Doing a Google search on funny chants turns up some hilarity, such as this list from the Telegraph.
I like these:
Doing a Google search on funny chants turns up some hilarity, such as this list from the Telegraph.
I like these:
That’s not quite right, actually. To be onsides, he has to be in front of the ball (i.e. have the ball between him and the goal he’s attacking) or be in front of or even with two defenders (in practice, the goalkeep is almost always one of those defenders, so he just has to make sure he’s in front of the last field defender).
The original sentence in the rulebook is confusing because it’s sort of written backwards, but the general idea is pretty clear: either the ball or two defenders between you and the goal.
Group B games are finishing up just about as expected.
Spain have taken care of Australia pretty comfortably, and Holland has accounted for Chile.
Australia showed today why they are the lowest-ranked team in the World Cup. They really missed Cahill, and they showed little of the vigor they had against Holland last week. Very little movement off the ball in attack, and a pretty uninspiring performance overall.
Spain played like World Champions today. Torres looked good and Mata was quite sharp. Pity it came too late. They stuck with old legs too long.
They played pretty well, against inferior opposition that was missing its best player. If you handed them a Free Pass to the second round of the tournament right now, i wouldn’t bet on them against any of the other top teams.
My all time favorite chant is “Suarez is a racist da daa daa da. Do do do do do do Racist Bastard!”
Another good thing about the U.S. doing well is that more Americans become curious about soccer, and we Europeans get to explain to you how it works. It’s not that often that we get to feel all superior and school you Yanks about something these days. 
From the comments:
That’s very harsh, but fair.
And there’s a reminder of Man U’s fans anthem for their own player, the Korean Park Ji-Sung, to the tune of “Lord of the Dance”.
There’s a sociology thesis to be written about the variants of that song.
Ah, that is close. Thanks! Yup, he seems just onside from that.
Sadly that lasts for about a month.
What picture are you looking at? From those links, it’s quite clear Yedlin was at least half a foot onside.
Six inches is pretty close in most books.
Better than being the highest-ranked team *out *of it. ![]()
You don’t hear much here anymore about English football hooligans, or any other kind either. Have law enforcement and immigration authorities taken care of the problem effectively, or is the subculture still active?
That is close. Also he’s leaning.
Thing of the past, mostly. Whether through smarter policing, or socioeconomic change or whatever, is another topic for that sociology thesis mentioned earlier. Football hooliganism, to the extent that it is still around, is more of an Eastern European thing these days.
It wasn’t ever a problem at far flung tournaments anyway, because not enough of them could afford to travel. Last instance of English trouble was in Belgium in 2000, IIRC.
Any other fans of Holland rather face Mexico than Croatia?
Does Canada have a soccer team?
Yes, they’re in CONCACAF, but have not qualified for the World Cup since 1986.
Yes. They’re not terribly good. I imagine they’ll get quite a bit better now that they have a couple MLS teams and the associated player development programs.
They won the Gold Cup a few years back.