***Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Thread***
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Yes it is. It houses the club team Botafogo.
Dutch Will Lose Final if do not Implement Mourinho's Style
After failing to win the trophy in both 1974 and 1978, Holland return 32 years later to another World Cup final. Far from being the “Total Football” style side that Johan Cruyff inspired with both the national team and Barcelona, the chance has still come for the Oranje to enter the exquisite brotherhood of World Cup winners. As they say, third time is the charm. Or is it?
Holland’s advance to the final came at the expense of tournament dark horses Uruguay, who themselves were in contention for their third accolade since 1950. Bert van Marwijk’s team played an evenly balanced game against the South Americans, and came out on top due to their explosive duo of Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben. After the match, the Bayern Munich star expressed his desire to win the trophy for his homeland: “This Dutch team is simply a great squad. We need only one more victory now. We’re almost there. I recently lost a big final at club level and I won’t let this happen again. We’re full of confidence at the moment”. Good thing to hear from a player, but the Dutch coach near worship of the Spanish team is where things will go wrong for and why they will probably lose the final.
Van Marwijk approached the matter with caution when he was quizzed about his team’s chances in the final: “"Spain are the best team in the world at the moment. They have been in impressive form in the past couple of years. I enjoy watching them play and I’m looking forward to meeting them in the final. It will be a challenge to try to beat them. We are not afraid of the Spaniards”. What Van Marwijk is trying to say is that he believes his team can not win.
What Holland needs is a Dutch Mourinho. How good is he showed against the "mighty" Barcelona. Not just that he wasn't impressed by their redundant passing that causes awe amongst other teams, but he made sure Barcelona tires itselve out from its own endless passes and then simply counter attack and score. If the Dutch do not employ similar tactics and end up impressed by Spain's 1.8 billion passes per match, they will go back to Holland as Vice Champions.
The Spanish team will count on the Dutch being too impressed. Villa has been an instrumental player for the Red Fury and much is expected from him.
Sidenote: The latest news out of Germany has confirmed that octopus Paul has picked Spain to win the world cup. People still haven't realized that the octopus is going for the box whose flag has the largest volume of red color. The Spanish flag has plenty red, the Dutch don't quite cut it in the 'red' category, neither did the Germans compared to the Spanish flag.
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/16021/50/
After failing to win the trophy in both 1974 and 1978, Holland return 32 years later to another World Cup final. Far from being the “Total Football” style side that Johan Cruyff inspired with both the national team and Barcelona, the chance has still come for the Oranje to enter the exquisite brotherhood of World Cup winners. As they say, third time is the charm. Or is it?
Holland’s advance to the final came at the expense of tournament dark horses Uruguay, who themselves were in contention for their third accolade since 1950. Bert van Marwijk’s team played an evenly balanced game against the South Americans, and came out on top due to their explosive duo of Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben. After the match, the Bayern Munich star expressed his desire to win the trophy for his homeland: “This Dutch team is simply a great squad. We need only one more victory now. We’re almost there. I recently lost a big final at club level and I won’t let this happen again. We’re full of confidence at the moment”. Good thing to hear from a player, but the Dutch coach near worship of the Spanish team is where things will go wrong for and why they will probably lose the final.
Van Marwijk approached the matter with caution when he was quizzed about his team’s chances in the final: “"Spain are the best team in the world at the moment. They have been in impressive form in the past couple of years. I enjoy watching them play and I’m looking forward to meeting them in the final. It will be a challenge to try to beat them. We are not afraid of the Spaniards”. What Van Marwijk is trying to say is that he believes his team can not win.
What Holland needs is a Dutch Mourinho. How good is he showed against the "mighty" Barcelona. Not just that he wasn't impressed by their redundant passing that causes awe amongst other teams, but he made sure Barcelona tires itselve out from its own endless passes and then simply counter attack and score. If the Dutch do not employ similar tactics and end up impressed by Spain's 1.8 billion passes per match, they will go back to Holland as Vice Champions.
The Spanish team will count on the Dutch being too impressed. Villa has been an instrumental player for the Red Fury and much is expected from him.
Sidenote: The latest news out of Germany has confirmed that octopus Paul has picked Spain to win the world cup. People still haven't realized that the octopus is going for the box whose flag has the largest volume of red color. The Spanish flag has plenty red, the Dutch don't quite cut it in the 'red' category, neither did the Germans compared to the Spanish flag.
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/16021/50/
So, who is Paul the octopus picking to win the Cup?
Paul the Psychic Octopus Chooses Spain as World Cup Winner!
[FLASH]http://www.youtube.com/v/kPSj-XECrTs&hl=en_US&fs=1[/FLASH]
I thought Paul only exercised his powers with Germany matches, but with his popularity at an all-time high (except in Germany), I guess his caretakers decided to give him an extra mussel to improve their odds to make it on the news again (Spanish TV channel Cuatro went live from Oberhausen for Paul’s feeding time).
And Paul chose Spain with commendable speed.
The question is… Paul has a 100% accuracy record in predicting matches where Germany plays, but not World Cup finals where Germany isn’t playing, so… do we believe him? Don’t we?
He also chose Germany to win the third-place match against Uruguay, in case anyone’s interested.
(for the record, today I’m wearing octopi earrings and an octopus hair-shelot in Paul’s honour…)
World Cup 2010: How a love of Spain can make for a sterile affair
Spain will probably win the World Cup. This seems likely as they are the most predictable of all brilliantly skilled football teams. When Spain perform as they usually do – outside of the statistically freakish opening loss to Switzerland – it is tempting to say no other top team have ever come so close to being unbeatable, in the sense that winning a football match is a function of having the ball now and then and being allowed to kick it towards your opponents' goal.
Spain have kept the ball phenomenally well. And they have been the best team in other ways. Their defence are exceptional. They work and press like champions. This is all unarguable; Spain would be deserving world champions. So why the sense of slight unease?
Spain have not been "found out" in this World Cup as some predicted – and hoped – they might. They have been courageous and hearteningly true to their style. But they do still have limitations, albeit not apparently technical ones.
There is a gnawing sense of affection-deficit, of a shallowness to the emotional peaks – relative to their excellence as performers – that this Spain team will induce in anyone other than the partisan. Spain will treat you to peerless moments of collective artisanship; but they may also leave you feeling a bit cold.
The notion that Spain are a boring team has even been cautiously floated, the tedium induced by a sideways-angled possession-neurosis. It would seem more accurate to say – as Xavi did after the semi-final defeat of Germany – that the combination of Spain's style and their induced counter measures (deep defence, counterattack) can make for boring matches.
But still the feeling persists that this is an oddly frictionless excellence; that Spain play a kind of platinum-selling dinner party football – Coldplay Football – that is clearly and undeniably high spec, but also devoid of jarringly revelatory spikes and twists. Playing against Spain must feel a little like playing a chess computer: strangled, impotent, you gawp helplessly at its robotic grace.
This is to diminish unfairly the technical superiority – and unrelenting hard graft – of the Spanish players. But it is still worthy of examination, if only because Spain's peculiar strain of excellence is in part a reaction to outside forces. This is a hyper-modern style. It stands right at the frontier of what 20 years of fine macro-engineering by the game's twin governing bodies – Fifa and television – has decreed football is now going to be.
It is important to note that football has changed beyond recognition over this period. The element of concussive physicality has been decisively muted. This is no longer a violent contact sport. Watch a little of even the 1990 World Cup and you keep wondering where all the free-kicks are; how the players keep getting away with all that leaning and chopping and barging.
For more than a century this was the essential appeal of the game: moments of beauty gouged out of something unyielding and often gruesome. But you trusted entirely these rare moments of triumphant self-expression: every jink and turn by Diego Maradona at the 1986 World Cup was hard-won, brutally paid for and born out of absolute courage and commitment.
This was also unsustainable. The rule changes to punish dangerous play might have saved, not just Maradona's shins, but the late stages of his career. The clamping down on overly-physical play – what would have been a legitimate test of strength is now a foul; what would have been a foul is a yellow or red card – was designed to encourage a generation of Maradonas.
Instead, we have something else. We have Spain, the most obvious headline product of the new rules. They have freedom to play as they do. The rules of the game will protect them. The definition of what is a "foul" now extends to anything that prevents expression on the ball, rather than anything dangerous or overly strong-arm. Tactically, Spain have grasped this better than anyone else. Technically, they have the players to exploit it.
The upside of this is we get to admire their ability to manoeuvre the ball. The downside is a sense of a diminishing of the game's more gut-wrenching highs and lows, a loss of wild, 360-degree extremity. Plus, rules that were designed to promote the influence of individual skill by star players have had the opposite effect: expert group defence has replaced the old-style notion of "man-marking" (a classic man-marker would be sent off within three or four minutes). So teams will neutralise Lionel Messi by a kind of revolving collective hustle; narrowly within the rules, but creating above all a sense of constipation.
The main problem, though, is that Spain's displays of extreme technical ability are cheapened. It is hard to trust entirely their moments of excellence. The Dutch team of the 1970s was challenged by, and forced to navigate, the overriding physicality of the times. Pelé was first and foremost a great rippling bull of a man, both the most skilful and the most brutally treated player on the field.
The challenge for Spain is more straightforward; it involves simply imposing superior technique and movement, cradled within the righteous embrace of the referee. This is hardly their fault; but it is no surprise some might find it less than compelling.
In the end perhaps it all comes down to modes of consumption. Spain's is a televisual style, the evolutionary fruit of 20 years of rule-tinkering and spectacle-promotion. Football's physicality, the style that still endures in the lower leagues in England, only really makes sense in the flesh. The thrilling audible crunch of physical collision does not translate to the screen.
So the game's law-makers, and promoters, have tried to give us something else, geared towards their most lucrative revenue stream. Spain demonstrate that peerless technical excellence will thrive under these conditions, and this is clearly a good thing.
But it will occasionally make for paradoxically tedious watching, with matches (outside of a mouthwatering hypothetical Spain v Spain showdown) lassoed by spoiling tactics. More than this there is a sense that the emotional notes are perhaps muted, that we crave something more flawed, a more rugged and potholed contest, less exactingly marshalled and stewarded.
We might yet get it. Perhaps this is simply a phase in Spain's rise. The current style is in many ways an anxious style, driven by fear of conceding possession. This is after all Spain's first World Cup final. If they win it, as most think they will, we might yet get to see Spain 2.0: a more direct, less mannered Spain. And one it is also a little easier to love with a sense of abandon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/08/spain-love-sterile-world-cup-2010
Spain will probably win the World Cup. This seems likely as they are the most predictable of all brilliantly skilled football teams. When Spain perform as they usually do – outside of the statistically freakish opening loss to Switzerland – it is tempting to say no other top team have ever come so close to being unbeatable, in the sense that winning a football match is a function of having the ball now and then and being allowed to kick it towards your opponents' goal.
Spain have kept the ball phenomenally well. And they have been the best team in other ways. Their defence are exceptional. They work and press like champions. This is all unarguable; Spain would be deserving world champions. So why the sense of slight unease?
Spain have not been "found out" in this World Cup as some predicted – and hoped – they might. They have been courageous and hearteningly true to their style. But they do still have limitations, albeit not apparently technical ones.
There is a gnawing sense of affection-deficit, of a shallowness to the emotional peaks – relative to their excellence as performers – that this Spain team will induce in anyone other than the partisan. Spain will treat you to peerless moments of collective artisanship; but they may also leave you feeling a bit cold.
The notion that Spain are a boring team has even been cautiously floated, the tedium induced by a sideways-angled possession-neurosis. It would seem more accurate to say – as Xavi did after the semi-final defeat of Germany – that the combination of Spain's style and their induced counter measures (deep defence, counterattack) can make for boring matches.
But still the feeling persists that this is an oddly frictionless excellence; that Spain play a kind of platinum-selling dinner party football – Coldplay Football – that is clearly and undeniably high spec, but also devoid of jarringly revelatory spikes and twists. Playing against Spain must feel a little like playing a chess computer: strangled, impotent, you gawp helplessly at its robotic grace.
This is to diminish unfairly the technical superiority – and unrelenting hard graft – of the Spanish players. But it is still worthy of examination, if only because Spain's peculiar strain of excellence is in part a reaction to outside forces. This is a hyper-modern style. It stands right at the frontier of what 20 years of fine macro-engineering by the game's twin governing bodies – Fifa and television – has decreed football is now going to be.
It is important to note that football has changed beyond recognition over this period. The element of concussive physicality has been decisively muted. This is no longer a violent contact sport. Watch a little of even the 1990 World Cup and you keep wondering where all the free-kicks are; how the players keep getting away with all that leaning and chopping and barging.
For more than a century this was the essential appeal of the game: moments of beauty gouged out of something unyielding and often gruesome. But you trusted entirely these rare moments of triumphant self-expression: every jink and turn by Diego Maradona at the 1986 World Cup was hard-won, brutally paid for and born out of absolute courage and commitment.
This was also unsustainable. The rule changes to punish dangerous play might have saved, not just Maradona's shins, but the late stages of his career. The clamping down on overly-physical play – what would have been a legitimate test of strength is now a foul; what would have been a foul is a yellow or red card – was designed to encourage a generation of Maradonas.
Instead, we have something else. We have Spain, the most obvious headline product of the new rules. They have freedom to play as they do. The rules of the game will protect them. The definition of what is a "foul" now extends to anything that prevents expression on the ball, rather than anything dangerous or overly strong-arm. Tactically, Spain have grasped this better than anyone else. Technically, they have the players to exploit it.
The upside of this is we get to admire their ability to manoeuvre the ball. The downside is a sense of a diminishing of the game's more gut-wrenching highs and lows, a loss of wild, 360-degree extremity. Plus, rules that were designed to promote the influence of individual skill by star players have had the opposite effect: expert group defence has replaced the old-style notion of "man-marking" (a classic man-marker would be sent off within three or four minutes). So teams will neutralise Lionel Messi by a kind of revolving collective hustle; narrowly within the rules, but creating above all a sense of constipation.
The main problem, though, is that Spain's displays of extreme technical ability are cheapened. It is hard to trust entirely their moments of excellence. The Dutch team of the 1970s was challenged by, and forced to navigate, the overriding physicality of the times. Pelé was first and foremost a great rippling bull of a man, both the most skilful and the most brutally treated player on the field.
The challenge for Spain is more straightforward; it involves simply imposing superior technique and movement, cradled within the righteous embrace of the referee. This is hardly their fault; but it is no surprise some might find it less than compelling.
In the end perhaps it all comes down to modes of consumption. Spain's is a televisual style, the evolutionary fruit of 20 years of rule-tinkering and spectacle-promotion. Football's physicality, the style that still endures in the lower leagues in England, only really makes sense in the flesh. The thrilling audible crunch of physical collision does not translate to the screen.
So the game's law-makers, and promoters, have tried to give us something else, geared towards their most lucrative revenue stream. Spain demonstrate that peerless technical excellence will thrive under these conditions, and this is clearly a good thing.
But it will occasionally make for paradoxically tedious watching, with matches (outside of a mouthwatering hypothetical Spain v Spain showdown) lassoed by spoiling tactics. More than this there is a sense that the emotional notes are perhaps muted, that we crave something more flawed, a more rugged and potholed contest, less exactingly marshalled and stewarded.
We might yet get it. Perhaps this is simply a phase in Spain's rise. The current style is in many ways an anxious style, driven by fear of conceding possession. This is after all Spain's first World Cup final. If they win it, as most think they will, we might yet get to see Spain 2.0: a more direct, less mannered Spain. And one it is also a little easier to love with a sense of abandon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/08/spain-love-sterile-world-cup-2010
The final of the tournament is Sunday.
This thread will more than likely be obsolete in the days following the final, but you can still keep the talk up in our footballing threads posted in the sports section of BGOL.
**Football After the World Cup**
**BGOL's Official Footbal Thread**
This thread will more than likely be obsolete in the days following the final, but you can still keep the talk up in our footballing threads posted in the sports section of BGOL.
**Football After the World Cup**
**BGOL's Official Footbal Thread**
They're saying it was a flu... 
Michel Platini collapses in South Africa
The Fifa vice-president, 55, was eating at the Pigalle restaurant in the Sandton district when he collapsed, falling off his chair.
Watching in horror were Gerard Houllier, the former Liverpool manager, and Andy Roxburgh, the Uefa technical director who were dining with Platini.
Emergency services were called to the incident, which happened at around 8.15pm UK time. Platini was then wheeled away on a stretcher and accompanied by Houllier in an ambulance.
Uefa spokesman William Gaillard revealed the test results had shown up nothing serious.
"I talked to his assistant who was with him a few minutes ago and it seems (he was) just fainting because he has a cold and a fever," Gaillard said.
"All the preliminary exams are negative. He's conscious, he's fine. They may carry out more tests because when a well-known person faints they normally do that but I've been told not to worry. It's nothing serious."
On the reports Platini had suffered a heart attack, Gaillard added: "When people faint, people imagine the worst. That's a normal human reaction. I talked to someone who told me not to worry. Nothing serious. These things happen.
"It's cold there. A lot of people have a cold, the flu, they have a fever. That could explain it."
Gaillard added he did not know whether Platini would be kept in hospital overnight.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/7882622/Michel-Platini-collapses-in-South-Africa.html
Michel Platini collapses in South Africa
The Fifa vice-president, 55, was eating at the Pigalle restaurant in the Sandton district when he collapsed, falling off his chair.
Watching in horror were Gerard Houllier, the former Liverpool manager, and Andy Roxburgh, the Uefa technical director who were dining with Platini.
Emergency services were called to the incident, which happened at around 8.15pm UK time. Platini was then wheeled away on a stretcher and accompanied by Houllier in an ambulance.
Uefa spokesman William Gaillard revealed the test results had shown up nothing serious.
"I talked to his assistant who was with him a few minutes ago and it seems (he was) just fainting because he has a cold and a fever," Gaillard said.
"All the preliminary exams are negative. He's conscious, he's fine. They may carry out more tests because when a well-known person faints they normally do that but I've been told not to worry. It's nothing serious."
On the reports Platini had suffered a heart attack, Gaillard added: "When people faint, people imagine the worst. That's a normal human reaction. I talked to someone who told me not to worry. Nothing serious. These things happen.
"It's cold there. A lot of people have a cold, the flu, they have a fever. That could explain it."
Gaillard added he did not know whether Platini would be kept in hospital overnight.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/7882622/Michel-Platini-collapses-in-South-Africa.html
Fifa was warned of Nigeria World Cup match-fixing fears
Fifa was warned before this year's World Cup of fears that Nigeria's team could be vulnerable to match-fixing, the BBC has learned.
An investigator for Uefa raised concerns, including suspicions over betting patterns.
Nigeria went out of the tournament in the first round, losing to Greece.
World governing body Fifa does not deny receiving a warning but say it has "no indication" of match-fixing in any World Cup matches.
BBC Newsnight understands an investigator working with Uefa first became suspicious during qualifying rounds of the World Cup.
It is alleged that certain Nigerian players came forward and said their team was vulnerable to manipulation.
On the morning of Nigeria's first match, he alerted Fifa's new Early Warning System, set up to look for signs of match-rigging, of his concerns.
German journalist Christian Bergmann also had a call just before the first Nigerian game of the tournament from a Uefa contact who said there were suggestions that "some players from the Nigerian team are actually involved in some form of manipulation".
In their second game of the tournament, Nigeria were strong favourites to beat Greece and took an early 1-0 lead.
But after just 33 minutes Nigeria had a man sent off and Greece subsequently scored their first ever World Cup goals to win 2-1.
After their elimination, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan was so angry with the poor performances that he suspended the whole team from international competition. He later reversed that decision following a complaint from Fifa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8805137.stm
Here we go
Fifa was warned before this year's World Cup of fears that Nigeria's team could be vulnerable to match-fixing, the BBC has learned.
An investigator for Uefa raised concerns, including suspicions over betting patterns.
Nigeria went out of the tournament in the first round, losing to Greece.
World governing body Fifa does not deny receiving a warning but say it has "no indication" of match-fixing in any World Cup matches.
BBC Newsnight understands an investigator working with Uefa first became suspicious during qualifying rounds of the World Cup.
It is alleged that certain Nigerian players came forward and said their team was vulnerable to manipulation.
On the morning of Nigeria's first match, he alerted Fifa's new Early Warning System, set up to look for signs of match-rigging, of his concerns.
German journalist Christian Bergmann also had a call just before the first Nigerian game of the tournament from a Uefa contact who said there were suggestions that "some players from the Nigerian team are actually involved in some form of manipulation".
In their second game of the tournament, Nigeria were strong favourites to beat Greece and took an early 1-0 lead.
But after just 33 minutes Nigeria had a man sent off and Greece subsequently scored their first ever World Cup goals to win 2-1.
After their elimination, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan was so angry with the poor performances that he suspended the whole team from international competition. He later reversed that decision following a complaint from Fifa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8805137.stm
Here we go
This guy is coming to shut down that style.....again
I wish he would have stayed at Inter though!
They're saying it was a flu...
Michel Platini collapses in South Africa
l]
you fuck with blatter then you have to go
Fifa was warned of Nigeria World Cup match-fixing fears
Fifa was warned before this year's World Cup of fears that Nigeria's team could be vulnerable to match-fixing, the BBC has learned.
An investigator for Uefa raised concerns, including suspicions over betting patterns.
Nigeria went out of the tournament in the first round, losing to Greece.
World governing body Fifa does not deny receiving a warning but say it has "no indication" of match-fixing in any World Cup matches.
BBC Newsnight understands an investigator working with Uefa first became suspicious during qualifying rounds of the World Cup.
It is alleged that certain Nigerian players came forward and said their team was vulnerable to manipulation.
On the morning of Nigeria's first match, he alerted Fifa's new Early Warning System, set up to look for signs of match-rigging, of his concerns.
German journalist Christian Bergmann also had a call just before the first Nigerian game of the tournament from a Uefa contact who said there were suggestions that "some players from the Nigerian team are actually involved in some form of manipulation".
In their second game of the tournament, Nigeria were strong favourites to beat Greece and took an early 1-0 lead.
But after just 33 minutes Nigeria had a man sent off and Greece subsequently scored their first ever World Cup goals to win 2-1.
After their elimination, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan was so angry with the poor performances that he suspended the whole team from international competition. He later reversed that decision following a complaint from Fifa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8805137.stm
Here we go
While I think they lost because they played stupid football, I am reminded of the Africa cup where there were South East Asian men who tried to fix matches... I remember one West German who was coaching a West African team stating on tv that "He was a German, different from a poor African, and unbribable"
Fifa was warned of Nigeria World Cup match-fixing fears
Here we go
FOH. Yeah right.
Only shit that was fixed in every match Nigeria played was thier fucking hearts. Fixed to their asses. Fuck that bitch ass team. No one really cares.
Suarez is a flopper and diver. He should be booed for that. Anyway, I missed both goals, but I saw the German goal on replay. I still haven't seen Uruguay's though. Who scored for them? Was it Forlan?
Suarez is a flopper and diver. He should be booed for that. Anyway, I missed both goals, but I saw the German goal on replay. I still haven't seen Uruguay's though. Who scored for them? Was it Forlan?
Carvani
OK. Hey, is there a certain point that they would delay the game because of this rain? If so, how does that work?
Nah...This is pretty much gonna play out unless there is lightening. I think they would stop a third place match if that started.
Aight, cool. I thought lightening would be the thing, but I figured I'd ask.
Oh shit!!! Yo, Diego Forlan is a BEAST!!! That was a nice ass goal. Damn, who does he play for? I hope his team is in one of the leagues that ESPN3 will be showing online next month.
I hope his team is in one of the leagues that ESPN3 will be showing online next month.
Oh shit!!! Yo, Diego Forlan is a BEAST!!! That was a nice ass goal. Damn, who does he play for?
Athletico Madrid (you will hear it called simply "Athletico"). they are in la liga so they should be on espn 3.
Oh shit!!! Yo, Diego Forlan is a BEAST!!! That was a nice ass goal. Damn, who does he play for?
Atletico madrid
Germany goal
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