Zee Germans have won! Zee Germans have won..... The World Cup!

Football is a team sport.

Actually I rated Ronaldo higher, as I think he has more all round skills. Faster, good header of the ball, & a dead ball specialist (minus the stupid pose before taking a free kick).
 
starseeker said:
Football is a team sport.

Actually I rated Ronaldo higher, as I think he has more all round skills. Faster, good header of the ball, & a dead ball specialist (minus the stupid pose before taking a free kick).
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I disagree. Messi can be a huge player even when not scoring goals. His vision, passing ability, and intelligence are what makes him superior to Ronaldo. Both are fantastic players though.

D-V-ANT said:
Hey. This is Ireland. I'll take it. Plus, how long ago was thatv5-1 win for England? :-)
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Feels like it was just yesterday, but we have beat them since then too.
 
starseeker said:
Life lesson for you. Never bet against the Germans! :D
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I'm not a soccer fan, but I'm happy the Germans won, though I lost $20 betting on Argentina. lol.

Why? Because the people at work who are German fans played it cool through out the tournament. I know some Dutch people too. Same thing. No doubt cheering for the orange shirts, but not overly loud. Even when Germany won, they were happy at work, but not annoying.

On the other hand, right from the beginning of the round robin stage, the English and Italian fans were sure loud and annoying. Some Italian fans even wore blue shirts. Yeah, it's all fun and nobody is going to complain, but c'mon it's still a business environment. Save the casual attire for Friday. Thankfully, the World Cup is only every 4 years. I'm happy both sides lost.

Watch snippets of games.....

I liked:
- Germany's strong play. Pretty mechanical and not flashy, but effective and not boring
- Some of those Ivory Coast and Ghana games had lots of attacking. These guys know they are outmatched, but they seemed to go for it, instead of boring defensive play where guys are kicking it back and forth forever
- Lots of major teams got eliminated like England, Italy, Spain, Portugal
- Some underdog teams did well like Costa Rica
- Lots of goals, including some blowouts

I hated:
- The usual massive amounts of diving where the ref doesn't seem to care. Seemed every guy dove at the slightest touch, especially Holland guys. Funny thing is that soccer players are trained to be strong on their feet, so it shouldn't even make sense they fall so easily
- Biting
- Many key games decided by the dreaded penalty kicks
- Some blown calls that decided games
 
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Well done Germany from an England fan.

The best team in the tournament won it IMO. I saw most of their games and they always played extremely well together, I'm glad it didn't go to PK because I'm sure Argentina would of snatched it if it had.

Intellivision said:
I'm not a soccer fan, but I'm happy the Germans won, though I lost $20 betting on Argentina. lol.

Why? Because the people at work who are German fans played it cool through out the tournament. I know some Dutch people too. Same thing. No doubt cheering for the orange shirts, but not overly loud. Even when Germany won, they were happy at work, but not annoying.

On the other hand, right from the beginning of the round robin stage, the English and Italian fans were sure loud and annoying. Some Italian fans even wore blue shirts. Yeah, it's all fun and nobody is going to complain, but c'mon it's still a business environment. Save the casual attire for Friday. Thankfully, the World Cup is only every 4 years. I'm happy both sides lost.

Watch snippets of games.....

I liked:
- Germany's strong play. Pretty mechanical and not flashy, but effective and not boring
- Some of those Ivory Coast and Ghana games had lots of attacking. These guys know they are outmatched, but they seemed to go for it, instead of boring defensive play where guys are kicking it back and forth forever
- Lots of major teams got eliminated like England, Italy, Spain, Portugal
- Some underdog teams did well like Costa Rica
- Lots of goals, including some blowouts
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I would only say Spain were a major team going into the WC. England have been terrible these past tournaments, WC2010 we were that bad that Germany destroyed us 4-1, we didn't even get into the Euro2012 tournament and then WC2014 we couldn't even win a game. Italy and Portugal are highly overrated IMO Last time Italy won a major tournament it was decided on PK's and Portugal haven't even made it to a semi in ages.

Messi's face when waiting to get receive his award was funny, you could see the butt hurt. I've seen Messi play for Barcelona and he is a good player when he had a good team and that was the problem for him Argentina just couldn't get him on the ball for more than few seconds because he was just smothered every time. The Netherlands did it and Germany did it.
 
As someone who used to play football regularly with friends, I can attest, when you going at high speed, a simple contact can send you flying. I suffer so much injury (mainly on my ankles) playing football, even admitted to hospital, that I have quit football for almost 2 years. Its true though that many players make the best out of a tackle, in order to win a free kicks, penalties, or a yellow card for the opposition. Since Footballing body insisted on NOT using video replay or anything, but purely the judgement and viewpoint of referee, these things keep happening.

Having said that, its also one of the charm of football, creating talking points over players acting, or referee decision.
 
starseeker said:
As someone who used to play football regularly with friends, I can attest, when you going at high speed, a simple contact can send you flying. I suffer so much injury (mainly on my ankles) playing football, even admitted to hospital, that I have quit football for almost 2 years. Its true though that many players make the best out of a tackle, in order to win a free kicks, penalties, or a yellow card for the opposition. Since Footballing body insisted on NOT using video replay or anything, but purely the judgement and viewpoint of referee, these things keep happening.

Having said that, its also one of the charm of football, creating talking points over players acting, or referee decision.
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I do not see see these antics as charming. It is a blight upon sport. That and biting, both need to be stopped.
As for ref decisions, yeah, it is one of the things that adds a sense of unpredictability to the sport. We certainly do want that to go away, but having said that, you do need to put quality referees in charge of big matches. Some of the refs in this world cup really did not belong here.
 
BraddersTheDog said:
Look at Messi. He gets fouled all the time and doesn't go down. That's one of the reasons I like him so much.
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To me, any player that doesn't fake it in any sport gets my respect. Don't get me wrong, probably every athlete has exaggerated at some point, but I'm talking generaliies here. But in general, soccer players are the terrible for that stuff. But even worse are the refs who turn a blind eye.

The refs are the ones policing the game. If anyone wants the game cleaned up, it starts with the ref having the balls to call a tighter game. He's the only guy on the field calling fouls. If he doesn't change nobody will change.
 
Intellivision said:
To me, any player that doesn't fake it in any sport gets my respect. Don't get me wrong, probably every athlete has exaggerated at some point, but I'm talking generaliies here. But in general, soccer players are the terrible for that stuff. But even worse are the refs who turn a blind eye.

The refs are the ones policing the game. If anyone wants the game cleaned up, it starts with the ref having the balls to call a tighter game. He's the only guy on the field calling fouls. If he doesn't change nobody will change.
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If I were a ref I'd call them every time they fell. Even if I knew it was a legit fall. They need to learn to suck it up, they're professional athletes.
 
Z A C K said:
If I were a ref I'd call them every time they fell. Even if I knew it was a legit fall. They need to learn to suck it up, they're professional athletes.
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If I was ref, all I would say to the teams before the match is that I'm going to call a tight game and will hand out yellow cards if it gets silly. That should be a warning already to help curb silly antics.

But if players don't believe, fine. All I'd do is yellow card a player or two in the first 10 minutes for diving (from the games I watched, that Arlen Robben guy seemed like the worst offender out there). I bet any money the players will suddenly change play style if faced with a stricter ref. Players will adapt.

Just like baseball umps. Some call a loose strike zone. Some call a tight one. Every ump is a bit different and has a habit of calls. Players adapt. Using this analogy, a soccer style ump would have a 5 ft wide strike zone with pitchers taking advantage of poor officiating. But get some umps in there who will call a game with reasonable strike zones and pitchers have no choice but to cater to his style to get strikes.
 
Intellivision said:
Seemed every guy dove at the slightest touch, especially Holland guys.
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This. I am not a fan of Holland for this very reason. The game between Holland and Mexico was sad. That fake foul dive that Robben pulled near the end to get a free penalty kick pissed me off. That penalty kick gave Holland the winning goal. Mexico was doing really well against them and the odds were in their favor. Holland should've have lost that game.
 
DarkPassenger said:
This. I am not a fan of Holland for this very reason. The game between Holland and Mexico was sad. That fake foul dive that Robben pulled near the end to get a free penalty kick pissed me off. That penalty kick gave Holland the winning goal. Mexico was doing really well against them and the odds were in their favor. Holland should've have lost that game.
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My key sport to watch is hockey, but for sake of sports I'll leave the TV on if there's any key sports on... baseball, basketball, even soccer if that's all on tv. I consider baseball the most boring sport of the main team sports, but I'll prefer watching it over soccer. I'm not a fan of when teams waste time passing back and forth but the sport does have a good constant flow of action with few whistles.

But to me it's unwatchable due to diving. I'll watch the world cup due to the hype, friends are watching it and the fact I had a bunch of bets going on for fun, but typical soccer matches of whatever league being shown, not my cup of tea.
 
It needs to come from the governing body, not just the refs. Diving, although frowned upon, isn't punished properly. There should be retrospective cards and fines for players found to be diving and duping a referee, and they should be heavy fines.

It should become accepted that the referee has a proper level of discretion when deciding if contact warranted a player going to ground. At the moment, it's like as soon as a player is touched, he goes down. Was he fouled? Technically, maybe. Did the contact warrant the player falling over? No. So it's no foul. Football is a contact sport ffs and referees should be backed in making their decisions.

And as for players who fall down holding their face when they've been hit in the chest..They should be red carded, either at the time or after a review of the incident after the game.
 
Z A C K said:
If I were a ref I'd call them every time they fell. Even if I knew it was a legit fall. They need to learn to suck it up, they're professional athletes.
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Do not agree with you.

If you actually play the sport, you will know that falling down is part & parcel of the sport due to the nature, especially when you are at speed. A simple contact when a playing is at full speed can easily send one flying, the same way you can be throw off the bicycle when you hid a stone when you go at speed.

If you do fall, rolling over is a mean to lessen the blow. Obviously some exaggerated too much, but to say it suck it up, because they are pro is a lack of understanding of the nature of the sport.
 
starseeker said:
Do not agree with you.

If you actually play the sport, you will know that falling down is part & parcel of the sport due to the nature, especially when you are at speed. A simple contact when a playing is at full speed can easily send one flying, the same way you can be throw off the bicycle when you hid a stone when you go at speed.

If you do fall, rolling over is a mean to lessen the blow. Obviously some exaggerated too much, but to say it suck it up, because they are pro is a lack of understanding of the nature of the sport.
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I do not think He meant it in that way. I think He meant that it has gotten to such a ridiculous degree that drastic action is needed. Yes, when players(especially fast players) are at speed it does not take much to send them flying, but rolling around on the ground like you were just hit by a bus is all to common. Going to ground easy when not moving at speed is all to common.

This is not the only issue with the sport either. What is with defenders being able to wrestle and headlock players to ground without punishment ? that needs to be stopped.
 
menace-uk- said:
I do not think He meant it in that way. I think He meant that it has gotten to such a ridiculous degree that drastic action is needed. Yes, when players(especially fast players) are at speed it does not take much to send them flying, but rolling around on the ground like you were just hit by a bus is all to common. Going to ground easy when not moving at speed is all to common.

This is not the only issue with the sport either. What is with defenders being able to wrestle and headlock players to ground without punishment ? that needs to be stopped.
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Right, that's exactly what I meant.

Also, remember these are professional athletes. With the bodies of professional athletes.
 
Ok, thanks for the clarification. The lack of aids for referee, & retrospective punishments not enforced, are a big talking points. Its not hard to see who are the actors with replay.
 
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