Too bad Koller isn't playing


And Derf, maybe so @ Argentina but you really shouldn't underestimate S&M, defensively. They only took 1 (one!) goal in their entire World Cup qualifying campaign. So if you can score SIX against them, even with a man up, you're one heck of a team. And besides, some of the goals they scored were of extraterrestroal quality...just unstoppable.

I'm not saying they're certain to be WC, but they certainly aren't looking shabby! A friend of mine works as a sports journalist and he just sent me a mail saying "I've never seen a dozen of sports reporters cum simultaneously, but the reaction to Cambiasso's goal came scarily close".

I just saw the Italy game.

De Rossi is a cock-smoker.

I counted chances: 5-3 to Italy, so they deserved to win, but didnt because they played poorly.

All sendings off i think were justified.

As usual, the Italians started the game thinking they were going to win it anyway. Why are they always playing at half of their abilities?

At first i thought they were letting USA come at them so they would get tired and lose posession, but Italy were infact losing posession, so they were infact just playing shite. It's kind of typical of Italian teams tbh, they never seem to expect the opposition to come out hard and fast like that, so they dont deal with it. When the game is laid back and slower, they can pwn alot, but in this case they just dont have the space and time to pull off counters and through passes.

It happened before, ive seen Italy do it time and time again. Theyre finding it hard to learn this. At this rate, they will struggle against the english style.

I dont think they deserve to win the world cup, we'll have to see how they play against CZ.

On a more positive note: these results will make Italy - Czechs a match where both teams probably would want to win to qualify and get first position in Italy's case. But losing would probably mean going home.

Too bad Koller fell out that first match.

Btw is there a best 3d that goes through?? That's the first i heard about it.
8 groups, 2 best teams go through .. that would make 16 teams, i think that's about all you need for your 1/8 finales

Wtf? Thats the first ive heard of it too.

Wow! Nerd-alert!
http://ascii-wm.net/

Im gonna watch a game with that.

Anyway, Italy through!!! Easy game, the czechs gave up when they lost their man, although

Not a great game, by neither of the teams. You could see how important Koller is/was for the czechs: first match was great, after it they were just an average team.

Anyone else watched Australia VS Kroatia, nice match. The ref completely lost it in the end, forgot to give a guy a red card after giving him his second yellow. Great suspense.

Holland - Portugal for a 1/8 finale btw, has everything to become a great clash, let's hope it will. I will be BBQ-ing then, the combination of food + alcohol + great game (preferable with the Dutch losing, hehe) is all i want for that day

Bah, jealous Belgians.
So, what was the last international Belgian football succes?

Heh i could ask the same about Holland's last success, and if you compare the potential of players ...

It's not that i'm jealous, i think it's a historical thing. We just don't like the dutch. In general.

Stupid France, i don't want them to qualify, they don't deserve it.

Yeah, but Spain is gonna own France anyway so no worries.

As for the Belgian national team...our last success was qualifying for the 02' world cup when we beat the Czechs in the barrage matches (0-1 and 1-0) after they pwned Holland in their qualifications group.

Of course, that's 4 years ago. But I have fond memories of it.

But what happened to Belgian football in general? I haven't seen a club like Anderlecht performing in ages for example. Is the game still popular over there or does everybody only watch Tom Boonen these days?

In retrospect I'm actually glad we didn't participate in 2002, because that gave van Basten a good reason to kick those old farts out of the squad. Otherwise we would have a team like France has now. I hope those fools get trashed by Spain, but I'm not too impressed by Spain yet either, their group was very week, did you see the last Ukrain match? A random group of monkeys would play more entertaining football.

Godverdomme!

Im about 85 minutes into the Portugal Holland game, when it's occurred to be how shit football is to watch. How many games contain sendings off, or dodgy decisions by referees/linesmen?

For many of the 2006 world cup games that ive seen, there is a significant number of crap games.

The two things ruining the game at the moment, are:

1. Referee/Linesmen inconsistency for things such as fowls, bookings, offsides. I dont care if for them, its a hard job...get the fucking technology to help you!!!!!! FIFA is a retarded organisation indeed.

2. Diving. It makes me sick. Dont fucking dive you faggots!