WORLD CUP 2014

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Sat Jun 14, 2014 10:39 pm

pirlo with that reverse swerve swagger...love it

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 2:45 am

we were pretty poor as usual, pretty much only raheem sterling gave a good account of himself

nhoj · Post by **nhoj** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:38 am

An1maL wrote:we were pretty poor as usual, pretty much only raheem sterling gave a good account of himself

You do remember they played in the middle of the Amazonas, 70-83% humidity and high temperature(probably above 30C/90F) is not the easiet conditions to play football in. Especially without any waterbreak after 30 minutes.

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 6:43 am

WTF they did!??! totes 4got dis WC was in brasil

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 10:24 am

An1maL wrote:WTF they did!??! totes 4got dis WC was in brasil

cant tell if serious

james- · Post by **james-** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:38 pm

a little late to the party.

oranje for the cup, no more being the Cubs of football.

lowcarb · Post by **lowcarb** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:46 am

I

I BELIEVE

I BELIEVE THAT

I BELIEVE THAT WE

I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:44 pm

USAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

whatchu know bout them Quicksilver brand USA kits?

#IBELIEVE #WEWON

l0ker · Post by **l0ker** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:50 pm

hildebrand · Post by **hildebrand** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 5:21 pm

definately save of the tourney so far by the mexican keeper.

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 5:00 pm

dogfire wrote:
tenks wrote:If we can beat Ghana, I'm optimistic, and think we have a chance to move out of the knockout stage. The strikers by committee that replaced Donovan have scored 4-5 goals collectively in the warmup matches going into the WC. So that right there is something to be happy about it.

Everyone said Portugal would roll over us in 2010 and they didn't. If we can beat Ghana, I think we have a good shot.
lol

lol ?

You're lucky Portugal got the last minute goal. Idiot.

james- · Post by **james-** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 5:46 pm

What a pathetic game.

So many off target shots and unconverted chances.

If they had only played the ball into the corner for a minute or two they would have left with 3 points. They moved it to the corner once and then played it back into midfield for some unknown reason.

Regardless, the US should still advance into the group of 16 unless there are some crazy events next week.

It's cool to see the sport grow in the US over the past few world cups.

oh and Tim Howard begs to differ on your best save call

Chuck Foo · Post by **Chuck Foo** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 7:10 pm

The U.S played so conservative the whole game. Packing it in and concentrating on defense. Then after they get ahead they played reckless, should have kept more back on D. Had it in the bag until the last 30 seconds.

Post by **Black Hawk** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:43 am

That last header just pissed everyone off. 2 seconds left....

warchyldd · Post by **warchyldd** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 6:25 pm

devin- · Post by **devin-** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 7:12 pm

Cage · Post by **Cage** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 10:48 pm

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:45 am

Post by **TonyMontana** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 3:07 pm

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:12 am

Watching USA vs germany, I gotta say I'm impressed with USA, their passion and physicality, Gonzalez in particular has done some great defending.

USA has some huge potential for the future given their population size and predilection for sports. If soccer takes off over there I predict USA will be serious contenders in 5-10 years. They'll have to make sure the youth training is done properly though, which is where England are sadly lacking. More focus on ball control, technique, movement and vision needed, in the same vein as brazil, spain, holland, germany

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:13 am

Oh, muller just scored. That guy knows how to fucking score at a world cup, can't do much about that

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:20 am

tenks wrote:If we can beat Ghana, I'm optimistic, and think we have a chance to move out of the knockout stage.

tenks wrote:Everyone said Portugal would roll over us in 2010 and they didn't. If we can beat Ghana, I think we have a good shot.

cringing at those comments I made...what was I thinking?

group of death, schmoop of death. #cringingallday

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:28 am

An1maL wrote:Watching USA vs germany, I gotta say I'm impressed with USA, their passion and physicality, Gonzalez in particular has done some great defending.

USA has some huge potential for the future given their population size and predilection for sports. If soccer takes off over there I predict USA will be serious contenders in 5-10 years. They'll have to make sure the youth training is done properly though, which is where England are sadly lacking. More focus on ball control, technique, movement and vision needed, in the same vein as brazil, spain, holland, germany

they looked like shit tbh...but I guess a 1-0 loss against Germany w/ an advance to next stage is a victory for US.

This reminds me of a quote from white man can't jump:

"Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose."

USAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

DinG · Post by **DinG** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:19 pm

Group of death???

Not a chance, group b was a far more ridiculous draw. I would also argue that England's group was far tougher, on paper at least.

Germany are a good team. USA are solid and workmanlike, they are difficult to beat but terrible technically. Portugal are a one man show and it does not work, Ronaldo needs to become a better team player for his country and stop his constant whining. Ghana are average.

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:58 pm

DinG wrote:Group of death???

Not a chance, group b was a far more ridiculous draw. I would also argue that England's group was far tougher, on paper at least.

Germany are a good team. USA are solid and workmanlike, they are difficult to beat but terrible technically. Portugal are a one man show and it does not work, Ronaldo needs to become a better team player for his country and stop his constant whining. Ghana are average.

Pre World Cup rankings had Germany at #2 and Portugal at #4, so yes it was the group of death. No other group came close. Have you not been paying attention to any of the media since the group draw? I'm not the only one saying this.

Quikey · Post by **Quikey** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:04 pm

DinG wrote:Group of death???

Not a chance, group b was a far more ridiculous draw. I would also argue that England's group was far tougher, on paper at least.

Germany are a good team. USA are solid and workmanlike, they are difficult to beat but terrible technically. Portugal are a one man show and it does not work, Ronaldo needs to become a better team player for his country and stop his constant whining. Ghana are average.

<3 you ding.

DinG · Post by **DinG** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:21 pm

LOL, In America maybe mate, no one from here was thinking that was the group of death. Fifa rankings mean shit and always have done, they will again come into question after this world cup as you only have to look at some the results so far to know that they were nonsense. Switzerland were ranked 6th fs! England were ranked 10th and Netherlands 15th! You didn't need to study stats to know that the Netherlands were better than either of them before the tournament. Portugal were ranked 4th and scraped through a qualifier against Sweden who were ranked 32nd...

DinG · Post by **DinG** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:22 pm

Quikey wrote:
DinG wrote:Group of death???

Not a chance, group b was a far more ridiculous draw. I would also argue that England's group was far tougher, on paper at least.

Germany are a good team. USA are solid and workmanlike, they are difficult to beat but terrible technically. Portugal are a one man show and it does not work, Ronaldo needs to become a better team player for his country and stop his constant whining. Ghana are average.

<3 you ding.

No one is mad mate, just amused.

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:58 pm

Yeh "FIFA rankings" have always been a joke... I remember before the last big tournament England were ranked stupidly high, ahead of a shit load of good teams, despite our recent form being terrible. How the fuck do they calculate this shit? A few months ago Japan were ranked 3rd in the world (wtf?) and USA were ranked 1st (wat?)

Re:"group of death" rubbish, there were 3 groups that were hyped as that, fairly evenly from what I saw. Pre-tournament I would have said B was the hardest group. Spain kinda flopped but I would still pick spain+holland over germany+portugal any day.

Presently I'm pretty happy with my bet on germany though!

Polak · Post by **Polak** » Fri Jun 27, 2014 11:09 am

Man I knew England was butt hurt but not that butt hurt.

America's group WAS the group of death, hands down. It's the only group where each team qualified to the final 16 last world cup. Done

Animal, do you know what's the difference between Tea and England?

Tea stays longer in a cup.

devin- · Post by **devin-** » Fri Jun 27, 2014 12:13 pm

you callin me ugly m8? dropped out of newcastle primary skool im the sickest bloke ull ever meet & ive nicked 300 candy bars from tha corner store. im trained in street fitin’ & im the strongest foker in tha entire newcastle gym. yer nothin to me but a cheeky lil dickhead w/ a hot mum & fake bling. ill waste u and smash a fokin bottle oer yer head bruv, i swer 2 christ. ya think u can fokin run ya gabber at me whilst sittin on yer arse behind a lil screen? think again wanka. im callin me homeboys rite now preparin for a proper rumble. tha rumble thatll make ur nan sore jus hearin about it. yer a waste bruv.

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Fri Jun 27, 2014 2:27 pm

lol how can I be butthurt, I've been ragging on england all thread, I fully expected us to be shit and we were

group B > group G, get over it! to say G was "hands down" hardest or "no other group came close" is just hogwash. HOGWASH

tenks · Post by **tenks** » Fri Jun 27, 2014 4:18 pm

I don't know why this is so rubbish to you. Rob said it best, all of our group advanced to the round of 16 last year. No other group has that. And you can't deny Germany is a top 3 team, regardless of Fifa ranking being accurate or not. Pre-tournement, the same could be said about Portugal being a top 10 team. (Post tournament not so much). And Ghana knocked us out last cup and is arguably one of the better African teams behind Ivory Coast (and ended up tying Germany).

I know they're being paid by ESPN, which is a US based company, but plenty of non-American commentators agreed and have said NUMEROUS times they were shocked USA got out of the "group of death". And prior to that, they mentioned over and over how the US had a tough road ahead in "the group of death". Santiago Solari (Argentina), Michael Ballack (Germany), Ruud Van Nistelrooy (Netherlands), Gilberto (Brazil) have ALL said this. THis isn't just "crazy americans" saying this..I'm sorry but you're wrong.

ps. group g's fate for all 4 teams wasn't decided until the very last 2 matches on the last day of their group. For most of the other groups, most teams 3rd games were irrelevant because the outcome was already decided by their 2nd games, which shows a lack of competition, ie a weaker group.

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 1:41 am

tenks wrote:you can't deny Germany is a top 3 team, regardless of Fifa ranking being accurate or not. Pre-tournement, the same could be said about Portugal being a top 10 team. And Ghana knocked us out last cup and is arguably one of the better African teams behind Ivory Coast (and ended up tying Germany).

pre-tournament spain were easily top 3 favorites to win.... they'd won 3 national tournaments in a row. AND holland were top 5 at least IMO, they have an excellent squad

chile are a very good side, easily as good as portugal who as ding said have only got one world class player. australia are usually tough opponents at a world cup.

tenks wrote:plenty of non-American commentators agreed and have said NUMEROUS times they were shocked USA got out of the "group of death"

there was no clear winner outside of the USA from what I heard from pundits. thousands of media reports proclaiming B or D to be hardest...

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/new ... h-20140611
http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... eath-spain
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-12/w ... ew/5516116
http://asia.eurosport.com/football/worl ... tory.shtml
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... ds-2898256
http://www.businessinsider.com/group-of-death-2014-6
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2074 ... s-to-watch

anyway, it's a stupid argument. it's totally subjective which one is really the toughest group. I'm just objecting to the american circle jerk that G was CLEARLY the hardest.

Crank · Post by **Crank** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:52 pm

I don't pay attention to soccer at all, but I joined a blind draw at work. I got Switzerland and they play Argentina the first round. What are my chances?

DinG · Post by **DinG** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 4:35 pm

Crank wrote:I don't pay attention to soccer at all, but I joined a blind draw at work. I got Switzerland and they play Argentina the first round. What are my chances?

I have Switzerland in my work sweep as well. They are well organised and hard to beat, a bit like USA in a way. They will try and keep it tight and hope that Shaqiri can produce a bit of magic but they don't score many goals. Argentina should win but they haven't been great so far so you never know, a shock could be on the cards.

sevEN · Post by **sevEN** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 9:12 pm

devin- wrote:you callin me ugly m8? dropped out of newcastle primary skool im the sickest bloke ull ever meet & ive nicked 300 candy bars from tha corner store. im trained in street fitin’ & im the strongest foker in tha entire newcastle gym. yer nothin to me but a cheeky lil dickhead w/ a hot mum & fake bling. ill waste u and smash a fokin bottle oer yer head bruv, i swer 2 christ. ya think u can fokin run ya gabber at me whilst sittin on yer arse behind a lil screen? think again wanka. im callin me homeboys rite now preparin for a proper rumble. tha rumble thatll make ur nan sore jus hearin about it. yer a waste bruv.

right when i thought you were a total lost cause with the worst sense of humor i've ever encountered on the internet...

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 3:17 am

http://gfycat.com/YearlyFabulousCaiman

so sick!

cassinoroyale · Post by **cassinoroyale** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 11:09 am

ORANJE~~

inb4niktotallywasted

nik · Post by **nik** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 8:07 am

Shoolta · Post by **Shoolta** » Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:29 pm

ARGENTINA CAMPEON DEL MUNDOO messi +10

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Tue Jul 01, 2014 10:41 pm

lol argentina were SHIT, apart from messi who was decent

america played well, showed a lot of spirit and athleticism, but ultimately outplayed by a quality belgium side

l0ker · Post by **l0ker** » Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:41 am

GO FRANCE

nik · Post by **nik** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 3:37 am

All this rage about this group of death. It is time to fuel the fire.

Your vastly overating USA (I have no arguments to back this up other then. I say so and therefore it must be true).
Portugal struggled to qualify for the tournament and had to beat Sweden in the play-offs. (Wished they hadn't. Rather watch Ibrahimovic than Ronaldo).
I don't know about Ghana (but probably over the top).
Germany is good.

And not only is the "4 year ago this and that happened" argument invalid. It doesn really determine which group is better unless you determine how many extra points teams get that pass beyond the 16 last.
The Dutch may have reached the finals in 2010. In 2012 they were terrible and didn't even get past the group stages in euro 2012. I do not think their succes now has that much to do with 2010.

Let's apply the "what happened 4 years ago" to group B and G

Netherlands: final
Spain: final
Chile: last 16
Australia: -

Germany: last 4
Portugal : last 16
Ghana: last 8
USA: last 16

Yes clearly group G IS the group of death. Also love how an1mal opens with. "USA is agruably in the toughest group" yet still it turns into some silly discussion. Looking at the groups B E and G seem the most difficult. But this is only because each has 3 sort of big names in it. It is not easy to back this up with any sort of facts that make sense.

ps
If you take everything into account. 2010 results. Qualification results etc. Group B and G will probably come out as the hardest groups. With group D as 3rd . But I do not really understand why any of those should be THE group of death or why it matters.

Shoolta · Post by **Shoolta** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 10:47 am

An1maL wrote:lol argentina were SHIT, apart from messi who was decent

america played well, showed a lot of spirit and athleticism, but ultimately outplayed by a quality belgium side

mascherano, gago, di maria, lavezzi, rojo, palacio, messi, maxi rodriguez, iguain... need any more??

nik · Post by **nik** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 12:34 pm

USA did impress as a team tho. My previous post was more my pov before the cup started. How everybody viewed the groups before Spain did so bad and USA ended 2nd. It was a tricky group. I'm happy USA - Germany didn't end in a draw by both teams and they tried to go for the win. But one can still discuss what would have happened if Germany played USA first instead of Portugal.

knockout · Post by **knockout** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 2:12 pm

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/07/the-sec ... erformance

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/07/tim-how ... of-defense

This team made me (26 years old) not only watch, but actually really care about the USMNT winning for the first time in my life. Our guys were clearly not as talented (aside from Howard), but they played harder than anyone else I've seen in the tournament. I probably won't watch another soccer match until the next world cup, but these guys really made me a fan for a few weeks. Like, an actual hurt-when-we-lose fan. It was awesome.

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 7:04 am

Shoolta wrote:
An1maL wrote:lol argentina were SHIT, apart from messi who was decent

mascherano, gago, di maria, lavezzi, rojo, palacio, messi, maxi rodriguez, iguain... need any more??

I was talking about in the argentina - switzerland game, in which argentina were terrible. not in general.

thanks for listing the squad members though I guess?

An1maL · Post by **An1maL** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 7:07 am

anyway, after a lame 2 day break we're back for the quarters, yay

preds:
france < germany
brazil > colombia
argentina < belgium
netherlands > costa rica

nik · Post by **nik** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 5:09 pm

something unrelated.

Why on earth would barca want to buy a biting , diving, handbalplaying, maneating, vampiric, cheating, blackpeoplehating, racist?

I'm sure it will do wonders to their name. Just like it did to Ajax and Liverpool.

dnSPP5ekXwA