World Cup

[mcfc_nick]

for us to win the World Cup now we've got to go through:
last 16 - Germany
last 8 - Argentina
semis - Spain
final - Brazil

we havent made it easy for ourselves

[Chilli Dipper]

Maybe, just maybe, Mexico's extensive experience at high altitudes will propel them to the upset of the tournament.

[Easy]

2010 Worldcup: The cup of card happy refs.

Great to see USA in. You guys play great football.

Great to see France and Italy out, you guys play disgraceful boring football with no intergrity. Keep diving and handballing, karma will keep coming.

[Easy]

From the 2 cups i've watched compared to the EPL seasons I've watched, World Cup is a different atmosphere and playing style. In world cup play, teams play 90% defense and 10% offense fearing giving up a goal, it was rare to see a 7-0 blowout with portugal when most games end 1-0, 2-1, 0-0, 2-2...etc. For me it seems that players in world cups thrive on screwing with ref's and then getting pissed when the love tap they got didn't result in a free goal (PK). This year there seem to be many more legal tackles and challenges that aren't being called fouls for once, but that doesn't stop Douchiano Ronaldo from flopping like a fish outa water. When the knockout stages start, its only going to get worse. They will fall any time they are remotely poked in the penalty box to try and draw a penalty kick rather than doing the hard work for a real win :/ Maybe Zidane will come out of the woodwork and headbutt Ronaldo this year. But yeah, flopping is like 30x more prevalent in world cup play, and the amount of times you'll see player screaming handball on everything that even bumps a shoulder or chest at an odd angle. Honestly, I would give them all yellows for unsporting behavior or continual infringment of the rules, normally I hate games that end up with 10 v 11, but by my hand games would likely end up being 8-8 due to cheating douches :P

The difference between the refs calls in the EPL to the world cup is much bigger than I thought. All the refs in the world cup must be from the italian league.

I can see why the EPL is the most watched league in the world. It's tough, technical football.

[mcfc_nick]

well, what should have been one of the most entertaining games on paper turned out to be the most boring game of the whole tournament so far. Brazil v Portugal should be full of tricks and a high quality, fast paced match but it turned out to be nothing more than 2 teams making sure they dont lose.

[jlh1508]

for us to win the World Cup now we've got to go through:

lots of assumptions made there

[mcfc_nick]

lots of assumptions made there

im confident

[JJLinn]

Uruguay or South Korea will be really tough, but if we beat Ghana we have a much easier road to the semifinal than the other teams do. Every other quadrant has a powerhouse team or two in it but ours.

[JWILL203]

They made a good run...unfortunate to see them out.

[James_Black]

I was shouting for the U.S to score but they just weren't fit enough.
Towards the end they looked like they were about to pass out.

[mcfc_nick]

gutted for you's but you just weren't good enough today, Ghana were just better than you

[bogeyhitter25]

Diego Forlan is friggin' nasty.

[DarkPrince]

U.S. just got friggin lazy in my opinion. After the equalizing goal Ghana's defense was in shambles but like 10 minutes later they just didn't keep up the pressure and allowed Ghana to regroup. For every time they had a chance, they just didn't/couldn't close it out. Normally I'm not really a huge supporter of the home team since I think they have zero chance at actually winning the thing, but I still felt the U.S. played the better football today :/ they just couldn't finish it.

[New2golf]

Even though the US lost, I think that the world cup and soccer as a whole gained a ton of new fans this year which is a good thing for the sport

[James_Black]

Poor Ireland, if that handball by Henry had been seen they would have beaten France

Poor england, if that goal had been allowed they might have beaten Germany

Poor Mexico, if that goal had been disallowed they might have beaten Argentina

Fifa have a lot of explaining to do, they've got to use camera's.

[mcfc_nick]

Poor Ireland, if that handball by Henry had been seen they would have beaten France

wouldnt have made a difference anyway, we were shocking yesterday

[PaddyHarrington]

I dunno mcfc_nick,if that goal had of been allowed England would have had an unbelievable amount of momentum going into the second half.
As it turned out though Englands biggest problem was their defending,why had they 9 players in the German area for the free kick that lead to the 3rd German goal?

I mean Lampard was going to shoot anyway so why bring everyone up,it left them wide open at the back and the German counter attack.
I can't believe Im saying this but I actually felt sorry for England at half time yesterday,I admit I did want them to lose but it's not nice to see any team lose to a awful mistake from the ref or linesman.
Its just as well Germany scored another two goals!

[mcfc_nick]

I dunno mcfc_nick,if that goal had of been allowed England would have had an unbelievable amount of momentum going into the second half.

the whole country could go on about this for weeks/months and probably will, but the truth of the matter is Germany were far, far better than us yesterday and while that 'goal' would have got us back into it we didnt deserve to be back in it, they could have been 5-0 up easily before then and then just outclassed us in the second half.

i agree with you about the free kick as well, dont ask me why having john terry and matt upson up there would have helped lampard to score directly from a free kick all in all Germany are better than us and showed it on sunday