I am going to leave the other soccer thread open but I request all WC news and posts stay in here. Finally.... the day is here and we get started with Croatia vs Brazil. My Group winners are A- Brazil/Croatia B- Spain/Chile C - Greece/Japan D - Uruguay/Italy E - Switzerland/Ecuador F - Argentina/Bosnia G - Germany/Portugal H - Belgium/Algeria Round of 16 winners Brazil over Chile Italy over Greece Bosnia over Swiss Germany over Algeria Spain over Croatia Uruguay over Japan (again) Argentina over Ecuador Portugal over Belguim Round of 8 winners Brazil over Italy Germany over Bosnia Uruguay over Spain Portugal over Argentina Final 4 Brazil over Germany Portugal over Uruguay 3rd place Uruguay over Germany Championship Portugal over Brazil As for the US and their group Germany over Portugal US over Ghana Portugal over US Germany over Ghana Germany over US Portugal draws with Ghana
I guess it's fitting that the WC opens with the home team scoring... on their own net. The groups are really terrible. I was making my picks this week and was struck once again by how absurd it is. F and H are very weak, B is way too strong, etc. A- Brazil/Croatia B- Spain/Netherlands C -Colombia/Greece D - Uruguay/Italy E - France/Switzerland (2nd spot could definitely go to Ecuador, close one) F - Argentina/Bosnia G - Germany/Portugal H - Belgium/Russia Round of 16 winners Brazil over Netherlands (I like Netherlands but they got a brutal draw) Italy over Colombia France over Bosnia Germany over Russia Spain over Croatia Uruguay over Greece Argentina over Switzerland Portugal over Belguim Round of 8 winners Brazil over Italy Germany over France Spain over Uruguay Argentina over Portugal Final 4 Brazil over Germany Spain over Argentina 3rd place Germany over Argentina (the brackets didn't include the 3rd place match) Championship Brazil over Spain
Aaaand I'm going to root against Brazil for the rest of the tournament. That was clearly not a penalty.
given the current conditions in the country, if Brazil should somehow falter, there will be mass chaos.......
They all seem to have taken a page out of Neymar's book..... they dive so m uch I wonder if they have oxygen tanks under their jerseys.
Brazil definitely didn't deserve to win but typical home field advantage. I hope Japanese ref goes home after this game. What a joke. Oscar was brilliant. Marcelo and Hulk were terible. Why the fuck did he start with Paulinho? Fernandinho is a much better choice. Well. On to tomorrow's game. Spain-Netherlands. Rematch for 2010 World Cup Final. It should be an awesome awesome game. Go Sneijder! Go Galatasaray.
If you're going to allow that penalty call affect who you are rooting for You clearly don't watch soccer that much... You are going to be rooting against every team. Soccer invented the flop. However, I do agree that was not a penalty.
This was brilliant by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I Didn't embedd. Apologies. Pretty funny. _
2 Galatasaray players on Cameroon squad so I am rooting for them but they played terrible first half. Mexico got robbed 2 goals.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/12/tech/innovation/world-cup-vanishing-spray/index.html Now you see it, now you don't. That's the logic behind the vanishing spray being used at this year's World Cup in Brazil. If you watched Thursday's opening Brazil-Croatia match, you may have seen it: Before a free kick in the first half, a referee pulled a spray can out of a holster and squirted a white line on the field. No, the World Cup refs aren't wannabe graffiti artists. For the first time, FIFA referees are using the special spray to paint a temporary white line 10 yards from the free kick spot, marking the safe area into which opposing players cannot encroach. The spray disappears after one minute.
Too be fair Cameroon is one of the worst teams in the tournament. Had Cape Verde Islands not been Dq'd and Tunisia not been given the playoff against Cameroon I think Cape Verde Islands much better than Cameroon would have been there and beaten El Pile of Shit today.
Far from every team dives like they been shot in the back on every opportunity like Brazil, Barca et al. And they don't point to the sky afterwards and thank god for the penalty, as the host, in the first game, in front of the entire world. I grew up playing soccer and I used to love watching it, but it is hard to stomach this corrupt flopfest orchestrated by Blatter.
I found this interesting, FIFA has denied all these reports but my feeling is always where there is smoke there is fire. Let's hoe FIFA does the right thing and pulls it from Qatar. I don't even care if they didn't put it n the US as there are other places that could host (but let's remember it won't go to Europe in 2022 as it's there in 2018) but I would have no problem if say Japan or China or Australia were given the WC in 2022 but it never should have gone to Qatar and hopefully it won't. http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/sto...host-2022-word-cup-according-to-report-061214
