OT: soccer thread

Post #61 » by **fatlever** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:32 am

if i lived in ireland i would be on suicide watch.

WaydownSouth · Post #62 » by **WaydownSouth** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:19 pm

That hand ball was utterly disgusting.......

FIFA should be ashamed, it's not like this was some park game. It cost Ireland entry into the World Cup.

WaydownSouth · Post #63 » by **WaydownSouth** » Wed Dec 2, 2009 11:07 pm

WOO HOO........

You USA guys had better bring a decent squad to the World Cup. Pot 2 with the Aussies....

Post #64 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 2, 2009 11:08 pm

oh crap... that was today... i totally forgot. lemme check

Post #65 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 2, 2009 11:19 pm

oh nevermind, the draw is friday.... sucks we got stuck in the pot with asia/oceania. that means basically we might be the 4th team in the group

hopefully we dont get a draw of germany, portugal, ivory coast and usa. that would be brutal.

Post #66 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 2, 2009 11:22 pm

POT 1- Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Netherlands, England, Italy, Germany, South Africa

POT 2- USA, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand

POT 3- Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria

POT 4- France, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland

ideal draw would be: south africa, usa, algeria, switzerland... or something like that.

WaydownSouth · Post #67 » by **WaydownSouth** » Thu Dec 3, 2009 9:06 am

fatlever wrote:POT 1- Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Netherlands, England, Italy, Germany, South Africa

POT 2- USA, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand

POT 3- Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria

POT 4- France, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland

ideal draw would be: south africa, usa, algeria, switzerland... or something like that.

C'mon fats, at least get the order of Pot 2 right......

Fixed: POT 2- Australia, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, New Zealand, USA

Post #68 » by **fatlever** » Thu Dec 3, 2009 5:48 pm

haha. i was just copying from ives. but we all know the US is the best in that pot.

doc.end · Post #69 » by **doc.end** » Thu Dec 3, 2009 9:35 pm

fatlever wrote:POT 1- Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Netherlands, England, Italy, Germany, South Africa

POT 2- USA, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand

POT 3- Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria

POT 4- France, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland

ideal draw would be: south africa, usa, algeria, slovenia... or something like that.

Fixed. But to be honest France could be the biggest joke of the championship:)

Isn't there a rule South Africa can't have another african country in its group? (IMHO there should be)

WaydownSouth · Post #70 » by **WaydownSouth** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 7:34 am

fatlever wrote:haha. i was just copying from ives. but we all know the US is the best in that pot.

Your kidding right...... :lol:

How would you guys stop our midfield with Cahill, Kewell, Grella, Emerton.

Cahill has a better scoring rate in international games than Rooney, Torres, Messi and Ronaldo.

EDIT: France don't deserve to be there after that handball........

e4Nf6 · Post #71 » by **e4Nf6** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 9:21 am

Ok. I'll bite.....

WaydownSouth wrote:
How would you guys stop our midfield with Cahill, Kewell, Grella, Emerton.

I notice you don't mention the forwards or defense where you regularly run out players from the A-League and even the Chinese league.

Anyway......If we take the US midfield as Donovan-Jones-Bradley-Dempsey then I'd say:

Donovan = Cahill, You may disagree with this because Donovan doesn't play in the prem but he'll probably be playing for a good French team or a middling Spanish team soon which is comparable to Everton.

Dempsey>Emerton
Dempsey is having a better year on a better team.

Jones > Kewell
A couple of guys with Injury problems, good German team> good Turkish team

Bradley > Grella

Full-time player for middling German team > part-time player for middling English team (or we can call him a full-time player on a bad Italian team if you like)

WaydownSouth wrote:
Cahill has a better scoring rate in international games than Rooney, Torres, Messi and Ronaldo.

I think those guys might score some goals too if they played a bunch of games against China and Qatar.

doc.end · Post #72 » by **doc.end** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 6:24 pm

England, Algeria, Slovenia. Pretty good draw for you guys.

doc.end · Post #73 » by **doc.end** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 6:30 pm

Aussies on the other hand got a tougher group with Germany, Serbia and Ghana. I liked them but Io wouldn't bet on them:(

Post #74 » by **fatlever** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 7:51 pm

what E4 said

great draw for US. that england game will be epic. i think we match up well with them compared to some of the other top teams.

i cant wait for june. i'm gonna load up on vacation days that first week and sit and home and get my soccer on.

touch draw for australia. good luck. i'll be rooting for you guys.

Bizz · Post #75 » by **Bizz** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 8:25 pm

OK as a Slovenian I'm not so pleased with the draw but I'm looking forward to debating which team is better for the next year. But anyways there are no easy groups. I hope your team and England will look at Slovenia as a good draw, just like all the russians did in the extra qualifiers. We have a sneaky good team with one of the best young goalkeepers in Europe in Handanović. He helped Slovenia to post the lowest goals against with 4. Our team has great team spirit and they have been playing together since U-20 teams. I wish you guys the best of luck except on 18.6.2010.

e4Nf6 · Post #76 » by **e4Nf6** » Fri Dec 4, 2009 11:21 pm

I can't believe Mexico got South Africa, two cupcake draws in a row for them. Some people have all the luck. At least they got France too. I'm not 100% convinced that they have a cake-walk either. Paraguay IMO is similar to the grabby Central American teams that always give them trouble. And....Remember that the host has NEVER failed to get to the knock-out round, and that includes some not-so-great teams including Korea/Japan in 2002 and the US in 1994.

Tough, Tough, Group for Australia....

England is not so bad actually, assuming we need to have one of the top teams. Algeria is one of the 2-3 worst teams in the tournament just as bad as South Africa and North Korea. Slovenia would be down there as well, although in fairness we wouldn't be saying that about Russia, and Slovenia beat them.

doc.end · Post #77 » by **doc.end** » Sat Dec 5, 2009 8:10 pm

AD discussion about Koller - he is going to sign with Cannes (French Div 3). His wife and kids are settled in Monaco not far from Cannes and he wants to be with his family after contract in Russia.

BTW Rosický is injured again, I'm speechless:(

doc.end · Post #78 » by **doc.end** » Sat Dec 5, 2009 8:15 pm

Thumbs up for eliminating Russia, Biz. We would probably screw up those games too if we would manage to advance somehow instead of you (I know play off pairs would be different then; I didn't like the draw anyway, I would actually like to see Bosnia with Džeko and company at world cup too).

WaydownSouth · Post #79 » by **WaydownSouth** » Sat Dec 5, 2009 8:53 pm

We must of pissed someone off............... That is the group from hell...

I agree with most of what you said E4, but I think Cahill is a league above Donovan. Donovan is a good player, but not in the class of Cahill.

I'd happily run out a full strength Aussie side again the US, any day of the week, and be very very confident. We'll see guys that are playing second division in Europe etc before we see an A-Leaguer in the top team. We won't be many A-League players going to the Cup, and if they do, they'll be there to cover injuries....... The only two A-Leaguer I can think of that could get a run are Griffiths and maybe Archie Thompson.

Your correct about Cahills scoring, but you can only play and score against the opposition, and whilst Qatar etc aren't in the league of the top nations, they are still pretty handy. One of the reason Australia had to get out of the Oceanian conference. It gets boring pumping some island nation 47 - 0, and the only real other competition was New Zealand. Saw it heaps when we'd cruise through the conference and had the face the 'lucky looser' team from South America, which in the past has been Argentina or Urugury and get done over at the last stage. The Asian Conference is much better, both for the development and also the quality of competition and games.

Bizz · Post #80 » by **Bizz** » Sun Dec 6, 2009 12:10 pm

Thanks doc. Throughout the qualifications the Checz team was the only one giving us trouble as we got only 1 point from two meetings, but we were still competitive. I love when I read the headlines in English and American press after the draw. They are already more worried who will they play in the next round than about Slovenia and Algeria. Red carpet to the next round, Group of joy, Winning the lottery,... This are just a few headlines. For people that don't know about Slovenia I must explain that our nation thrives when it's being underestimated, it's when we are the favourites that we have trouble. That is why I fear a match with Algeria. It is really good that we play them first, because we will be more ready.

I don't know what our team needs to do to gain respect, after the mentioned games against Chec team we lost to Northern Ireland away and had a little chance to qualify. But then came the home match with Poland(last chance for them) 3:0. Next up Slovakia (away) who were 1 point away from securing their first WC ever 0:2, then we beat the poor San Marino. because Polish scored in their own goal to help Slovakia reach the WC we had to play extra round with Russians. After the draw headlines in Russia were; Best draw possible, easy way to South Africa, Luck finally smilled on the Russians,... And then we beat them without any luck as we were clearly the better side on second game. And still all the countries wanted to face us in the group stage of the WC. Well Americans and Eanglish got their wishes just like the Russians and I hope the end result will also be the same:). Englad beat us 2:1 on Wembley but with a non existing penalty and now they cite this result as the reason why they will beat us easily. I hope Slovenians will be ready to compete, because it would be really cool if after Russia we knock out USA to. But as a marketing major I am estatic with the draw as England and USA cover most of the mass media around the world and Slovenia will get more coverage than ever before. Maybe after the WC things like this(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/pictures/6730196/Slovenia-football-team-at-World-Cup-2010-in-pictures.html) won't happen anymore. For those who don't know that is a Slovakian team not Slovenian.

Way down south I feel your pain. Your group is the true group of death. Sure G has fancy names like Brasil an Portugal but your group has 4 teams that with a different draw all could reach the next stage. Ghana is just as good or close to Ivory coast, Serbia is much better at the moment than Portugal. Serbians cruiesed through their qualification group that included France. They are really underrated right now by jurnalists. They are my dark horse to go really far in this WC. And then you have Germany which I don't need to tell you how good they are. But the best of luck to your team.