[Morgoth]

I think the best part about this is how the English (as a mob) still believe they've got a great team and that the only reason they've not won for some 50 years or so is because of bad luck.


Anyways, the Brazil v N. Korea match was pretty good. In the first half Brazil played like a bunch of little girls, but being humiliated by N. Korea was too much I guess so in the second half they played great and the match picked up a lot of speed.

So yeah, Shin, just watch a Brazil match ...

Although, the group matches rarely stand up to the bracket matches later on.

[Tsundoku]

Shinrei, on 15 June 2010 - 10:19 PM, said:

I think I've said this before, but I think Americans enjoy sports that feed an apparent cultural mindset/need for statistics/numbers/tangible evidence of something happening even when goals aren't being scored. Baseball is chock full of statistics, as is handegg football.

Ah my friend, these are mere pretenders to the throne of the true statisticians game that is ...



TEST CRICKET



http://en.wikipedia....ki/Test_cricket

(Actually, it's not too bad a summary for the uninitiated)

This post has been edited by Sombra: 16 June 2010 - 08:06 AM

[Satan]

Shinrei, on 15 June 2010 - 11:45 PM, said:

masan, on 15 June 2010 - 10:46 PM, said:

Shinrei, on 15 June 2010 - 10:19 PM, said:

I think I've said this before, but I think Americans enjoy sports that feed an apparent cultural mindset/need for statistics/numbers/tangible evidence of something happening even when goals aren't being scored. Baseball is chock full of statistics, as is handegg football. And all that standing around waiting means we have time to go to the bathroom burgerstand.If I watched soccer, I would have a genuine fear that the moment I leave the room to pee, the only goal of the entire game will be scored.

Is this due to short attention span ?

As for going for a pee during the game ? Suck it in man !

Watch a game with Spain in it, they are my tip to win.

I dont think USians have short...that's a nice avatar btw.

I'd go for Argentina vs. South Korea this coming Thursday. You'd be hard pressed to find a team with more talent player for player than in the Argentinian side (fooking Messi, mate!), and the South Korean's will run full pelt for 90 minutes.

[Gothos]

Messi is already starting down the road that destroys Ronaldinho. Cue commercials.

Anyway, the first goal for Brazil was pure win. A bloody insane shot, that, anyone would be hard pressed to beat that goal in this tournament. The NK goal was solid, too.
Could've started playing in the first half though.

[Tapper]

RodeoRanch, on 16 June 2010 - 12:23 AM, said:

I watched the tail end of a Denmark/Netherlands game. That'll probably be the extent of my World Cup viewing.

And man, those horns sure irritating.

We were shite. The Danish were playing an organized game.

Anyway, here's a tip: if you want to watch football and you're not a fan, don't watch the opening round.

Here's the why.
In a group of 4, you play 3 matches. A win nets the winner 3 points, a draw 1 each, a loss gets you zero. 6 points will see you qualified immediately, with 4, you have a reasonably good chance of getting second place in the group.

As a result of this model, coaches are far too afraid of starting with a loss as not only will be they be forced to try and win the next 2 games, but their first opponent is already halfway to qualifying - not to mention that it may demotivate their players.

So, for some good old all-or-nothing matches, watch the third round of the group stages.
Don't watch any game with Italy, Greece or France in it, nor any of the Asian countries, possibly South Korea excepted. I'd personally recommend watching Spain, Argentina, Holland's third match versus Cameroon (our star player will be fit enough to play by then, and he's a rather flamboyant player). Finally, as much as I think it is a strange thing to say, Germany is looking like it will be an attractive team to watch.

Also, football isn't, unlike many american sports, suited to have a massive amount of goal-scoring, and if that's your expectation, it will always disappoint. Instead, missed opportunities, near opportunities, 40 metre passes, sliding tackles and a winger by-passing his man with skill and agility, then delivering a good cross are the things that make football cool.

[Shinrei]

Yeah, I'm getting the impression that Japan/Cameroon was a pretty weak game overall in terms of excitement. At least I saw Japan's goal live.

I love sport, just about any sport, so yeah, I'll try again.

And Sombra, cricket does sound interesting, I just can't fathom these muliple day single games though...

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Cricket's wonderful, particularly test series. Any game where you can play for 3 weeks and still not know who's winning deserves recognition.

What's more it's the ULTIMATE spectator sport. You pitch up at the ground for a county cricket match at about 11am on a hot sunny summer's day. For I guess about $15, you get around 6 hours of sporting entertainment where you essentially sit and read the paper and drink a hell of a lot of beer whilst picking up a great sunburn/tan (depending on your familiarity with the game), and even perhaps a nap now and then. You pay attention to the game whenever you hear a "thwock", and you don't miss anything.

The one bad thing is the price of the international tickets. I'm umming and ah-ing at the moment about getting England Pakistan tickets, but at £90 it's a bit fucking steep. Much rather go to a county game even if the standard's nowhere as good.

[Aristai]

I'll echo the whole 'watch Argentina/South Korea' bit. Should be lively.

[Tsundoku]

Shinrei, on 16 June 2010 - 10:13 AM, said:

And Sombra, cricket does sound interesting, I just can't fathom these muliple day single games though...

Multiple day single games ... ?

Neither can I from your description.

Do you mean 1 day matches that are 50 overs a side (one day cricket, takes about 7 hours for a match), or shorter one day matches that are 20 overs a side (twenty20 cricket, takes about half that time)? Twenty20 is the fastest growing version because it's more accessible for foreign audiences - being all about fast runs, big hits, simple calculations to win etc. The recent matches in the USA were a disaster apparently because the pitches were not suited to the game and scores were resultingly very low, featuring none of what makes it fun to watch.

Thelomen Toblerone, on 16 June 2010 - 09:01 PM, said:

Cricket's wonderful, particularly test series. Any game where you can play for 3 weeks and still not know who's winning deserves recognition.What's more it's the ULTIMATE spectator sport. You pitch up at the ground for a county cricket match at about 11am on a hot sunny summer's day. For I guess about $15, you get around 6 hours of sporting entertainment where you essentially sit and read the paper and drink a hell of a lot of beer whilst picking up a great sunburn/tan (depending on your familiarity with the game), and even perhaps a nap now and then. You pay attention to the game whenever you hear a "thwock", and you don't miss anything.The one bad thing is the price of the international tickets. I'm umming and ah-ing at the moment about getting England Pakistan tickets, but at £90 it's a bit fucking steep. Much rather go to a county game even if the standard's nowhere as good.

90 fucking POUNDS!!!???!!!??? That's daylight robbery! I hope you are taking lessons from these people Toby because you're clearly in the wrong villain industry ...

Fucking hell! If they tried to charge anything like that (about $225) here for anything but the best seats in the house during a final, there would be blood in the streets!

BTW, WTF is this "hot sunny summers day" (in Pomgolia) of which you speak?

This post has been edited by Sombra: 17 June 2010 - 05:55 AM

[bubba]

 demotivational-posters-robert-green.jpg (32K)
Number of downloads: 0

[Gothos]

almost like a touchdown

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Sombra, on 17 June 2010 - 05:52 AM, said:

BTW, WTF is this "hot sunny summers day" (in Pomgolia) of which you speak?

You know, only a smattering of rain, blistering 8 degree heat, and 6 hours of daylight. Same as anywhere, surely?!

This post has been edited by Thelomen Toblerone: 17 June 2010 - 06:45 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Sombra, on 16 June 2010 - 08:05 AM, said:

Shinrei, on 15 June 2010 - 10:19 PM, said:

I think I've said this before, but I think Americans enjoy sports that feed an apparent cultural mindset/need for statistics/numbers/tangible evidence of something happening even when goals aren't being scored. Baseball is chock full of statistics, as is handegg football.

Ah my friend, these are mere pretenders to the throne of the true statisticians game that is ...



TEST CRICKET



http://en.wikipedia....ki/Test_cricket

(Actually, it's not too bad a summary for the uninitiated)

I will ask you not to use that kind of language in this thread please... Ugh. Cricket. The only game slow enough that they have to have a tea stop every now and then... Not that I object to stopping anything for a cup of tea...

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Well, I think we can safely discount the opinions of a man who likes drama and musicals. Move along now, Tiste.

[Cobbles]

We're making progress. We're now winning games 2:2

[waylander001]

Quote

Don't watch any game with Italy, Greece or France in it, nor any of the Asian countries, possibly South Korea excepted. I'd personally recommend watching Spain, Argentina, Holland's third match versus Cameroon (our star player will be fit enough to play by then, and he's a rather flamboyant player). Finally, as much as I think it is a strange thing to say, Germany is looking like it will be an attractive team to watch.

Also, football isn't, unlike many american sports, suited to have a massive amount of goal-scoring, and if that's your expectation, it will always disappoint. Instead, missed opportunities, near opportunities, 40 metre passes, sliding tackles and a winger by-passing his man with skill and agility, then delivering a good cross are the things that make football cool.

Quote

Agree with this, although the USA vs Slovenia match just now was fantstic. Great technical skill for Slovenia's first goal, a great run and well-timed pass&finish for their 2nd goal. USA came storming back with great pressure play and Donovan scored a very good goal with an "intelligent" finish at the front post, then came a simple but well executed equalising goal - sending the US fans into rapture. To add to this they almost capped off a most remarkable and deserved comeback, only for the referee to dissalow the 3rd goal (idiot). THIS is what the world cup is all about folks! Great and varying skills displayed by the best players from each country in thier chosen sport. It's what ANY world cup/championships is all about.

As to some of the previous comments earlier about Football as a whole - some people dont and never will understand the joy players and fans take from the game. Yes, like any sport or game it's sometimes simply the social joys it brings for some fans, for others who've studied the skills and technique needed to really enjoy success in the game it's appreciating the difficulty in outsmarting and outplaying your opponents who should be of a similar skill level to you. On the other hand if you have never played or taken a semi-serious interest in football (and by this i mean other than running around a field as a fat/rotund/un-fit, pre-teen, over-fed youngster being cheered on by your screaming, squealing, blood-eyed soccer-mom) then NO! you never will truly understand the difficulty in playing "The Beautiful Game" at the highest of levels these fine athletes are playing at. Rather - unless you've taken on an interest or love of a different sport/game (maybe one more suited to your own personal taste or physical attributes) then you're probably still a fat/rotund/unfit, by this stage teen or adult, sitting at a computer on some website forum crying about how you cant understand anything about how millions of people around the world can be overjoyed at this thing they call the Football World Cup coming around after another long 4-year wait.

Sooo, If you dont like football - for whatever reasons, be it your physical inadaquacies or your own personal taste in sports - then do all us football lovers a little favour. Shut your ears, eyes and fat mouths for 4 weeks, unless it's to actually breathe and let us enjoy some fun. Either that - or just fuck RIGHT off and die a miserable death.

The England game is just about to start and i'm hoping they give their nation/media another reason to ridicule them ..... just another small reason i for one, love the Football World Cup.

This post has been edited by waylander001: 18 June 2010 - 06:19 PM

[Shinrei]

My playing "career" lasted until I was 15 (just before high school). I'll never forget my coach. A 160cm tall woman who must have weighed a mere 45kg (a stick of a woman) who could bellow across the length of the field and have you doing 20 pushups in a flash with no complaint if you did something stupid.

So I was in the game long enough to begin to understand strategy/technique and the overall skills involved. If anything, soccer in the US is stunted by the lack of exposure to it as a spectator sport.

And I had no soccer mom. Neither of my parents had the faintest interest in soccer, and I think my father attended one game in the 8 years that I played, and my mother usually only watched the "away" games since they would be too far for her to return home and then come back to pick me up.

I enjoyed the US/Slovenia game (I couldn't watch the whole thing). I am not one to knock sports - only some good natured trolling from time to time, which is a sport unto itself.

[Tiste Simeon]

Well now England lost 0-0 to Algeria. We don't deserve to go through...

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Fucking useless. And Rooney has the gall to come out and criticise the fans!!

Dickface, they've spent God knows how much money, used up all their work leave for the year, and you don't think they have the right to express a bit of disappointment that you £100,000+ a week players can't pull out a little bit of effort or will to win against Algeria, a team whose best player played last season for the worst team in the Premier League.

[Tiste Simeon]

I know, but it's funny cos if he scores the winner against Slovenia next week that sees them through, he will be Hero of the Hour again!