2010 World Cup discussion

[Mugekuge]

Hmm i think host teams deserve a spot in world cup, not that getting the chance to organize a world cup is easy.

[Jefe]

Nah, the Brazilian DT fucked up royally because instead of trying to score by modifying his team's lines, he backed them down by defending.

[Zoolander]

Hmm i think host teams deserve a spot in world cup, not that getting the chance to organize a world cup is easy.

To be seeded in the top 8 on top of that though? And idk, gimme a break, if you wanna host a world cup your team shouldnt have anything handed to them. This is the highest level of sport in the world, this isn't little league. You wanna play with the big boys, go do some work.

[Mugekuge]

I think thats with idea of people in host country to feel motivated to support and assist games, also i may be wrong but olympic games doesnt force local nation to have a team or player in every sport?

Edit: yea i think being head of a group just for being local is wrong, but not getting a spot.

[Gadritan]

also i may be wrong but olympic games doesnt force local nation to have a team or player in every sport?

Can't compare an event where each nation has numerous athletes and teams in various sports to one in which there are only 32 nations represented, each with only one team, in one sport.

I agree with granting the host nation a slot in the WC. The seeding was...what's the word...oh yeah, fucking retarded.

In the end it doesn't really matter though. Their spot in the WC was handed to them, but they're being handed their asses on the way out as well.

[EagleCeres]

Hmm i think host teams deserve a spot in world cup, not that getting the chance to organize a world cup is easy.

Yeah... being the host (and the reigning champ) you don't have to go through the arduous suffering of going through the regional qualifiers and/or the points system for the wild cards to fill out the other 62 spots.

In pro-sport terms, this is the post season and all the teams here are vying for a spot in the sweet 16 bracket.

[Rhyis.]

That was some crazy one sided reffing.

[Mayareira]

It was 1-0 when I slept in front of TV a chick woke me up w/ a message and now its 3-0. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[EvilSid]

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Gxbi-Xyig

[Olo401]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Gxbi-Xyig

What the shit... they made a vuvuzela SKA tune!

[Mayareira]

lol

[Correction]

Get to it, tv broadcasters...

Ah shit, beaten. oh well back to googling images of that chick with the phone down her top.

[Brill Weave]

LOL @ Spain

[Alvinho]

Nah, the Brazilian DT fucked up royally because instead of trying to score by modifying his team's lines, he backed them down by defending.

Kind of hard to do when you're down one man. If he pushed his lines forward, he would leave too much open space in the back. Sounds like a recipe for disaster when you add in second half stamina levels, imo. He would have most likely done what you suggested if he had all his players on the pitch, though he isn't exactly known for offensive tactics.

Yeah... being the host (and the reigning champ) you don't have to go through the arduous suffering of going through the regional qualifiers and/or the points system for the wild cards to fill out the other 62 spots.

In pro-sport terms, this is the post season and all the teams here are vying for a spot in the sweet 16 bracket.

If I'm not mistaken, ever since Germany '06, reigning champs no longer get automatically qualified; only the host now, which also plays the opening game instead of reigning champ, as it was before. i.e. SA playing opening game in 2010 instead of Italy, and Germany in 06 instead of Brazil. Also, only 32 teams play.

[BRP]

Looks like Chile might actually get first in their group after all. Keep it up Spain.

EDIT: Also happy with Argentina's progress.

[Dense]

This guy #7 is shitty. He needs to be gone.

Btw, the goalie got a red card because from the referee point of view, he thought the goalie did a dangerous tackle toward the URU player.

No. The sending off was due to the "last man" rule.

From the FIFA laws of the game:
"A player, substitute or substituted player is sent off and shown the red card if he commits any of the following seven offences: <----cut----> 5. denies an obvious goalscoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick."


That being said, since the player was trying to get around the keeper, and was not moving towards the goal at the time of the incident, there could be reason for dispute. However, there is no disputing that it is a definite penalty. The sending off was not because the foul was harsh or anything other than the "last man" rule. At the time of the foul, I was 100% convinced it was the correct decision. After seeing it loads of times afterwards, you could argue that Suarez made a move away from the goal, but had he not been clipped, would he have scored a goal? If the answer is yes, than the red card stands.

[Dense]

The dailymail has done a piece on why this cup is one of the worst ever for spectators:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/wor...ng-memory.html



WORLD CUP 2010: Six reasons why this tournament has had the dullest start in living memory

It only comes round every four years and the excitement about the World Cup reaches fever pitch. But not this time! It's been an unbelievably dull start to a tournament with so few goals, let alone ones to stick in the memory.

The superstars like Wayne Rooney, Kaka and Andres Iniesta have so far failed to turn on the magic. Blame the ball, the pitch , the defensive tactics - Sportsmail gives an assessment of where it's all gone wrong.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...12_468x314.jpg
Slow start: Rooney failed to capture the imagination against the United States

CONDITIONS

The first winter World Cup for 32 years has thrown up new tests. At the end of long domestic seasons, players have found themselves breathless from the altitude. Unprompted, Wayne Rooney raised the idea of a winter break again yesterday. Only Germany and perhaps Chile have played with a decent tempo.

England will be pleased to escape the altitude and head for Cape Town to play Algeria tomorrow but other pitfalls lurk on the coast, where the weather has been cold and wet and the pitches have caused a stir.

'It looked beautiful but was actually very slippery and very hard to control the ball,' said Marcelo Lippi after Italy's 1-1 draw with Paraguay in Cape Town, a game played in a deluge. Roy Hodgson has noted an absence of defence-splitting passes, saying the newly laid pitches are 'making the ball very lively and bounce very high'.

ATMOSPHERE

Blocks of empty seats never help, and then there's the vuvuzelas. Prominent South African sports writer Jon Qwelane once described the horns as the 'instrument from hell'. There certainly hasn't been a visual spectacular like the ticker tape showers of Argentina '78 or the Mexican waves of '86.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...93_468x286.jpg
The 'instrument from hell': vuvuzelas have attracted a lot of attention this World Cup

BALLS

Sven Goran Erik sson took the ball debate to a new level yesterday, demanding a summit meeting on the subject. All World Cups start with keepers grumbling about the unpredictability of a new ball but the adidas Jabulani controversy shows no sign of abating.

'You'll notice a drop in the quality of headed goals or goals from crosses,' said Matthew Upson. 'It's so hard to read.' Free-kick experts have yet to make an impact and the sight of Andres Iniesta launching passes wildly into touch will encourage those players wondering why their powers had suddenly vanished.

The dodgy ball has not resulted in a flood of goals - only 25 from the first 16 games, considerably down on 39 at the same stage four years ago. Thirteen of the 32 teams failed to score.
Enlarge Here why the world has nodded off

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...x193_popup.jpg

TENSION

No one wants to lose their first game. Clint Dempsey said England seemed under pressure against the United States and the Italians confessed to feeling the heat as they defend their title. Not that starting slowly is in itself a bad thing. Italy drew their first three games in 1982 and still won the World Cup. It took until the final game of the first round of group games for a shock to energise the competition.

Had Switzerland beaten Spain on the opening day, it might have different. In 1990, Cameroon beat Argentina on the opening day and, in 2002, France lost to Senegal. Here, in the first World Cup held on African soil, the African teams have looked just as inhibited as anyone else. Of five African teams, only Ghana won, thanks to a penalty against 10-man Serbia.

TACTICS

Fear invokes cautious tactical plans in the early stages. 'In the first round teams play more not to lose than to win,' said Arsene Wenger. 'The games are quite locked tactically with very few chances and very few have had a go. 'The pressure of the World Cup is so intense nobody wants to lose that first game. It harms the style a little bit. But it is a tournament that lasts one month. A slow start and being qualified is better than to start at 100 miles per hour.'

Even the traditional flair merchants have tightened up. African teams are no longer perceived as instinctive, expressive footballers blighted by disorganisation and very few teams get thrashed like El Salvador, who lost 10-1 to Hungary in 1982. Four of the five African teams are coached by Europeans, with Eriksson instilling a Scandinavian pragmatism in the Ivory Coast.'I was impressed with the Ivory Coast's discipline against Portugal,' said Rooney.

Brazil's natural flamboyance is stifled beneath the safety-first policy of Dunga, a coach educated in Italy, who probably boasts the best defensive unit in the competition.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...55_306x423.jpg
Eurozone: Sven-Goran Eriksson is one of four European coaches to manage an African side

FAMILIARITY

It has bred competition rather than contempt. The World Cup brings fewer surprises in the internet age. Modern broadcasting and communication means teams are studied in minute detail and plots hatched to stop the dangermen.

Rooney, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were all subdued in their opening fixtures and, for the armchair audience, Didier Drogba's awesome power and the mercurial talents of Kaka, no longer command the same novelty value.

The chance to see Johan Cruyff in '74 or Maradona in '86 was a rare thrill but with televised European football and heavy traffic of South American players to Europe, the stars are made in the Champions League, not the World Cup.

[EvilSid]

Directly from Los Angeles E3:

http://i45.tinypic.com/6g9dnc.jpg

[FallingHigher]

I agree with the whole 'playing defensively' thing during team's opening matches. It's been really noticable with the exception of one or two games. I think it's a mix of that, the new ball (some teams never trained with it for a sufficent amount of time before the tournament i.e. England), and maybe the altitude levels, which most teams should have trained to cope with properly anyway. I also might add that another point to consider in conjunction with the afore-mentioned one, is that there are alot of 'middle weight' teams (USA, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mexico, South Africa(?)) that have been favoured to progress better than usual in the tournament and have higher expectations, so of course they're going to be more organised/solid defensively and try match/exceed those expectations. So far most of the groups look very open and that's down to the level of competition of these kinds of teams along with the usual 'heavy weights.'

All the other points that the article lists are not that debatable imo. The vuvuzelas, while certainly irritating to some viewers, haven't seemed to come under *too* much scrutiny from the players. I don't think a team, manager or player alone is going to solely blame a potentially bad performance on the constant BURRRRRRRRZZZZZ noise around the stadium.

I disagree with the 'familiarity' point as well, coaches and teams have ALWAYS done their research and tried to subdue opposing key players for decades, regardless of what technology is available.

Hopefully we'll start to see the 'dullness' fade away now all the opening matches are out of the way and the players are (maybe)used to playing in the environment?

Argentina-South Korea in a few minutes! Looks to be quite a tasty match. I thought in their last game South Korea played some really neat and tidy football so it'll be interesting to see how they come up against a tough, highly skilled team in the Argies.

[sruon]

I have high expectations from this match.