If you're following the World Cup...

[mhendo]

@Cicero

I’d love to see Australia win. But lets face it- they beat Japan. They got hosed by Brazil. They drew with Croatia. One win out of three?

My roughie- Spain.

And I don’t think England have any chance. Too inflexible, too boring, too everything.

I think that describing Australia’s loss to Brazil as “hosed” isn’t very fair. They played well, took the game to the Brazilians on multiple occasions, and just about every commentator i’ve read or heard (all non-Australians) have praised the team for its performance against the world number 1.

Were the Aussies outclassed? Sure. There’s no denying that Brazil is in a different league when it comes to raw talent, teamwork, precision, and sheer footballing skill. But the Socceroos did as well as anyone expected, and probably better than most expected.

I, too, like Spain, and hope they move forward. I would like to see England do well, but they just haven’t shown many signs of inspiring football in this competition, and losing Michael Owen up front was quite a blow.

@fetus

Speaking of referee fiascos, how about the new “free gravity goal”, where if you’re playing against the USA and you go up for a header, and you can prove gravity still works by falling to the ground of your own volition after losing the header, you get a penalty kick? So far the most exciting part of watching the US team’s matches is the fun new rules that get invented. By 2014 Americans will be getting yellow cards for each shot they take on goal.

Yeah, i think the US team got well and truly shafted by the officiating in this competition. I’m not cynical enough to attribute it to some sort of anti-American prejudice; i just think they were unlucky enough to be playing in games where some awful decisions were made. The penalty that led to Ghana’s second goal was a joke.

@fetus

That said, they had to take care of business and they failed, and I doubt they would’ve won even without the free gravity goal. But it was a pretty amazing spectacle anyway.

This is true, too. I thought Ghana were the better team by a considerable margin for most of the game, and while they never should have got their second goal, they did deserve to win the game.

There was no excuse for the magnitude of the loss to the Czech Republic; the Americans just played awfully. Sure, the Czechs were expected to win anyway, but the US performance in that game set the tone for the rest of their World Cup.

They got unlucky again with officiating against Italy, with two red cards that constituted major over-reactions by the referee, IMO. Playing 9 against 10 doesn’t make for very good football.

Overall, too many of America’s star players (looking at you, Landon Donovan) didn’t show up in this competition.

@fetus

Bruce Arena’s time has long come and gone, signaled not only by his utter inability to motivate and lead his team but also by the way he has thrown professionalism out the window in the last year of his contract. Calling out your employees publicly, one by one, in a press conference? Sounds like something a callous asshole would do upon resigning his post. I’m pretty sure I’m right about the callous asshole part; I hope I’m right about the leaving-his-job part too.

The ESPN commentators certainly seem to agree with you. I don’t know enough about his tenure as coach to say one way or the other, and i never watch post-game press conferences (in any sport) because they’re always dull as dishwater and full of hackneyed cliches.

@Szlater

But when it comes to complaining about missed penalties, bookings and sendings off, the Australian team really shouldn’t complain. Cahill should have been sent off in the match against Japan, but wasn’t and went on to score two goals.

I’m not sure why the issue of bad officiating has to be some sort of nationalist one-upmanship (Oh yeah, you can’t complain, because your guy should have been sent off!).

As far as i’m concerned (and most Aussies i know feel the same way), poor officiating is bad whether it leads to a win or a loss for my team. No-one likes to have a victory soured by the thought that a bad refereeing call helped them win, and people like it even less when their team has to go home after being on the wrong end of bad calls. The best games are the ones where no-one even talks about the referee afterwards.

The only redeeming factor about the bad officiating in the last couple of games that i watched (US-Ghana; Australia-Croatia) is that, despite the poor refereeing, the best team got the right result on both occasions.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@mhendo

I’m not cynical enough to attribute it to some sort of anti-American prejudice

Well. I wouldn’t use the word “prejudice”, but have you ever noticed that Greg Maddox’s strike zone is a teensy bit bigger than a rookie starter’s? Or that if Derek Jeter and (say) Khalil Greene check a swing the exact same way, it’s a ball on Jeter but it might be a strike on Khalil? The ump probably doesn’t have a prejudice in either case, but subconsciously they give the stars and the proven players and teams the benefit of the doubt. I think that’s the case in reverse here in 2006: a lot of people feel that the #5 ranking is artificially inflated, and if a benefit of any doubt is to be given in a US match on the World Cup stage, at least subconsciously I think the ref figures the Americans to be overblown losers and maybe that causes a subtle shift in the calls. To be fair, there have been bad calls in the USA’s favor too. But that’s how I sees it.

@mhendo

The ESPN commentators certainly seem to agree with you. I don’t know enough about his tenure as coach to say one way or the other, and i never watch post-game press conferences (in any sport) because they’re always dull as dishwater and full of hackneyed cliches.

Arena’s aren’t. Boy howdy, they aren’t! I don’t watch post-game press conferences for the same reason, though; I don’t know about your paper (I thought the Sun was kind of a joke when I lived on the Beltway; maybe you get the Post, but I wouldn’t know about them either)'s coverage of the Cup, but the San Diego Union-Tribune sports section the day after the Czech Republic game was covered with stories about Bruce Arena publicly blaming the game on specific players and then the specific players defending themselves or sniping back. Way to score one for team unity!

I think that Julie Foudy (who I have long admired as a player, BTW, even if her ESPN makeup crew is not particularly kind to her) is right in the very least that 8 years is too long for one coach who’s obviously losing his edge, and I’m more inclined to agree with Eric Wynalda, who had a number of cross words for Arena that were more specific in nature. I remember intensely disliking Arena before 2002, also, although honestly I can’t remember what for.

@mhendo

The only redeeming factor about the bad officiating in the last couple of games that i watched (US-Ghana; Australia-Croatia) is that, despite the poor refereeing, the best team got the right result on both occasions.

True, but like Landon Donovan said, the free gravity goal changed the nature of the game. Instead of being confident about having just tied it up, and going into the locker room able to devise a plan for how to take an advantage, suddenly they had to figure out a way to get back into the game. That’s no excuse for the US or for Donovan, whose skill and experience levels were high enough that they should’ve figured out a way to do it. But it’s true nonetheless, I think. That call really changed the game and it’s unfortunate.

[Szlater]

@mhendo

I’m not sure why the issue of bad officiating has to be some sort of nationalist one-upmanship (Oh yeah, you can’t complain, because your guy should have been sent off!).

Err… my comment was more ‘swings and roundabouts’ rather than a ‘I hate Australia’ dig. I certainly don’t have a nationalist axe to grind, not being Croatian, Australian, Japanese or Brazilian. There were a lot of decisions that went in favour of Australia, and there were probably an equal amount that went against. In the end Australia qualified for the group of 16 and Croatia didn’t, and that’s all that matters.

[irishgirl]

I only ask about Ronaldo, because as one of the most talented and highly paid footballers in the world, even with an injury, he should have a team of nutritionists, dieticians, physiotherapists and trainers on his back 24/7 about his weight and fitness. Even if he didn’t employ them himself, his club would, to protect their investment. If he has let himself go to the extent he has, IMO it suggests something else is going on, like a drug or alcohol addiction.

Cocaine, although it suppresses the appetite while you’re high, doesn’t do so when you’re not. There are a fair few people who have become very puffy and bloated, most likely due to their prodigious cocaine use. Maradonna, Chris Penn and Pete Doherty to name a few.

[DMark]

Back to the OP…

Granted, it is after the fact, but the chances of the USA winning were about equal to pigs flying. Would have been fun to see, simply to see World Cup fans’ heads explode around the world, but chances of a US win were slight, to say the least.

Personally, I would like to see Germany win. I lived there, they have done a fine job so far in hosting the games, and in the few snippets of games I have seen, Germany has been playing quite well - without the usual cries of “foul” when they win.

Recent press of the English hooligans causing havoc in Germany have (unfairly) made me want to see England lose soon and get the hell out of Germany.

[Quartz]

I rather think England are going to lose this afternoon: it’s simply too hot.

[NineToTheSky]

@Quartz

I rather think England are going to lose this afternoon: it’s simply too hot.

Thankfully, wrong. 1-0.

[mhendo]

I was very impressed by Rooney today. Easily the best player on the field, and looked better and better as the match went on, especially for a guy coming back after a long break. Plenty of people expected him to run out of gas, but his fitness really held up well. England looked disorganised and uninspiring in the first half, but, like Rooney, got better in the second half.

One problem for England, it seems to me, is that Rooney was about the only player doing anything inspiring. Lampard and Gerrard were both mediocre at best, and bloody awful at times. Lampard hasn’t impressed me in this whole World Cup. I’ve heard he’s been an excellent player for Chelsea, but we musn’t have seen his real abilities in Germany.

England should ask FIFA to change the rules to allow for special “Free kick takers,” players who could come on to take free kicks and then go straight back off the field again. That way they could take advantage of Beckham’s one real remaining skill, without having him drag the team down like an anchor for the rest of the game.

The fact that Beckham kicked the winner is actually, i think, a mixed blessing for England. As long as he does that occasionally, the manager and selectors will continue to overlook the fact that he’s done nothing at all in regular play, and will continue to delay replacing him with younger, more promising players. He was barely a factor in open field play today.

Overall, a decent if uninspiring performance. If England keep improving they could go much further in this tournament, but they’ll have to play better than today if they want to beat teams like Argnetina, Germany, or even the Dutch or Portugal.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@irishgirl

If he has let himself go to the extent he has, IMO it suggests something else is going on, like a drug or alcohol addiction.

The thing is that pretty much all drug addictions either have no effect on weight or make the addict lose weight. Marijuana can indirectly lead to gaining weight, but I don’t think that counts here.

@irishgirl

Cocaine, although it suppresses the appetite while you’re high, doesn’t do so when you’re not.

But if you’re an addict, you’re always high. The people you mentioned got fat because of their lifestyle. I used a pretty fair number of the slimming-down drugs, although never in truly high frequency, when I lived in a dorm for a semester and I gained 30 pounds–not because of the drugs but because of the inactive, health-indifferent lifestlye I was leading. Ronaldo is getting fatter because he’s getting older and (slightly) less relevant to his team. Tony Gwynn, one of the great place hitters of all time, became really fat during the last 5 years or so of his career because once he was rich and happy and established he could do what he wanted and let his physical training slack, although he was always known as an incredibly dedicated athlete.

Quartz, it may be hot, but Ecuador apparently has no desire to win games.

[Quartz]

@fetus

Quartz, it may be hot, but Ecuador apparently has no desire to win games.

Fortunately it wasn’t that hot - the sun was covered by clouds for much of the game, which I think made a big difference.

I think people are being overly harsh on Beckham. He scored the winning goal against Paraguay (albeit deflected off another player) and seems to be a good glue player - he does his share of passing, marking, and tackling. I’m not even a fan of football, but I’ve been watching, and it seems to me that England’s issues are backs who want to be midfielders and a strong midfield at the expense of the forward. Just like Crouch earlier, all too often Rooney was forward all on his own. That’s not going to hack it against the better teams.

But we won!

[mhendo]

@Quartz

Fortunately it wasn’t that hot - the sun was covered by clouds for much of the game, which I think made a big difference.

I dunno about that.

The commentators here were saying that the temperature was in the low 90s, meaning about 33-34C, which is pretty damn hot for football; they said the current temperature in London was about 70, or 21C.

@Quartz

I think people are being overly harsh on Beckham. He scored the winning goal against Paraguay (albeit deflected off another player) and seems to be a good glue player - he does his share of passing, marking, and tackling. I’m not even a fan of football, but I’ve been watching, and it seems to me that England’s issues are backs who want to be midfielders and a strong midfield at the expense of the forward. Just like Crouch earlier, all too often Rooney was forward all on his own. That’s not going to hack it against the better teams.

We’ll have to agree to disagree about Beckham. At the international level, i really think that a team’s (allegedly) best midfielder and ball distributor needs to do more than he has been doing.

I agree about getting more guys forward. They would be better off with a 4-4-2 layout.

@Quartz

But we won!

Yep, and deserved to win.

But Portugal and the Netherlands are playing a cracking game right now, and whoever wins will give England plenty of trouble unless the English show considerable improvement.

[Quartz]

@mhendo

The commentators here were saying that the temperature was in the low 90s, meaning about 33-34C,

Yes, I heard that too, but that was the temperature in the sun, not the shade.

But Portugal and the Netherlands are playing a cracking game right now,
and whoever wins will give England plenty of trouble unless the English show considerable improvement.

Hopefully they won’t have that idiotic referee.

How many Yellow Cards did he show? 16? 17? More? I liked the commentator who said that the linesman was reminding him that there were three players to whom he had not shown a Yellow Card.

[Rysto]

@Quartz

Hopefully they won’t have that idiotic referee.

How many Yellow Cards did he show? 16? 17? More? I liked the commentator who said that the linesman was reminding him that there were three players to whom he had not shown a Yellow Card.

What was he supposed to do? Pretty much all of the cards were deserved. Portugal and the Netherlands played an ugly game.

[GorillaMan]

I don’t know why all this is in spoilers…but no way were most of those cards justified. The ref had lost the plot entirely, having set himself a ludicrously-low benchmark early on.

[Quartz]

I put it in spoilers because the match had only just finished and people might have recorded the match to watch in the evening or something. They’ll have done that by now.

Anyway, I felt that the referee simply didn’t have control of the game. Had he had control, the game would have been nowhere near so rough.

[GorillaMan]

I’ll agree he didn’t have control, but that was his own doing by starting on the card-fest so eagerly. If any foul can earn a yellow card, why not play dirty? (Both managers and plenty of players are criticising the ref, fwiw)

[Shirley_Ujest]

@glee

What is your position on a guy who has a … body? (insert hopeful smilie)

Is there a pulse? Is there a loaded wallet? ( answer the second first. )

Oh yeah, Go England. w00t!

[Shirley_Ujest]

Various video linkies of football goodness. . Just to keep the buzz alive until the next match.

[Fish_Cheer]

I feel bad for that Australian guy, Neill.

[mamboman]

I am so proud of the Socceroos. This morning, all they could talk about on the radio was the injustice of the penalty - but honestly, I really wish they wouldn’t. We had enough chances to bury Italy (and having done that we could totally beat Ukraine in the quarters) and we shouldn’t have put ourselves in the position to give away the penalty in the first place. What we have to do here is celebrate the magnificent achievements of the team and get about the serious business of entrenching football’s credibility in the country. This is no time for prima donna behaviour.

Guus Hiddink is a national hero at the moment - and good luck to him with Russia. The Socceroos are a credit to our nation and to the beautiful game itself.

Had humanity ever done one single thing greater than the World Cup ?

mm