I think I know one which will now be added to this list !
On a separate issue, isn't today the 24th anniversary of Bonner Saves. Bonner Saves?
I'm torn on this. I don't much like this Dutch team, but having grown up seeing them lose 2 WC finals and having had so many great players in my lifetime I think it'd be a fitting reward for their football culture.
The same could be said of Spain I suppose, and Germany's rebuilding since 2000 and the way they regulate their league is a model for anyone looking for international success. I think it'd be a real statement to the EPL and to the whole football money culture if the Dutch could win a WC after their once competitive league had been relegated to being a feeder league for bigger countries.
I think it's a real shame that half the German team seems to be linked with a move to the EPL when the German system & domestic league has been critical to their success.
Part of me also thinks there are lessons from the Dutch success for Ireland. This is by no means a strong team of individuals from front to back. I can honestly say that Given, Dunne, O'Shea and maybe even Finnan or Carr would get in their starting XI and one or tywo more of our better players wouldn't be too far off. However, it's been a real triumph for the collective rather than the individual. I suppose it helps to have a wonderful player like Sneijder leading the way, and helpful OGs, goalkeeping errors and deflections along the way.
Denmark - OG set them on their way
Japan - goalkeeping mistake won the game
Brazil - goalkeeping error / OG at critical point & stupid red card
Uruguay - deflection at critical point & they were lucky it was awarded (even if it was correct).
That's a nice run of good fortune
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 07/07/2010 at 5:40 PM.
I think I know one which will now be added to this list !
On a separate issue, isn't today the 24th anniversary of Bonner Saves. Bonner Saves?
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Was Suarez's bite really any worse than an elbow, two-footed tackle, or head-butt? Just because it shows he's a nasty, horrible little man doesn't mean it should carry any more punishment than arguably more dangerous offences. Nobody ever had their career ended from being bitten on the arm.
Its his third bite though, any player can snap once and commit a really bad tackle once. In purely footballing terms his teams revelling at his hand ball cheating Ghana out of the last world cup is worse.
Yeah, I think there should be increasing punishments for the third deliberate elbow or headbutt as well, but I think you're getting into dangerous territory when you start dealing out punishments based on the level of public outrage. If nothing else because it gives unfair influence to larger and noisier nations. Suarez is being defended passionately by many in Uruguay, I can imagine the same thing would happen if it had been a Wayne Rooney elbow, only the English media have far more international clout than the Uruguayan
Only in the anglophone world! I imagine that Uruguayan media reports are being picked up Spanish language media all over Latin America.
A potential leg-breaker of a tackle, a thumping elbow or a headbutt are horrific assaults on another player, but they're something we've seen many times over the years so perhaps we're all a little desensitised to them. What Suarez has done is almost unimaginable for 'civilised' people, (i.e. anybody who has acquired the social conditioning or maturity to resist the urge to bite all and sundry!) and that's why people are so shocked at it. Mrs Grise, a nurse, says that a bite that draws blood can have serious health implications as well - transmission of infectious diseases, more germs in the mouth than in a toilet bowl, that kind of thing - so maybe there's something about self-preservation buried in our genes that prevents us from going chewy on people.
The nub of the argument is this: Suarez is a recidivist. Being banned for 17 matches in total hasn't cured him of this urge to bite. He should be punished for violent conduct, and it should end his world cup, even in the unlikely case that Uruguay reach the final, so a minimum of four games. But hanging, drawing and quartering aren't the solution either. He's clearly a deeply disturbed person, and he needs proper psychological assessment, not just a sports boffin spouting on at him about goals and visualisation and channelling aggression.
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
The Beeb goes all Nigel Tufnel on WC controversies and cranks it up to up to 11...
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/28019803
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
This Brazil v Colombia match has been pretty shameful.
I am only really posting this to bump the thread to get rid of the news of Blatter's resignation. I thought the urge to bite must be one of the weirdest actions which one cannot control but there are a lot of them out there http://ask.metafilter.com/29207/Urge-to-bite-rising Can you imagine getting up in the morning and saying "Right, anyone who annoys me out there is going to get the full effect of my dentures" ? There's naught strange as folk.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
not the biggest fix ever but if they are admitting to stuff like this then god knows what else was happening over the years......
https://news.sky.com/story/platini-a...final-11377566
Presumably then, World Cup draws are self-regulated, that is, there is no independent adjudicator?
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Given such revelations one could presume this years competition is similarly manipulated, the hosts are definitely in a "softish" group thus increasing their chances of progression.
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