2014 World Cup

[ArdeeBhoy]

Ghana did seem tactically naive, especially their defensive organisation. Needlessly conceded far too much possession. But could have sneaked a draw with a little more composure. Can't fault their effort though.

The US worked very hard and their superior organised team saw them through, but could make Portugal sweat? Ghana probably out already sadly.

[NeverFeltBetter]

If Ghana could just get their **** together when it comes to hitting the target, I could see both them and the States getting something off Portugal (before/after they get slaughtered by Germany anyway).

[pineapple stu]

Bit of a changing of the guard in Africa possibly. Lots of top players over 30 - Essien, Eto'o, Drogba, both Toures, Zokora, Yobo. Others will be over 30 at the next world cup (Kalou, Mikel, Gyan, Muntari).

The four African countries so far don't have huge strength in depth; there's some serious players to be losing. I wonder how many of those four countries will be back for 2018?

On the group, I think America need to improve to get a draw - which is maybe all they need now - off Portugal. They found it hard to hold onto the ball for decent spells. I can't see Portugal being quite as wasteful as Ghana today. But then I didn't see America beating Portugal in 2002 either!

[strangeirish]

I hate when someone spends too much time in America and starts to talk like a yank. Even Jurgen Klinsmman has turned into a jolly happy American.
Aw c'mon dude, you gots to get your groove on man. Chill out... :)

[Charlie Darwin]

I hate when someone spends too much time in America and starts to talk like a yank. Even Jurgen Klinsmman has turned into a jolly happy American.
Klinsmann talked like that when he was in England as well - think it's just because Europeans learn English from American TV shows.

[bennocelt]

Cracking finish to the first test between England and Sri Lanka!

Agree with your comment on the sending off, what exactly did he do that was so bad?

How the hell do you manage to fit in Cricket around the world cup?????:confused: Are 3 games a day not enough sport for you, im knackered!

[ArdeeBhoy]

It was only 5 minutes, but tend to avoid Eng/ROTW sporting teams if they have any chance of winning...the coverage is just too nauseating.

[DeLorean]

The four African countries so far don't have huge strength in depth

They were still able to spring the likes of Drogba, Essien, Prince Boateng and even Odemwingie from the bench. Granted the middle two were carrying knocks and would presumably have started otherwise. I wouldn't mind if we had those options!

I think it's a bit much grouping them off together, it wouldn't even enter our heads to do that with the Europeans... plus the performances of Ghana and Ivory Coast are incomparable with those of Nigeria and Cameroon. I was impressed with the former two. Ghana played some lovely stuff, more or less constant territory and pressure even if clear chances were scarce. Their goal was arguably the best of the tournament in terms or the build up also.

[DeLorean]

Does Ronnie only watch games he's a commentator or pundit on? He's beyond woeful.

It's really staggering the neck a lot of these pundits have. It wrecks my head. Before the late game last night Whelan was on about "what you'd normally expect from USA teams" ... tough, well drilled, organised, etc. Any idiot that's watched a few World Cups would know that kind of stuff. His perception is a minimum of four years out of date.

He has no knowledge of players outside of the PL or reasonably high profile others. Surely it should be a minimum requirement for them to watch five or six recent games to get a feel for what's going on with them right now! It doesn't matter what you'd usually expect, we're interested in what we should expect right now. As much as I'm not a fan, Brian Kerr is very professional in this regard.

[osarusan]

It's really staggering the neck a lot of these pundits have
......
He has no knowledge of players outside of the PL or reasonably high profile others. Surely it should be a minimum requirement for them to watch five or six recent games to get a feel for what's going on with them right now!
.....
It doesn't matter what you'd usually expect, we're interested in what we should expect right now.

Agree with all this. It's actually showing a lot of contempt for football fans by spouting a lot of outdated and/or stereotypical nonsense and assuming viewers are so ignorant about football that they'll just believe it.

In an age of internet, cable tv, live streams etc, football has never been more accessible, and they should know that.

Giles in particular seems to live off his ability to analyse a game as it is happening, which I still think he does well. But he will say, very often, that he doesn't really know much about this or that team. Well that's your bloody job, isn't it, to know about this or that team!

[pineapple stu]

They were still able to spring the likes of Drogba, Essien, Prince Boateng and even Odemwingie from the bench. Granted the middle two were carrying knocks and would presumably have started otherwise. I wouldn't mind if we had those options!
Well, true. Though Drogba's 36, Essien's 33 and Odemwingie (who I was going to mention in my original post, along with Ameobi, but thought it might be stretching the definition of a great player!) is 32. I had counted them in the first team, but it seems they've dropped off enough not to be considered for the first team, which, coupled with how poorly the African teams have done so far, could be taken as strengthening my point.

Boateng is an interesting one as he quite after the last World Cup and only came back for the second leg of the play off! I wonder how that went down in the Ghana camp.


I think it's a bit much grouping them off together, it wouldn't even enter our heads to do that with the Europeans... plus the performances of Ghana and Ivory Coast are incomparable with those of Nigeria and Cameroon. I was impressed with the former two. Ghana played some lovely stuff, more or less constant territory and pressure even if clear chances were scarce. Their goal was arguably the best of the tournament in terms or the build up also.
It's true that it's a bit of a stretch to group them all together, and I don't expect them all to have the same fate. You're right that Ghana's goal was lovely, and of course Ivory Coast (who have way more than their fair share of 30+ stars) deservedly won their game. But Ghana and Ivory Coast in particular came from relatively nowhere to fairly impress at the last two World Cups, having never previously qualified. Now we see them with ageing squads not doing as well as four years ago. Football often comes and goes in waves, and teams in particular; we've seen that ourselves, when a small country in footballing terms has a golden generation, and then drops off as those players retire, not to be adequately replaced.

There's time to go before 2018 of course, but who's going to replace those players, who are mostly genuinely world class? Or are we going to see returns for the likes of Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa or Senegal? Or maybe a new country emerge, like Egypt (well, not entirely new, but it's been 24 years), Ethiopia or Burkina Faso?

[geysir]

Overall I thought the USA deserved their win even though they did dally close to the Whelan stereotype.
With Ghana, there's a thin line between outstanding brilliance and ordinary, and unfortunately they didn't cross it too often. I can see why Klinsmann left Donavon out, as he values other attributes but it looks a blatant omission considering Donavon would be your classic get out of defence player and Johansson didn't offer that after he came on as an enforced sub.

In contrast to the earlier game and that pond scum simulation to get a fellow player red carded, it was refreshing to see a model sportsman pro like Jones (USA) stand up like a man and defend his fellow pro in front of the ref. I don't think the ref was going to take any further action, although if he went by the letter of the law he certainly could have.

[pineapple stu]

In contrast to the earlier game and that pond scum simulation to get a fellow player red carded, it was refreshing to see a model sportsman pro like Jones (USA) stand up like a man and defend his fellow pro in front of the ref. I don't think the ref was going to take any further action, although if he went by the letter of the law he certainly could have.
I don't know if the German entirely "simulated" (what an awful word); he merely reacted angrily, almost as if Pepe had said something.

But you're right that there was a marked contrast in the treatment of two very similar events. And the latter refereeing action was definitely preferable.

Worth noting too that Portugal could maybe count themselves a bit lucky not to have been reduced to ten for the penalty; I wonder was the ref trying to even things up?

[ArdeeBhoy]

Those last two posts, spot on, especially the Ice lad's.

[geysir]

I don't know if the German entirely "simulated" (what an awful word); he merely reacted angrily, almost as if Pepe had said something.

But you're right that there was a marked contrast in the treatment of two very similar events. And the latter refereeing action was definitely preferable.

Worth noting too that Portugal could maybe count themselves a bit lucky not to have been reduced to ten for the penalty; I wonder was the ref trying to even things up?
I haven't got an opinion on the penalty, I missed all the replays etc, but if the ref did try and balance out a poor decision with another poor decision, then we can truly say he was a poor ref.
Anyway, Pepe is one player who fully lives up to his red rag to a bull reputation and Muller is a player who simulates getting hit.

[A N Mouse]

I haven't got an opinion on the penalty, I missed all the replays etc, but if the ref did try and balance out a poor decision with another poor decision, then we can truly say he was a poor ref.
Anyway, Pepe is one player who fully lives up to his red rag to a bull reputation and Muller is a player who simulates getting hit.

Muller was hardly the only one in that game throwing themself on the ground without 'good reason'. Though a love tap on the conk will have that effect on most players. He was the only one provoked an ott response, deserving of a red card.

There could have and perhaps should have been more sendings off, but the ref was overly lenient on the portugese in the second half.

[DannyInvincible]

Klinsmann talked like that when he was in England as well - think it's just because Europeans learn English from American TV shows.

His wife of over 15 years is an American. I think he's lived in California during most of that time as well.


Boateng is an interesting one as he quite after the last World Cup and only came back for the second leg of the play off! I wonder how that went down in the Ghana camp.

He played two further games for Ghana after the 2010 World Cup and cited travel fatigue and mounting injuries as reasons for his retirement in 2011. Some might suspect him of using Ghana in rather mercenary fashion to boost his international profile (http://afcon2013.ghanaweb.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=165371&start=20), but it seems he remains generally popular in the country nevertheless (http://afcon2013.ghanaweb.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=166591). His team-mates seemed happy to celebrate his last-minute second-leg play-off goal against Egypt with him anyway:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhqh_GG4Osc

[Crosby87]

20 years ago today Ireland vs Italy, and the OJ Simpson Bronco chase.

[Stuttgart88]

Muller was hardly the only one in that game throwing themself on the ground without 'good reason'. Though a love tap on the conk will have that effect on most players. He was the only one provoked an ott response, deserving of a red card.

There could have and perhaps should have been more sendings off, but the ref was overly lenient on the portugese in the second half.funny how all the pundits claim Pepe's red was deserved because he should gave been professional enough to stay calm. I can see that angle to it alright but in my opinion Muller was a ball bag for trying to con the ref into thinking he was elbowed. All Pepe did was touch his head to Muller's head. It was an aggressive gesture but absolutely not a violent one. In my opinion it was a nothing incident and I'd like to see retrospective action taken against Muller, though of course it's impossible to prove he wasn't hurt by the first contact, although we all know he wasn't.

Here's another point: if the ref didn't see fit to punish Pepe for the first contact then surely he could understand why Pepe was angry. It could only have been because Muller was acting the maggot. Despite Pepe losing his cool the ref should have understood the context and just had tough words with both players. It was a classic example of a ref knowing the rules but not knowing the game. Maybe he understood full well but knew that not obeying protocol might cost him his place later in the tournament.

[ArdeeBhoy]

20 years ago today Ireland vs Italy, and the OJ Simpson Bronco chase.

The Italy game was 18/6/94...

[Stuttgart88]

Yep, the OJ chase was the day before. The Stanley Cup Final on TV was interrupted. In our pub we had no sound and we took a while to cop on to why exactly a white van on a motorway was attracting so much attention.

[Charlie Darwin]

funny how all the pundits claim Pepe's red was deserved because he should gave been professional enough to stay calm. I can see that angle to it alright but in my opinion Muller was a ball bag for trying to con the ref into thinking he was elbowed. All Pepe did was touch his head to Muller's head. It was an aggressive gesture but absolutely not a violent one. In my opinion it was a nothing incident and I'd like to see retrospective action taken against Muller, though of course it's impossible to prove he wasn't hurt by the first contact, although we all know he wasn't.

Here's another point: if the ref didn't see fit to punish Pepe for the first contact then surely he could understand why Pepe was angry. It could only have been because Muller was acting the maggot. Despite Pepe losing his cool the ref should have understood the context and just had tough words with both players. It was a classic example of a ref knowing the rules but not knowing the game. Maybe he understood full well but knew that not obeying protocol might cost him his place later in the tournament.
Think your last sentence has it. Muller was a right bawbag but unfortunately bawbags win games.

[Crosby87]

It was the nba final, the rangers had their parade that morning.

[bennocelt]

Always a highlight to listen to Richardson's podcast, love them
Considering I cant RTE, and left with BBC/ITV, both awful
http://www.theguardian.com/football/series/footballweekly

[Closed Account 2]

Yep, the OJ chase was the day before. The Stanley Cup Final on TV was interrupted. In our pub we had no sound and we took a while to cop on to why exactly a white van on a motorway was attracting so much attention.

There is a good EPSN film about that, if you get the chance to watch it:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/16/entertainment/la-et-espn-film-20100616
(the link a review not the film btw)

[Stuttgart88]

Belgium's subs bench is scary. I don't know them all but the bench includes Mignolet, Fellaini, Vermaelen, Defour, Januzaj and Mirallas. That's 6 players who'd probably stroll into our first XI!

[pineapple stu]

Can't bate a few technological gremlins and a quick burst of commentary in Portuguese. Nice touch RTE! :)

[Crosby87]

There shouldnt be a penalty there bc he would not have gotten to the ball even if he hadnt been trampled.

[Stuttgart88]

Definite penalty I thought. Coolly dispatched too. Algeria playing like Trap wanted us to play against Spain (and Andorra) so far.

[pineapple stu]

Yep, definite penalty alright. Poorly taken I thought; no real power and nowhere near the corner. If (i know!) Courtois had gone the right way, he'd not just have saved it, he'd have held it. Though the player cam replay suggests he may have succeeded giving the keeper the eye and sending him the wrong way.

How did Belgium qualify with no full backs? Or are they missing players?

[Stuttgart88]

Yep, I think he sent the keeper one way, but It could be that he caught it a bit fat and too centrally in an attempt to push it further to his right. Virtually any penalty that goes in looks good I suppose. Commentators almost always say a penalty is good if scored and will always say a saved penalty was a poor penalty, even if it was a super stop.

[Crosby87]

Only 35 mins in but Belgium might be over rated. Is that one word or two?

[pineapple stu]

Never a free kick here. Hope they don't score.

Edit - justice done. Toby kicked the Algerian (by accident), not the other way around!

[Crosby87]

Roberto Martinez will tell us how difficult it is for the Belgies to break down the Algerian Defense after commercials.

[Charlie Darwin]

Don't panic lads, Fellaini's coming on.

Algeria playing very well I think. They're contributing a lot more to the game than the US did last night against a similarly superior team who are dominating the ball.

[DannyInvincible]

Belgium have looked limited and predictable. It's somewhat frustrating given their wealth of talent. The lack of mobile full-backs certainly hasn't helped them. Who would they usually play with in those positions?


There shouldnt be a penalty there bc he would not have gotten to the ball even if he hadnt been trampled.

Whether or not he would have gotten the ball has no bearing on whether or not it was a foul. Vertonghen held and tripped his opponent inside the box. Irrespective of where the ball was (so long as it was in play), that constituted a foul and, thus, a penalty was correctly awarded. (http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct.aspx)

If the ref had judged that the ball might have been within reach of the Algerian player when he was fouled, he might well have punished Vertonghen with a red card for having denied Algeria an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. Clearly, he didn't, so Vertonghen received a yellow card.

[pineapple stu]

Don't panic lads, Fellaini's coming on.
Ha!

Must be one of these weird Postiga/Forlan players

[Charlie Darwin]

Is it possible I can spin that one like I was being serious?

[pineapple stu]

Yeah, go for it.

Only just crept under the bar; I wonder if he'd have scored that without the afro?

[Charlie Darwin]

Who was it on Match of the Day a few years back who theorised that Fellaini would score more headers if he didn't have all that hair to cushion the impact?

[Charlie Darwin]

Algeria pay the price for trying to win the game, ouch.

[DannyInvincible]

Has anyone else noticed what looks like a bullet crack or something in the ITV studio window behind Andros Townsend to the right? :confused:

[BonnieShels]

It's really staggering the neck a lot of these pundits have. It wrecks my head. Before the late game last night Whelan was on about "what you'd normally expect from USA teams" ... tough, well drilled, organised, etc. Any idiot that's watched a few World Cups would know that kind of stuff. His perception is a minimum of four years out of date.

He has no knowledge of players outside of the PL or reasonably high profile others. Surely it should be a minimum requirement for them to watch five or six recent games to get a feel for what's going on with them right now! It doesn't matter what you'd usually expect, we're interested in what we should expect right now. As much as I'm not a fan, Brian Kerr is very professional in this regard.

Put it this way. All of us here watch an awful lot of football. An insane amount. Some of us (SkStu) are not able to watch games live and watch the recordings later on.

Now imagine, our entire life was like that of Lawrenson or Whelan, and we got to watch soccer for a living, you can be certain we would be on the ball with everything even more so than now.

On no level is it acceptable to be unprofessional in that regard. Unbelievable that the analysts of soccer get away with so much.

It really grinds my gears.

It should be noted, that I actually thought that Andros Townsend was surprisingly good earlier. The Strachan, Vieira, Townsend axis wasn't bad. If only ITV had decent presenters.


Agree with all this. It's actually showing a lot of contempt for football fans by spouting a lot of outdated and/or stereotypical nonsense and assuming viewers are so ignorant about football that they'll just believe it.

In an age of internet, cable tv, live streams etc, football has never been more accessible, and they should know that.

Giles in particular seems to live off his ability to analyse a game as it is happening, which I still think he does well. But he will say, very often, that he doesn't really know much about this or that team. Well that's your bloody job, isn't it, to know about this or that team!

I would give Giles the benefit as he's still the best analyst of a game live.


Well, true. Though Drogba's 36, Essien's 33 and Odemwingie (who I was going to mention in my original post, along with Ameobi, but thought it might be stretching the definition of a great player!) is 32. I had counted them in the first team, but it seems they've dropped off enough not to be considered for the first team, which, coupled with how poorly the African teams have done so far, could be taken as strengthening my point.

Boateng is an interesting one as he quite after the last World Cup and only came back for the second leg of the play off! I wonder how that went down in the Ghana camp.


It's true that it's a bit of a stretch to group them all together, and I don't expect them all to have the same fate. You're right that Ghana's goal was lovely, and of course Ivory Coast (who have way more than their fair share of 30+ stars) deservedly won their game. But Ghana and Ivory Coast in particular came from relatively nowhere to fairly impress at the last two World Cups, having never previously qualified. Now we see them with ageing squads not doing as well as four years ago. Football often comes and goes in waves, and teams in particular; we've seen that ourselves, when a small country in footballing terms has a golden generation, and then drops off as those players retire, not to be adequately replaced.

There's time to go before 2018 of course, but who's going to replace those players, who are mostly genuinely world class? Or are we going to see returns for the likes of Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa or Senegal? Or maybe a new country emerge, like Egypt (well, not entirely new, but it's been 24 years), Ethiopia or Burkina Faso?

It's funny, I was thinking there was a serious tendency to group the African teams. Though there is a certain similarity in regional groupings of teams.

Algeria so far are the best of the lot (of the African teams I've seen).


I don't know if the German entirely "simulated" (what an awful word); he merely reacted angrily, almost as if Pepe had said something.

But you're right that there was a marked contrast in the treatment of two very similar events. And the latter refereeing action was definitely preferable.

Worth noting too that Portugal could maybe count themselves a bit lucky not to have been reduced to ten for the penalty; I wonder was the ref trying to even things up?

Muller got hit in the face. Pepe the idiot reacted and whatever the ref's opinion on card colour he had no real option but to send him off as it was more likely he was about to give him a yellow for the "elbow".


I haven't got an opinion on the penalty, I missed all the replays etc, but if the ref did try and balance out a poor decision with another poor decision, then we can truly say he was a poor ref.
Anyway, Pepe is one player who fully lives up to his red rag to a bull reputation and Muller is a player who simulates getting hit.

As above.

[Crosby87]

Why can stu not watch the matches live bon bon? Has his doctor warned him off excitement due to a weak ticker from years of eating poutine, or is it simply that his village in the outback only has one tv, and he can only get access to it during off hours, after the rest of the town have watched you cant do that on television?

[DeLorean]

Surprised nobody mentioned (saw?) the RTE screw up just before the Brazil game. Dunphy was giving out about Neymar bricking it for the penalty in the last game, Didi was looking through his phone and Kenny was robotic. To alert them that they were on air Bill asked a question to Eamon, who still didn't realise he was on air. He preceeding to say his second on air "f**king" in a few seconds. A visibly shocked Bill alerted Eamon that he was on air, a very uncomfortable Eamon half apologised while looking around in shock and went on to give his prediction for the game... Didi subtlety putting the phone under the table and Kenny, well, robotic.

[DeLorean]

"No flow to the game" says Ray after two minutes and six seconds.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Stu lives in Canada Crosby, 6 hours behind us in theory, 20 years in reality...

Not his fault, just one of the sticks.

[Crosby87]

I know. You guys dont have poutine in Ireland do ye?

Not sure about Mexicos uniforms here. They look like the NJ Devils. Are you guys getting as many shots of the female fans as on the espn feed? What an amazing place. Charlie Darwin would be locked up within minutes of exiting the plane.

[DannyInvincible]

Surprised nobody mentioned (saw?) the RTE screw up just before the Brazil game. Dunphy was giving out about Neymar bricking it for the penalty in the last game, Didi was looking through his phone and Kenny was robotic. To alert them that they were on air Bill asked a question to Eamon, who still didn't realise he was on air. He preceeding to say his second on air "f**king" in a few seconds. A visibly shocked Bill alerted Eamon that he was on air, a very uncomfortable Eamon half apologised while looking around in shock and went on to give his prediction for the game... Didi subtlety putting the phone under the table and Kenny, well, robotic.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsNS-p6YX0M

Simply beautiful.

[osarusan]

Mexico looking in more control at this stage.

I wonder are they under instructions to shoot whenever possilbe.