2 good games today, enjoyed both of them and the right team won both - will be a cracking quarter final.
Off Topic World Cup Thread
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This could be the best world cup I have seen. Not feeling frustrated by appalling refs as in the past. Contact is being allowed and diving is being spotted. Football overall has been good with teams committed to try to win rather then settling for draws as in the past. The next games will of course define the competition but for me so far so good.
I agree
Entertaining games and seems like there is genuinely 5-6 teams that could win it.
At this rate a Croatia vs Uruguay final wouldn’t be all that surprising
Oh dear, I saw "Argies" trending on Twitter and, as expected, there's a bunch of spiteful England fans droning on and on about the Hand of God as per bloody usual.
I'm going to hazard a guess that Argentine fans don't drone one and on and on about Michael Owen diving to win penalties against them in both 1998 and 2002 (or David Beckham kicking Diego Simeone in 1998, regardless of so much whataboutery about Simeone making a meal of the fact he'd been kicked by a petulant twat) just as I'm sure that Spain fans done drone on and on and on about that shot that clearly crossed the line in Euro '96 but French referee Marc Clattenburgh (probably...) missed it - but sure, England fans, keep banging on about these "slights" from decades past and ignore the amount of cheating your team is guilty of.
I'm going to hazard a guess that Argentine fans don't drone one and on and on about Michael Owen diving to win penalties against them in both 1998 and 2002 (or David Beckham kicking Diego Simeone in 1998, regardless of so much whataboutery about Simeone making a meal of the fact he'd been kicked by a petulant twat) just as I'm sure that Spain fans done drone on and on and on about that shot that clearly crossed the line in Euro '96 but French referee Marc Clattenburgh (probably...) missed it - but sure, England fans, keep banging on about these "slights" from decades past and ignore the amount of cheating your team is guilty of.
Absolutely right. If someone can do something about rolling around on the floor feigning a head injury, that would be great. However, there's been an enormous improvement on entertainment levels compared with other World Cups of this century.
It's shaping up to be a bit of a classic. Tomorrow's games look pretty good as do most of the others. Sweden v Switzerland could be a bit stodgy but maybe it'll be an all time World Cup best?
Nonsense, the 2006 World Cup was a bloody good one, right down to the fact the Germans are still the only host to stand up to FIFA's corporate sponsors and state that if they weren't allowed to serve Bittburger at the stadiums then they wouldn't serve beer at all - which is the German form of self-immolation that many other World Cup/Olympic hosts could learn from.
Shame about the two ****shows that followed it, though...
Meh, not a classic for me....or anywhere close to it. Won by a very poor Italian team. I can't think of a single stand out team in it. Compared to ''70, 78, '82 and all that, rather dull.
It wasn't a poor Italy team by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, the strikers all combined to be useless (Luca Toni missing approximately 400 chances during the tournament, bar his quarter final double against Ukraine) but other than that they had Canavarro and Gattuso having the tournaments of their lives, Grosso and Camoranesi better than they ever were, Buffon and Pirlo being Buffon and Pirlo, and for ****s and giggles they had Materazzi in the team - and more than anything else, their semi-final against Germany is genuinely one of the best games of football I've ever seen.
As for the other teams in the tournament
Germany were an embryonic version of the team they are...well I was about to say "now" but that's not really a good idea, but it was the first stage of what the team would become eight years later
Argentina were a bloody good side to watch right up until they lost their nerve when 1-0 up against Germany in the quarters and crashed out
Spain were the entertaining version of tiki-taka we had in 2006-8, not the dull version we've had since, only to get cheated by some top quality French diving in the knockout stages
Mexico were a lot of fun to watch, and Rafa Marquez was second only to Cannavaro in the tournament in defence
Holland were pretty good right up until they suddenly turned psychotic against Portugal
France were perfect as the boo-hiss villains, starting with two draws as the team hated the coach and only bothering to qualify from the group when they realised Zidane retiring on a group stage loss would look bad, cheating to get past Spain, beating Brazil (okay, they weren't all bad...) capped off with Malouda diving in the final and Zidane nutting Materazzi in the chest - only Brazil in 2014 were better villains
Then of course we had the Battle of Nuremberg, which one review compared to It's A Knockout when all the participants are psychopaths looking for an excuse to start a fight at every opportunity, which was far more entertaining than Holland's repeat performance in the 2010 final or Portugal's in literally every single match since.
Add to that the hilarity of Brazil's coach being forced to play a 4222 to fit Ronaldo, Adriano, Kaka and Ronaldinho into his team in a system that brought back memories of Ossie Ardiles' time in charge, it was an entertaining tournament - which can't be said of 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010 or 2014.
Agree to differ, old son. I remember 12 world Cups and I'd pick one third of them ['70, '78, '82 and '86] well ahead ahead of that one. That puts 2006 in the upper middle ground. By no means a terrible one but by no means special for me, either. I guess it depends upon what you're comparing it to and that'll depend upon how old one is.
Give me Brazil '70 or '82, Argentina or Holland in '78, or a whole host of teams and games in '86. Now they were classics. I completely agree with your stinkers and a high proportion of them are of recent vintage, which was my point.
There does seem to be a recent trend that World Cups in Europe tend to deliver (1998, 2006, 2018) but ones outside tend to be damp squibs (1994, 2002, 2010, 2014)
So my hopes aren't high for China hosting the 2030 tournament...
I recall '74 as very poor, I couldn't say why as the tournaments either side of it were great. Strangely, '90 is credited with resurrecting football in this country and the tournament and England were, mostly poor.
1994 was the worst. That was ****ing dreadful.
S
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Maybe it was just a microcosm of the state of football at the time. Certainly the Britsh game was in disarray on and off the field and England failing to qualify didn’t help. I remember that era as generallly dour and depressed - maybe that extended into the WC?
I do find it quite amusing that 1990 is looked back on with such reverence. We did reach the semi final and actually played well in that match.But up to that point we were: awful v Ireland, good against the dutch (but couldn't score), and adequate v Egypt to win and scrape through the group. We were then out played by Belgium but stayed in the match and nicked it at the death and that is genuinely one of my favourite England moments, but the Belgians were robbed. Cameroon outplayed us too but were let down by their discipline. Gazza was good but patchy , Waddle was our best and most consistent player (penalty aside) I still think that his shot in extra time would have gone in off the post 9 times out of 10. But we actually played better and more consistently in France under Hoddle, in Japan under Sven and probably in Spain under Ron Greenwood when we came home without losing, though I was 18 in the summer 1982 and watched most of those in a drunken haze so cant say with any certainty I do know that neither Keegan or Brooking were fit and Rons faith in them to come on and change the game in the last match was unfortunately misplaced.
The dutch were fabulous in 74, Cruyff at the very top of his game was a joy to watch I was 10 at the time and lunch times at school we were always the dutch (though I was never Cruyff), but they should have won the WC in 74 and 78, and though the tournaments may not have been great the Holland side was.
S
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If they hadn't been so head and shoulders above the rest they would have won the thing.