The Official 2010 Football & World Cup Thread

Gamemako wrote: Catcher10 wrote: [QUOTE=stonebeard]That was a horrifically boring game.   4. Americans also like more strategy and order to their games. Soccer is chaotic, with the fewest time spent in designed plays of any team sport this side of Cricket.

 

Catcher10 wrote: stonebeard wrote: That was a horrifically boring game.   This is exactly why futbol will not ever be big in the US.......Unless you are totally into how many 1-touch passes, break-aways, almosts (which only count in horse shoes..), what-ifs....   1-0 games will always be called boring especially after 90 min of playing.   The US loves SCORING!!! A 34-30 NFL game is 100% better than a 7-0 NFL game....a 1-0 futbol match can be compared to a 1-0 baseball game...that's pretty boring. But here they try to justify it by calling that a pitchers duel......not sure what you would call in futbol. Possibly a goalie duel...assuming all the shots on goal do not sail 10' over the post.     Hooorray for SPAIN!! They were my pick in May, although I had them over Brasil in the final but they fagged out.

That's also not really true. NFL scores have traditionally been around 10-14 (one-and-a-half scores to two scores -- like 2-1 in soccer). It's only been recently that scores have ballooned in American football. Shootouts aren't really that great of games to watch, honestly. Furthermore, baseball games are easily twice as long as soccer games: you expect scoring. Hell, Stephen Strasburg sells 20,000 tickets wherever he goes, and he doesn't score runs, he prevents them! What you don't get in the U.S. is cricket-style scoring -- no, only Europeans (and former British colonies) watch games where the game's combined score tops 500.

The things that Americans don't like about soccer? Well, let's go over a few of them.

1. Americans have a national obsession with justice and fairness. If ever there were a sport where cheating is horribly prevalent and even accepted, it is soccer. Players constantly take dives and it constantly pays off. In American sports, that would have been banned long ago.

2. There's also no instant replay and a remarkable dearth of officials -- seriously 3 for a field of 22 men spread across a massive field of play? You're just asking for calls to be the difference in the game, like the red card was that directly resulted in Spain's victory. Over a 162-game season, as in baseball, missed calls balance out. In a situation where a retarded referee red-cards a player and causes a team to lose, chance beats skill and Americans get annoyed.

3. To follow up on the dives, we like our athletes to be athletes. Soccer players taking dives are like little girls getting boo-boos, not the most fit and skilled men the country has to offer.

4. Americans also like more strategy and order to their games. Soccer is chaotic, with the fewest time spent in designed plays of any team sport this side of Cricket.

And if you want to know why that was a boring game, Spain is a boring, boring team to watch. They spend 90% of their possession time (which comprises 60% of the total most games) just passing the ball back and forth, not even moving forward or backward.

    very cool indeed

Well done to Spain!

Poor old Howard Webb.  Ironically, is getting it in the neck from the Spanish and The Dutch.  When the truth is he did a pretty good job, surrounded by a bunch of players - mainly Dutch who wanted to ruin the game.  The Dutch should take a long hard look at themselves before blaming the ref.  They have a lot of quality - enough to have made a game of it without resorting to fouling every time they could.

memowakeman wrote: WORLD CUP 2010: Holland stars Wesley Sneijder and Robin van Persie hit out at Howard Webb for 'robbing' them as Spain claim glorious triumph Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1294011/WORLD-CUP-2010-Holland-stars-Wesley-Sneijder-Robin-van-Persie-hit-Howard-Webb-robbing-Spain-claim-glorious-triumph.html#ixzz0tVJusFm2   ---- Well, Holland forgot to play football yesterday and now they say this. They had clear goal opportunities. They should have played with 10 players after that criminal De Jong kick. They didn't deserve to win.

not surprised to see that happen.  They didn't exactly come off as classy yesterday..  not surprised to see that after the match.  They have only themselves to blame.. they obviously felt they needed to play a physical game to offset Spain's skill which is a shame. It isn't like the Dutch were...errr.. the US out there. They had a lot of skill. Rather disappointed they just didn't play their game.. and best team wins.  Oh well.. in that.. I guess the best team did win.


Edited by micky - July 12 2010 at 16:13

Awesome statistics, Harmonium.

Atkingani wrote: I compare football (soccer) with prog: you need the patience to capture all details and later appreciate it drop by drop. Great games are like prog epics - the overall frame will satisfy you much more than sparse moments.

Superb analogy


When is the next Copa America? I have become interested in the South American teams much more than I was before, because of this World Cup. My main curiosities are:
- will the Argentinians get a real coach?
- what kind of tactics will the next Brazilian coach want to implement? Total football or pragmatism, or both?
- will the Uruguayans manage to improve their performance from the World Cup?
- will Chile and Paraguay grow, or was this World Cup their apex?

I compare football (soccer) with prog: you need the patience to capture all details and later appreciate it drop by drop. Great games are like prog epics - the overall frame will satisfy you much more than sparse moments.

^ Agreed. Personally my enjoyment of football doesn't have much to do with the score, but with the types and intensities of the tensions that are drawn by the movement of the ball and of the players.

Also,