World Cup 2014

funny thing - in my recollection, the term "soccer" was actually european...maybe even british. regardless, i have no particular problems calling it soccer so as to disambiguate it from the various other sports that are called some variant of "football," regardless of the fact that football is more descriptive of the actual sport. i don't mind calling it football either - when in rome...

i always feel for the british fans during world cups in my lifetime. they never seem to be able to gel at the cup, and seem to somewhat recover by the euros. a new squad gets announced and a lot of hype builds up...and then they just don't seem to be able to pull it together at the Cup. i mean, i'd think with the talent they have it'd be possible to pull out some amazing results...i'm a huge gerrard fan, as well as lampard...but somehow that midfield due have never clicked. i really thought with sturridge and sterling playing, rooney lurking in the deep attack and gerrard in particular helping to orchestrate they'd be able to make a deeper run. i'd just like to see them be able to go far in the cup and make a respectable showing. but alas, such is not to be for at least 4 more years.

here's hoping the states can pull it off in the next round - and a lot of the teams i'm pulling for are still here. snowy's oranje, and the french side as well. i have to pull for brazil as well due to friends being there. here's hoping for an exciting couple of weeks of soccer...

and how about that suspension for suarez? not at all what i was expecting - i mean, they nailed his ass to the wall.

 

That Robben call was mightyyyyy close. Looked a little divey to me, but at least there was definite contact.

 

yeah, i heard that too. and as i said earlier, generally about selling your version of events on the field and question of diving, i have nothing but respect for robben for drawing the penalty for the netherlands. i don't see it any differently than drawing a foul on a pump-fake in basketball for example. contact was made, and robben was definitely in a goal-scoring position...especially cutting to his left.

and i heard that in the espn commentary too. think it was martinez, but might have been your boy van nistelrooy. i'm glad the dutch went through, but that was a really tough break for mexico. chile yesterday, mexico today. heartbreakers.

 

Saw an article (no doubt an AP one) in the local paper yesterday that said soccer was surging in popularity among the younger crowd. I find it interesting considering it is a slow-paced sport with low scores and long matches, sounded contrary to the 'short attention span' angle they mentioned among that group. Must fall under whatever appeal baseball has on some level; in both those sports you can play it yourself at an early age with a large or small group, and the 'big kids' have much less of chance to dominate as they do in a sport like basketball.

 

Watched the end of a match between Greece and Cyclic Redundancy Check (what I think of instantly and how I will remember this I am sure) , the sudden death finish was a bit odd but I can see how the football rules people are avoiding the 14 inning baseball games that can last for half a day.

 

speed: it's not actually sudden death anymore. They abandoned golden goal about 10 years ago. It's a straight extra 30 minutes, and if no winner after that - it's penalty kicks to decide the winner. Reality is that there's no way they could keep playing much longer due to health concerns, limited substitutions allowed, and the 23 man roster. It will be interesting to see how the players recover in the next round given the extra playing time they had to put in in the two games that went to extra time already.

 

Ah yes, penalty kick was the term they used. Went with the nearest term I could think of to describe what I saw. Never heard of this 'golden goal' before and in this case I am going to pass on doing a google search.

 

Never fear! Soccer-enthusiast jackass pig is here to help. They used to do two 15 minute extra time periods, one followed after the other prior to pk's. However, whoever scored first won the match inside those two 15 minute periods. Game over. Never liked it.

In pk's, each team is guaranteed 5 penalty kicks. Best of 5. If the tally is even after 5, then I believe it goes 1 for each team until one team scores, and other does not. So in a sense, at that point it does become sudden death.

 

Are the players in the World Cup allowed to use bicycle kicks? 'Cause, I haven't seen any so far.

 

I saw that when I googled it earlier but didn't read it because it was The Onion, a satire site.

 

Yeah, what snowy said...I don't know if it's the hardest, but it's definitely in a group of very difficult and rare moves, and very situational. You won't really see anyone do it on purpose - it's usually a last second improvisation that magically works out. Sort of like a no-look hook shot 3-pointer from behind midcourt at the last second in basketball...no one really intentionally wants to do it, but it looks pretty sweet when you pull it off.

So it's France/Germany for their next round..and tomorrow the US gets to fight for the opportunity to most likely play Argentina. If we can pull off tomorrow's match, I'll be thrilled. Belgium ain't no joke.

 

just for you fremen - i think this was qualifying, but pretty wild stuff...
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2884yajDeg

 

I see there is nothing like halfcourt violations in this futball thing.