That was pathetic from Portugal.
My curse works! Excellent. In keeping with my near-inverse record, I now predict that Italy will win 3-0 in the final, with Henry failing to score three times, and Totti getting sent on in the 40th minute. 
That was a pretty rubbish match, it has to be said. France demonstrated little of the flow or invention they showed against Spain or Brazil, and Portugal were just crap. Fantastic to see the little shit Ronaldo booed at every opportunity; while he showed some flashes of brilliance, he also made enough blatant dives to warrant being sent off in his own right. Respect to the referee for spotting pretty much every dive; would have been nice to see some cards for it, though. Still, amazing really that the ref only showed one yellow, given the pressure on the officials from Blatter et al.
Heh :). I shouldn’t hijack an innocent sports thread; if you’re interested, the slightly odd details are in the latest post on my blog.
Well, at least I got the winners of the semis right, even if I got the scores the wrong way round.
I’ll stick with Italy in a penalty shoot-out after a sterile 0-0, more on the evidence of past finals than a genuine wish to see anything but a football-fest. Nice to think that a few of those home-loving Azurri might be plying their trade in the English League next season. As long as they’re signed in pairs, and have someone to talk to, who knows? it might just happen.
Cannavaro alongside Ferdinand at United?..Buffon replacing Lehmann as Arsenal move to their new stadium? One can dream.
Can you explain this to me? I missed the game (studying for a test–my classmates begged me to help them out and they bought me lunch to convince me to do it instead of watching the game). What exactly did Scolari do?
I dug that the ref in Italy-Germany didn’t buy Italy’s dives, either. There were plays on which Italy dove and then got the call–but only because there was a legitimate foul in the first place and the Italians were just embellishing it. I too would like to see yellow cards for the diving, but then again we should be happy the finalists have any starters available at all! Should surely make for a better game, if the refs are on top of the diving again–I’m sure Italy is going to do its best acting job once more.
IMO, Lehmann was one of the most impressive goalies in the tournament despite those two late goals conceded to Italy. I contend that his defense parted like the Red Sea, and without super-elastic stretching powers there wasn’t much he could’ve done. He made some great saves throughout the game, too, and won the quarterfinal singlehandedly IMO. Lehmann is absolutely nothing to sneeze at, and I look forward to him and Buffon dominating the tournament in 2010.
Really. And they really bad at it. So unconvinciing. It’s too bad, when they actually play, they play very attractively. But then at the end of dangerous attack…flop. :dubious: :mad: :wally
If they could afford the Italian keeper, Arsenal would almost certainly want to replace their ageing stopper (never at his best against crosses) with the world Number One. But, then again, so would any team.
Don’t get me wrong, Buffon is a fantastic keeper and I think any club would consider themselves lucky to have him. Absolutely an upgrade. But I for one was impressed by Lehmann’s play in the WC.
Annoying, after the silly sod basically lost the European Cup final for Arsenal by getting himself sent off. :smack:
He just went on a bit of a rampage around the centre circle, pointing at the ref and presumably shouting unprintable things in Portuguese. Kept walking towards the guy, shouting and gesticulating, then spinning away like “I’m done with you”, then turning back for some more. It was quite funny. I’d really like to know which foul he thinks should’ve been a penalty, and be able to sit there while he watches it in slo-mo. Still, good to see England don’t have the monopoly on misplaced outrage after a crap performance.
Incidentally, Lehmann will be 40 by the time of the next World Cup; I’d be surprised to see him still playing at that age, even if keepers do have a slightly longer shelf-life than outfield players. And while he has been good this tournament (definitely nothing he could’ve done about Italy’s goals), he’s definitely prone to the occasional wobble. I’d rather have Spain’s third-choice keeper, really. And hey! My team does.
Really? I wasn’t able to follow that. I had no idea…
I must admit I had no idea he was 36. That said, most WC goalies are balding and Lehmann still seems to have most/all of his hair. 
Okay, it’s that day! A month of football comes to an end tonight, and let’s hope for a classic, eh? Earlier silly predictions aside, I do think the Italians have the strength and consistency (not to mention fitness) to shade it, but you can’t bet against a moment of Zidane or Henry magic. I don’t think anyone having watched these two teams’ defences throughout this tournament will really be expecting a 5-goal thriller, but on the other hand both teams (and especially Italy) have used their strong bases to push forward more than you might expect at times.
Bit early for retrospectives since the final will really put the colour on the whole tournament, but I’m still going to start. A solid tournament overall, rather than spectacular. The group stages had much more excitement due to teams either feeling confident enough to attack against weaker teams, or teams with nothing to lose going all out for qualification. The knockout stages have been a bit of a blank by contrast, with the exception of Germany-Italy and possibly France-Spain. Too many teams have been shutting up shop, so afraid to lose that they forgot to go forward and win. Bizarrely, of all the teams Italy have been least guilty of this, and I hope they continue in that vein in the final.
Finally: how’s this tournament appealed to youse Americans? Do we have any new converts? Do you find the Euro-domination off-putting, or is it just a fact of the game at present? Anyone been tempted to buy a football and get out there and kick it, or do you find the whole thing faintly daft? Is the off-side rule really that perplexing, or does our laughable lack of statistic-gathering make football pale next to your popular sports in terms of complexity? And have I used up my question-mark quota?
Yes, I have.
This American for one will not stay home to watch it, but she will stick in a tape and fast-forward through the boring parts, ie the times when they’re just kicking the ball from one guy to another to another to another to another…wake me up when one of them does a dive, that’s always amusing. It’s starting in the early afternoon here.
The bars in NYC are geared up, and the Italians are psyched but since my neighborhood has neither French or Italians, I don’t expect much celebration either way. The vast majority of Americans will probably know who won by tomorrow but won’t be watching–the weather’s nice today, time to get out!
I enjoyed the tournament this year much more than in 2002. Thanks to the feedback from the knowledgable fans around here*, I was able to appreciate the game much better. (That’s actually a double-edged sword, as I was able to better “appreciate” the diving, which I didn’t recall from 02.)
I watched, let’s see, five games? All three US games in group play, obviously. Plus in the later rounds I caught Germany over Argentina and Portugal over England. (I think that’s right, but the Euro teams sorta blend together in my hazy memory.)
Euro domination didn’t bother me a bit. I expected them to dominate this tournament, as I seem to recall hearing that South America and Europe switch off winning every other tournament, and Brazil won the last one.
I’m too old to play team sports, because there aren’t enough warm bodies with free time to get a pickup game going. And I’m not interested in playing simplified versions of actual sports. If I want activity, I play tennis in the summer or go downhill skiing in the winter. (Or discgolf if I’m feeling lazy.)
I have no issue with the offsides rule; seems perfectly workable to me, and I’m already desensitized to the general concept from hockey.
Frankly, the game does seem simplistic as far as organized professional sports go. Also, I tried to pay attention to how much actual action was going on at any one time, and there were precious few times when I saw more than a handful of players playing hard. The vast majority of the best action involved one on one battles while everybody else just sorta milled around. I need much more inclusive action in my team sports. (That’s why I like the NFL and NHL, and can’t stand MLB.)
The ubiquity of aimless long distance kicks resulting in turnovers really bugged me, and not just from the keepers. Possession doesn’t seem to be much of a concern in the game of soccer. It’s true that the dump & chase tactic in hockey is similar, but at least there they usually slam into each other when possession is in flux.
In a nutshell, soccer feels to me like turn-based NFL football. I know that sounds backwards, but the action in the NFL involves everyone going balls out at the same time, 120 times per game. Soccer seemed to be two guys going balls out 120 times a game, and more complex high intensity action maybe a dozen times. This effect is only exacerbated late in the game when everyone is sucking wind. Plus, the diving really annoyed me.
But all in all, I found the games I watched well worth watching and enjoyable. When good action bubbled up, it was riveting. I’ll certainly be tuning in next World Cup, but I doubt I’ll watch any soccer between now and then. (I can’t imagine watching MLS, nor do I have any desire to watch other country’s leagues. My “hometown” of NYC has 8 major pro teams not counting niche stuff like MLL or the AFL; I don’t watch Boston sports, why would I watch something from another country?)
I didn’t watch the final today, but that’s only because I had my fill of sports from watching the excellent Federer Nadal final at Wimbledon.
- Although the overriding impression I get of the game from the posters here is that it’s an unimaginably fragile sport, wherein any change to any rule would fundamentally change it into a completely different game. That’s a rules committee version of diving, IMO, and it makes the sport less appealing to me in general. I greatly prefer dynamic rulesets, but that’s just me.
Michael Davies:
“I am amazed at the volume of coverage in the U.S. Must be 10 times the newspaper coverage compared to 2002. Add in TV, Internet and the blogosphere (where this World Cup has truly found its medium) and the World Cup has now truly arrived on the American sporting calendar. I will save the TV ratings analysis for another day, but it is sensational.”
The announcers have stopped explaining offside, so I think most people who are watching have a decent grasp of offside.
I’d hate to think I’d helped you “appreciate” the diving; it was atrocious in this tournament. I’m on record in several threads as thinking that the refereeing standards in earlier matches set the tone for the tournament and encouraged simulation beyond a forward’s wildest dreams. Only in the latter matches did the truly top class referees take control and deliver us from the parade of Oscar contenders, in spite of what Sepp “five-a-side” Blatter demanded. Truly, this Cup has been a low point for the contest of defence and forward flair.
I actually think the judging of the offsides has been outstanding in this tournament. Much was made of the change to determining whether a player is “active”, but the linesmen in this tournament have been positively superhuman in making these calls. I take my hat off to them. I even put a hat on specially so I could take it off.
I do think you probably watched some of the wrong matches. While there hasn’t been an outstanding “great” team in this World Cup, some of the goals scored (in particular I’m thinking of Argentina) have been positively stunning team efforts. I also strongly believe that television coverage of football militates against getting a good appreciation of the team behaviour throughout a match. At any given time you can only see perhaps a third of the players on the pitch, and get very little idea of the flow of a match. It’s incomparable to seeing it in person, and I’m hoping that the advent of HDTV and larger screens will cause directors to show more wide angle shots. For me one of the best bits of coverage in the tournament was when ITV lost the official feed in one match and were forced to use their own full-pitch camera for 10 minutes or so. You got a far better idea of the flow of the teams around the pitch; it was really illuminating.
I’m with you on the latter, but I feel like you’re not seeing the movement off the ball; it’s absolutely crucial. Like I say, I think television coverage doesn’t help in this respect, but there’s so much more to this game than one-on-one contests of skill.
Well, as was mentioned earlier, a lot of the hostility to rule changes is born of the fact that we do hear a lot of “well, if Americans are going to enjoy this, it needs ,” which is pretty annoying. I completely realise that when you were asking questions that wasn’t what you were saying, but I think rather than saying that the sport is fragile, the objectors were really saying “no, this is a fairly well-honed sport, and <some aspect> is what we appreciate about it, and would rather not see it changed.”
I do agree there are some definite changes that could be made, in particular with regard to discipline and the options a ref has to penalise a team, but in general I think football is a beautiful, flowing sport that should be tinkered with gingerly in the extreme. This year’s tournament has (for me, at least) been sullied by a misguided effort to send off as many top players as possible, and to reward diving at every juncture, but I think these are marginal (if important) problems that need to be solved without changing the character of the game. This is a game which has delivered moment after moment of timeless quality, and I think it’s wrong to look at the problems of one tournament and suggest wholesale change. I’m not saying you’re suggesting this: I’m just explaining why you’re seeing the resistance to change that you mention. This game has, and continues to, produce moments of sublime genius. I don’t think we saw many this world cup (a couple of the Argentina goals, perhaps), but that doesn’t mean it needs much fixing.
Either way, it’s been fun talking to you about it. 
It’s funny how the refs can be exemplary in one apect – the offsides calls – and yet so lacking in another by being so easily baited by diving. (Do different officials handle those calls?) I imagine next tourney will have a different “points of emphasis” memo to the officials, but hopefully it won’t detract from the close offsides calls. I agree that the blame for the diving should be laid almost exclusively at the refs feet. Don’t hate the players, hate the rules.
Incidentally, in my biased opinion it seemed to me that the US team did much less diving than other teams. Did anyone else think so too, or was that just my rose-colored glasses?
As for the stunning and inclusive team play, hey, I did credit the sport with having a dozen or so instances of that per game, so it’s not like I totally killed it. You make a fair point about camera angles, though. Also, the game never stops, so there are no replays. The NFL would be far less interesting without replays. (And I think soccer would be far more interesting with replays, to me at least.)
Someone upthread mentioned ratings. The final drew 16 million viewers in the US. SIXTEEN MILLION! To put that into perspective, the NBA finals averaged 12 million, and the last game of the World Series drew 16 million. Someone in another thread argued for the NBA being the #1 sport in America; you have to outdraw soccer to make that claim. heh. And just for completeness sake, game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals drew 3.8 million, while the Superbowl drew 90 million. (Really puts the Superbowl ratings into perspective, eh? And that’s a pathetic drop in the bucket compared to the 1.1 billion worldwide viewers who watch the World Cup final.) Finally, if it’s relevant, ABC only drew 12 million for the World Cup final; the other 4 million were from Spanish tv.
It’s always that way, isn’t it?
Personally, I thought the diving was worse (or at least more reliably and universally blatant) in 2002, but the refereeing was far worse on the other side of the scale this time around. I may be the only one, but it bothers me that Blatter’s instructions to the ref were “Make sure you crack down on physical play and hand out cards”, and not “Make sure you watch for dives, and don’t call ticky-tack fouls”. Not the first time (by far) that Blatter has ticked me off, and probably won’t be the last. I don’t think I’m the only one, either.
It’s also been more defensive and generally less exciting this time around–part of that is that the adidas Teamgeist ball, designed specifically for this World Cup to be easier to score with, turned out to be a lot harder to score with; part of it is international consensus on how the modern game should be played. It pissed me off quite a bit to see the US come out in a 4-5-1 and play like they didn’t care who won; the defining moment, IMO, was against Ghana when Landon Donovan had possession and a wide-open lane to part the defense like the Red Sea, and instead he chose to pass to a teammate who was under defensive pressure. The teammate (forgot who it was), of course, turned it over.
Sort of. Europe is better if you consider how many top-8 quality teams there are in that region year in and year out; Brazil and Argentina are reliable favorites in every tournament they play in, but the rest of South America as a whole doesn’t have nearly as many quality teams. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, BTW, but no South American team has ever won a WC in Europe.
That depends on the team and the era, really. Historically England has generally been good for aimlessly slamming the ball down the field, and I’ve heard the English league described as a “kick-and-chase league” compared to the Spanish and Italian leagues. OTOH, Brazil has generally been the archetype for possession soccer. Most teams have some balance between the two; it seems to me that the teams more focused on possession fare better. Try watching some games in the Spanish league (not the Italian league, as it’s about to face a mass player and coach exodus) next season on Fox Sports/Setanta Sports/Fox Soccer Channel if you get them. (The Fox channels are more focused on England, though.)
I really think you should reconsider watching other leagues–for the purpose of seeing good games, rather than of exercising local allegiances. The MLS really isn’t worth watching much, but you can see some pretty good soccer in the league games shown here. There are also national-team competitions from time to time, including World Cup qualifiers and regional (generally by continent) national-team championships; you can certainly find at least one major tournament worth watching every year or two. Also, the Gold Cup, which is the championship for North and Central American national teams and doubles as the World Cup qualifier, is always hosted in the United States. I would be surprised if they didn’t play some games in New York/New Jersey/Massachusetts next time around, although the tournament seems focused more on LA and Miami.
And I agree with Dead Badger that most of your perception of it being one-on-one is that you can’t see the whole team on TV. I wouldn’t say the sport doesn’t convert well to TV, but if you see some good games live (FC Barcelona, the Spanish champion, is coming to New York this year, BTW) you’ll get a better feel of the flow and the action involved.
Yes. The assistant refs make the offside calls, as they’re standing on the sideline and can better tell who’s in front of whom. They’re the guys with the checkered flags.
The main referee gets paid much better.
Really, it’s not so much bad refereeing (although it is that) as much as FIFA president Sepp Blatter coming out and ordering the referees to be extra-vigilant about calling defensive fouls. They were following orders, although certain referees did it more heinously than others. Part of the improved referee quality in the last few games was that the more heinous refs were sent home, but a major part (I’m sure) was Blatter sitting the rest down and saying “OK, maybe this cracking-down-on-physical-play thing was a bad idea”.
Well, sure, but some teams really like to dive more than others. Yes, blame the refs, but you have to blame the players, too; nobody’s holding a gun to their head.
That said, “getting calls” is a valued skill in basketball, and one of the (many, but more notable) reasons my basketball career went nowhere was that I wasn’t a good actor. Nobody ever seems to blame the players there, though.
Well, I think the US team was one of the teams that did the least diving. You didn’t see much of anyone else, but most teams really are not as bad about it as (say) Portugal.
Heh, that reminds me a lot of hockey. North American players love to play dump & chase, while European players love to control the puck into the zone. It’s almost comical watching the disparity play out.
I do. Or rather, I would if I watched basketball. There is a diving element in NFL football, btw. Punters do their best to pretend to be killed if anyone even breathes on them after the punt. Of course, punters are viewed as pansies anyway, so really it just reinforces their existing image. The attitude of most position players in the NFL seems to be that you appeal to yourself first, then your teammates, and the refs only as a last resort. IOW, if a player gets away with something against you, the primary response is vigilante justice; refs are an afterthought. And bad calls against you in general are downplayed with “sometimes bad calls go your way, sometimes they don’t; it all evens out.”
This was a big topic of discussion on Mike & Mike when they were discussing whether or not sportsmanship is dead outside of golf. A golfer had gone to the officials and informed them of an error he made the previous round, and he was then penalized for it. Greeney couldn’t wrap his head around this concept, and by the end of the show they decided that sportsmanship only exists in golf. Golic’s answer to football was as I stated above: sometimes calls go your way, sometimes they don’t. But you’d never go to the ref after a touchdown and admit that you stepped out of bounds upfield. Instead, take your share of bad calls when you can, because next time they’ll probably go against you.
Of course, football is unique in that you can literally pound the snot out of anybody that pisses you off the very next play. Hockey is similar, although to a much lesser extent. (You have to wait until the guy that pissed you off gets the puck.) In games like soccer, where contact really isn’t allowed, there is no real way to exact vigilante justice, so the inevitable result is going to be rules lawyering in the form of diving. Vigilante justice, OTOH, ends up reinforcing a self-policing honor system. (As an example, I’ve heard hockey purists say the game was much cleaner back in the days of the goon squad enforcers.)
<nitpick>The Gold Cup has nothing to with World Cup qualification.</nitpick>
Whoops! I misread the Wiki:
…and turned it around backwards (and dropped the dates) in my head, and interpreted that statement as saying that winning the Gold Cup had something to do with World Cup qualifying.
Yup. The difference is pretty much analogous. Like in hockey and basketball, too, different nations play more/less physical styles than other, and rely more/less on particular attributes like ball handling, finesse passing, hotsauce moves, speed, strength, etc.