?

TWO GOALS DENIED that were goals. One crossed the line, the other wasn't even off-side, because the defenders leg was in front of him. Italy played like absolute shit for 80% of the game, and it was absolute disgusting, but fuck me did they deserve to win for the absolute onslaught at the end there.

And the World Cup is now over for me

Go... Netherlands?

Balotelli is 19. Rossi is 23. Santon is 19. Hell, Cassano is only 27. Miccoli is getting on and of course Del Piero and Totti are both old, but even at their age they'd have played a much bigger part than any attacker not named Quagliarella did during this tournament. Both he and Pazzini were barely used, while the out of form and slow looking Iaquinta, hopeless Pepe and Di Natale all kept getting the starts despite being hopeless in almost every match. Lippi didn't take Cassano and Miccoli because of a fucking pathetic rift and I still don't even understand why Rossi didn't make the squad. And I mentioned Totti and Del Piero because they're big time experianced players. Even if it meant them being on the bench as back up for desperate times. Outside of those two though, there's a few younger people who should of been in the squad and didn't make it. Lippi's fault, thank god he's already put the blame on himself.

[HailtotheYo]

While your general point is pretty fair, even you have to admit that it's a bit more extreme in CONCACAF.

To qualify from the final round stage, America have to come in the top three of a six-team group. That's a 50% chance of qualifying based on number of teams alone. Then factor in the fact that three of the teams are El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica. On top of that, the fourth placed team goes into a playoff! To be fair, that playoff is against the CONMEBOL fifth placed team, so... bye. But still... 50% of the places are qualifiers. You're America. Do the math. To fail to qualify, you'd have to lose four or more matches against the likes of El Salvador.

Of course it's a bit extreme, but I was more pointing to the fact that the Andorra's and Luxomberg's were quickly ignored.

Yes it is more to the extreme in CONCACAF, but what do you expect when you've only got 40 (only 35 competed in WC qualification) countries total ... of which only 7 aren't an island with less than a million or two people populating it. Yeah, the likelyhood of "good" teams drops dramatically.

Compare that to UEFA with over 50 countries ... with many, many more than 7 having a substantial population. Yeah, there's going to be more "good" teams. The system there is still set up to seperate the best of the "good" teams as much as possible, and then give a "good" team a shot at sneaking through. With maybe one or two exceptions this past go, that's what happened. The best teams got through by design.

That's more of my point. I'm not saying that it's harder to get through CONCACAF. It isn't. The make up of the region dictates that and always will. However, we could easily gaff our two matches against Mexico and either Honduras/Costa Rica and be in dire straights. We can coast the likes of Guatemala or El Salvador and still find ourselves in a hole. The penalty for being "off" in our qualifier, I'd say, is a bit more than in Europe. And yes, our fourth place squad plays the 5th place from CONMEBOL. Guess what, this last round, that Costa Rica team everyone keeps bashing lost to that Uruguay team that has played the best football in the WC so far. Costa Rica also managed to do something that three teams in the WC haven't ... they found the back of the net (on the away leg mind you, and lost 2-1 on aggregate). They aren't exactly the trash some people are trying to make them out to be. Going into qualification they were the 3rd rated team in the region.

We've got four solid teams in CONCACAF. While we might only have four (and a random decent squad from T/T or Jamaica) ... we're all in the same group to fight it out for the WC spots.

[Herr Matzat]

It's IMMEASURABLY harder to qualify from UEFA than it is from CONCACAF.

It´s much harder for them to spell out the name of their Football Assosiation though!

[Herr Matzat]

Holy shit, JAPAN! What a freekick!

[HailtotheYo]

Fuck, come on you DANES

[Herr Matzat]

I am so happy that the only money i bet on this wc were the 5€ the betfair site gave to me for free.

[HailtotheYo]

Oh holy fuck .... well Denmark, you're up a creek.

Endo eh ? nice name guy.

[SeanDMan]

JUst commentin on that thing thing about BBC and RTE , The BBC pundits practiclly cream themselves over england every time they play and the simple fact is there not great analysts at all really the guys on RTE try and tell it straight, About the England game i can't get over what the BBC pundits were saying after the game i mean England were practicly clinging on to a 1-0 lead against Slovenia a team with the smallest population in the competion, Anyway we'll all see what England are really made of when they come up against the Germans haha

How does population change anything? It's not like England can put out their starting 11 million.

[Toe]

Two great free kicks and Japan is up by two. This is awesome!

[EddieG]

JUst commentin on that thing thing about BBC and RTE , The BBC pundits practiclly cream themselves over england every time they play and the simple fact is there not great analysts at all really the guys on RTE try and tell it straight, About the England game i can't get over what the BBC pundits were saying after the game i mean England were practicly clinging on to a 1-0 lead against Slovenia a team with the smallest population in the competion, Anyway we'll all see what England are really made of when they come up against the Germans haha

How does population change anything? It's not like England can put out their starting 11 million.

Population changes the fact that you obviously have a larger pool to pick from, and therefore should have better talent.

[Meacon Keaton]

JUst commentin on that thing thing about BBC and RTE , The BBC pundits practiclly cream themselves over england every time they play and the simple fact is there not great analysts at all really the guys on RTE try and tell it straight, About the England game i can't get over what the BBC pundits were saying after the game i mean England were practicly clinging on to a 1-0 lead against Slovenia a team with the smallest population in the competion, Anyway we'll all see what England are really made of when they come up against the Germans haha

How does population change anything? It's not like England can put out their starting 11 million.

Population changes the fact that you obviously have a larger pool to pick from, and therefore should have better talent.

China should blow everyone away at everything ever, then, eh?

[naiwf]

JUst commentin on that thing thing about BBC and RTE , The BBC pundits practiclly cream themselves over england every time they play and the simple fact is there not great analysts at all really the guys on RTE try and tell it straight, About the England game i can't get over what the BBC pundits were saying after the game i mean England were practicly clinging on to a 1-0 lead against Slovenia a team with the smallest population in the competion, Anyway we'll all see what England are really made of when they come up against the Germans haha

How does population change anything? It's not like England can put out their starting 11 million.

Population changes the fact that you obviously have a larger pool to pick from, and therefore should have better talent.

By that logic China & India should be dominating every team sport on Earth. In a single game situation stuff like that is less relevant. A few years ago USA Basketball ended up losing to teams like Puerto Rico despite the fact that at best there are 2-4 Puerto Ricans in the NBA at any times and the USA squad was full of NBA starters and future HOFers. If they play 100 times the USA probably wins at least 80, but on a given day PR could end up winning by 19 with lesser players.

[sahyder1]

JUst commentin on that thing thing about BBC and RTE , The BBC pundits practiclly cream themselves over england every time they play and the simple fact is there not great analysts at all really the guys on RTE try and tell it straight, About the England game i can't get over what the BBC pundits were saying after the game i mean England were practicly clinging on to a 1-0 lead against Slovenia a team with the smallest population in the competion, Anyway we'll all see what England are really made of when they come up against the Germans haha

How does population change anything? It's not like England can put out their starting 11 million.

Population changes the fact that you obviously have a larger pool to pick from, and therefore should have better talent.

China should blow everyone away at everything ever, then, eh?

Once they started taking the Olympics seriously they started to rise in the medal count. Heck, their baseball program has been improving. Larger pool obviously helps but is not the only factor. China has been pouring a lot of money into their program.

India doesn't really care about any sport not named cricket.

[EddieG]

Exactly, it's size of country + money

Some people just have natural sporting talent though, ala Holland, we don't put anywhere near as much money into our sports as places like the US, yet we have the 4th ranked team in football, and 6th ranked in Baseball, highest ranked in Europe too.

[sahyder1]

Exactly, it's size of country + money

Some people just have natural sporting talent though, ala Holland, we don't put anywhere near as much money into our sports as places like the US, yet we have the 4th ranked team in football, and 6th ranked in Baseball, highest ranked in Europe too.

6th ranked in baseball? Based on what?

US

Japan

Dominican Republic

Cuba

South Korea

Venezuela

I'm sure I can add more to that list but just listed the first 6 off the top of my head.

[Pesci]

Stuff like population and GDP is relevant. If you look at countries where the game has been popular for several decades, the best in Europe are those with the biggest population and a pretty good GDP. The two biggest in South America are Brazil and Argentina, and I don't need to spell the significance of that out to you. It doesn't work when you say that somebody like India should be winning the World Cup because there are so many reasons against that that it's not really a good argument. A team like Slovenia definitely shouldn't have the resources to challenge a team like England.

[METALMAN]

Right. France are out and Italy are out. Who can I support now?

[Crybaby Bunting]

I'd probably say Ghana... but then I remembered who they were playing and realised I'd probably make a lot of enemies