Printable View
No team coached by Maradona can reach its maximum potential.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spawnie
Typical for the Dutch. They won't live up to it.Quote:
My dark horses for this world cup are the dutch. RVP seems to have come back to fitness without much ill-effect, and the rest of the team looks either excellent or at least very solid.
That I agree with.
We'll play brilliantly until 1d4+2 games into the tournament. Then shit hits the fan and beers hit the television.
edit: No screw that. We will kick arse and we won't choke this time!
No I'm not just trying to convince myself! :mad:
Tch. The way you spin it, man united would have won this years champions league, premier league and FA cup, since what happened before is always what happens next time in sport, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
Right?
Latest odds at William Hill
Spain 4/1
Brazil 4/1
Argentina 13/2
England 13/2
Holland 9/1
Germany 14/1
Italy 16/1
France 18/1
Portugal 25/1
England still seems too high.
And surprised Portugal is down there.
All this talk of the Dutchies being dark horses. Anyone gonna put their dollars where their mouth is?
Yeah, I'll be buying and drinking lots of beer for this one.
Hey, the Dutch have always been one of my favorite Euro sides. I'll cheer for them if it's not against Brazil.
Why not cheer for the US, you might ask? Why should I? 1) I didn't grow up with a team to cheer, 2) there is no tradition of enthusiasm for them in this country, and 3) their style only moderately appeals to me. Why should I change the habits of a lifetime? I'm not particularly nationalistic, so that won't do it. So I only cheer for the US against teams I have no affinity for.
Still some truth in what you said. See last European Championship. Played very well against Italy France and Romania and choked against Russia.
WC before that, the red en yellow card bonanza against portugal.
Euro 2004 was a change when we were simply outplayed.
WC2002 missed twelve hundred penalties against Italy (2 in game) while dominating them, and lost in the penalty shoot out (surprise!)
etc, etc :)
Exactly, that's what I'm saying. The Dutch usually play great ball, but then drop the ball. As it were.
Portugal to be fair havent looked that great.
Personally i would swap the odds for england and italy.
Anyone have any idea what could be giving england such short odds?
Actually cant believe france and italys odds are so close. After the way france have been playing recently i wouldnt be half surprised if one of the better up-and-coming teams knocked them off that top ten list.
Edit - actually, anyone think that should it be spain vs brazil in the final (likely, if they dont meet beforehand) it will play out much as barcelona vs inter milan did in the champs league?
I'm actually going to miss the first Ingurland game as I'll be on one of those nifty flying doohickies, which is a bit of a kick in the gonads.
Still, I'm not has optimistic and hopefull about this World Cup as I was about the last two. I don't know whether the eventual expectation of constant disappointment and failure has finally set it, or whether it's just Capello's annoying habbit of never sticking with a winning team (and so giving the players a chance to be a -team-), but something doesn't feel right about the team. We're lacking that "world class" feel that I thought we had 4 years ago.
Looks like David James is our number 1, which also makes me glum.
And as much as I dig Peter Crouch, I would have loved to see a second world class striker partner Rooneylad. Pity we dont' have one. . .
Oh well, let's hope I'm prooved utterly wrong :D
Well as Switzerland wont make it over the group stage, I will cheer for the Dutch.
Socceroo's to play Germany on the 14th June - I'll be in Saigon drinking 333 and watching it on the telly.
I can't see the boys doing very well in our group but I hope they can make a good show of it against the Deutschenkrauts. :up:
Robben is out with an injury, might not make it at all :(
In the friendly against Hungary he was brought in the second half and played very well. 5 minutes before the end misstepped and is out with a hamstring which will take a couple of weeks to recover. One the one hand, he's only one guy and there's plenty of very capable substitutes. On the other, his form was incredible and he will be missed, if only for the enjoyment of watching him play.
Here's hoping he'll be fit for some of the finals when we reach them. I wonder what it'll do when he hasn't got the rhythm of playing games.
Bummer.
Yep I saw Robben was out. Bit of a blow for you lot.
You have a fair few top players, but Robben will be missed for sure. Hamstrings can be tricky, recovery is not very predicatable.
Update: Injury was less severe than believed at first, he'll be out at least a week, but will come to South-Africa.
If we get to the final stages, he'll be there :) Hopefully he can play at least one game in the group stages to get some rhythm.
'S good. :up:
We lost the England captain Rio Ferdinand to a knee injury in training. He is fairly central to our defence. Has flown home from SA and a replacement - Michael Dawson - has flown out. :|
Cripes, the captain and your best defenceman (arguably). Damn, that is a blow.
Lets hope someone else gets injured and Theo goes :mad:.
Apparently (I don't speak the language), the Argentina technical director has promised that "If Argentina win the World Cup I’ll let whoever scores the winning goal do me up the arse.”
Maradonna being in charge is going to be interesting ...
Might as well stick up a graphic for the group stage ...
http://samaw.com/wp-content/uploads/...Cup_Groups.jpg
Teams fairly evenly distributed ... hard to see which are the easier groups and which are the harder.
I'd say probably Spain in H have it the easiest.
Group G is the best group in terms of footballing quality IMO.
At least the fake(?) ads are entertaining.
http://i.imgur.com/SeWpN.jpg
The BBC has a predictor here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...10/8709313.stm
Now, if everything goes as you would imagine and with no upsets, Spain have a much harder run. They have to play portugal and Italy to get the the finals. Compare that to the uk who have to play cameroon and france.
However, Spain are more than capable of beating those two teams, and having tough games might give them the tempering they need to be on top of their game in the final. That being said, brazils chances just took a definite rise in my opinion.
Just picked two teams out of the world cup sweepstake at work.
Got North Korea :sour:
And the Netherlands :)
I got Cameroon on my work sweepstake, what takes the piss is that Eto has already thrown a hissy fit and said he might not play. Twat.
I just looked at the BBC predictor, i managed to get England vs Argies for the final and i didn't even plan for itl .... :D.
How awesome would that be?
Some real big matches in my quarterfinals
England - France
Netherlands - Brazil
Argentine - Serbia
Italy - Span
This would be great!
We beat the limeys, Spain beats the Argies so it's a Netherlands - Spain Final for me. England 3rd.
*cough* you'd have to beat the Brazilianoids before you'd have a chance with us mate *cough*
~
3 reporters in SA for the world cup, a portuguese and 2 spaniards, had their apartment broken in to and were held at gunpoint by robbers who made off with money and photographic stuff. Not good for SA and its notorious crime image ahead of the world cup. :down:
BBC
Yeah, well, Brazil wasn't so hot last WC. It can be done.
But if this happens this way upto that point, the Dutch squad will probably be overconfident, "if we can beat Brazil, we can beat anyone!" and lose miserably 3 to 1 to you guys.
edit: NO! Bad Ziggy! :mad:
We'll have momentum to go on and win the title, that's what I meant to say.
Well if it goes to extra time and penalties - you'll beat us no worries. We always lose penalties. :mad:
But we always lose penalties!
Wrong, Flixy!
England are just crap at the spot kick .... period. Let us win something please! :mad:
Comon, remember Netherlands- Italy in 2000? One man more than them, missed two penalties during the match and lost the shootout 3-1
:(
Although in all fairness, that match was jinxed because I was bounced from the bar I was going to watch it in.
We lost that curse against Sweden Flixter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hYLlrv5yo
And Robben is the designated penalty kicker for Bayern. (A dutchie!!! :eek:)
Oh yeah, I totally forgot that! What was nice, way to go Van der Sar :) (Is the current goalie good, by the way? I haven't really followed it...) Alright, england loses after penalties. Nice pronunciation of Cocu in english, by the way :D
I do like penalty shootouts, very exciting :) Even rewatching this gives a nice tension, and I already knew the outcome :D
Steekie is good, but he is no van der Sar :)
By the way, search "world cup" in google and look at the bottom of the page where the page markers are.
Why Van der Sar no play?
If he's good enough for Man U, he's good enough for the Dutchies. :o
Van der Sar no want to play :(
Whu ... ? :eek:
Why he no want to play?? :confused:
It's normally a footballer's dream to play for the national side.
~
EDIT:
:D:up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Zigz
I would have never seen that Ziggy :up: