The Official 2010 Football & World Cup Thread

progmetalhead wrote: ^^^       Maybe the jocks should take up knitting?             Your friendly sassenach scum

Our men's team wouldn't even qualify for the finals of the Woman's World Cup (but we could knit lots of lovely scarves for the fans of the finalists) Failing that, we could knit balaclavas for our own fans (without eyeholes)

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Although it pains me to admit as much, I do think Heskey does attract some unwarranted flak. Yes, he clearly has feet shaped like Toblerone, and appears to run as though walking an invisible dog, but defenders hate playing against him because of his incredible strength and he never allows them to settle on the ball (Defending from the front etc) England miss Joe Cole though, and will be (gulp) even more formidable if he can make his way back into the reckoning methinks. What chance ya think of a global air traffic controller's strike before 2010 ? (Fingers crossed)

el dingo wrote: ^ & ^^   I guess I'm a bit harsh on Heskey. I'm just frustrated that we don't seem to have anyone with his undeniable qualities who can stick the ball in the net as well.   I'd never doubt that he gives his all and that a lot of his good work is often off the ball and hence unnoticed, it's just that last night when he missed those clear cut chances it didn't matter, but at the Finals those type of misses will lose us points and/or games.   Anyway, a very satisfying qualifying tournament and i can't wait for the real thing

Edited by akamaisondufromage - September 10 2009 at 15:44

Tony R wrote: Jimbo wrote: Liechtenstein - Finland 1-1. Please excuse my language, but seriously....f**kin' pathetic.  We almost made it to EURO 2008, but this is just ridiculous. The worst game I've seen in AGES. England looks pretty strong though. Could it finally be their turn? Sorry Jimbo but I laughed when I saw that score! Finland are really struggling these days. It doesnt seem that long ago when your team could give anyone a run for their money. Could be worse, you could be Lithuanian: Faroe Islands 2-1 Lithuania or Belgian: Armenia 2-1 Belgium

Or Polish:

Slovenia 3 - 0 Poland

We're out...

Nevermind, Bartek... Poland will qualify for 2014 and you'll come here to watch them and drink some beers with us!

The T wrote: I really hope Peru does a good job against Argentina but that's very difficult, seeing how atrocious the peruvian team has been (even though this Argentina is not that far above..) Then, if Ecuador FINALLY beats Uruguay at home, it might be possible to grab our third world cup final in a row.   It's too difficult. It's ridiculous that Southamerica only gets 4 and a half spots in world cups while Europe gets like 392182019 and atrocious teams with no talent get in the competition.... Sadly, the power of UEFA is evident. Southamerica provides the best players, Europe takes all the places in the world cups...

I have to agree wholeheartedly with this (with the proviso that the African continent's quota of finalists completely dwarfs their achievements) Although there are considerably more teams competing in Europe (hence the reason they get drawn in groups of 5 or 6) a UEFA finalist only has to play 10 games max to get there compared with a whopping 18 matches for South America. As if that were not sufficient grist to the mill, the 5th placed CONMEBOL team has to play an energy sapping 2 legged play-off with either the Oceania champs or an Asian qualifier (I think ?) You can deduce a myriad of reasons for this but my money is on 'money' from the richer European soccer TV/media and the need for the likes of FIFA big cheese Sepp Blatter to get re-elected i.e. if your association votes for me, I will make finals qualification easier. He recently conned the associations of OCEANIA to vote for him with the promise of automatic qualification as a carrot (i.e. no play off required against the 5th place South American team) but reneged on this promise once re-elected. The perennial Oceanic champions Australia have now jumped ship and are members of the Asian confederation for this reason.

Tony R wrote: Paraguay win 1-0 and qualify for the Finals. Maradona? He'll be out of a job by the weekend.

Surprisingly the local media has found Messi guilty and has ignored Maradona's performance.

Tuzvihar wrote: Tony R wrote: Jimbo wrote: Liechtenstein - Finland 1-1. Please excuse my language, but seriously....f**kin' pathetic.  We almost made it to EURO 2008, but this is just ridiculous. The worst game I've seen in AGES. England looks pretty strong though. Could it finally be their turn? Sorry Jimbo but I laughed when I saw that score! Finland are really struggling these days. It doesnt seem that long ago when your team could give anyone a run for their money. Could be worse, you could be Lithuanian: Faroe Islands 2-1 Lithuania or Belgian: Armenia 2-1 Belgium Or Polish: Slovenia 3 - 0 Poland We're out...

Well, you can't compare Slovenia to Faroe Islands, they're far better. They even played in the WC before. You lost but not shamefully. Still that does not sound good for Euro 2012, isn't it?

Atkingani wrote: Nevermind, Bartek... Poland will qualify for 2014 and you'll come here to watch them and drink some beers with us!   On the other side, what did Africa do to have 6 teams in the finals? They never get even a single quarter-finals and have more than South America and only a half of the entire Europe, now added with many new countries from former USSR and Yugoslavia. Or maybe is it that FIFA & UEFA are honoring their agents and impresarios for exploiting the African blood?

Africa had one great team at each one of the last editions: Cameroon in 1990, Nigeria in 1994 and 1998, Senegal in 2002, Ghana in 2006. However they never have them at the same time , whereas South America has always at least two or three teams in the upper rounds of the tournament.

crimson87 wrote: My country is having a really hard time at the World Cup Qualifiers. In fact since Pekerman left in 2006 I haven't seen a decent match from Argentina. It's too easy to be harsh on Maradona but we all know he is Grondona's scapegoat. The main problem is that lots of our players are overrated such as :   Messi (ok great dribbling and speed but he doesn't have Riquelme's vision) TEVEZ Aguero ( great player but he is not a striker)  Gago Maxi Rodriguez Heinze And the worst thing is that Peru is out of the World Cup but it's obvious that they will be bribed by the rest of the Hispanic world more or less to left us out. And Uruguay... that's gonna be one hell of a match. As far as I am concerned , for the next World Cup I am chilean. It would be great to see our former coach Marcelo Bielsa to suceed winning the tournament since he was really underrated here and the press had no mercy on him.

I still think Argentina will get to South Africa (albeit by the play-offs) No disrespect to any Peruvians on PA but there has been many a precedent set for this type of corruption. However the poster should be careful from where they cast stones ( Argentina 6 - 0 Peru in Rosario 1978 where this unlikely scoreline dumped the Brazilians out of the World Cup amid dark mutterings of bribes, foreign aid and the small matter of Quiroga, a naturalised Argentinian in the Peruvian goal )

You cannot really compare Messi (a forward) and Riquelme (a playmaker) as the coach who includes either has to build his entire side round their talents e.g. the latter is one of the most perceptive passers in the world but slooow, while the former thrives in sides who play with a much quicker tempo than that of the Argentinian league that Riquelme plays in for Boca. For me at any rate, Maradona probably recognises correctly that they can't play in the same team together. Heinze has been an excellent and uncompromising defender for many years but he is now resorting more and more to 'clever' fouling as the passing years have taken their toll on his pace. I agree that Kun Aguero's future is probably not that of an out and out striker but he is still very young and not the finished article yet. (Maybe Arsenal will buy him in a couple of years - Please Mr Wenger) Tevez could pick a fight in an empty room and although a very talented and fiercely combative character, his indiscipline during the qualifying campaign has already cost his team by way of red cards. At his best he terrorises defenders, at his worst he resembles a terrier chasing traffic.

All said and done, the World Cup would be a poorer competition without Argentina.

el dingo wrote: crimson87 wrote: My country is having a really hard time at the World Cup Qualifiers. In fact since Pekerman left in 2006 I haven't seen a decent match from Argentina. It's too easy to be harsh on Maradona but we all know he is Grondona's scapegoat. The main problem is that lots of our players are overrated such as :   Messi (ok great dribbling and speed but he doesn't have Riquelme's vision) TEVEZ Aguero ( great player but he is not a striker)  Gago Maxi Rodriguez Heinze And the worst thing is that Peru is out of the World Cup but it's obvious that they will be bribed by the rest of the Hispanic world more or less to left us out. And Uruguay... that's gonna be one hell of a match. As far as I am concerned , for the next World Cup I am chilean. It would be great to see our former coach Marcelo Bielsa to suceed winning the tournament since he was really underrated here and the press had no mercy on him.   Quick question for you Crimso - I had the pleasure of seeing Ibagaza play for Real Mallorca a few times and he was a terrific little player. Is he part of the Chilean set-up this time round?

el dingo wrote: ^     I am talking about Ariel Ibagaza and some Spanish guy told me he was Chilean   No wonder I've not seen him mentioned in any Chile reports I've read on the net   Sorry - a great, creative little player whatever his country of origin   Edit: Thanks for the clip - I think the goalkeeper must be from Scotland!

Bribing a Scottish Goalie to 'throw a game' would be like giving a moth an 'all expenses paid' trip to the light-bulb.