The diving Portugese "arseholes" ran up 7 goals as they demolished this forum's new favorite team, North Korea, today. Spicy Spain and Chile also won, putting the standings as follows:

Stephan - 18 pts.
Beans - 17 pts.
nicolas - 16 pts.
Guy - 15 pts.
Nassim - 16 pts.
Alex D - 15 pts.
Toni - 15 pts.
Zorg - 14 pts.
Gillingham - 13 pts.
Petri - 11 pts.

The final standings of Groups A and B will be decided tomorrow; I for one can't foresee the standings moving around very much though. Best case scenario: France barely play and let South Africa win 3-0 (with an own goal by Evra), while Forlan hits a hat-trick against Mexico to send South Africa through in second.

Players who'll never wear the blue Jersey again (IMO):

Gallas (who gave the finger to news cameras),
Anelka (of course),
Henry (we knew that before the WC),
probably Abidal who was one of the rebellion's leaders,
Govuzela (not because of his attitude but because of his playing)

Those who should deserve to be suspended : Evra the pitbull (if he's not fired forever)and Ribéry

I am sure that Blanc will keep Gourcuff, who was his key player in Bordeaux, and who can't be suspected of anything. Diaby is also an excellent and promising player that he will keep. Lloris of course, Toulalan probably. Nasri and (possibly) Benzema will probably make their comeback. The funniest thing is that Dom didn't take them because of their attitude outside the field(!!!) Young guys like Mvila, Rami, Ben Arfa might have a chance. And I really hope he'll keep Malouda.

News are that Blanc, who's in vacations, is (like anybody else here)dumbfounded by last weeks events and that he's determined to do some big housecleaning when he takes over. He's already chosen a general manager.
A lot of work has to be done, everything needs to be rebuilt : the federation, the staff, the players, the public relations.
Huge challenge.

But Blanc has all the natureal authority that Domenech lacked. I hope he will succeed

Standard of refereeing has gone through the floor, crazy stuff in the french game.

Not least the scoreline

Guys, let's meet at the IRC

Wow, the Mexico game looked like a real cracker, both sides really going for it. Looks like it will be Mexico versus Argentina in the last 16, which would be a repeat of the last world cup if memory serves.

Greece are coma inducing. Someone needs to tell them that if the Nigeria game remains all square, then they are out.

The first two groups are decided with Uruguay winning Group A, followed by Mexico, and Argentina topping Group B ahead of South Korea in second. Scores are the same as yesterday, no teams moved up or down in their group standings.

OMG second contentious offside goal for the USA !
Hope they will win because else they'll have so many regrets !
The refereeing is getting worse and worse. Yesterday Gourcuff's sending off was really excessive too, even if France's knockout is justice

Yes they could !

England were dire; looks like Ze Germans next for them and after that the plane home. Fair play to America, left it late. I know americans like their high scoring sports, but you can't beat a nail biting game with a last minute winner for drama.

Speaking about high-scoring games, spare a thought for Mahut and Isner who just went through a ten hour workout at Wimbledon. The final set was deferred at 59-59, with both players hitting around 100 aces. Quite incredible.

England weren't the best, but Rooney played a lot better. Things are looking up, although I think Germany might be too large an obstacle. Second place for Ghana is a dream result - they get to play the USA.

Not only that, the winner of USA-Ghana plays the winner of Uruguay-South Korea. The USA somehow managed to be the highest FIFA ranked team in their quarter.

Athletes need to start to remember that they are, in fact, employees of an organization. They are performers, who get the money they make because the people who like to watch them like buying stuff with their names on them. If you throw a public tantrum because you don't get what you want, the same thing happens to you as it would if I did it in my job.

Wow, one of the most thrilling moments of this cup happened today, with USA's totally unexpected classifying at the last minute! The Slovenians were already quietly celebrating the passage to 2nd stage... But, yes, it would be too much unfair if the Americans got eliminated, cause they've had ill-canceled goals both in the last two games.

All this series of results already make a guaranteed surprise in the semi-finals (I would love it to be Ghana). And I hope your previsions that Spain will be 1st in their group are right, but I think they will continue second, most likely getting Brazil already next round (both the first teams in the sportsbooks and in FIFA's rank!).

Under pressure, the French team exploded while the English win. I'm not so sure that they'll lose to Germany, because they had a great fighting spirit against Slovenia.

It baffles me that any major sports still resist using instant replay.

The only real argument against it is the running clock in soccer. But since a single goal has so much more value than a single point in any other major sport, it'd be worth the logistical problems. Just include it in stoppage time.

The other argument, and probably the one used by the NBA is not to undermine the image and authority of the refs. But the thing is, once American football introduced a challenge system, it has been impossible to ever blame the refs for changing the result of a game. Challenge systems are good for the refs.

Hockey uses it, tennis uses it (Except for certain tournaments whose fans are overly attached to tradition), baseball uses it for home runs. Time for basketball and soccer to modernize.

Ah, finally got a chance to post standings. Here they are:

Nassim - 20 pts.
Stephan - 20 pts.
Beans - 18 pts.
nicolas - 17 pts.
Zorg - 17 pts.
Guy - 16 pts.
Alex D - 16 pts.
Gillingham - 14 pts.
Petri - 14 pts.
Toni - 13 pts.

I agree with you, BillAdama. Last cup FIFA had introduced the possibility for the referee of seeing again controversial moments in the screen, and that did not harm the fluency of the matches. And, even if it had done it, I think this would much compensate by avoiding all the unfairness that always occur in football games. I know this immediacy is part of the charm of football, turning this much more a "human" thing, but if there are means to help the better ones get the result they deserve, so why not?

ha, i love me some web memes from time to time...

"This world cup has turned out like WWII! The Germans start with a Blitzkrieg, the French surrender early, the US arrive last minute and England are left to fight the fucking Germans."

"I guess it's easy to see what'll happen next: the Germans will end up in the arms of Argentina."

..ps: agreed, BA

(pps: don't you ever dare to call Dan Loney an European again..)

...A-a-and the refs in the England/Germany game just made my case for me.

It wasn't like it was even a hard call. It was blatantly obvious from the standpoint of watching at home that it bounced two yards inside the goal.

Absolutely. It's embarrassing for the sport.

Although Lampard's "goal" should not take away from the awful show of England's defence and the good counter attacking of Germany. Every player should be disappointed with themselves.

Sepp Blatter is a fool. He was once quoted as saying that women should wear tighter shorts to attract men in their football games. He also dithered on whether after full time it should be "silver goal" or "golden goal" or indeed neither as it is now. He made it so taking off your shirt is an immediate yellow card (which gets some players sent off after scoring), he made it so that you can't appeal against being sent off, even if video technology conclusively proves that you were in the right.

And most importantly he doesn't allow goal line technology. As the BBC pointed out, it only takes 2 seconds to check whether the ball's gone over the line. In England's case, it didn't matter that much (cos we sucked anyway), but in Ireland's case it's scandalous. Oh yeah, and if it was the other way round, i.e. France were leading 1-0 and Ireland scored the Hand of Gaul, then something probably would've happened. The favouritism of FIFA is also a scandal (not least the seeding system that put Irealnd with France anyway). He seems to think that Ireland and other "smaller" countries are on a lower tier to "bigger" nations like France which is ridiculous.

On a different note, Argentina/Mexico should be a great match. Uruguay and Mexico have been my real revelations, they have both been excellent. I really hope Uruguay go forward to the semis. Of course Argentina are favourites but one bad mistake, and Meico could pounce.

Look on the bright side Zorg, you guys will probably be awarded the 2018 in world cup now

On the replay debate: I think they should institute replay for goals only (be it offside, was it over the line, etc.) Ideally it would be like NHL replays, where the league looks at the play from their "war room" in Toronto and gets the call right every time, and the ref gets on the phone from the sideline and gets the call. I don't know why FIFA can't have someone in the press box watch the replay and call the fourth official to say if a goal is good or not. It would take all of about two minutes and there would be no controversy.

Finally though, after four exciting knockout games, I can update the standings. Here they are:

Stephan - 26 pts.
Nassim - 25 pts.
Alex D - 22 pts.
Beans - 22 pts.
nicolas - 21 pts.
Guy - 20 pts.
Zorg - 20 pts.
Gillingham - 20 pts.
Petri - 19 pts.
Toni - 17 pts.

In today's European duel the Dutch outlasted the Slovaks while the South American duel saw Brazil whip Chile. Standings:

Stephan - 30 pts.
Nassim - 29 pts.
Alex D - 26 pts.
Beans - 26 pts.
nicolas - 25 pts.
Guy - 24 pts.
Zorg - 22 pts.
Gillingham - 22 pts.
Petri - 21 pts.
Toni - 21 pts.

Zorg, I'm afraid I just noticed that you filled out your bracket incorrectly.

One thing that's striking me, going over world cup history, is the lack of variety in teams that make it to the end. Only 7 countries have ever won, and only 11 have made it to the finals (Assuming you count West Germany and Germany as the same country). If you look at only the last ten world cups, make that 5 and 6. In a tournament that ends up in a single elimination bracket, that's pretty surprising. The only major sport that dominated over time in the US is basketball, where only 7 different teams have won since 1981. And in that it's less surprising, because a single superstar can dominate an entire game, and the NBA playoffs have best of seven series instead of single elimination.

Is it that France, Italy, Germany, Brazil and Argentina just have the most rabid fan bases, that few other teams seem to ever even make the finals?

Edit: Glancing at the UEFA European Football Championships it's even more surprising, because lots of different teams seem to win that. And Spain seems to do consistently well everywhere else.

The quarterfinals are set as Paraguay beat Japan and Spain beat Portugal. Action resumes on Friday.

Stephan - 32 pts.
Nassim - 31 pts.
Alex D - 28 pts.
Beans - 28 pts.
nicolas - 27 pts.
Guy - 26 pts.
Zorg - 24 pts.
Petri - 23 pts.
Gillingham - 22 pts.
Toni - 21 pts.

I just lost my lead (and probably the game), but YEAH BABY!

We'd like to face Paraguay, but I think a '74 revisit would be fun too. Only if we win this time though.

Well, my favorite to win the whole thing (the Brazilians) are out and so are the Cinderella story of this World Cup, the Ghanaians, to an almost as unlikely Uruguay side. Here are the standings:

Nassim - 35 pts.
Stephan - 32 pts.
Guy - 30 pts.
Alex D - 28 pts.
Beans - 28 pts.
nicolas - 27 pts.
Petri - 27 pts.
Toni - 25 pts.
Zorg - 24 pts.
Gillingham - 22 pts.

Everyone who gained points had Holland in the semifinals. Nobody had Uruguay in the semis and only Gillingham had them in the quarterfinals.

If anyone was watching the ITV coverage with Marcel Desailly, my god it was heart wrenching. Easily the best game of the tournament.

74 revisit is still on its way with this German victory, although I hope it won't happen

(I'm rooting for Spain now)

But this German team is beautiful

I still don't know what happened with Brazil this game. They made an incredible first half, with that wonderful goal and many other chances, only don't scoring more for lack of luck. Then came that 2nd half and the team did absolutely nothing!

Now about today's game, what a brilliant football did the Germans show! I don't know if they will win the cup, but they surely are the best team, far ahead of the others.

P.S.: Well, at least I gained some points here, cause I had bet at a dutch victory against Brazil...

Let's see what's Spain made of. Casillas has so far looked very shaky, Puyol and Pique haven't looked the strongest, and Torres has looked nothing like his best. So far they've had quite comfortable games (except Portugal where they looked quite shaky), and Paraguay should be just as easy. But Germany have sent a huge message and Spain have to respond in kind.

Okay, I was already kind of rooting for Spain because they're the best soccer country that's never had WC success.

But now, definitely. This is why games should never be decided based on penalty kicks. Because if the weaker team is a good defensive team, they can squeak out a win just by applying the 'Make the game as boring as possible' strategy. Sports should be decided based on the normal flow on the game, not based on contrived scenarios.

Of course, this tie breaking method isn't nearly as bad as the one they have in American Football, which is basically 'Decide the game on a coin flip'.

Edit: And then right there, Paraguay gets screwed out of a goal. (In the first moment of excitement they caused all game).

To be fair to Paraguay, Spain have been awful as well. With a team which is basically Barcelona, they ought to be ahead, but they don't deserve it. I mean, before the world cup they handed defeats to England, France, Argentina, Italy, Germany and they beat Poland, a decent team, 6-0. No matter what the defence is, Spain should unlock it. They've been pretty absent this entire world cup.

Edit: Villa just scored. Left it pretty late...

It's going to be Spain and Germany now in the other semifinal, and after today I think we know who the favorite will be in that one. The standings:

Stephan - 40 pts.
Nassim - 39 pts.
Alex D - 36 pts.
Guy - 34 pts.
Beans - 32 pts.
nicolas - 31 pts.
Zorg - 28 pts.
Petri - 27 pts.
Gillingham - 26 pts.
Toni - 25 pts.

Well, yeah, and Uruguay has won two World Cups. That doesn't mean they're currently a better soccer country than Netherlands. Hungary and Czechlosovakia did it more than 50 years ago. Spain has had one of the better teams in the world lately but still has never cracked the semifinals since 1930. Netherlands hasn't won the WC, but they've done a lot better in it than Spain.

But I think in general I'm going to be rooting against any teams that use the 'Clamp down defensive not really trying to score then hope to win on PKs' strategy.

This is a ranking of the WC teams according to their results. Of course, the top 4 is still missing.

I have ranked them in 3 groups so far : those who didn't make it to the 2nd round, those who didn't make it to the quarter and those who didn't make it to the semi. Then within everygroup I ranked teams according to the WC rules (points, goal difference, goals scored)



32 | North Korea | 0
31 | Cameroun | 0
30 | Honduras | 1
29 | France | 1
28 | Algeria | 1
27 | Nigeria | 1
26 | Italy | 2
25 | Greece | 3
24 | Denmark | 3
23 | Serbia | 3
22 | New Zealand | 3
21 | Australia | 4
20 | South Africa | 4
19 | Switzerland | 4
18 | Slovenia | 4
17 | Côte d'Ivoire | 4

16 | Slovakia | 4
15 | South Korea | 4
14 | Mexico | 4
13 | England | 5
12 | USA | 5
11 | Japan | 5
10 | Portugal | 5
9 | Chile | 6

8 | Ghana | 7
7 | Paraguay | 8
6 | Brazil | 10
5 | Argentina | 12

My prediction for the final will be Holland-Spain.
As a Dutchman I'm rooting for Holland of course. But in any case, with a final like that we will have a country that'll win the championship for the first time, which looks pretty cool to me. So, let's get rid of the bloody Germans who in the past have won already wáááy too many times!

Holland-Brazil must have been a very special match to you Mindrocker !!

As of about five minutes ago we know that one half of the 22 players that take the pitch in the final match will be Dutchmen, blinding the world with attacking skill and those orange jerseys. Standings:

Nassim - 47 pts.
Guy - 42 pts.
Stephan - 40 pts.
Alex D - 36 pts.
Zorg - 36 pts.
Petri - 35 pts.
Toni - 33 pts.
Beans - 32 pts.
nicolas - 31 pts.
Gillingham - 26 pts.

A relatively surprising amount of people predicted the Dutch to reach the final. Well done AMF.

How am I joint 4th? I'm well chuffed

Come on Germany!

Oh, and Van Bronckhorst's goal - goal of the tournament for me. That was just a rocket, and perfectly placed.

Go Spain !

Yesterday I was rooting for Uruguay, who were brave and clever (but tired in the end)

My wife too. She prefered their blue jersey to the fluorescent orange of the Dutchies. And she liked the looks of Forlan.

Was the balding head of Arjen Robben not attractive enough?

It's amazing to think that you don't have to be anything special to get to the world cup final (like Netherlands have). I know they've won every game, but they've been on the whole 1-0 scrapes against inferior opposition. I hope Netherlands lose in the final, because then the only team who can say they didn't lose a match in South Africa is New Zealand .

So far it seems like Spain is dominating possession but also making more mistakes.

I think the most hilarious result for the final would be Netherlands over Germany. Because that would make it so only six different teams have won in the last eleven cups, and no team that has not won has gotten to a final.

What's up with these arbitrary game end times? In the end of the Uruguay game there was three minutes of stoppage time and they didn't stop it until like 94:50. But in the US game against Ghana, there was two minutes at the end of the overtime, and they stopped it at like 121:45. The referees get to decide who randomly gets extra time to score a tying goal and who doesn't?

¡ESPAÑAAAAA!

I love Germany but they were outclassed today, especially in the midfield.

The nation that wins the World Cup this year will be winning for the first time in its history, because the Netherlands will face Spain in the final. (The case can be made that these are the two best nations never to have won the tournament.) On Sunday we will see if the Orange Crush or the Red Fury will hoist the trophy this time around. Our game looks like this:

Nassim - 53 pts.
Guy - 50 pts.
Stephan - 48 pts.
Alex D - 44 pts.
Beans - 40 pts.
nicolas - 39 pts.
Zorg - 36 pts.
Petri - 35 pts.
Toni - 33 pts.
Gillingham - 26 pts.

Scenarios: Guy wins if Holland wins. Nassim wins if Spain wins.

On today's performance it looks like Spain could destroy Holland. But I'm still in with a shot.

Come on the Dutch!

damn... would've loved to see geh zermans gettin dumbed down and robbed by dem tulips via their very own former efficiently genuine "panzer me some tabloid clichés from 1942" in the final (no joke, it feels like bizarro-panini-land: as if two former german teams now do the final battle boogaloo... while the re-dutched D.many died trying via the beauty-cuty way that so many fancypantsy.teams failed in aeons of tournaments before)..and squids are jadesome

whatever: i owe it now to the one person on the bench who once averted the darkest times of my beloved BL-club... maak het, Bert!

oh yeah, btw, the moment that killed WC10 for me was Asamoah Gyan's missed penalty.. i hate 20 seconds legends based on Roy Orbison songs

Well done to the Spanish, who played an excellent game, especially shutting down Klose who didn't really get his head or feet on the ball. Casillas and Puyol/Pique were really really good!

Netherlands deserve to win it in terms of history, being finalists in '74 and '78. They also blessed the game with gifted players like Cruijff, van Basten, Bergkamp, Gullit etc - they've made a massive contribution to the game. How traumatising would it be to lose 3 finals in a row.

But Spain of course deserve to win it here in South Africa, because it is the culmination of 9 players at their absolute peak, except Casillas and Torres. The team is basically the best of Barcelona and the best of Real Madrid, everyone is ridiculously skillful.

Oh and Bill, it just depends on what the situation is - imagine it's Netherlands 1 - 0 Spain, and there's 2 minutes of added time, and it's 92:00. Pretend Netherlands have a throw in their own half, the ref will end it, because nothings gonna happen. Imagine if Spain have just have a shot saved and it's a corner. The ref will never end it, he will wait until the goalscoring opportunity is over. Although really it's at the discretion of the rederee and he can do whatever he wants. Not sure whether that's clear.

Come on Spain! Do it for New Zealand!

The first half Brazil were brilliant, but the second half...*shudder*. It was brazilians being bad italians.

You're right, Italy sucked - but there is still space for footballing excellence - Spain in Euro 2008, Brazil in 2002, the wonderful greeks in 2004 . All I hope is that no team wins due to a mistake from the other team. I don't mind if it's a boring 1-0, if that goal is a good goal. This WC hasnt been blessed with goals (or quality really) - the only thing it's been blessed with is game-changing refereeing errors and horrible goalkeeping (the group C curse) and defending.

Anyone heard about Paul the psychic octopus? He's picked Spain for the final.

I have a question to ask on behalf of all Americans. Pardon me if the question sounds stupid.

What exactly is a 'Third place' game? Do they play games in soccer that have no impact on the outcome of the tournament? ...Do people tune in to watch this?

Thanks NJ for a reminder of one of the truly great world cup set play goals. It's right up there with Javier Zanetti's goal against the English in their brilliant encounter back in 98.

Half time and it's infuriatingly boring D:

Ug, it'll be totally lame if the championship match is decided on penalty kicks.

I hate shootouts in hockey too. In a sport with both an offense and a defense you shouldn't break ties in a situation where the defense isn't even allowed to play.

Well, at least I can go back to ignoring soccer for another four years.

Well done Spain - hey Bill, watch the Champions League - teams much better than the teams you see here in the world cup, open football between 2 attacking teams. Even the shitty teams try to beat teams like Barcelona.


On the other hand - NEW ZEALAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey Zorg, what club side do you support?

Arsenal. We went out against Barcelona. It was a bit messi. But yeah, next year! You?

I'm a Derby County supporter for my sins.

Not the team that had the worst ever Premier League season of all time 2 years ago? Ouch...

My mistake, it had stood since 1900.

"Derby hold several records in English football, most of them unwanted." Although some are pretty good, Nuts magazine's best fans of THAT season, FA's fans of the season. You should defect to Arsenal, we'll accept you.

Well, it's more that football's not that available to me here. Or, the football that is available to me is Major League Soccer, which only features American players and European players too old to play for European teams.

Americans are kind of spoiled with sports. Our basketball, American football, and baseball leagues are the best in the world. The best football in the world isn't really on television here, except for the World Cup.

When they start putting the good European leagues on TV here, maybe I'll watch them.

What a good sports year for Spain. They win the French Open, Wimbledon, and the World Cup in a span of two months.

At long last, the tournament has drawn to a close...with the Spanish being the victorious nation in a thrilling end (Iniesta's 116th minute goal is the latest winner ever in a World Cup final). Meanwhile, the real winner of tournament is...




Nassim - 69 pts.
Beans - 56 pts.
nicolas - 55 pts.
Guy - 50 pts.
Stephan - 48 pts.
Alex D - 44 pts.
Zorg - 41 pts.
Toni - 38 pts.
Petri - 35 pts.
Gillingham - 31 pts.

...in a landslide, the winner of our game here is Nassim. Well done!

It was a blast running this game, and I thank everyone who participated. I was really pleasantly surprised at the amount of discussion that went on, glad to see we have some football/soccer fans here!

BillAdama
Americans are kind of spoiled with sports. Our basketball, American football, and baseball leagues are the best in the world.


I never see any match of American Football or baseball in my long life or even touched a ball, a gauntlet or a bat, or a ball of American football. So, you do better than me watching football.
Congratulation.

Wouhooooouuuuu, I won !
I won at work too but since I am the one who organized it all, people think I cheated !
Here at least, I can not be accused

Well done Nassim.

Sorry Alex D for not participating in this wonderful poll, in fact I must admit that I rarely dare to venture outside the gates of the “Music, Music, Music” section of the Forum (my free time is getting narrow and narrow). But I’ve enjoyed a lot your comments and I would like to add some reflexions. I just hope not to bore you:
- First of all (and obviously) I’m really glad that Spain won the World Cup, culminating a quite brilliant period for Spanish sport in general, with the successes of Pau Gasol, Rafa Nadal, Alberto Contador, Fernando Alonso or Jorge Lorenzo.
- Secondly, and much more important, I’m really glad that it happened right now, when my son Miguel is 11 years old. Two years ago, when Spain won the Euro Cup he didn’t really cared about that, and on the next world cup (four years from today) he would prefer for sure to share those moments with his friends. All those moments of nervousness, emotions, embraces and joy are things that I hope both of us will never forget.
- But all the euphoria that we are living these days on the Spanish media cannot hide the fact that the playing of the Spanish team was far worse that the brilliant playing they displayed on the Euro Cup and the World Cup classification rounds. In fact Spain has achieved the dubious honour of being the team that has won the World Cup with lower number of goals (only 8!). The only match in which Spain developed the playing that we were expecting was the one against Germany (the only team that tried to construct and not destruct).
- As Zorg pointed, most of the Spanish team played in Barcelona and Real Madrid. But I would like to point out to the change of attitude caused by the Spanish players playing on other leagues (like Torres or Reina on Liverpool or Cesc Fábregas on Arsenal). I mean, the national team began to conquer titles when the players broke the historical “mental” block of playing outside Spain. And don’t forget David Villa (in my opinion the best of the team), he played since last month in Valencia CF, the team of my hometown.
- Have you noticed the resemblance between Spanish player Gerard Piqué and our webmaster Henrik? My son and daughter used to say “Go, Henrik, go!” when Piqué played.


And that’s all. Many thanks to Nic and the others that rooted for Spain.