Holland is good enough a second time and continues to get a lucky break. Man of the match: the referee Hector Walter Baldassi. This is how you govern a World Cup game: calmly, with good judgment and with enough restrain to only step forward when the game needed it. Well done.
Yes, I was kidding around. Sorry.
But thanks to you, I learned of two interesting sites to visit!
It seems to me that we play better against the excellent sides, so yes, complacency and arrogance have got to be factors.
restraint, not restrain. Why do I always see these mistakes too late? :smack:
The Socceroos are about to get a stuffing. Are you tuned in, guys?
What makes you say that? I think it will be pretty even.
I thought they looked strong and lively against Serbia, but Australia have them on the back foot at the moment.
He jumps, with his elbow high and hits his oponent in the face -->red card, no ambiguity, red card :rolleyes:
I’m happy to say you might be proven wrong on this one. I don’t particularly car for any of these 4 countries, but an Australian win would set up a great batch of final games (all teams with 3 points).
You was saying? 
I think this is going to go down as the World Cup of Goalkeeping Howlers. Just what exactly was the Ghana 'keeper trying to do on the Australian goal? It looked like he was in perfect position to catch the free kick on the bounce, but instead he tried to underhand-punch the ball to someone. He did, but it was a Socceroo instead of a Black Star teammate. If the game ends 1-1 he’ll have some hard questions to answer.
Too bad it clearly wasn’t intentional. Not even close.
Want intentional? Look at Derossi in '06.
BBC have reported that Anelka is likely to be sent home from the French team - apparently for tearing strips off the coach at half-time in the Mexico game. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the French camp over the last week or so - bet there have been some real explosions.
It took me until this morning to realize that there would be a thread for this in the Game Room.:smack: I’ve been commenting on Facebook, to the bewildered amusement of my so-called friends.
So far, I’ve been impressed with Chile, and with the Argentine team (mostly for managing to pull a functioning team out of Maradona’s ah, INTERESTING, coaching style). The Germans looked good against Australia, but not against Serbia, making me think that weren’t good so much as the Socceroos were really bad. England…I hear a rumor they have excellent attacking players on that team. Can anyone confirm?
The US team are playing to their strength as a side - they go out there and never say die, fighting it out till the last whistle blows. Not brilliant, not always pretty, but always trying hard. Go USA!
Exhibit A on the English rugby team. Well done, lads.
Even the English cricket team has shown significantly more fire, although much of that fire is from the imported players.
No, it’s just one of those stupid football cliches that is commonly used. Algeria have only won one of their last 9 games, and (on paper at least) England would be the best team they’d expect to play in the finals. What Gerrard said after the game was OK, that we weren’t good enough and that the problem was a ‘lack of courage in the final 3rd’. I don’t think the problem is the England team over-rating themselves, that’s always been the problem with the press in this country. I’m fairly sure that the problem is nerves and a complete loss of confidence, not overconfidence. We’ve just come off the back of our most solid qualifying campaign in my lifetime, where we did put in the performances against these sort of teams. All of a sudden, once the main event has started, we’ve completely gone to pieces. That would have been a poor performance for a Championship side.
But, but he’s always seemed like such an easy-going likeable chap!
The Incredible Sulk — the perfect name for Anelka.
I wrote at South St. Seaport: “This is why Americans make fun of soccer”.
Whoa, dude, chill.
Games like England/Algeria, with a seeming juggernaut of a powerful team where Football is a Way of Life (FIAWOL) facing a small but plucky nation in North Africa, are supposed to be nail-biting, aren’t they? I’d just watched my home team battle to a tie in a real nail-biter and everybody was expecting even more excitement from the English. Instead we got Missed Opportunity Theater for two hours. I don’t know where you are, but here the games are all shown during the day. People have to take off work or vacation time to go out and see them (although there’s way too many laid-off people like me around, too). No goals, no score, cries of frustration instead of triumph.
And no, Americans aren’t stoic all the time, you should have seen the faces of the Yankees fans last night when we lost to the…the…(gulp) Mets 4-0. I don’t know where I ever said that, though.
Here’s some reaction from a middlebrow American paper about yesterday’s US/Slovenia game. FWIW.
Adding: in America, for most poeple, F(ootball)IJAGDH. I’ll see if any of my fellow 80s kids gets that.
Maybe so, but you don’t know that, and neither does the ref, which is why the ref is not asked to judge a players intention but their behavior, which in this case was deserving of a red card as per the rule book.
Why do you say Holland got a lucky break? The goal was at least in part the keeper’s error, and the game was hardly a display of football passion, but the Netherlands were dominant throughout the large majority of it and certainly deserved to win.
ETA: agreeing re: Baldassi, that was some mighty fine reffing.