Who'll be watching with me? Starts tomorrow with S. Africa and Mexico. The big game tomorrow is US vs England.

I know there has to be other football/soccer fans/hooligans on this forum.

I'll be watching for sure. Just need some strategies to keep the kids interested.

I am slightly loathe to admit that we have an England flag hanging from DDs bedroom window (not my style).

It's today now though isn't it?

Actually I must check the time of the matches - kids might be in bed.

Friday is S. Africa vs Mexico at 10am eastern, Uruguay vs France at 2:30pm eastern

Saturday is Korea vs Greece 7:30am eastern, Argentina vs Nigeria at 10am eastern, US vs England 2:30pm eastern

I want S. Africa to win but will not make a prediction.
France will beat Uruguay
Greece will beat Korea
Argentina will beat Nigeria
US will beat England

TV schedule http://moms.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978292912&grpId=3659174697259360

yeah yeah

no chance US will win!

You're going to owe me an apology come tomorrow!!!

This is ridiculous! Ref calls an offside off a corner that should have been a goal. Announcers showed an instant reply that showed the striker clearly onside. I want S. Africa to win but geez! A goal is a goal.

EEEEEKkKKK. I'm getting really excited only 13 hours til KO.

Did you see the Soocer Aid match England V Rest of World where Woody Harrelson scored the winner in the penalty shoot out? That was a great game.

Oh! I didn't see that. 9 minutes and counting now!

Gah!

they were blinkin' lucky , weren't they sugarcane?

T/J

Long time no see BTW, SC. How goes things?

Hi st. Things are going well here, but I'm still "gah"-ing after last night!

You could say that they were blinkin' lucky, but a more accurate description might be that we were rubbish!

A "draw"?



What the heck idiot says it is OK to have a "draw"?

There should be a winner and a loser in a sporting event.
ESPECIALLY an event called

WORLD CUP.

If it's so darn big and classy to be a WORLD event .... There should be a damn WINNER for every game.

.... Like sex without the BIG moment ....

1 to 1 ..... Let's stop here and NOT finish.

It's a way of making the tournament last longer, Pep. If all the rounds were knockouts, it would be over in a week! It's great that each team still has a chance to go through to the next round.

Having to play at least 3 matches justifies all the money spent getting them there!

Yeah. They accumulate points and this places them in further rounds. I think if the US had played the entire game like they did the last 10 minutes we would have won. All of a sudden, we were playing nice football. However, during most of the game, our left side back and, to some extent, the left centerback were having a horrible game. Donavan while having some fantastic crosses really couldn't get a good touch on the ball when receiving off from the wing.

And the reason why it was said a tie was good was because we were expected to lose to England, so the fact that we can keep up with them and even had chances to win shows the world that the US should be taken more serious as a player in the competition.

Donovan did look good, and there were some tough battles fought there.


I thought England were OK

Wright-Phillips, lacking in self belief and general inability for the players to stick the ball in the back of the net,but England looked alright in the middle and at the back. Certainly should have put more past their defence.

Taking a break from cutting the lawn today in 90+ degree heat. Dante Aligheri wrote about doing this somewhere in his magnum opus. So, while swigging the gallon of Gatorade I made for today's landscaping marathon, time to poke a stick in the hornet's nest.

Very few Americans give a rip about the World Cup, except on the most casual basis. Most don't understand the sport of soccer (football to the rest of ya) and don't care to. And the reason why is quite simple.

Soccer is pure defense, with virtually no offense, and the pattern of play moves at a glacial pace. There are two vital parts of the game that will forever confound Yanks. One is a rules issue, the other is a tradition that makes no sense whatsoever.

The tradition issue is the simplest. Use the stadium clock, please!!! Not having official time where the whole world can see it makes absolutely no sense. Keeping the most important part of the game a secret is utterly mind-boggling. Have an official timekeeper who starts and stops the clock on the referee's signals. That's easy, and really wouldn't change anything. I've never understood the arguments against it.

The second is ingrained in the game and can't be changed without changing the very nature of the game -- the offsides rule.

Why is it that the DEFENSE determines what is onside and what is offside? You could have the ball inside the penalty box, and have the whole team in the offensive end of the field, but if the defense arranges its alignment a certain way they can cause an offside, and that's nuts.

I understand not wanting to have players cherry-pick on the other end, but there's a sport that's found the perfect balance to keep that from happening, and that's hockey. The hockey blue line keeps the game under control. If soccer adapted the concept with a "blue line" of sorts, where the ball would have to precede every player on the team on offense, that would open the game up to being a more offensive-minded game. Of course, defenses would adapt because they always do.

There's nothing more depressing than a 0-0 tie game. I understand the intracacies of the game, but the fact is there are so few shots on goal and little movement on the field to keep the fans truly involved in the action.

(Would someone please get rid of those stupid vuvuzelas? They ran out of earplugs to sell to fans at the stadium. They blow the damned things 'cause it's something to do, like the wave. End of rant.)

It would speed the game up a little -- not a lot, because you CAN'T, and really don't want to -- and all the sport really needs is a little tweak.

Okay, have at it.

Bleah....back to the lawn.....

Well, one American gave enough of a rip to start this thread.

True enough. And it was somebody who understands the sport quite well.

FYI, on FB I posted to a couple of people that they should buy Rob Green a candy bar -- a Butterfingers. Of course, he made a great stop on Altidore in the 75th minute, but no one ever remembers what you do right, ya know?

Yes, I watched a good chunk of the game, in case you wondered. I know one guy who used to play in the MLS, and another who was an assistant coach on the national level in the youth program.....so I'm not a complete goof.

Just a partial one.

I agree that a time clock would be good. Offsides is offsides and prevents the 'I'm going to stand at the keeper and cherry pick this ball in' game. It might be interesting, but we'd see a ton of straight long ball to the strikers standing right at the keeper...pretty soon we have 21 players all standing at the goal.

Next week should be decent matches. I'll take Netherlands, Japan, and Italy as winners in their matches.