[quote]supermick wrote:
i see it more from o neil. A lot more.[/quote]
Actually you’ve got a point. O’Neil went one step further and was saying ‘bring back Ian Dowie’ so not only bigging up Leonardo but also calling one of his fellow pundits ugly…
woo-hoo! one of my predictions has finally come in - France have beaten Spain! Great.
Just need them to put in another performance like that on saturday and send Brazil home.
… and the heartache continues…
Kudos to Ribery and Zidane for a magnicifent match.
A well-played, hard fought match. 
[quote]OARSMAN wrote:
… and the heartache continues…
Kudos to Ribery and Zidane for a magnicifent match.
A well-played, hard fought match.
[/quote]
Marred only by my all-time hero (Henry) cheating by clutching his face when he was elbowed in the stomach which led to the free kick which led to Viera’s goal. Disgraceful.
I am getting increasingly pissed off with teams not only cheating in this way, but then also demanding a card for the opposing player. Whatever happened to trying to win a match fairly?
Yeah I know it’s always been a part of the game but when it overtakes the actual playing of the game then we have a real problem.
Saying all this in advance of some diving Portugese player getting a pen against England in the last minute of the match…
How will soccer fair in Australia now, I have read things rightly FFA have sold the rights to foxtel, historically a lot of these boardcasters have purchased sports as a way of feeling dead time. FFA have to look a improving the A League and improving the finances of the sport, hopefully they can. I have my doubts.
I have France in my sweep at work, I hope they beat Brazil.
[quote]pab213 wrote:
On a different not how do you guys think this willeffect the game of soccer in Aus.
In melbourne here the world cup has generated huge interest with the traditional sport of AFL being nudged of the back page as wellas taking up the front page.All my mates have been talking about the world cup and even mentioned membership to Melbourne Victory in the a league. As a previous post stated there is now the Asian cup and the asian champions league as well as world cup qualifiers to start again in 2 years. This could be the bridge tv and sponsors etc… need to tap into the lucrative asian market with there massive popluation. I have a feeling what we have experienced in the previous 3 weeks could just be the tip of the iceberg. With massive junior numbers and the teenage to 20 year olds with a seeming acceptance of soccer could the Aussie sporting landscape change in the next 20 years?
By the way I am an AFL fan along with my mates but dont feel threatened by other sports as alot of older Aussies seem to be thus being able to enjoy all sports.[/quote]
Here is an article in one of today’s papers that briefly addresses this issue:
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,19609919-5001023,00.html
And below is a quote from this article which sums up what I have said in some of my previous posts about how Australians who have been brought up on much tougher full body contact games such as rugby and AFL find it hard to fully accept soccer:
"If there is one pity from this game, it is that for all the good the Socceroos have done for soccer in Australia the goodwill was halved by the poor penalty that cost Australia the game.
The dive served to reinforce what the millions of people in Australia, willing to give the Socceroos a chance, suspect about the game. But through their four games the Socceroos gave so much more than that."
It is very important that the Aussie team keeps winning in the upcoming Asian cup qualifiers and that we can get some “friendlies” played in Australia against some top teams. Playing them over in England is not the answer to conquering the Australian market, although these games do help in preparation for major tournaments when our Europe based players don’t have to travel as far.
I really think that we need to play England a lot more. There is nothing like the good ol’ “Mother Country vs The Colonials” rivalry to fire up the interest in Australia. When we beat England 3-1 over in England a few years ago the reaction was amazing, play the game over here and the interest would be huge.
The other thing needed is that the A-league needs to build on its good start last year with a very competitive competition which will go down to the wire.
[quote]juninho wrote:
Although Italy’s group was arguably one of the toughest, it seems they’re going to have a fairly easy, (relatively speaking) route to the semi’s. No offence to the Ukraine but if they failed to score against the Swiss, they’ll also struggle against the Italians. Haven’t worked out who they would play, but if it was and England Vs Italy semi, or worse still, final, then there is surely one of the least mouth-watering prospects ever, (barring a change of form from England).
[/quote]
This is what really hurt for the Aussies. If we had got over the very high hurdle in the form of Italy we then had a golden opportunity against the least favoured quarter-finalist alongside ourselves? I mean, how often do the two weaker teams meet this late in a WC? We would have been very confident of getting through to the semi final. That’s why losing 5 seconds from the end to a doubtful decision is twice as gut-wrenching, there is nothing worse than knowing “what might have been”!
The semi will be against either Germany or Argentina, so I think Italy’s “easy run” will end there! England won’t meet Italy unless both make the final.
[quote]DMA wrote:
How will soccer fair in Australia now, I have read things rightly FFA have sold the rights to foxtel, historically a lot of these boardcasters have purchased sports as a way of feeling dead time. FFA have to look a improving the A League and improving the finances of the sport, hopefully they can. I have my doubts.
I have France in my sweep at work, I hope they beat Brazil.[/quote]
I’m sure a few of the free-to-air stations are kicking themselves now for not buying the rights! But you can’t blame the FFA for signing with Foxtel, who would have thought that we would have as much success as we did at the WC, and they needed to guarantee that the A-league will remain viable. T
he Socceroos’ success will hopefully serve as a double bonus. If the Foxtel deal secures the baseline viability of the league, any extra sponsorship flowing into the game based on the WC success will top this up and will help the A-league clubs pay for higher grade players e.g more guys like Dwight Yorke, who played for Sydney FC, and it also may tempt some of the Aussie players in Europe come home to play a bit sooner than they would have.
If we could get someone like Mark Viduka playing in his home town for Melbourne Victory in 1-2 years rather than 3-4 the public will remember him as the WC team’s captain, he will be in better form and not on the decline as a player, and this will be more attractive to watch for the fans, thus generating more interest and more money etc etc etc.
[quote]DMA wrote:
How will soccer fair in Australia now,
[/quote]
Soccer will fare in Australia about as well as the National Basketball League in the early 1990’s did. 15,000 supporters used to watch Magic v Tigers. Now the Magic don’t exist and the Tigers play only in front of close friends and family at the Cage (Max capacity of 3000).
Soccer is like the Olympics. Comes around every 4 years, captures imagination and then dies off again. Our league is too weak to get excited about. A couple of my mates who get sucked in on hype bought Melbourne Victory season tickets. 6 scoreless weeks made sure they never entertained that thought again.
AFL, NRL and Union are the sports we grow up with, worship and are in our veins. You can’t just feel passionately about the Melbourne Victory because you simply want to. Maybe in a very, very long time soccer might be popular on a domestic level but it has some stiff oposition in our other codes.
[quote]helga wrote:
The only time that people in Australia give a shit about soccer is when the world cup is on. It will become the forgotten sport again for the next 4 years. The A-League may get a little bit more support next season, [/quote]
Agreed. I know a guy who got offered a spot on an A-League club board. His exact words were “I’m not getting my fingerprints on that train wreck.”
[quote]bg100 wrote:
If we could get someone like Mark Viduka playing in his home town for Melbourne Victory in 1-2 years rather than 3-4 the public will remember him as the WC team’s captain, he will be in better form and not on the decline as a player, and this will be more attractive to watch for the fans, thus generating more interest and more money etc etc etc.[/quote]
He might even be able to score in the A-League. People won’t remember him as a world cup captain. He will always be remembered as the guy that couldn’t score a goal for Australia and botched every penalty he ever took.
Fuck me. He couldn’t even score when he was 26 playing in the U/23 Olympic comp in Sydney.
The beautiful game is becoming a farce.
With the diving, rolling around like little girls, and awful calls by the refs this world cup, i am becoming increasingly disgusted. While this isnt the first example, Henry’s blatant dive for the French free kick which lead to their go ahead goal is a perfect example of what needs to get cut out of the beautiful game. Taken in conjunction with the travesty that was the Portugal-Holland game, and the questionable calls throughout the tournament its time that FIFA steps up and takes serious action. If FIFA is serious about implementing technology into the game they should look at these ideas which will have a much greater effect of ensuring the true winner of a game than a chip in the ball which will be used once every 1000 matches.
First implement post match video replay with suspensions for diving. Clean and simple. Get extra tough with the offenders at first and people will soon learn not to do it. This will massively ease the jobs of the refs who in fairness often times cant tell what is a dive and what is legitimate. Second, have the ref wear a stop watch connected to the official time, and have the last 20 minutes of the game played as stop time. If the ball goes out, stop the clock. If someone is rolling around grabbing their tw*t like a little girl to kill the clock, stop the clock. THis would massively cut down on time wasting, fake injuries, and would eliminate any questions about stoppage time goals which inevitably happens everytime someone scores in stoppage time. Taken together these would massively reduce the problems in the game and make the referees life that much easier to differentiate between legitimate fouls since the incentive for diving and time wasting would be reduced exponentially.
My final request for this world cup would be to have Cantona kick Henry squarely in his bollocks in the next “play with honor” Nike advert.
P.S. anyone else watching those Jose +10 commercials and wishing Lampard could at least come that close to hitting the net as he does against Kahn?
Spain lost to France today. I’m well pissed off. Spain always does this to me, and the bloody refs don’t help one little bit.
And why was Raul taken out of the game so early!?!?
Nuff said.
[quote]biltritewave wrote:
The beautiful game is becoming a farce.
[/quote]
I’ll second that.
The other night I was flicking between the Rugby League and the Soccer. In one you have guys getting hit by opponents that are the size of a Mack truck. They get up like nothing happened.
Soccer, the slightest tap and they go down like there was a sniper in the stands.
Obviously League is a contact sport and soccer is minimal, but they need to have some fucking balls and standards. Keeping on your feet opens up more opportuinities than taking a dive.
[quote]The Grizz wrote:
AFL, NRL and Union are the sports we grow up with, worship and are in our veins. You can’t just feel passionately about the Melbourne Victory because you simply want to. Maybe in a very, very long time soccer might be popular on a domestic level but it has some stiff oposition in our other codes. [/quote]
The support won’t come from the older generations over 20-30 y.o., it will come from the teenagers and kids playing now in the junior leagues (more than any other code) who might decide to stick with soccer because there’s more money being pumped into the game as a result of the good WC we have just had. They then won’t be as tempted by the other codes.
Once this flow-on effect happens, and hopefully with a good Asian Cup performance and an even better WC performance in 2010, we will see soccer become a legitimate professional sport option in Australia for people to play.
[quote]The Grizz wrote:
biltritewave wrote:
The beautiful game is becoming a farce.
I’ll second that.
The other night I was flicking between the Rugby League and the Soccer. In one you have guys getting hit by opponents that are the size of a Mack truck. They get up like nothing happened.
Soccer, the slightest tap and they go down like there was a sniper in the stands.
Obviously League is a contact sport and soccer is minimal, but they need to have some fucking balls and standards. Keeping on your feet opens up more opportuinities than taking a dive.[/quote]
Agreed, this is what I have said in previous posts as a big stumbling block to getting Australians to support soccer. The Aussies take more of a league mentality into the game, hence their reputation as a tough and physical team.
However even they still dive on occasions. I still think there were many times in the WC when if someone like Kewell kept running instead of falling down after a slight bump he would have been in open space with the defender who had “fouled” him left on the ground behind him. As Australia weren’t finding the net from free kicks just outside the box (Bresciano wasn’t at his best I reckon)it would have been better to keep moving forward in broken play and have a shot IMO.
[quote]bg100 wrote:
The Grizz wrote:
biltritewave wrote:
The beautiful game is becoming a farce.
I’ll second that.
The other night I was flicking between the Rugby League and the Soccer. In one you have guys getting hit by opponents that are the size of a Mack truck. They get up like nothing happened.
Soccer, the slightest tap and they go down like there was a sniper in the stands.
Obviously League is a contact sport and soccer is minimal, but they need to have some fucking balls and standards. Keeping on your feet opens up more opportuinities than taking a dive.
Agreed, this is what I have said in previous posts as a big stumbling block to getting Australians to support soccer. The Aussies take more of a league mentality into the game, hence their reputation as a tough and physical team.
However even they still dive on occasions. I still think there were many times in the WC when if someone like Kewell kept running instead of falling down after a slight bump he would have been in open space with the defender who had “fouled” him left on the ground behind him. As Australia weren’t finding the net from free kicks just outside the box (Bresciano wasn’t at his best I reckon)it would have been better to keep moving forward in broken play and have a shot IMO.[/quote]
Kewell used to have a bit of a reputation for diving over here but I would like to applaud Australia for being one of the few teams in this year’s tournament to play the game the way it is supposed to be played.
For the most part England too plays ‘stand up’ football, and as we’re up against Portugal next I won’t be too surprised if in a week’s time I am back here bitterly slagging off Cristiano ‘Half-pike off the 10m board’ Ronaldo for earning his team the penalty that sends us packing after the whole squad makes the ‘demanding a card’ gesture (which should be an instant yellow in itself) at the ref because our defender had the audacity to look at him a bit funny and therefore make him fall over. And roll. 12 times.
I want to keep the faith that people that play the game properly will be rewarded but no sign of that has been forthcoming so far.
[quote]bg100 wrote:
Once this flow-on effect happens, and hopefully with a good Asian Cup performance and an even better WC performance in 2010, we will see soccer become a legitimate professional sport option in Australia for people to play.[/quote]
It will never be a legitimate professional sport option in Australia unless Bill Gates puts all his money into the sport.
We have to accept that any player that is half decent will go to Europe. Also playing for Melbourne Victory doesn’t hold much water for the aspiring soccer player.
I think the Socceroos united the nation behind a team, but that is as good as it will get. Once every 4 years, soccer will be the thing due to hype.
People loved the thrill of watching Australia on the biggest stage. You can’t get anything like that watching Melbourne Victory v Perth Glory. People will realise that after their first visit to Bob Jane Stadium and never go back.
[quote]Miserere wrote:
Spain lost to France today. I’m well pissed off. Spain always does this to me, and the bloody refs don’t help one little bit.
And why was Raul taken out of the game so early!?!?
Nuff said.[/quote]
Although I am a massive fan of French football, I was also disappointed that Spain had to go out. I blame France for showboating in the group stages against Korea. Otherwise they’d have played Ukraine as winners of their group while Spain could have played the Swiss.
That omission aside, the quarter finals is pretty much as you’d expect it to be - the 2 main south american teams plus 5 of the fancied European teams. I was kind of hoping one of the stronger ‘outsiders’ got a bit further, maybe Ghana or the Aussies.
I also had money on the USA progressing so thanks a fecking bunch for your lame display against the Czechs!
Anyway, more predictions… I think the semi finalists will be:
-
Italy - would be V surprised if they don’t beat Ukraine.
-
England - due a decent game, and have the motivation to get one over on Scolari. Neville is back too, so if the dull Swede persist in playing his boyfriend Beckham then at least Neville might get the best out of him.
-
France - plyaing well now. Did Brazil in 86, (my favourite game of football ever) and in the final in 98. Brazil look pretty average.
-
hmmmm, not sure, I really can’t decide between Germany and the Argies. I would like Germany I think. Ideally I would like Argetina to play their usual entertaining brand of football, but for disaster to strike in the 88th minute when a volley from Riquelme is skyed over the bar and hits Diego the Fat Cheat Maradona in the chest, thus triggering a massive cardiac arrest. Riquelme, Messi & Heinze then remember they were actually fathered by English troops during the Faulklands conflict and immediately make themselves available for Svens team, (this may involve a rule change).
My thoughts on the Semis
Italy
Germany
France (cheating bastards - only because their defence is better than Brazil’s)
England (for same reasons given above)