world cup 2010

[dellstart]

hey its almost finished and none have even commented about it.

Go Holland go....

In truth < i assume Germany going to lift the Cup but we could be surprised.

[GBLW]

Forty dozen fouls, forty dozen free kicks, umpteen yellow cards and finally a red, then an offside goal to win the game.

There might have been six or seven minutes of decent ball handling in the whole game, including overtime -- and that was divided between both teams

Sheesh, I've seen better play between preteen amateurs than in the final.

I think I'll go watch the tide come in -- it'll be more exciting!

[Popsumpot]

Going to break from lurking to answer this:

Aniesta was by no means offside. Any replay will show he was on-side by a few metres. Even if you argue that he was offside for the first pass (which he wasn't), he did at all touch the ball and didn't move toward the play.

I don't know why you think the game handling for the game was bad. Spain played their typical one-touch-football brilliantly, and only failed to run around Netherlands like they did Germany because of quick and hard challenges from the Dutch. Holland played the opposite strategy, and they went with the long ball largely for Ruebben, which of course yielded good results and would have given them the trophy had he not shanked it.

It was a clash of two different styles, with multiple shots on goal from both sides, and was tied all the way until the last 5 minutes of extra time. All the ingredients in a very entertaining football game really.

[GBLW]

Going to break from lurking to answer this:

Aniesta was by no means offside. Any replay will show he was on-side by a few metres. Even if you argue that he was offside for the first pass (which he wasn't), he did at all touch the ball and didn't move toward the play.

You're right, Aniesta was onside when his teammate made the pass (and I had to review the last fifteen minutes to check) but he was only onside by a foot or two and if the original feed hadn't been intercepted by that teammate, he'd have been offside.

I happen to have gone through years of being a referee for amateur games and received FIFA training to do the job, so I DO know the rules.
In my opinion, both sides played what I call 'chippy football' making tackles that simply weren't 'sportsmanlike.' I can't count how many times I saw shirts tugged, arms across chests, elbows into sides or shoulders, slide tackles into players' feet - not the ball, etc. Heck about two thirds of the way through the first half, de Jong kicked a Spanish player (Alonso?) in the chest - which should have been an automatic red card instead of a yellow. Then later, Robbin(sp?) of the Netherlands, was heading for the goal and got an arm across the chest to slow him and force him off the ball, which should have been a yellow.

I still say any World Cup game where the ref has to pass out 14 yellows and a red is less than enjoyable. You might have liked the play, I certain did NOT!

[Metatrone]

Probably the weakest game of the tournament, that final. And definitely the weakest final I've seen. Both teams played decently, but not good and certainly not great.

Iniesta, Xabi, Xabi Alonso handled the ball well but made no long range shots and where trying to run the ball into the net the whole time. David Villa had a couple of half-chances but was basically neutralized most of the time. Torres was just pathetic, I don't know why Del Bosce insisted on playing him every game. Pedro, the selfish little jerk-off, how he made the team after what he did against Germany is a mystery.

Robben, another selfish prick, missed two goals that I could've scored. Sneijder had no lucky requochets this time. Percie could have had a beer with Torres and not bothered us at all. van der Vaart and Kuyt were ok, i guess.

Strategically both teams played their usual. Spain -short frequent passes through the opponent's field with tight ball control and 2 on1 tight defense. Nitherland - more open long passes with more ball space. But it made for a poor game because both seemed too scared to make goal attempts. It was like they were afraid the other team would score so they didn't dare score themselves.

So we have a world champion who won 4 straight games with 1:0. It's just...pathetic. At the same time Uruguay - Germany was probably the best match this world cup.

[Greymist]

No wai, New Zealand v Italy was the best

Goooo Kiwi's!

I'm a little sad though that they didn't go through to the next round after drawing all their games.

[dellstart]

well I had a huge "world cup" party with more than thirty guys and the required cold dutch beer and snacks.A lot were Europeans and our rabid dutch fan kept us all laughing. Every half chance was almost a goal.
I am an Aussie, so I don't care either way(though my money was on Spain ) but I think it was all in all wasn't a bad game. was quite tense though ,and the ref was handing yellow cards out like they were lollies. The dutch played a pretty rough game , so you reap what you sow .blaming him for your failure is a pretty cheap class.

The right team won , though the Netherlanders didn't disgrace themselves by any means.


this guy got it right http://www.smh.com.au/world-cup-2010/wo ... 1084h.html

[afrigeek]

Here in Uganda, a bunch of terrorists set off three bombs at huge parties that had been setup with projectors so that people could watch the final together. The main blast was at a site that is less than 200m from my house. Over 80 people are now confirmed dead from the twin bomb blasts that happened during extra time. The crowd was mostly your average middle class office worker out with his family to watch the world cup in a congenial atmosphere so most of us have colleagues who either died or were injured severely in the blasts.

This was the first foreign terrorist attack we've ever had in this nation as we were not attacked when Al Qaeda hit the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya before so there is a profound sense of shock throughout the country.

[DigitalMaestro]

Wow, and we haven't heard a peep of that on the US news. My heart goes out to you and yours. I hope the rallying of your people in the wake of these attacks is more effective than what we had here after 9/11. We talked a bunch of great things but little was done and the momentum was lost, besides never again being able to bring a soda into the airport.

Hopefully your people will react better.

-DigitalMaestro

[dellstart]

I hate these bastards so much, its always the little or innocent people , that get killed or hurt or ruined.

its not so much momentum was lost(though it was) as much as the will to recognize the enemy, for what he is and deal with him accordingly.
sometimes in a war there are going to be casualties, you have to have the fortitude to hold firm. Our enemies know , if they bleed us too much , we are going to weaken or turn tail , which begets and incites yet more terrorism.

yes , its easy for me to speak about self sacrifice as i am not on the front line , but this is the only way to deal with an implacable foe.

[GBLW]

Wow, and we haven't heard a peep of that on the US news. -DigitalMaestro

If you're really interested in what is happening in the rest of the world, you could try a feed from BBC, which does a pretty good job of presenting news from all over.

For some info on the Uganda blast, go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10605457 - there are other links listed there for more info as well.

What I find really upsetting about this is the fact that it was a form of blackmail. Al Shabab wants Uganda to remove it's troops from Somalia, where they are are patrolling and making an attempt to restore peace to a war torn and thoroughly depressed country. In other words they want a Muslim country to suffer - probably so they can recruit more dissidents to their ranks. Peace would upset their plans.

[DigitalMaestro]

Wow, and we haven't heard a peep of that on the US news. -DigitalMaestro

If you're really interested in what is happening in the rest of the world, you could try a feed from BBC, which does a pretty good job of presenting news from all over.

I use a news aggregator that typically keeps me up to date over a variety of topics and geographic areas, but I'll specifically add BBC to my feeds.

-DigitalMaestro