So it begins tonight....
Who's your team to win?...
As much as I hate to say it....Ze Germanz for me..
Don't think it will be a European side but if one were to surprise I'd think Spain before Germany. Brazil and Argentina must be favourites with my money on the Argies.
Argies or Brazil I reckon.
I've drawn Ivory Coast in the pub sweepstake :(
People are saying that a dark horse is Belgium we shall see. I have South Korea and Spain in the sweepstakes I am in and running
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Accrington Stanley will win 2-0.......
:getmecoat:
Humidity in Brazil will make it hard for most European teams to cope. Out of the European teams Spain let the ball do most of work so will most likely progress furthest and if Italy get through the group stages they are historically stronger later in the competiton. But my money would be on argentina
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My money is on Brazil if the rest of refs are like that Japanese guy! I got Ghana in the work sweepstakes so my best chance is probably the booby prize... :-)
1) Spain
2)Brazil
3)Belgium
4)Germany
5)England (heck why not, even though we have no chance)
Quote from: .DickDastardly.;3852661) Spain
2)Brazil
3)Belgium
4)Germany
5)England (heck why not, even though we have no chance)
I'll remind you of this prediction in just over 3 weeks
I got Mexico, Ghana and Greece in the works sweep stake. :/
No idea who will win, I'd just like to see England play some nice football for a change.
why's that blunty :P
No one fancy Uruguay? I think they will be the dark horses this year, got some quality players.
Originally I thought Brazil would win it but after seeing them last night I can't say I'm that convinced now. They look a bit dodgey at the back, not sure wether it was nerves and pressure of the opening game but from what I saw last night they are beatable.
Got Nigeria in the sweepstake, think I can fairly say that's a fiver down the drain :(
Will be an interesting tournament this year several teams look like they could win it!
Did I mention that Holland might do well? :D
cant think why you would say that mate!!
Quote from: OldBloke;385294Did I mention that Holland might do well? :D
Really didn't expect that result at all :blink:
Nicely done Netherlands, cracking game to watch.
Bring on Chile v Australia :boxing:
I thought it was the beer, but The Netherlands really had a spainfull victory :)
Spains defence was poor, and the Netherlands played brilliantly, can never rule the out...right time now for the next, come on you Aussies!
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Quote from: OldBloke;385294Did I mention that Holland might do well? :D
Speaking as a Dutchy, we didn't even expect that...
The goal from van Persie: Making it; 10/10, landing 5,5... :flirty:
@Shadowfax; Gr0lsch hax :devil:
Quote from: DuVeL;385299Speaking as a Dutchy, we didn't even expect that...
The goal from van Persie: Making it; 10/10, landing 5,5... :flirty:
@Shadowfax; Gr0lsch hax :devil:
You played some quality stuff mate, if England get through to the knockouts. Hope we don't meet you guys :sad:
Australia were unlucky not to get a draw tonight.
England's group just got very interesting.
Can't talk about the Italy game without the bleeping machine going mad.lol
Back from the Download festival and no idea what has really gone on in the world cup as deliberately kept away from it all. Got back from the festival in work yesterday to find out I had been drawn Brazil and Argentina in the sweep stake at work which had me pretty smug to be sure, Although I can see having to buy coffee for some time for the person who picked my 2 teams at random while away.
Quote from: Blunt;385307Australia were unlucky not to get a draw tonight.
And again vs the NL, it could have gone either way or a draw as you mentioned. The Dutch managed but not really close. On the other hand, Spain vs Chile was insane!
So, the many people that said Spain....ouch..
Hopefully England will pull their socks up tonight
Quote from: Switchback;385519Hopefully England will pull their socks up tonight
They appeared to be wearing tights, not socks.
England were outclassed again... Nothing to see here, move on..
It was hardly surprising.
Much as I'd love to see England do well at football you just knew we were going to be beaten by a country with a population the size of central London.
Meh. We suck at Football and Cricket and are wildly erratic at Rugby.
That leaves with the Rowing and Cycling then - yay. :rolleyes:
Quotewildly erratic at Rugby
Our U-20 squad won the Junior World Cup this morning for the
second time in a row. We're producing top class youth players who are coming through into the senior squad.
Unlike the FA however, who have only just updated their 50 year old youth policy. We'll never get anywhere with football until we modernise our coaching methods.[/COLOR]
I did see some positives this year. We played well in the first match, and.... ok, not great in the second, but the team is young and have to agree what others have said, which is we need to keep using the same players as much as possible to 'gell', and not react to sacking managers every 5 minutes (ofc there will be players replacing the older ones such as Gerard who is great at crosses bit slowed physically)
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Well I had hoped we would at least get to the last 16 as I'm sure a lot of people did but at the end of the day we got beat by 2 better teams, it's as simple as that. I get a little annoyed when people say "we are rubbish" or " we put no effort in" and "the players don't care" etc etc, believe me they worked their bottoms off, they do care and I can imagine how utterly gutted the England players are. It's just we don't have the level of class that a lot of other countries do and we have to make do with the players we have, which compared to the players out there today are just average.
Also it's not like we got "hammered" by either Italy or Uruguay, at the end of the day we lasted longer than Spain :rolleyes:
Bring on the euros and hopefully we can develop the team more
What confuses me is how a country with a population that's less than a third of the size of London and a GDP of less than one fortieth of the UK can effectively knock us out of the World Cup?
There are teams and their fans that come to the World Cup and have no expectation of winning. They come for the honour of playing, of competing against the very best and of being part of a great celebration of football.
There are teams who come with a real expectation of winning. They're world class and they know it. All but one of them will come away disappointed. But they all come determined and realistically optimistic about their real chance of winning. And sooner or later they do win. And then they get the joy and celebration that goes with it.
And then there are a very few teams that fall between the two. They will never realistically become the world's cup holders but they hover on the edge and convince themselves that if they play really well, have a little luck go their way then who knows they might just do it. And for them every world cup will be a disappointment, they'll never win but they'll also never be able to just go and enjoy the experience. And that's a shame. England should either get better or get worse. 50 years of hovering in the shadows is just depressing.
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Quote from: smilodon;385561What confuses me is how a country with a population that's less than a third of the size of London and a GDP of less than one fortieth of the UK can effectively knock us out of the World Cup?
But how much of that population in England would be eligible to play for us? This is the problem, the Premiership is by no doubt the best league in the world and I'm proud to be living in a country where we can say that, but it's the best in the world because it attracts the best players from around the world, unfortunately, from an England national team point of view, those players at the top of the ladder in English football are from over seas.
I think the fact that the premiership is so successful makes the English public expect the same kind of class and expectation from their national team, which won't happen unless we have a 'star' like Suarez, Neymar, Messi etc etc....
I think tut is right we need more grass roots investment but the fat cats don't want to do it and don't have the need to. Someone else problem
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The Premier League/Sky Sports/FA are to blame.
I'd love to know the % of UK/GB players playing at top level abroad.
It's not in our favour having the best league in the world.
Youth policies, training, school football, coaching etc. all need to be looked at.
Home before the postcards again.
The trouble is though the big clubs in England sign young players at a ridiculously young age and then they are coached by our coaches, but then , quite rightly, play for their national team. Big clubs like Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal, to name a few, scout the whole world for players at age 14+ then they bring them here! we train/coach them and then they play internationally for their own country (which they should)
So I'm not sure even the coaching is an issue!
Quote from: Blunt;385564The Premier League/Sky Sports/FA are to blame.
I'd love to know the % of UK/GB players playing at top level abroad.
It's not in our favour having the best league in the world.
Youth policies, training, school football, coaching etc. all need to be looked at.
Home before the postcards again.
this I agree with as 60% of players playing in English premier league are foreign.
But also have to look at the team that's being picked - England have a strong forward line in Rooney, wellbeck, Sturbridge, sterling.
Henderson I thought tried his hardest in the two games but Gerrard has done nothing both games (coming from a Liverpool fan), I thought Barkley and lallana showed great drive when they came on first game.
and then to back line - jagielka has cost england 2 crucial goals by letting his marker peel off him for two headed goals.
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Milli in your role in your local youth team do you think there is enough done to encourage young talent
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Don't get me started with grassroots pal - Scotland only concentrate on the central belt area (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling). There's very little funding for teams elsewhere.
Recently a long standing Saturday amateur league has folded due to lack of teams...ridiculous.
But again back to your question (no longer involved with a youth setup BTW - committee had a change of heart and didn't take on the youths due to their management) - I remember playing in a tournament in Holland and travelling to the destination via rail every few miles there would be training facilities/club developments. All geared towards bringing though the next talent.
For young players to develop into the best they can be they need to be exposed to the highest level of football they can play at. This just isn't happening in our domestic game and especially not in our area.
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It's a shame, I'd of like us to reach at least the 2nd rounds and thought this was possible even given the group we were in.
So far this world cup I've seen the "under dogs" play with heart,guts,courage and desire to win the game at all costs not once in the two games I felt England were doing this, it just felt that we were always second best chasing the game.
Right decision to retain/keep Woy if that does happen, he's a good honest manager.
The two games we have played more so the first were the best I've seen England play in a long while.
Go usa!!
Quote from: Ninja_Freak;385652Go usa!!
That's a first! :p
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The 5 live commentator is hilarious. He doesn't think much of England's performance :-)
Quote from: suicidal_monkey;385666The 5 live commentator is hilarious. He doesn't think much of England's performance :-)
Nor did I. Switched over to the Uruguay v Italy game. Brilliant theatre :D
Have just read that he's been munching people again. What a berk...
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He looked hungry enough, just has bad timing!
I did hear he will cameo in the next walking dead series
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Some Norwegian guy put a bet that he would bite an opponent
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2681[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2682[/ATTACH]
Just saying...
Quote from: Blunt;385671Some Norwegian guy put a bet that he would bite an opponent
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2681[/ATTACH]
Priceless
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Well not priceless, more like £530 but I gets yer point :thumbsup2:
HERE'S (http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/10984370/portrait-serial-winner-luis-suarez-soccer-most-beautiful-player%20%E2%80%A6) a fascinating ESPN piece on Suarez written before the latest outrage.
Unbalanced to say the least. 2 year ban please.
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Well, this is shocking
Quote from: Snokio;386074Well, this is shocking
WOW! Didn't see that coming :blink:
Quote from: OldBloke;386077WOW! Didn't see that coming :blink:
Don't think anyone did. I was hoping that Germany would win but didn't think it would go this easy :blink:
I just hope the Dutch can do something similar tomorrow so we can have a great match vs the Germans in the Finals.
*Fingers crossed...
*Go Netherlands...
Bahhahahahahahahah
C'mon Neddies!
And on a scale of 1-7 how bad were Brazil?
I was discussing with my brother if Podolski had played this World Cup or not and found this article after the game.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2014/world-cup-2014-lukas-podolski-3819684
Thought it was hilarious :D
Im hearing 7up now want to sponsor the German team
Still... Could be worse.
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/10/eqymapab.jpg)(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/10/qebameqe.jpg)
Or (http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/10/6uqaje7y.jpg)
Holland v Argentina was a bit of an anti-climax after last night. Good game though.
LVG should've subbed the keeper again though IMHO. Would've really psyched out the Argies.
Shame the Argies won, I was looking forward to having at least 3 WC winners in my club squad (inc manager)
Hope Webb get's the final gig, at least we'll have a Brit in the final. (against 2 countries we've been at war with in the last century)
We Dutchies are a bit down atm but I'm still going to wear my Orange shirt proudly for Saturdays match for 3rd and 4th place. To be honoust, I didn't expect them to get this far. My respect for the NL-Team still though!
Weird to say but I hope Germany wins big time again after showing their skills last time vs Brazil.
Quote from: DuVeL;386119We Dutchies are a bit down atm but I'm still going to wear my Orange shirt proudly for Saturdays match for 3rd and 4th place. To be honoust, I didn't expect them to get this far. My respect for the NL-Team still though!
Weird to say but I hope Germany wins big time again after showing their skills last time vs Brazil.
LVG should've done what you suggested and subbed the Ref with
Bjorn Kuipers.