The Official World Cup Thread (no.1)

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Not good enough for Aston Villa? Well Marcus Allbäck wasn't either

 

Maybe Ghana will win.

 

I found that goal hilarious. Allbäck was responsible that his german team Hansa Rostock dropped into our second league two years ago because he didn't score any goals. And now he's scoring against England.

My bet's on Australia.

 

My little predictions. Hope I got the matchups right.

1/8
Germany win vs Sweden
Argentina win vs Mexico
England win vs Ecuador
Netherlands win vs Portugal
Italy win vs Croatia
Ukraine win vs Switzerland
Brazil win vs Ghana
Spain win vs Korea

1/4
Argentina win vs Ukraine
Germany win vs Italy
Spain win vs Netherlands
Brazil win vs England

1/2
Spain win vs Germany
Argentina win vs Brazil

Final
Argentina win vs Spain

 

I think that in the semi-finals Germany faces Argentina and Brazil faces Spain.

 

Nope. The groups A - D and E - H meet in the semi-final at the earliest. Earl Grey's quarter final should look like this:

1/4
Argentina vs Germany
Ukraine vs Italy
England vs Netherlands
Brazil vs Spain

My Prediction is:

1/8
Germany win vs Sweden
Argentina win vs Portugal
Ecuador win vs England
Netherlands win vs Mexico
Italy win vs Australia
Ukraine win vs Switzerland
Brazil win vs Ghana
Spain win vs France

1/4
Argentina win vs Germany
Netherlands win vs Ecuador
Italy win vs Ukraine
Brazil win vs Spain

1/2
Brazil win vs Italy
Argentina win vs Netherlands

Final
Argentina win vs Brazil

 

We'll not lose to Ecuador, but we'll lose to Holland in the quarters I reckon.

@teek, I'm not being funny mate but I'd really wish you'd stop talking bollocks. That save from Larsson was one of the best saves you'll see this World Cup. He had all of about a fraction of a second to make a reflex save and get something in the way of the ball. Unbelievable reactions.

The goals we conceded were both terrible. Allback should never have got ahead of his marker for the first and the second was just embarassing. Legs were flying about like a team of ballerinas instead of someone just getting in the way of it and lacing it into row Z. The first half was a good performance though. All the other teams would have sit up and taken notice of that performance. The second half was terrible, and we brought it on ourselves. Our passing game was shockingly bad 2nd half.

[ June 21, 2006, 14:11: Message edited by: Barmy Army ]

 

Actually, i give England better chances against Holland at the moment. Our frontline can score against any team, but it's our midfield, and especially our defense that worries me. Cocu seems to be playing with a slight injury, bad enough to hamper his gameplay, and v. Bommel has been dissapointing so far. Sneyder gets in trouble when he faces a physical opponent, en vd Vaart is still not 100% fit.

In defense we've had lady luck on our side so far, but we look extremely vulnerable from time to time. I also think the coach made one or two wrong choices when he made his selection complete. As a team, i think England is a little further than us. I don't expect us to go all the way, because this is still a very young team, but in 4 years, they have to be ready for a succesful WC campaign, when our lads from the -21 team that recently won the European championship have gained some additional experience. Van Nistelrooy will then be replaced by Huntelaar, a man who should have been playing right now as far as i'm concerned. It's amazing, we have a man who scored more than 50 goals this year, and he's not even selected.

 

No, we're not. We don't loose against England, because England continue to be full of themselves in every single game and tournament, believing they are the best of the world.

And you didn't give away an equalizer. If anything, we gave YOU a chance to get a second lead in the game. If football was fair, we would've won that game 2-1.

 

If Owen had not gone off IMO England would have converted more of their chances and scored atleast 3 as the Swedes were intent on playing attacking football and occasionally neglected their defence. Our defending was worse to be honest but i believe that if Rio was still on the pitch Swedens second goal would not have gone in, Sol Campbell is in no way match fit. Not to mention we started with Hargreaves as Gerrard was on a yellow card.

 

What are you talking about, Rutkowski.

I find this really comical, when people slate England for being over-confident, then do their best to run them down ignoring all the obvious. I expected better from you, I thought you were pretty unbiased.

England owned the first half, Sweden owned the second. We didn't deserve to win the game and neither did you. But that doesn't hide the fact that both goals were soft goals for us to concede. Especially the last one, that was just terrible defending and I doubt we will do that again. It's a shame that Ferdinand had to go off really, as I doubt he would have flapped a leg at the cross like Campbell did. He's past it I reckon that bloke.

A draw was a fair result.

And what tosh that is .

 

I think it's funny that you guys keep going on about "oh, if this had happened, or if that had happened". Facts are that neither team was able to score more than the other so it was a draw.

And you're all making a big assumption that Argentina is going to win this morning. Stil nil-all last time I looked, with neither side really going all out to win.

 

Still nil-nil, Harbs. I reckon it'll stay that way too.

 

Holland-Argentina 0-0, Portugal it is then. I'd rather play Mexico, but at least we get a chance to settle a score with Portugal. If we make it through, it's gonna be England next.

 

Yeah, Mexico in the next round would have better, but Argentina was pretty good. I'm surprised there weren't any goals; I expected Argentina to make a quick comeback and sink one in. Oh well, it's kinda hard to win when both teams are playing the ball in the direction of the Dutch goal. Why on earth do they have to play the ball towards the keeper all the time (or at least more than any other team does).

And am I btw the only one who thinks Australia is gonna make it to the next round? I don't claim to know a lot about football, but Hiddink did it with South Korea four years ago, so is it really so unrealistic?

 

Not any more, it isn't. All Australia need is a draw against Croatia to go through. And with a possible 2nd round match with Ghana, they even have an unthinkable shot at the quarter finals.

 

Neither side were too bothered about that game to be honest, that was evident in both of them resting stars. So long as neither side got hammered and lost confidence, it was a 'ok, let's get this out of the way and move on to the knockout stages' game and had 0-0 written allover it.

 

Tomorrow's games are huge though (except maybe Brazil v Japan - unless Japan win). The other three are massive in determining the next round.

 

I heard that 900 Dutch fans showed up for a game with shorts advertising the wrong kind of beer. I heard that they were required to remove them before being allowed to enter the stadium or something like that. Anyone else hear that?

 

Yup, thats right. FIFA are pretty strict about advertising