World Cup Soccer 2006

Who is watching the "football" world cup?

Edit: Who is coding a football game? <- BLITZ RELATED! :o)

A timetable for all games can be found here:
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/sportdaten/0/0,3307,2395552,00.html

*It's in German, but you should have no difficulties.

I am president of the UK Blitzers Football Federation. The majority of UK Blitzers will be watching.

Hello.

Wayne Rooney has been told he can play in the world cup on the condition he has a cortezone injection.

David Beckham said "if that fat b*****d is having a new car, then I want one to".

Goodbye.

Me, hey i'm in munich... :O)

PLEASE can we have a policy to immeadiatly lock all football related threads? Does football really have to permeate here as well as everywhere else? Don't we hear enough about the world cup and Wayne Rooney's stupid foot?

There are plenty of football forums where you can talk of nothing else, please do it there.

Thanks,

Darkheart

Hello.

Please can we have a policy to have a single world cup thread?

Thanks,

Jes

Goodbye

Not me - I hate football. Now I have more time to watch DVDs and such because there is nothing but FB on telly soon...

Oh, BTW, this thread will "self-destruct in five minutes" anyway because it's hardly Blitz or gaming related... :)

Hello.

Exams over, projector on Standby, beer in mini fridge, no wife. Sorted :o)

Goodbye.

@Mustang
You shot too quick... ;O)

What a misery guts! I'll be watching it.

I'll be watching the England games but thats all. I don't really like football that much but as it's England I feel obligated :P

Seconded! :)


One thread won't hurt will it?

Btw Grisu, it's called football not soccer. Don't let those Yanks brainwash you into thinking otherwise :P

since austria isn't in it, i won't watch it =)
so i'll get more time to code/design... hopefully.

Oh if that's the reason then there might pass many many years till you'll again be able to watch it... ;O)

@MattVonFat + Murphy:
Watch the German team! Why? - It's so funny when they fail to pass the pre-round... :P

@VIP3R:
"Football" ah ok, wasn't sure about that.. :)

@Mustang:
This thread is Blitz related! Why? - When you watch the football games, you can't code effectively.. ;o)

Also see my edit in post#1!

so you've got noone to hand you your beer. Better hire a man servant.

lol he speaks as if his hair style isn't in the shape of a large thumb depression

That's obviously too little - most mini fridges are good for six-pack only... way to little!



Man? I have a better idea... :)

@Grisu
Be assured, they won't fail... ;O)

Ugh, I hate the world cup. It's not the game that I dislike (although I do think it's pretty tedious) but the fans.

It's yet another excuse for mouthy guys and geezer birds to get pissed and stagger around screaming "Cooome oooon!" while thrusting their hips and pumping their fists. Not that they need much of an excuse to do this as the contestants and audience on 'Deal or No Deal' prove.

*shudder*

Soccer?

I'ts called football you flid.

COME ON ENGLAND, COME ON ENGLAND.

I came on here to post that. I'm with Amon.



Providing the "Geezer Birds" have a good figure, I don't see much wrong with the above scenario.



...My other half might do though....

I have absolutely no tolerance for uncivilised, uneducated, mouthy, crude, chavy, low-quality people. Or for "ladettes."

If only I had a sniper-rifle with bullets that could lock on to the sound waves of "Come on!", "En-ger-land! En-ger-land!" (and the other commonly used phrases of morons and loudmouths) and eliminate the dim-wits... But at least I have a healthy focus for my hatred, right? It leaves no time for painful introspection and self loathing!

ENGLAND, ENGLAND! (i would shout IRELAND, because i'm from there, but they didn't qualify, probably beaaten by um, POLAND.)

USA? hahaha! they will be slaughtered!
that is why Americans don't like football, because they're no good.

too the guys who say they don't like world cup:
hahaha! please. grow up a little.

I'm grown up enough- and I'm not a football fan at all. Kick Kick Bounce. "OOOOH!". Kick Kick Bounce.... "AHHHHH!". Kick Kick Whack Wheeeeee "ooOOOOOOH" KLONK "AAAAHGH!" Thwack "GOAL AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

Pretty damn close replay of all football matches.

Except the ones where nobody scores :)

of course, all the best to everyone here, I'll root for England, but I won't watch it unless it's the final.

good for you. well done that chap. :)
ps: grow up a little.

So anyone who dislikes football needs to grow up? What an immature attitude. ;)

I'ma tell your mom on you!

When it comes to Football, I support two teams:

1) Scotland.
2) Anybody playing England.

The English media are already unbearable regarding that-year-that-will-not-be-mentioned, having them win the world cup for a second time is enough to tip the rest of the UK over the edge. Honestly, if England win this year, Scotland will vote for independence within 10 years.

Who says this is only a game?

Hmmm, I've never really understood the outright hatred many Scots seem to have for the English. If Scotland were playing, I'd root for them.

You do realize Braveheart is only a film, and all the historical events portrayed in it happened a very long time ago, right? :P

I detect Hooliganism.

Here , here GA :)

For the record, I have no problem at all with the English team / people in general but jesus your media & pundits ( including the turncoat Hansen ) don't half kick the arse out of it. It's the arogance that I hate ... "When we get to the quarter final " etc.. etc...

Sure alot of teams have a good chance ( like England ) but they seem to act like they've won the bloody thing before a ball is kicked! A total lack of respect for the other teams in their group me thinks!!

So, to that end I hope they don't make the second round and ROONEY doesn't kick a ball .... now that would be more pleasurable than my first W**K ;)

If they win the damn thing then I'm gonna become a hermit and live on one of the outer hebridean islands ...

We're not a bitter lot up here ... our national team are just pish ;)

Stevie

big10p, please, we don't hate you...The English are a bunch of nice guys, really you are.

But when it comes to football...or any team sport really.

If I tied you to a chair, super-glued your eyes open, and forced you to watch Germany's greatest world cup moments volume 3 over, and over, and over and over and over and over again for 22 years... I'm betting that you will not support the Germans.

Its a bit of fun to watch your bigger, over confident, neighbor been taken down a peg or two, not hooliganism, racism or hatred.

hehe, fair enough. I'm fed up hearing about bloody 1966 so God knows what it's like for you Scots. :P

Come on, it's the biggest sporting event on the planet... Live a little, grab a can and support your national team! ;)



Spot on Amon, I hate the word soccer, it sounds like a sock shop! Where I live, we actually have a slang name for football... toe-ball, it makes more sense than 'soccer'! ;)

When the qualifiers are on, I'll either be watching the games in the house, or in a mates house... If we get through to the finals... I'll be getting tanked up to the eyeballs in the local, and possibly screaming "Cooome oooon Engggland!" , without a top on! :D

Anyway, enjoy the toe-ball...

Dabz

yeah; i'm pretty sure, that the german will not pass the first round =)

It will be the only world cup in Germany in my life time.

So it better has to be good. ;)

And btw:
I HATE THE FIFA!

e.g. They planned an opening ceremony (costs for planing alone = 10.000.000 EUR) and found out that they couldn't do it at the place they wanted to... so stupid.

German tickets are marked to your identity card. Another great feature of this world cup. So one can't sell / transfer it easily.

You are not allowed to go to a football game with unofficial (i.e. non-fifa) fan articles!

There is indeed something strange in a man who professes to not like football.
Who can not fail to be stirred and excited as Nation face Nation, the best athletes and tacticians in the world competing in a real-life unfolding drama that will live in the history of the world forever.
Or maybe you prefer Big Brother ?

BB sucks (Big Brother, that is...!), and yes, I prefer hockey - they at least make more than one goal per game and the gameplay is "slightly" faster too. Plus it's rougher, more manly sport... those soccer sissys roll over in agony every time someone even touches them on the field. :)

Well, today it's the day...DEUTSCHLAND! ;O)

Germany 2 : Costa Rica 1 (at break)

4-2 in the opening game. Cripes! Well done Germany!

No, our defence wasn't good at all.
And this was Costa Rica and not Brazil!

Germans - never satisfied! :P

Bloody good goals by the germans. That last one... dam, good contender for goal of the tournament.

ahem, the title clearly stats that it isnt about football and more about Soccer!!!!!

Please stay on topic :-P

great party here in germany

The theme is called "visit friends".

But I would better call it "visit worlds most famous beer drinkers"! :)

Why was the word football put in quotes? this is the real football, not that drivel the Americans play with their hands.

Grisu,

to get this thread back on thread...

http://www.boiledsweets.com/KeePeeUppy

Why is baseball america's favorite passtime? I recently went to a baseball game for the first time, and aside from the novelty of being in a sports arena, it was the most boring thing ever to watch. You know how they have commercials when they show the games on TV? Well that's cause like every five minutes they take three minutes out to do nothing while they switch sides or whatever. It also takes them FOEREVER to throw a pitch and the guy almost never hits the ball! And when he does, it's almost never very far and so standng in the cheap seats there isn't a chance in hell of catching a ball cause you're lucky if ONE goes that way a game.

Soccer seems much more exciting. No switching sides... The guys are passing and stealing the ball constantly...

Baseball is fun to play, but not to watch people playing.

Baseball is a typical one "Hero" game imho
Football has also "Heros" but its more a Crew Sport.

Baseball, football, fake football (aka American football), basketball, etc. are all boring as hell. If I cared about them I'd play the game myself, not watch other people kick a ball around or hit a ball with a stick. Someone kicks the ball, people shout, another person kicks the ball, people shout, wowee!

It's not much different from all the idiots who watch those races where all they do is go around in a circle 500 times. Wow! Look! He just went around the loop again! You know what a real race is? One where you have hills and more than just a left turn.

I dont even think we should call it fake football, its rugby with one forward pass per play. We should call it "easy rugby". Or better still "Girly Rugby".
Mind you I realy liked that arcade game with the robots who (or is it that for robots?) played "Girly Rugby"

Does it really matter? They're both horribly boring.

Boiled, is the new Version ready?

Your Website states the old one...30.5.2006

You are not a real Sportsfan or Noel ?
You ever run a Marathon or somewhat
Some Sports need moore Menthal Power as you realize

Menthal power indeed.

Oh the irony.

lol.

with the risk of alienating myself, I'm not into footie at all. In fact, when I was last in a band, the running joke was the guys would say "did you see the football last night?" and I'd say No, and they'd say "are you gay?" much to the amusement of everyone.

Lots of kids I've known (note: past tense) would've found that funny. I've heard enough gay jokes to last me a lifetime. Now vegetarian jokes on the other hand.. yeah, heard enough of them too. Looks like it's just Mac users, Canadians, the French, and sports left on the list.

About two billion people, if you believe the news reports...

@Noel
Actually, the Americans are the ones to make jokes about...as long as they vote this badly! :O)

@Grisu
Come on f***ing great game. Isn't that what we wanted?! Fast game, lot's of goals instead of these boring 0:0 or 1:0 games?! I've enjoyed it! Hey as long as we shoot one more goal than the others... ;O)

I think it's about appreciating the skill of football. If you've ever played it yourself. I think most people who have played football appreciate it more. Football as in soccer i mean. Can't be that bad, if 2 billion people roughly will be watching it.

Noel: Clever new sig image. I like it, smart ass. :P

Back on topic...

Yeah Ross, it is about appreciating the skill and not just how many goals are scored. I've always been complete rubbish at football. Consequently, I've never been a huge football fan - I don't support a particular (domestic) team - but I do really enjoy the international tournaments...

which reminds me... COME ON ENGLAND!

(20 mins to go then I'm off to the pub to watch the game)

Well, what a big pile of turd that was.

If England play like that again, they'll be lucky to get out of the group stages, let alone win the f'ing thing.

Pants! :(

i think it is part of Sven Goran-Erikkson's master plan.
if they come runners-up in group B then they won't have to play Brazil in the semis, instead they play anyone else and have a chance at the final, where hopefully Brazil will have injurys and not be at their best. master plan from Sven, you see. :)

Master plan. Sven. Does not compute!

Sven's too busy counting his millions and shagging women way out of his league.

shagging has nothing to do with football though.
that's a whole different ball-game.

but, i think maybe the master plan is different.
i think he plans to win group b, which means an easier run to the semis
where they just have to beat Brazil then. i think they could at least manage that.

No, it's just the way England approach most major championships. With the first game, but play so badly that they could have drawn or lost it. Struggle to a draw next game and everyone thinks they're done. Play the best team so far and thump them in the third game, making everyone think they've come to life. Then face a really good team, play bravely, lose, go home, everyone says they played well, were unlucky to lose and cry in their beer for a bit.

Frankly, Britian ( sic ) would be an unbearable place to live if they won, so the sooner they get it over with and come home, the better. We haven't stopped banging on about 1966 yet, imagine if the timer began all over again. :|

Settle down there german people!

I'll be supporting Britain in the World Cup! What's that we don't have a team? What do you mean we don't have a British team even though we've been a country since 1707? Cue morons insisting that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are different countries.

I'm thinking the British teams would win more often if only we can persuade other countries to field provincial teams rather than a single strong national team.

LMAO! Oh the irony!

For the record I got profoundly drunk in newmarket surrounded by birds and mates and a good time was had by all... the footer wasn't even the focal point.

I vote for making football illegal.. :)

..whats the football world cup anyway??

Erm, off topic?

Anyhow...

KeePeeUppy now has a World Cup 2006 ball :-)



No more hijacking I promise ;-)

yay, victory for NL ^_^

To be honest, i think the england match.. they played pretty well. The first half was pure quality, nothing to complain about. The second half.. faced with uncountable biased decisions from that slick haired ref.. and the heat.. they held the 1 goal lead to the end. Of course we want to see them play well the entire match, but thats jut not the way football works. It is not the way any competitive game works. Each team will have periods of control.. and periods of poor quality.

So well done england, got the goal.. held the win and showed us what you CAN! do (in the first half).

On a side note.. damn i missed the cambridge party :(. The shots "and here in cambridge" .. is my home town.. but i was up visiting relatives in peterburough BOOO!

Anyway .. COME ON ENGLAND!

*remembers back in the euros in #blitzbasic with people like rob getting heart failure on that last match* ahhh memories.. lol

I'm a scots man and don't want england do well, because the commentators are already talking about Englands next opponents in the next round... Jesus... I think England can go very far though

@skn3[ac] Hmm played well... or hung on by the skin of their teeth ? I personnally thought Ecuador did rather well against Poland... you wouldn't think that listening to the commentators after the match though.

I dont want a British team, cos then we would have to have rangers (and celtic) in the premier league.
(I wouldnt mind a seperate London National side tho, cos then we could get rid of Chelsea and Arsenal)

Not sure if it was said before, but (and this is indeed technical), this whole FIFA Soccer Championship 2006 is a huge rip off!! I tell you why, who and where: Did you notice how small the players are? Much smaller than 4 years ago. So small, the tv screen is covered only 50% by the soccer field, and the rest by ads and the crowd, about 90% of the time. They could easily zoom a little and use the whole screen for relevant stuff, but they won't, because of the conspiracy of HD-TV Flatscreen Manufactors! The evil guilde of LCD Monitor Builders is trying to force people to buy a new TV, buy a HD-Ready TV. The FIFA is part of the concept since they define the way everything may be screened, broadcasted and published. They FORCE HD!

I wouldn't be surprised if Sepp Blatter and the CEO of Sony are playing golf together on sundays.

The FIFA sucks!

Most of their licensing requirements are annoying, against natural behaviour, only thought for maximising profits, typical behaviour of a monopolist. Some of them are even unconstitutional. You have to make such deals which are against your constitution to get the event to your country. They don't pay a cent out of the income of the WorldCup to the country and so on.

Best would be to get rid of them, organzie a new World Cup without them and enjoy it until it turns into the same bad game...

I'm just finishing a Flash world cup "keepy ups" game, which I hope to link to sometime so you guys can have a go.

I don't particularly like footy but if England are playing and Im in the mood I shall watch some of the match.

IPete2.

I dunno about other countries but here in NL there're cheap-loan advertisements on TV, encouraging you to take a loan just to buy a new TV for this soccer event! Stupid^2 if I may say so. And for what? For the few cm extra size you'll experience? See, no matter how much bigger the TV is, you're not watching it at 50cm distance. The farther away, the smaller the TV gets, and the smaller the perceptual size increases with a bigger TV.
And ofcourse, with a normal TV you've a perfect view already, some tests even conclude you've actually better quality with these non-flatscreens.

They're advertising large-screen TVs here all the time too.

I dunno why people don't just sit closer to the TV if its not big enough for them to see from where they usually sit.

And why pay £1k+ for a new TV? You'll still only be able to watch Big Brother, 4 weeks of football and repeats of Dad's Army on it.

I had a nice BBQ on Saturday, oh, and Sunday too.

Football? What? :)

Oh, that must have been what those drunks shouting "ENNNGGGLAANNNDD!!" were shouting at...

Maybe these were the guys...

Shit me thats them!

But wheres that naked chick they were with....

under the guy at the front, he's just enjoying a climax :P

Yay for Ausralia. 3-1 vs Japan.


...


I'm just enjoying it while it lasts. :o)

I still can't believe it - it's a dream come true for us Aussies! Makes up for so many hardbreaks in the past.

Well done fellas - 'Aussie' Guus is a genius (as is Timmy Cahill!).

Well done Aussie people!

The US team played not very well on the other hand! ;)

I'm excited how Brazil will play today... :O)

http://damientsturdy.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/World_Cup_Team_Tactics.pps

Wasn't this much Brazil in Brazil, hmm?!

Of course HD TV is good, no doubt. They want people to spend their money, money must circulate to keep the companies alive. That's ok. But I don't want them to force me to buy a HD TV. It's nice, but it isn't high ranking on my priority list.

I think it's amazing how this championship has an influence on social live, worldwide. They say a billion people watched the opening match. That's every 5th human in this world, including children, old ppl etc.
They also use this thing as an international exercise of trilateral security politics. Hooligans are placeholders for riot groups.

However, Switzerland plays better than ever, 0:0 in the match against France, former world champion of 1998. Hopp Schwiizz!!

I don't like that much soccer, but when you heard all those peoples screaming and simulating Baghdad with all those firework, well you turn the TV on...
Yeah, I am currently living in Brazil.

By the way they do play football! :O)

I'm not going to buy an HDTV - the adverts on Sky about it have the same quality as the TV I have now. (Why do Sky try and advertise HDTV with those silly adverts they don't prove anything unless you have an HDTV).

But in the UK do we have to get a Sky HDTV thing to actually watch HDTV?

http://ascii-wm.net/

GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!! :O)

Poland is dead...

This sounds much more interesting....

http://www.robocup.org/

...the robot world cup....

There was a discussion on this yesterday evening on the german tv with some engineers, Joseph Weizenbaum and others. The special after the discussion was quite interesting as it was about robotics in a more general way.

Weizenbaum repeatly tried to turn it into a political event, instead of a scientific discussion ("you need to scrach where it bites"), really funny.

I'm not afraid of soccer playing bots (I also don't want to play against them, titan feet kicks etc.), but the Cyborg Options are real fatal IMHO.

It's about 6 years ago when they started to implemnt thought-driven mice for the PCs of people who are paralized.

I immediately realized: Imagine, add a network connection and a projector that sends the screen image right into the eye. Imagine a cop will only have to watch you once, a picture is taken, sent to the mainframe, your face will be recoginzed and identified, then the cop sees your name at the left bottom of his HUD display. Technically absolutely possible. I'm really afraid of this kind of technically optimized hegemony.

Oh so you're german?

Well, Weizenbaum is known for his point of view and somehow he is right with it. Why putting so much effort into it when there are so many other "real" problems to solve first in the world which are much more important.

Yes of course he's right, although it was kind of polemic. At the other hand scientists like the young professor in the discussion seem to think they have absolutey no responsibility or duty when it comes to politics.

I'm from switzerland btw.

No, you don't *have* to, but they're bigger than everyone else by a country mile, so it might be the best plan if you're going to get HDTV at all. There was a time when NTL looked like they might be able to take Sky on, but after all their financial troubles, that doesn't seem likely any more.

Nobody posted that England won 2-0 yesterday?

We don't want to offend those poor fragile Scots now do we :P

After hearing some of the anti-English comments coming from our kilted brethren, I hope we win this world cup just so that we can bang on about 1966 AND 2006 in 4 years time when they fail to qualify yet again. Now then, stick that in yer bag-pipes and smoke it.

I don't think that's very likely, now. Did you see Argentina play today? Yikes! :/

looks like it will be a final brazil vs argentina

@jfk EO-11110
Yep and okay...i was just wondering if an english guy would watch the zdf...

@HRC_SPIDER
I don't think so... :O)

Football is gay! Hasn't England spooned it yet due to our overwhelming crapness? :)

Football is great for politics. They've just decided to increase the taxes from 16% to 19% here and no one is complaining these days...

I very much doubt it

I think, I have watch more soccer this month than in my whole life... lol

btw, I am looking at Italy VS USA, omg what is that ? some kind of Karate or 'American Football' ? lol

I'm not sure you can slag off the world's most popular sport as being bad because if it was then why is it so popular? Everybody's entitled to an opinion though right? Even so, you might want to refrain from making yourself seem like a particularly immature 6 year old by declaring it 'gay'

If England are bad then every other team in the world, other than arguably two teams, must be even worse seeing as we beat almost every other team in the world cup the last time we played them. That’s including one of the teams I'm counting as being better than England, Argentina.

Having said that I can't see us winning because Eriksson is a terrible manager, but anyone declaring England as 'overwhelming crap' is either ignorant or an idiot.

I always prefered FA singles and doubles played against one goal, than the full game. That was loads of fun at school and I was really goof at it :)

I just don't enjoy team games that much.

Heh a couple of months ago I saw this german, anti german music vid that was kind of amusing. Probably won't please the Scot's amongst us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv8OfDbPcUM

I doubt it will please the Germans amongst us, that's awful

Soccer stinks, probably the most booooooooring activity, EVER, to watch !

As we can see from the video:
Stupid people live all around the world.
In addition: There is nothing funny about a world war!

I hope the people from all over the world that visit Germany (for the most part) will find open-minded and friendly Germans.

I'we been to Germany many times and find young people friendly and nice, the older ones though, are more hostile and don't even understand anything but german language.
The latter is OK if you work in some yard or factory, but NOT if you work at a gas-station along the autobahn or in hotels/restaurants. IMHO that is ! (Love Autobahn BTW :oD ..)

I wouldn't mind a blast on the Autobahn too :-) The noise of the air passing the windows at 150 is quite something...

As our state needs a lot of money, they have radar controls (static and mobile) all over the place. Most Autobahns have speed limits (120 km/h) in these days. On top of that as our states wastes a lot of money for other stuff, most Autobahns are in very bad condition (that goes for western Germany).

=75Mph. My god that's totally lame. My beast does 240+km/h, oh well...

I usually go from north to south in Germany (and back later)
and I see this sign quite a lot:



:oD

Autobahns used to be pretty cool, I caught a ferry once we got off of holand, I drove from the port to the czechoslovakia/polish border through holand, both west, east germany, and poland in 10 hours. Got pulled over twice doing over 2x the speed limit. But this was about 1990, and everyone in east germany and poland in particular had trabants, and lunchbox fiats that you couldn't even buy in western europe.

Was pretty weird to have crowds of kids gawping at a 626 hatchback, and running after you down the streets.

Here in North CA most people seem to drive at about 80/85mph roughly 130kmph. Don't really get speed cameras, and it's pretty hard to get pulled over. Many stretches of road are radar enforced, which means that there might be planes and helicopters in the air looking out for speeders, but thats pretty rare.

@Grey: My "beast" make 175km/h (downhill and wind from the back) and it only takes about 10 mins to get this speed. ;)

Anyway, I already chose the car of my dreams.

One day it will be mine... muhahaha...

Link=http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/9186/bild14dm.png

nice. I'm pretty happy with mine but would swap it for a Skyline GT-R Nismo Z-tuned given a chance :-)

Google Image search: site:www.wallpaper.net.au Skyline GT-R Nismo

That one?
http://www.rsportscars.com/eng/cars/nismo_gt-r_z-tune.asp

I never had a Nissan. But looks nice. And "only" $170.000.

yep. That's a nice pic. Look at that beast 2.7litre twin turbo. And because it's Japanese not American then 2.7litres is actually massive and ultra efficient. It's got twice the power of my car.

This would be more affordable but it's not much of an upgrade:

http://www.rsportscars.com/eng/cars/nissan_skyline.asp

heh, I just want a lotus elise. Some porsches are nice though. But not very many cars today really communicate well to the driver whats going on with the road.

I like a bare bones sports car best, without too many electronic assistance computer gizmo's that give a bad driver too much confidence and take all the fun out of seat of the pants driving.

RWD, LSD, direct power steering so you can feel the road, cable throttle and brakes so they give you some feedback too, rather than the lights non feel pedals a lot of modern cars have, only ABS for the odd emergency. And I'm a happy camper :)

Oh yeah a good alignment with some negative camber for more direct steering response and sharper turn in plus more outside grip on the corners makes for a much more fun and responsive car compared to the usual pedestrian settings that most cars come with. A good sporta oriented 4 wheel alignment makes a huge ammount of difference, but does wear out the tires a bit quicker.

Wasn't Autobahn the Band in "The Big Lebowski"? The guys who ruined the carpet? Eeek.

BTW

Indeed, "Bloodsports III" or something. I was only surprised they didn't decalre all opponents as "axis of evil" and dropped some nukes - what?!?

I think a lot of teams are now strategicly disguising their capabilities. Like Brazil. "Oh, we are so lazy... Ronaldo is fat and anyway". Later then they will show their latest tricks I'm sure.

Today the swiss team won agains Togo. I really felt sorry for the togo fans. Considering the fact that they didn't have any training in the prev. weeks they played very well. Noless, 2:0.

Okay we are through! :O)

The Germans were lucky again.

But fun to watch, had 4 beers... ;o)

3:0 we win :)

@Grisu
Ahaaahhhh...right...um well, weren't you the football expert who also said this "Watch the German team! Why? - It's so funny when they fail to pass the pre-round... :P" over a week ago?! ;O)

1:1 so far, I expect better game of England then this. I predict 2:2

Football is gay! :)

Not nearly as much as your favourite sport Enay :P

Well predicted maximo ;)

It should at least appeal more to gay people as fotballers/soccerplayers tend to touch eachother a lot and intimately after the leather(!) ball(!) goes into the opening behind(!) the goal-keeper...

"Can he find an opening?!"

@maximo
You change your predictions real fast... :O)

Cheese Rolling... rofl... now that's gay.

And even if football is gay.
This leaves more women for us... ;)

That Cheese rolling is a proper man's game, men and women have been seriously injured or even killed in the cheese rolling race.

yeah more people get injured in cheese rolling in big ways that football.

taumel I have no idea what you're talking about ;)

Forget the cheese rolling, the Aussies are into the second round to take on the Italians!

Where I live (Melbourne), there is are massive Greek (biggest outside Greece itself), Croatian and Italian communities - the joint's been rocking the last couple of weeks as we've come up against the first two (Greece was a friendly) - Tuesday morning will be huge!

I really like seeing that not only "highly paid" teams make it into the next round.

2:0 **gg**

Joohoo Joohoo the pirate fights for me! ;O)

football... kiss-ball... Anyways - did anyone see the Argie's against the mexicans last night - very entertaining game... The doubters reckon it's 'warming up' for Engerlands game today --- 'if' Ecuador wins (I do hope england wins) it won't be down to the fact the better team won -- it'll be it was too hot or some other blah...

I can't see England playing a blinder in that heat. :/

We'll see...

Come on Ecuador! ;)

No, it's just the way I walk.

Wouldn't put it passed them to beat england. There playing awful...

Twas some goal by argentina to clinch it yesterday... What a way to win! My prediction for today, is England to win by one goal, and portugal to beat holland.

I'm routing for germany this world cup though. It's good to see them playing exciting football, instead of their usual boring display. Mon' the germans!

German football has only been exciting because they have been playing badly. When they get into their rythm, then it will be boring again

I think the German's ahve a very good chance of winning. They're getting stronger every game. You can never under-estimate the Germans! Especially as they're playing on home ground.

All I know for sure is that England WILL NOT win this World Cup. If they do, I'll eat my head!

Bags the forehead!

Sorry, NASA has already bought my forehead to use as a new landing strip.

lmao

Hello.

Hurrah for Beckham!!! Yah boo sucks for Sky whose signal I've just lost. Bazzards!

Goodbye.

On ITV, I've just watched David Beckham puking up green goo on the field in slow motion. Highlight of the match!

Told ya. England to win by one goal. A borefest... Come on the portugal!

I'll be glad when England get knocked out, if only because it'll mean people will take those stupid gay flags off their cars.

Yep, another predictable result and performance against Equador. If they follow the pattern, they'll play really well against Portugal/Netherlands and lose to a fluke goal, probably due to a mistake by Robinson in goal.

Yeah, england keeper looks shakey. Those flags are horrendous. I urge anyone in possesion of one, to take it off immediately :o)

Portugal are winning too. I should have put a bet on...

OK, can you just believe the amount of yellows and reds you just could've witnessed @ Portugal-NL? It's truly insane!

> It's truly insane!

Football is post war anger anyway.

The referee should have given Boulahrouz the red card with his first attack then this would have been another game. Anyway the way portugal weakend itself this is the chance for England to reach the semifinal where they most likely will be defeated by Brazil...

Hello.

Wow, wasn't the Portugal/Holland match a battle? I can't believe the ref showed so many cards, but equally how unsporting both teams were.

But the best part of it was seeing a Portugese and a Dutch player (league team mates) sitting down together chatting away happily after having both been sent off.

Goodbye.

> but equally how unsporting both teams were.

Dirty tactics are what win wars, noone cares about how gentlemanly you are about admitting defeat.
Eric Cantona dropkicks should be legal tackles, especially against goal keepers. That'd make football exciting, football kick boxing.

Hello.

Fair enough in the context of winning wars, but this is sport, y'know? The idea is, in some degree, to be sporting. Ok, not to the extent that you say "After you, dear fellow" but not so you collapse like over-ripe brie as soon as someone nudges you.

Perhaps, that's why I'm shite at most sport.

Goodbye.

Australia robbed by a bull&#$@ penalty at the death.

:o(

[edit] Well done to Italy who defended outstandingly with only 10 men, but WTH have these refs been smoking? [/edit]

There was no way in hell that was a penalty.

The entire tournament is fast becoming a joke. Christ knows what the match officials are on.

Yay - I've got Ukraine in a sweepstake - can't see them winning the cup on their 'hold out for penalties' strategy. Rodriguez's chest down / volley has gotta be one of the goals of the tournament.

darn, switzerland is out. stupid penalty. Bah soccer sucks! always said so :o)

Was a really dissapointing penalty shootout.

> Christ knows what the match officials are on.

Hey don't worry. This will be our best defence when we lose too, if we can't blame it on penalties, referees, bad calls for our loss then it will be with a player being injured, the manager or a random floating mars bar wrapper floating into someones ear (believe my arse). One day we'll actually realise that we aren't good enough to win and probably never will be and that's the real reason why we never get to win at anything.

Still, there's always another chance in 4 years (or is it 2?) I can never quite remember, or care. :)

There's always next year Tim.

I really feel sorry for the Aussie team. Italy didn't deserve coming to the next round!

I hope GER-ARG will be a fair and hot match and not this Amercian Gladiator style football.

Or everyone falling down like a bunch of panzies.

Actually, that is a given, I love soccer, but it the falling down that really irks me.

> but it the falling down that really irks me.

I saw a guy (think he was an Equador player) who rolled over 7 times with his face in his hands after he fell.
He must have been a carpet in a former life.

I think they have supernatural healing powers too.

They will have a broken leg, get carried off, and in under a minute they are back on the field scoring goals.

I've never seen a game before where one team wasn't able to at least shot one goal in the penalty. Whilst the English teams loose most of their penalties i can't think of a game i've seen they weren't able to shot at least one goal. Awww i miss Seaman... ;O)

Me too, and his fashionable long hair.

That's because he ate his wife's McDonalds before playing. I recon he eats everything for her, i mean, just look at her!

> That's because he ate his wife's McDonalds before playing.

I'll bet he eats her salad too.

What do you think I meant by "I recon he eats everything for her"? ;)

I keep hearing arguements on TV like soccer needs camera-judgement/checks rather than some ref who can't see everything from the right angle, let alone things happening at his back. Purists will say that this defeats the charm of socccer, I actually don't bother about this charm!

> I actually don't bother about this charm!

I'm looking forward to the day when someone performs a spinning piledriver on the pitch. I never touched him ref!

.[edited out a random psycho post by me]

Dunno, there's one ref who apparently has eyes in his ass.

He sent somebody off for headbutting another player - an incident which happened directly behind him. There was no way he could ever have seen it.
Um...

Yeah, I know. I edited my post. I think I was in ruin thread mode. :/

Come on people don't be so negative, sure England are playing some of the worst football ever endured but if Greece can win the European Cup we can win the World Cup. And don't forget we will be victorious in defeat anyway! Defeat means the end of Sven and his defensive rubbish and back to proper attacking English style football!

Before I'm attacked by Eriksson supporters, AKA people who don't know anything about football, let me pose this question: How does Eriksson take a group of players, many of whom are the key players for top European clubs and have been instrumental in winning the Champions League for their clubs and turn them into such a poor team that struggles to get goals? Is that what 'good' managers do?

Managers should rarely ever get the blame. The manager doesn't play, if the team loses it is primiliary down to the players, how can he his fault?

Unfortunately we're getting Steve Mclaren - so scrub that notion !

I think people are only now beginning to twig that Eriksson is not a good manager - he is not even an average manager - he is a self-interested con-man who has fooled the F.A into thinking that he actually knows something about coaching football, even extorting more money out of them by his shenannigans with Chelsea. It's very clear when he is interviewed that he doesn't have a clue - the strange thing is how he has managed to get away with it for so many years.
There is an outside chance that, in spite of Eriksson, England may progress in the tournament because we do have some very good players - all we need now is a team.

The role of a manager is vital to a team. The motivation and selection of the players, the tactics used and the timing and choice of the right substitutes can win or lose games. It's not by accident that Guus Hiddinck has done so well with unfancied teams in the last 2 tournaments neither is it by chance that Phil Scolari has transformed Portugal from a mediocre team to a real contender in the last 2 major tournaments.

200th post.

I'm also for camera-judgment, at least for big games like this World Cup. Wrong decisions happen far too often!

200 - It's time for a commercial break:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaFm47lsL2g&search=soccer%20comic

"This thread is not sponsored by McDonalds or some German beer producers. Also it's in no way FIFA controlled!!!"

P.S.: Shall I open up a new thread?

I like the tragedy and the whining after a false decision... :O)

Hey with a camera judgement and computer aided analyses England would have never won a World Cup! ;O)

I totally agree that video replays ought to be used in football, lots of people, especially the people in charge of FIFA say that by allowing replays that would change the nature of the game. To me that point of view is rendered obsolete since FIFA are constantly changing the actual rules of the game all the time, bringing in and out golden and silver goals, changing the offside rule, etc. They do have a point in a way though, it would change the game, it'd make it better. Less cheating and players and teams profiting from results, Thierry Henry could tell you a thing or two about that!

I for one seriously doubt that if video replays had been available when football was created the founders would decide to not use them. Football should be about the skill and mistakes of the players and the players alone, not the officials.


I seem to remember Middlesbrough twice coming back from being several goals down to win 4-3 on a couple of occasions in the UEFA cup last season so Mclaren can¡Çt be that defensive, do you think any Eriksson team would EVER do that?

If you scrub that goal we still won 3-2. You could argue if that third goal had been disallowed the game after that point would have been different, but then I'd argue that England would have won many other games down the years if they were video replays and many more diving Germans would have been sent off. Your coach could tell you a thing or two about that.

Yeah let's start a Wembley discussion! I knew that someone would bite into the bait... ;O) *laughing*

What? Bite into the bait that you said something that was factually wrong? Oh the artifice! I commend you! I've not seen such cleverness since FIFA told referees to actually enforce the rules and then their president criticises referees for doing just that.

If you say so... :O)

I think the matches are getting worse. More fouls and cards.

No wonder why everyone is getting sick watching them... :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NoVVE1oNwo&feature=Discussed&page=1&t=t&f=b

I miss football already...

Well it's what pretty much every England manager has done in the past two or three decades. Sven's an easy target cuz he's a "foreigner" but Glen Hoddle, Kevin Keegan, Graham Taylor, and to a lesser extent Terry Venables and even Bobby Robson failed to put together a team that was equal to a sum of the parts, so either it's one huge coincidence or there's more to it.

Personally I think there's something to be said for Sven. Under him, they play badly and scrape through. Under the others, they played well or badly and scraped out. On a broader note, I think the FA just bottles the decision and gives it to a pair of safe hands instead of picking the right man for the job.

Graham Taylor, Glen Hoddle, Kevin Keegan, these were managers who were never ready for international management. Terry Venables was, but they removed him out of fear before he got a chance to get really good at it. They passed over Clough, probably the best England manager we never had, and this time they passed over Martin O'Neill, a man who clearly has what it takes to win, in favour of Steve McClaren, who as Smiff says, is just going to give us more of the same tedium we've had under Sven.

Exactly how many tournaments have we won under Sven? True Kevin Keegan wasn't a good manager but Sven has had better players to work with, had longer, and achieved nothing either. How is that an improvement?

As for Bobby Robson 'failing' as England manager, he took us to the semi final of the World Cup and only due to the last 10% of the equation, luck, which no man can control, failed to take us into the final. How you can even compare the great Bobby Robson to Sven totally astounds me!

The problem with the England team is that they are treated and paid like Gods. They need knocked down a peg or two. One thing that amazes me is that there is so much money in football (UK) and still the England squad is hovering above average.

Don't get me wrong, I'm supporting England in their world cup games, but I just know its luck if we beat the teams from here on in. Too much reliance on Rooney and Beckham as the "only" chance of England winning is silly. Too much living in the past and a lack of team talent if you ask me.

It's a pity that the world cup isn't military. I'd feel a lot more confident if it was the Britsh SAS against XYZ.

Never mind that. Let's all take the piss out of Graham Taylor. Now, he REALLY stank!

Do I not like that!

That's a common argument but they're on about the same money as all the other top players that play in Europe, so how do you figure that it affects our players but not anyone elses?

Today Germany will fail... hehe... :o)))))))))))))))))))

Awww football again...

@Grisu
You're one of these guys who say A and hope for B, right?!

And hey no they will win - Deutschland! :O)

Many managers, similiar results.

Hmm, do I not see a patronisingly obvious pattern emerging.

Managers do NOT KICK THE BALL!

Well I think you need to pass on this information immediately to the Premier League Clubs - the poor deluded fools still keep on sacking managers when their teams get relegated - they seem to think that the Manager has a role and influence over a team and its preparation - what nutters eh !

Gordon Strachan - Football Manager or Comic Genius??

Reporter: "Gordon, can we have a quick word please?"

Strachan: "Velocity" [walks off]



Reporter: So, Gordon, in what areas do you think Middlesbrough were better than you today?

Strachan: What areas? Mainly that big green one out there.

Reporter: "Gordon, what will you take from today?"

Strachan: I've got more important things to think about. I've got a yoghurt to finish, the expiry date is today.



Reporter: There goes your unbeaten run. Can you take it?

Strachan: No, I'm just going to crumble like a wreck. I'll go home, become an alcoholic and maybe jump off a bridge.



Reporter: There's no negative vibes or negative feelings here?

Strachan: Apart from yourself, we're all quite positive round here. I'm going to whack you over the head with a big stick, down negative man, down.



Reporter: Welcome to Southampton Football Club. Do you think you are the right man to turn things around?

Strachan: No, I think they should have got George Graham because I'm useless.



Reporter: where will Marion Pahars fit into the team line-up?

Strachan: Not telling you! It's a secret.



Reporter: "What is your impression of Jermaine Pennant?"

Strachan: "I don't do impressions"



Reporter: So Gordon, any changes then?

Strachan: Naw, still 5ft 6, ginger and a big nose!



Gary Lineker: So Gordon, if you were English, what formation would you play?

Strachan: If I was English I'd top myself!
.....and finally

On Wayne Rooney: "It's an incredible rise to stardom. At 17 you're more likely to get a call from Michael Jackson than Sven Goran Eriksson."

> what nutters eh !

Manager = Scapegoat.

To borrow a question from a man who claims to know what he's talking about, exactly how many tournaments did we win under Bobby Robson? ;)

The numbers speak for themselves :

Eriksson - Played 66, Won 40, Drawn 16, Lost 10
Keegan - Played 18, Won 7, Drawn 7, Lost 4
Hoddle - Played 28, Won 17, Drawn 6, Lost 5
Venables - Played 23, Won 11, Drawn 11, Lost 1
Taylor - Played 38, Won 18, Drawn 13, Lost 7
Robson - Played 95, Won 47, Drawn 30, Lost 18

Do the math on points percentage, and Sven even slightly beats Terry Venables and Glen Hoddle ( who were both sacked for non-footballing reasons. )

I'm not saying he's a great manager, I'm not saying he inspires players, I'm not saying he's a tactial genius and I'm not saying he gets the best of the players or plays a beautiful game, but whether you like it or not, he gets better results than any manager since Sir Alf.

Enay=goat ;)



He's also had the best squad of players since Sir Alf !
During his reign we've also lost to Northern Ireland and Australia ! Unforgiveable !

TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!!! :O)

1:1?

Yes woooh the suspense is killing me... :O)

JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *rotate the 8 by 90 degrees here!* :O)

Lehmann rocks, I KNEW IT. ;)

Well done Germany. :)

Not too impressed with the fight at the end though. Sore loosers the Argies if you ask me.

Congrats Germany!!!! That Ballack (sp?) guy was great.

There was a fight? Gutted that I missed it.

Thanks! What an enjoyable evening/night yesterday. Lot's of fun with Argentineans and Brasiliens...it's so wonderful hearing those drums again. :O)

Have you ever gone to nice? If you ever go there then you should go to the beach on the very left side where the beach isn't seperated by the hotels. At lot of younger people meet there in the summertime playing drums through the night, whilst you also hear the waves rolling the grit, fishes jumping in the moonlight...

@MattVonFat
What does (sp?) mean? Spelling? If so, correct...will play in Chelsea next season.

Well, today is your day. What do you think will you make it?

Yeah, I'd only seen it on his shirt and wasn't sure if I had read it correctly because it sounded diffrent.



England and France to win...I just have a good feeling :)

Berlin , Berlin we go to Berlin !

You go, I drive... :)

I see England are showing off their usual mediocrity again. How anyone can believe they can win the cup if beyond me. It will be the fluke of the century if they do.

[edit] LOL, Beckham injured, Rooney sent off. Come on England!

England are going out. I know they will. They absolutely suck at penalties.

Get ready.

[edit] Told You. Oh well.

Bye England! You "almost" fluked it. Even though portugal played so bad, we still couldn't win normally.
Hopefully now UK TV can get back to normal.

gimp

oh dear. And the moral of the story, don't stamp on people's testicles unless you really mean it.

Rooney shouldn't have kicked the portugal player into the eggs...

I would have given England a chance if it wasn't penalty. England and penalty...well, Amon said it...someone needs a hankderchief?

The red card was harsh though, didn't deserve that, but you know if England had fluked a win on penalties they wouldn't have stood a chance against Brazil/German in the next few rounds. Best 3 players injured or sent off and we were bad before that. No Beckham to fluke a free kick into the goal to win (previous match)

Simple fact of matter, England need a better team and better players. That is all, you can't really be surprised they lost, because they played poorly.

When would you give a red card? When stealing one other players eye?

England played bent all through the tournament. I have a feeling that "Posh" and all the other so-called 'WAGS' are all lady-boys for their bent little partners.

England will probabaly sail back - just so they can look at hunky sailors.

Bent, bent, bent.

I'm going to turn Scottish - better than being Welsh (they are practically English).

> When would you give a red card?

Well the guy was stumbling all over the place, I recon it would've been difficult to intentionally have done that on purpose. I recon it was for the agro afterwards.

> I'm going to turn Scottish

You should watch the scottish guy on BBC2 playing Andy Roddick.
At least he's showing 'skill'.

Well done England - they showed great fight and spirit to get through to the penalty shoot-out with only 10 men. If only they'd played with such spirit from the start who knows ?

Well France have just won Brazil, after having watched the second half of this game, these 2 teams battled so much better than England and Portugal did.

holyshit....
I am French living in Brazil, I will hide for a few weeks, they are mad lol

No suprise with the England penalties. The usual half arsed tip-tap kicking the ball across the floor. Portugal missed the goal 2 times and still England failed due to their usual laclustre penalty abilities.

Yay! Scotland's sanity is safe for another 2 years!

Good thing too, with France beating Brazil and Germany or Italy in a potential final, that looks like the type of draw you want for an England world cup win. If England could play as strong as a team as the individual talent within the team, I would have put them as favorites, the draw standing as it is.

But in reality, both England and Portugal were playing utter pants. Mind you, so were France until tonight.

Rooney is an arse. He deserved his red card AND a punch in the face as well. He reminds me so much of Eric Cantona. He didn't know when to keep his mouth shut either.

Beckham is over-rated. Christ knows why he's England captain.

Sven needs a good kicking. All through this tournament he's insisted on having only one player up front. End result = crosses to nothing.

I vote to sack the Swedish git and get a proper manager for next time. He's sodding useless. :/

We played crap, we deserved to lose.

Hhahahah@ gfk

(You did know that we sacked him before the compitition, didt you?)
Now that we are knockedout, can we delete this thread?

Edited.

Rooney's red card was NOT deserved, two Portuguese were tangling with him and making him loose his footing whereby his foot gave probably the lightest touch on the other player's bollocks only to have him make out Rooney stamped on him with all his force, which by the way I reckon he should have done as then the red card would have been fair.

However England are out and as such we need to rebuild. Drop Beckham who is now too old to be a force in the next world cup and probably even the next European Championship. Get rid of Lampard who for my money has been the worst player, far worse than Beckham who even though not at his best scored a winning goal and set up a number of other goals. Lampard did ABSOLUTLEY nothing, total tosh. Can't we turn his 'nationality' into Scottish? He can't do anything at international level so he'd fit right in up there! Anyway I'd replace the dead wood with Downing and Lennon, give us some real pace down the wings and for once allow crosses from both wings too.

@H&K... Isn't this a World cup thread...? Can't remember it being called a 'England thread' or am I being Fae-She-sus ?

Roony's card was well deserved. He was sent-off for the stamping/wretleing AND for pushing That stupid kid who players for United. (If you watch it again, the ref was probably even going to "Let him off" the stamping)

@Blitz, Yes I agree that its not an "Englang at the world cup" thread, but it shouldnt be allowed on the forum at all. A fact which I only just realised at 6:40pm ;)

Well, wasn't that England v. Portugal game just so tragically predictable?! It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Deja vu, all over gain. :/

I think Rooney needs to play with a muzzle on. However, in his defence, it did seem to me that Portugal (and Renaldo in particular) had a specific plan to wind him up to do something stupid, and get him sent off. It worked - well done.

Poor Sven. He's crying all the way to the bank!

P.S. An England game and we get an Argentine ref! What the hell's that all about?!

P.P.S. Heh, remember all that fuss when Theo Walcott was picked for the squad, and he never even got to play. :P

It's only a game!

Seems David Beckham has been reading this thread and has quit as captain. :P

Just a thought. Has the England captain always been white despite the % of players of other ethnic minorities in the team?

Rooney did it on purpose, he coiled his leg. Not sure he meant to aim for the testicles though!

yeah I think the balls was a lucky hit, not some extra kung fu training.

I think Paul Ince captaining England for a time. I hope you're not going to suggest the new captain not be white purely for the sake of it. Political 'correctness' regarding race is really beginning to aggravate me. Giving things to people purely because they're not white discriminates against people that are white. There's a term for discriminating against people based on race, it's called racism.

Someone please kill this thread :)

Makepool: I just genuinely didn't know if they were always white so thought I'd ask. Say 50% of the team is non-white then just by random selection the captain could in theory be non-white 50% of the time too, that's all I was thinking ...

As an ideal situation thing then yes Grey you are right, if over time x% of the team are NonWhite, then x% of the Captains should also be nonWhite, assumeing a similar education and upbringing for all ethnic groups. (And seeing the backgrounds of the players I cannot see why a black player would be any less capable than a White player)

However, To just pick a player to be captain simply because its time for a black captain is stupid.
To ensure that nonwhite players have the same chance of becomeing captian, there would need to be work done at leage level, (in that case the percntage of black players should be comparable to the percent of black captains)

When it comes down to it, it IS because most players do hold some racisim, (Not all, and Most would never dream of acting upon it, But they are less likely to accept a black captain)
The Managers job is to pick a captain that most benifits the team, and while there still exists the inherent predidice against being "Bossed arround" by an "ethnic", the captain picked will mostly be white. Of course this means that anyblack captain in a majority White team, is probably an outstanding leader.

Paul Ince and Sol Campbell have captained England over the last 10 years. There were 7 non-white players in the world cup squad as far as i can see. Of those Only Rio Ferdinand might be in with a shout at it now Beckham has gone, although up against John Terry i can't see him getting the job. I don't think that a persons race/colour/whatever comes into it anymore.

I dont think it matters much either now adays, not in England. But in some of our more southern european neignbours it is.

Seems like Germany will miss "Frings" on tuesday against Italy.

Will be interesting to see how the Fifa decides.

As i've read/heard the story i can't see a resaon why. It seems a little bit too obvious what some italians are trying to achive.

a) The player who was allegedly hit said he wasn't hit.
b) Frings said he defended himself.
c) The only paper which could come up with a picture which doesn't show what's exactly happening was an italian one.

Well, as with all things were you're not personally involved you never know but this smells a little bit too much in my opinion...

I find it kind of lame of the FIFA that they need this long for investigating this.

But the best thing is that Gennaro Gattuso is favoring this. You know who he is, how he plays/fouls, how many cards this fair playing fellow got this and last season?! :O)

Wow they really did. I would have never thought that...Fifa sucks!

since Steven Gerrard is vice-captain i expect he will be the new captain.

my bet for the semis is for germany to beat italy, and france to beat portugal. anyone wanna bet? lol

Nope. :) Germany v France final, I reckon, with Germany just scraping a win.

I think it will be Germany v France final too. France looked VERY nice on defense (i.e. close double team of Ronaldinho) and offense. I think Germany will win though. This is really the 1st year I have followed the WC.

I wouldn't be so quick to bet against Italy. Think we might see a little bit of history repeated.

This is funny: http://bgi.dr.dk/sporten/index.php

Please World Cup. Hurry and frigging end!

For all who wonder what was written on the note Jens got... ;O)

taumel I got the same per email some hours ago.

Maybe we should translate that?

I can read it, it says:-

"Dis thread has become very gay and must be closed for becoming very boring and far too long"

What did I say about history repeating? It's happening again folks!

Two goals in the closing minutes of extra time... ouch

@Enay: For someone who dislikes this thread, you sure like returning to it often. Are you some kind of masochist?

So lol... I saw that comming!

@Taumel: Lehmann did EXACTLY as told! ;)

Well, i still think that the FIFA made a bad decision with taking Frings out. Moreover they acted really lame as they first officially announced that investigations were over, then they said that they will investigate further and then they needed until a day before the game to come up with their decision. What a lame pack with having a semi final the next day...

Anyway both teams had their chances and we contrary to Italy couldn't get the ball cross the line. Congratulations to Italy. Now let's wait and see whom they will play against in the final. Hmmm does anyone care about the mini final? I personally don't. They should take it out of the world cup in my opinion...

@Grisu
Yeah but i turned out a little bit different then we would have liked it to be, eh?! ;O)

Mini final? I take it you mean the third place play off spot? But yeah I reckon they should probably dispense with it, it's like when they had out loser’s medals in the final. If I was a player as soon as they placed it around my neck I'd take it off and throw it onto the pitch and walk off, who the hell wants a loser’s medal?

As for FIFA making bad decisions what else is new? They're only rivalled in their incompetence by the FA

Deutschland unter allen.

Grey what do you want in here? No place for selling your framework...get your official FIFA licence first! ;O)

the "mini-final" is the equivalent of a bronze medal in the world cup. it's fun!

Is there a mini final in a tennis tournament?

Well, i think there are arguments for and against it. It does make sense if you wanna get out three medals but on the other side the football world cup is more about winning the cup. I can't remember that someone said "Oh this was the silver medal winner of the cup in blabla" for instance. Looks more like a consolation gift if you ask me or that they can sell one more game to the tv stations.

Someone found Beckhams speech in a hotel:

England football team on their way home:



f'kin muppets!

Is Rooney Miss Piggy?

The only muppet was the man in charge.Considering what a handicap he turned out to be the England team did very well to get to the 1/4 finals. Still your attitude is typical of someone who has no clue.

It was just a joke, sorry to offend.

It made me laugh... :O)

Never mind, it's almost over. Top Gear is back on next week... they put it off while the World Cup was on. It's been a long time.

No idea why they put it off, as the replacement programmes had nothing to do with the World C... zzz...

@James: pretty freaky, bit long though.

Roll on next monday! Then this thread can be deleted forever. :)

I can't see a big pig... Where is Rooney?

> I can't see a big pig

Find a mirror :)

Wegey! 300th POST! Can't say that too often around here :)

About non-white players in France or British team
I have nothing against them provide they were born with a English or French passport
If they became English or French when they were already famous players ,well in such a case it is not fair in my opinion

ENAY, you are a sad man.

Stuttgard , Stuttgard we drive to Stuttgard !!!

@grisu i drive ,you must go !!!

Isn't it called Stuttgart?! ;O)

You should know - you live in Germany!

P.S. This is your post number 666! Looks like you may lose the game. :P

Nah we've won it 3:1...

Ahhh and i still believe we would have beaten Italy if those idiots from the FIFA wouldn't have taken out Frings the way they did! Lamers...

Go Germany, really glad they won. Would have loved them to win the Cup, but alas.

we would have beaten Italy ..

Well the last time, it was 4-1 , ok it was a friendly match but...

Klinsi and his boys made it, though it looked like the other team helped them to win.... ;)

@Alberto
This was a different game than the last one due to a) the team had time to practice with each other and b) Deutschland always is better when it counts.

Sorry i don't wanna seem like someone who can't loose but the fact how the FIFA handeled this (see somewhere above) and if you know how much corruption there is in the italien football...no i don't believe this was a fair one.

But Italy sometimes needs this kind of things to win (after the dive in a game before). I'm curious what it will be today... :O)

The previous match had been played just a month earlier ,It is hard to claim that some more days practice can fill the gap
Moreover German teams did not achieve good results also in the european cups , why should the national team be so strong ?
Totti has been punished at the european cup for spitting Poulsen ( after being provoked all the match)
We did not complain at that time even though he is a player at the level of Zidane, Ronaldo, Riquelme, Beckham, Ballack

Fings, who is it ?

Yes I think you cant' lose

"if you know how much corruption there is in the italien football...no i don't believe this was a fair one."

This is really unfair
Do you mean that Italy asked FIFA ( and we succeeded) to punish the almost unknown ,outside Germany, Mr Fings, come on...

The point is that few people know what it is really going on

Juventus is accused of " Unfair behaviour " for threatening the refeeres
It is not accused of bribering them

Shortly

"If you stand on my side I back up your career, otherwise you are in trouble"

I work for a multinational group
In big companies , all over the world, such situations are quite common

If you would have watched how they played the whole cup then you would have noticed that Deutschland played totally different than before, as they didn't had much time to play with each other since the fed-cup.

Well, a) i think there is a little bit of a difference between Totti who was spitting at another player without beeing attacked and Frings who came into a fight Argentinieans started and b) i wouldn't call Totti in the same league as players like Zidane but that's another issue.

Why is it unfair to point out what is ruining the italian football at the moment? Corrupt managers, corrupt players, violent audience, corrupt and bought referees even in the champions league, uncleard issues with your coach, ...

It's not that we don't have corruption in our own country but not at the same level it's practiced in italy also by the small people. We do have a different culture with corruption.

And if you say a) it's just only threatening the referees and not bribery and b) only because big companies practice such strategies this would legitimate to practice this also in football....well, that does say a lot about how you see things, doesn't it?!

Is the multi national organisation you're working for called mafia?

Football is gay. That's all you need to know :)

Just for your information
Totti had been hit several times in non active situations before the spit

I just wanted to emphasize the different behaviours

. We did not accuse the Danish team , the managers, all Denmark.
We accused yhat guy only

- We also blamed Totti for being non professional.
He should not react even if provoked
you blame FIFA for doing their job
A little bit arrogant , isn'it ?

- We did not look for excuses for our failure at the European cup even though Totti , if not Zidane ,is for sure one of the top europen players
You are whining for a semi_ unknown player
You can't lose, maybe ?

You had the chance to beat Argentina which is much stronger than Gernany, come on...

About corruption in football either I did not make myself understood or you dont' want to understand

I have the occasion to speak to a lot of foreign collegues
All of them assume that some referees got money from the teams ( by the way in Germany , some monthes ago..)

Be honest , how many people here on this threag think something like that ?
I suppose 99 %

It is not definitly true

if mr x tell y , on phone

" You disappointed me, dont' you care about your career ?"

This is what happened

If mr x is a footbal manager and mr y is a referee, it is a scandal, being a sport
If mr x is a manger and mr y is an employee you can say that mr x is an umpleasent person , a bloody bastard but you can not take him to the court

I met bastard all over the world


About other comments you dont' even deserve an answer

O_O

I like the fact that where ever cristiano ronaldo plays in future, he's going to get boo'd to bits!

Did you see the little cheating [INSERT SWEARWORD HERE] throwing himself about the pitch last night! What a [INSERT ANOTHER SWEARWORD HERE], if I was Sir Alex, I'd stick the little [INSERT YET ANOTHER SWEARWORD HERE] in the reserves, and let the little [SWEARWORD] rot till the end of time!

Dabz

The most sensible comment on this thread.

Why are all you people that don't like football reading and posting in this thread?

I can't speak for anyone else, but my distaste for the "beautiful game" goes way beyond quiet disinterest and into the realms of vocal hatred. That's why I post. :)

> I met bastard all over the world

Nah, THIS is the most sensible comment on this thread. :)

Get a life! :P

Nice come back, Oscar Wilde! ;)

Thank you, dear boy. :)

@Alberto
To shorten it up: The things i've understood in your mail i mainly disagree for different reasons ( you seem to have a simple approach of seeing and judging things) and to parts i've not understood, well your free to go.. :O)

Allez les Vieux!

FROG POWERED HEADBUTT!

hahahahahahaha. WHat the hell was Zidane Thinking.

Italy Win it fellas. Italy - World Cup CHampions 2006

hahaahah @ Zidane

Yup, after Zidane did that it's perfect justice. What a stupid idiot he must feel now. He knows that if he had not done that it could of been a different outcome.

It actually made the match interesting. Next time I want to see an EHonda style torpedo attack. Maybe even a near fatality will make the game more interesting. I was hoping that Henry guy would do some drunken master football skills, like he was outta shaolin soccer. Instead of was boring as hell. Thank god it's all over. HOORAY! :)

What did I say about history repeating, Italian football marred by match fixing allegations and they go and win the world cup!

I wonder what this Italian guy said for Zidane to react like that! I die to know.

That was brutal. But this is funny.

This is the funny thing-------------> http://zidanewantscandy.ytmnd.com/

Edit: So, no one actually looked at this?

331 posts?!
That's a record for this site.

Start a new thread for the final moaning so that even people obsessing over text-based browsers (on similarly limited computers) can join in, too! :P

Italy champions 2006

Hurra

Forza italia!!!!!!


mongia

I dont think he said anything, Zidane had already decided after the nipple pulling that he was going to take a few steps away whislt acting jovial, turn round and take the guy by supprise.

I cannot beleive that noone was anygood at the world cup.

Hello.

My first thought was that he thrown the game, quite deliberately. The penalty he took only just managed to get into the goal. Whoops, damn bad luck, what? What better way of trying to ensure your own team loses by having the talisman removed through such overt and out of character behaviour? I cannot imagine a) what would have wound him up so tight (except maybe 'Hey, zoo-zoo, your mother *** ***** up the ***** **** with you, your brother and you **** it ***** wards, you ***** ******* **** *****.') and b) how he thought he'd get away with it, ie, he knew he wouldn't get away with it.

Of course, I wouldn't actually suggest that in any way shape or form because it obviously isn't true, nor that when playing against Italy there should be allegations of match fixing, oh no no no no no. But it makes a great premise for a book about nobbling of international matches, as a complete work of fiction with no bearing on the truth whatsoever.

Goodbye.

He probably told him that he had sexy frog legs.
This world cup has been pretty violent, in an ever changing violent world.

@H&K
I think that Deutschland played some really nice fast forward matches. Also there was a great halftime by England. I guess it was their first game. Brazil...nada...

now this is why it's called fotball and not soccer:



It's more voilent then american rugby, no protection and you are allowed to knock down your opponent if he badmouths you ;)

Nice head

Hello.

@Maximo: Err, no you're not, that's kinda the point. Unless it was meant to be humouress, in which case ha ha :o)

Goodbye.

lol, it was a good headbutt (very kung fu master). Shame he nearly got tripped over afterwards, woulda looked better if he kept his centre and balance. The other guy just walked right into it, totally unaware! (actually you can see him react a fraction before it hits)

Him and Rooney. Kung-fu masters.

Also, as I said yesterday on IRC, Rooney brings a whole new meaning to the term... "FootBall".

Till which point would you let yourself be insulted until you react like this?

If he was mad though I'm surprised he didn't resort to a punch or maybe even a kick, but a headbutt?

It was a good shot though, knocked the other guy totally off his feet. Heheh. NUT 'IM!

Heh, he could've just flicked his ear and he would still have fallen over in the same manner.

I've heard one report that he did it because he had his nipple pinched (highly painful/insulting to the French, for some reason), and another said something highly offensive was said to him, although, he's not saying what it was, apparently.

I think this incident is going to be discussed for years to come. :/

the other guy was smart... and a good actor too, plain and simple...

why not let the idiot loose the game for his team...

a memory to carry around for the rest of his life...

oh well, se la vie... is that how it's spelt... soon the real football season will begin :)

--Mike

Heh yeah, although the headbut was plain idiotic, The italian guy practically jumped on the floor.

Watch the GIF above. Would you not normally put your arms down to try to stop yourself hitting the floor? he just flails around like a Tokamak Ragdol!

Well, as i said Italy sometims plays dirty. It's part of their game...

Like german, english, french, dutch and co...it's soccer - it was a final match - and Zidane has committed an error: he reacted...(Zidane played for 5 years in Italy, so he should be prepared, don't you?)
frankly speaking ALL the players of ANY nations are very good actors...

Owie, my neck! I mean foot! :O

@degac
Yep, most of them do this but some of them use it more and some less...

I think they act very poorly. I think there's no one around who falls so fast and theatralic like football players. Soap actors are better...

for next championship edition I'll email to the coach to send all our players to Hollywood so they will be more expressive :D
it's only soccer...
byez

Only gay people say soccer.

Yeah it's football. Well, actually it's Fußball.. ;O)

Oops ENAY, you said it ^^

Want more ? Goto :

http://www.gamaniak.com/media-989-zidane-materazzi-gifs-parody.html

and... "Vive la France, et merci les bleus !".

>:)

and the game :

http://www.gamaniak.com/media-988-zidane-vs-materazzi.html

http://orbit.m6.net/Forum/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=8224
:D
Lol!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpG4AHlZrL4&search=materazzi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccDyp2aRRCg&search=italy%20trener

I most say, Italians have skills!

Those movies are hilarious :)

Some nice ones...

Finish him! lol.

Ohoh have you read about that Materazzi meanwhile confirmed that he insulted Zidane before he got down. No matter what he said the best deny was that he said it had nothing to do with a terrorist as he's uneducated and doesn't even know what a terrorist is... ;O)

No matter what was said to Zidane it should have caused him to react that way. They are both idiots.

It's good that this 'little' incident has not damaged the legend that is Zidane (so far).

It was very irresponsible of Zidane to react that way. A billion people watched the game, many of them children. What do they learn from this?

Remember the phrase...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me".

Yes i agree but on the other side it's easy to say this when you're sitting in front of your TV and not beeing there. Also words can hurt a lot, even more if you use them on children.

seems like it's not over yet...

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=060711&cat=news&st=newsd8ipqb403&src=ap

--Mike

It still doesn't condone the use of violence.

no... you're right... seems like FIFA will open a disciplinary investigation...

overall though, i think it was just plain stupid... if he really wanted to hurt the other guy, winning the game would've been sweeter revenge...

i've played semi pro football (real football, american nfl type footbal :) ), a guard, on the line... you should've heard the stuff that went on in some of those games...
it was common practice and tactics to taunt a star player to get him to do sometehing dumb and get himself ejected...

one would've thought zin would've been above all that...

ahhhh, i'm just talking... i don't play soccer so i don't really know first hand what the dynamics are on the field...

... but it still seems like it was a dumb move.

--Mike

deleted

great movies thanks!

> What do they learn from this?

They learn that headbutts are cool.

Does anyone know what happens in the biggest case?

Will france then be the winner of the cup or will they have to replay the game?

more fun >
http://www.ggzidane.com/gallery/

;)

Funny funny funny.
Good job this happened in the final because it was a great finale and most appropriate way to sum up the world cup.

What really happened! Enjoy... :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9wVWvKzGI

I can see a 'Zidane' special move appearing in a videogame near you, any day now. :)

Why not make a blitz game where you can headbutt people and can collect red cards for it...? :)

So the FIFA is investigating Materazzi now...

And? The game is over now. So even if this turns out to be true: NOTHING will happen.

Still Italians will laugh upon the FIFA. Imho both should have gotten a red card. That would have been more "fair".

Well, if they will follow their own rules and come to the conclusion that Materazzi insulted Zidane badly then they will have to annul the game which means that france would have won the cup or that they'll have to replay the game.

Whilst it's out of question what happened the issue will be a) proving this as it's statement against statement and/or b) if they would have the guts to do so.

Haha, which team do you want to win? The French with their headbutt attack guy, or the Italians with their corrupt match fixing within their own country.
The final couldn't have gone to nicer countries.

With all the movies and press about this headbutt, it's become a legend already. Even surpassing Eric Cantona's flying kick into the audience. Finally football becomes interesting. Classic :)

[Eric Cantona's flying kick]

Ha, ha, haa ! I had forgotten that! ^_^

Nostalgia.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/92044/whats_this_guys_problem/

I can't seem to find a better clearer movie of this though.

Me too.

But a good picture :

First game with Zidane:
http://www.online-spiele.de/cf.php?action=games__games_gamepopup&%20content_id=789c33ae3134b43432ad0152a64666468696268635ba40d2c2c8d2dcccccb02639050095c008ab

A lot of .gif of Zidane vs Materazzi :

http://zidaneyvataper.skyblog.com/

sample :



^_^