FIFA World Cup - Germany 2006 (1 Viewer)

[Michael Warner]

I've already changed my mind a few times. You can change any of your picks right up until game time.

 

[Andy_Bu]

ok then just simply connect the cable from the wall to the vcr input and then from the vcr output to the tv.

Then program the vcr(make sure its in cable ready mode) to simply wake up and record what ever shows you want on what ever channel you want. You can only record one game at a time this way. This will only be an issue during the last games of the first round when games are played simultaneously.

Andy

 

[Yee-Ming]

I'm not certain that what that article describes is any worse than what happens at the most "tribal" of European (or South American) club matches. At barest minimum, Rangers v. Celtic, River Plate v. Boca Juniors comes to mind (although there's lots of passion involved in Real Madrid v. Barcelona, I don't think it spills over into hooliganism against players as often as we might otherwise think).

That Guatamala stunt was radical, but no worse than every game against Ecuador in La Paz, at 3,000+m above sea level. Or maybe Arsenal going to Shaktar Donetsk in the eastern Ukraine in the Champions League. I've read plenty of articles about away teams in the ECL getting no sleep when the home fans besiege the hotel the night before and kick up a ruckus. And there are lots of reports from Spain and Italy of fans throwing nasty things onto the pitch and at players (Figo notable had a pig's head thrown at him by Barca fans after he joined Madrid; another instance I remember reading about a scooter...). And the Arsenal bus got stoned the first time they played at Tottenham Hotspur after Sol Campbell (the Tott's ex-captain) joined.

Have CONCACAF teams really outperformed African and Asian teams? In overall history, perhaps, but in recent World Cups? (And even historically, a CONCACAF side -- El Salvador -- holds the record for the biggest beating, 10-1 to Hungary). Africa in particular has been growing in strength, in particular Cameroon, which ironically did not qualify this time, perhaps showing the overall growing strength of Africa. Asia has admittedly been weak, although South Korea and Japan gave a good showing in 2002, but I readily accept home advantage was a big help and I don't expect them to do as well this time. Saudi Arabia will get hammered again, but Iran might be a surprise.

Africa has lots of players performing at the highest levels in tough European leagues; CONCACAF seems to go the other way around (USA and Mexico excepted), where the ex-British colonies take full advantage of FIFA loopholes to entice British journeymen players playing in lower divisions, who'd otherwise have no shot of making it to any of the 4 British teams, with international football.

If anything, Oceania is the federation that is treated the oddest: I hesitate to say harshest, since it is so weak that it is hard to justify even one slot, which would have gone nearly automatically to Australia each time unless New Zealand upset them. Ironically, due to those frustrations Australia jumped ship and will after this World Cup be treated as part of Asia. Indeed, Oceania should probably be absorbed into Asia, but I guess politically that's not acceptable.

UEFA often argues that in reality it is treated the "harshest". Proportionately it has the most strong teams (and the strongest club leagues), each time around there are notable absentees who have fallen by the wayside in qualifying. And after 1991, the number of UEFA members shot up (ex Soviet Union and Yugoslavia).

Oh well, I guess everyone wants a larger slice of the pie and more slots at the World Cup. But at 8 groups of 4, 32 teams, I think that's about as big as it should get, any larger and it devalues the achievement of qualifying for the World Cup in the first place.

Beckham in the MLS would not surprise me. He could run out his Real Madrid contract, and could then move free, but the real sticking point is more likely his own wages. Unless he feels it worthwhile and can line up endorsement deals from sponsors in place (or he's already made enough!) -- even today he makes more from endorsements than in actual wages. And at the tail end of his career he might want to take one last stab at "growing the Beckham brand" in the USA, possibly the last place on Earth that wasn't interested in his and Victoria's antics (hooray the Yanks!). Posh Spice might like the thought that if Beckhamania takes off, she might try and revive her career (ewwww...)

 

[Aaron Schmitt]

Don't get me wrong, I still root for teams in CONCACAF to do well (outside of Mexico, unless it sets up a US v Mexico match in the elimination round like 2002). I guess you can compare it to Red Sox/Yankees, Cowboys/Redskins, or from the 80's Lakers/Celtics. You never see fans of one team rooting for the other, that's how I am about Mexico. They still think they're all that in this region, and yet they can't seem to beat the US outside of Mexico. It will be good for regional pride to have as many teams advance as possible though. I can understand why a few of you root for both. One of my friends is from Mexico, had him over for the US/Mexico match back in Sept, kinda felt sorry for him having a few US fans and only him pulling for Mexico.

That ESPN.com article was good for letting US fans who don't follow soccer know what goes on when the US goes on the road. It really is no different than anywhere else in the world, it's just that no one seems to understand that in this country. I think the article on Clint Dempsey was more interesting.

Rumors are flying that we may actually get ESPN2HD in this area before tomorrow's matches, so I'll be checking the cable box early for messages about it. That's going to be a whole lot of DVR reprogramming. I don't know how I'm going to avoid finding out some scores though, as everyone at work has MSN as their home page, etc. Thankfully I have an iPod to listen to during commutes, so that will help with the radio.

I'm hoping for a good run for all the guys with Seattle area ties: Keller (Lacey, WA), Marcus Hahneman (Bellevue, WA and my Alma Mater), and Brian Ching (Seattle Sounders).

The MLS transfers could be interesting, as long as they don't kill the league trying to pay for players. 10 years 120mil for Ronaldo is crazy, unless that's not guaranteed like in the NFL. He's 29 years old, and has logged a ton of miles on his legs. The MLS does not need to get known as the soccer world's retirement community. If they can get some younger fringe guys from other countries though, and help them develop prior to World Cups, that may be more beneficial to the league, especially if they can sign them to contracts that run a year or 2 after a WC. For example, if MLS can sign a 18-20 year old striker or midfielder from Brazil who has had a little national team experience in say 2007, and keep him for 5-6 years before he transfers off to Europe.

A

 

[Yee-Ming]

Perhaps because NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL pro teams are treated well (or rather, not mistreated) on the road? So most US sports fans, who follow the 4 major sports, think it's all hunky-dory and bed of roses for the travelling US football (soccer) team? In some respects, that means pro sports in the US is more "civilized" than elsewhere, although I've always gotten the impression that it's partly because hardly anyone goes to away games, making the atmosphere less heated (amongst fans) since it's all home-fans. The thing I've always thought odd, though, is that fans riot after WINNING and they trash their own neighbourhoods. Weird, that. At least English hooligans are vandalising the opposing team's stadium... (not that I condone it)

 

[Andy_Bu]

Oh I agree but you are comparing apples and oranges.

The article was talking about international teams, not club teams.

English fans are always bitching that the US has an easy road to the WC with out realising just how difficult the away matches are (and the article did not even get into the referee issues in these matches).

People too often think playing in Central America is like playing Malta, Andorra, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Farroe Islands, Cyprus, Moldova, Azerbaijan etc etc in front of 3000 calm fans and it could not be more different.

Andy

 

[Lew Crippen]

While I do think that it is far tougher to qualify in Europe than the other zones, let us not forget that England just had to come out of Group 6:

1.England
2.Poland
3.Austria
4.Northern Ireland
5.Wales
6.Azerbaijan

England tied Austria and lost to Northern Ireland. Basically England and Poland ran away with the competition, both winning 8 matches, while the next best was Austria with 4 wins. (Group winners advanced plus the best two second place teams—note that 8 wins is pretty much a lock to advance, a the winners in most other groups won 6 or maybe 7, with the second place teams winning even fewer). And even the non-best second place sides still had a chance by playing a reound-robin.

So England did not have to do much to advance, other than beating Poland (and winning the matches they should have won). And even if they lost to Poland, they still would have had a very good chance.

 

[Holadem]

Even some of the current groups are just bizarre:

Consider Group A, where you have Germany, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Poland. And Group F with Brazil, Australia, Croatia and Japan.

Why do the two perenial rivals and best teams in the world get to go relatively unchallenged for the 1st round?

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H

 

[Alex-C]

presumably so they meet further down the schedule or to ensure they survive the group play; however you could easily argue they would make it out of any group of death.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I can’t remember the exact details, but basically FIFA ranks all of the sides that make the finals. The top 8 seeds are assigned, one each to the 8 groups. FIFA uses a slightly different method to seed the sides than they do for their rankings (I can’t remember but it has to do with how each side qualified and their results in the last one or two World Cups).

At this point the eight best sides (Germany, Brazil, Argentina, England, France, Italy, Mexico and Spain) will not compete with each other in the pool rounds. Very much like tennis, March madness or almost any tournament.

The remaining sides are put into three different groups: one that consists of European teams, one that is Asia and North/Central America and one that is Africa & South America)

This gives four different groups (or hats to draw from) (one consisting of seeded teams). Each World Cup group gets a team from each of the four hats. So each group gets a seeded team and a team from the other hats (this reduces that chances that the World Cup groups will have too many sides from the same zone.

If you follow this kind of thing, the big controversy here (depending on which side of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo you reside) was that Mexico received a seed and the US did not.

 

[Andy_Bu]

And seeing as how the groups fell out(US one of the two hardest groups and Mexico's one of the two easiest), you can see the importance of getting a top seed.

The US debacle from WC 1998 will be removed from the US's records (the new formula for seeding will only include the previous two world cups), so if they do ok this time around, they may have an another good chance at a seed in 2010 should they qualify.

Andy

 

[Ricardo C]

So, what did you guys think of the opening ceremony? Didn't hold a candle to the 2002 one, but man what a great touch to have the veterans of past Cups parading around

 

[Andy_Bu]

ok so this is the point where I don't log in any more!

See you guys later and enjoy the games!

Andy

 

[Ricardo C]

Sorry :frowning:

 

[Holadem]

Ricardo, fret not.

The burden is on those of us who are time-shifting to stay away until we see the matches.

Everyone watching live should feel free to post whatever they wish.

--
H

 

[Holadem]

Man, Costa-Rica is putting up a heroic fight against the German juggernaut!

--
H

 

[Lew Crippen]

Yes, but too many mistakes—it looked to me as though Germany just stepped on the gas very time Costa Rica got close. Even so Germany also was sloppy at times.

Germany wins 4–2.

 

[Ricardo C]

I think Costa Rica played wonderfully, the 4-2 result doesn't tell the whole story about the match.

Even more amazing was Germany, who lived up to the "Panzer" nickname beautifully, even with Ballack warming the bench.

Ecuador pleasantly surprised me, I didn't expect such an aggressive showing from them (hell, even VENEZUELA beat them during the qualifiers )

 

[AlexBC]

I'm joining this thread a little late in the game, since it's been going on for some time. At least the real matches have just started.

I'm from Brazil, so needless to say who I'll be rooting for. But almost above that, I love some great soccer... so naturally I'll root for the teams that really deliver it.

Gee Tuesday can't come soon enough : )

 

[Andy_Bu]

OK I just finished watching both games. It was painful to stay off line all day. No matter what site I went to today, the world cup was plastered everywhere so I had to ban myself from surfing. I almost got some work done instead!


The German game was wonderful to watch. You could almost sense the crowd waiting for disastor when Costa Rica tied it at 1.

Two wonderfully taken goals by the Germans especially the last one what a cracker that was!

The Poland Ecuador game was strange. It seemed liked Ecuador was moving in slow motion. Even the two goals looked like a practice drill. But you have to had it to their defense, as Poland could not figure it out, even though they were unlucky in a couple of shots hitting the post.

Even though Ecuador won 2-0, I still think Costa Rica will give them a good game.

Can't wait for tomorrow when the very strong english side takes the field. Soccer will be on my tv's all day tomorrow.

Andy