World Cup

[Hellbent]

Who do you fancy to win it?

I secretly am rooting for Germany. I hope Brazil or Spain don't win. I am putting my money on Germany with them playing the Netherlands in the Final.

[Phobus]

Hellbent said:

Who do you fancy to win it?

I secretly am rooting for Germany. I hope Brazil or Spain don't win. I am putting my money on Germany with them playing the Netherlands in the Final.

Well, judging by Brazil's opener against Croatia they've got the officials in their pocket, so it has to be them :p

Germany would be the popular choice, although it's hard to say if they're in world-beating form in the finals so far seeing as today's game against Portugal was just them watching an alright team implode spectacularly (something that seems to be happening a lot to the relatively unchanged squads thus far). The Netherlands do seem like another good choice with how they demolished Spain, plus it'd be nice to see the German-Dutch rivalry played out in this tournament, so I've got fingers crossed for that to be how things go. Of course, can't rule Spain out on one bad performance, but they may have to face Brazil in the first round of knockouts now that they're trailing in their group...

From what I've seen so far, I like the odds on Germany winning the cup, but it's been very unpredictable with how a lot of the games have gone so far. Entertaining to follow this time around, that's for sure!

[dew]

I thought the Netherlands would be as lacklustre as at the last Euro, but their demolition of Spain made me a true believer. Also they finally play beautiful football, not the dirty hack&slash stuff when De Jong was paired with van Bommel, heh.

Germany is fun to look at for a lot of years now and the squad has matured to be a true contender for the cup. The Ivory Coast is my dark horse *cough cough*. As far as underdogs go, I loved what Costa Rica did in their first match, go them!

[purist]

Prior to the tournament I said Brazil because they are the home nation and are playing to a degree of adversary as well which oddly can sometimes help like it did for Italy during the match fixing scandal in 2006. Holland have obviously been the most impressive so far while Germany looked solid against Portugal even before Pepe was sent off. However, European sides traditionally don't win in South America so I will stick with Brazil and have Argentina as a safety bet provided Messi can show more than glimpses of his genius.

Being English I'm hoping England have a good World Cup though i accept they're not contenders. They were at least exciting to watch against Italy and can consider themselves a little unlucky to be on the losing side. That's the difference between England and the elite though, any of the true contenders would have won that game because Italy were for the taking

[Phobus]

I have to agree, purist (also English here) - England don't have it in them this tournament. What I will say in their favour is that, for that first time in at least 8 years, they've played an interesting game. None of that "hunker back for a draw" or "hoof and run" crap that we're used to, but proper linking up and some exciting runs from the likes of Sterling. My brother and I are begging for Rooney and Johnson to be shelved in favour of basically anybody else. Even Gerrard seems disappointingly quiet in games, considering he's meant to be the fountain of experience and a foundation for the team. Simply compare his performance to Pirlo's seemingly effortless omnipresent game dictation and you can see how England lacks on the front. Personally I want to see more of the Ox (if he's fit for it) and other younger, bolder players.

[Reisal]

Speaking of the World Cup...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/05/brazil-evicted-won-celebrate-world-cup-201452012437552695.html

[Veinen]

Well, I was betting for Brazil before the tournament and I still believe they'll win. A little shaky on the defense against Croatia but they've got a solid all around team and the home turf will be an advantage later on. Germany looked pretty impressive today and they've got some serious firepower up front, so they're probably the main challenger.

The Netherlands, well they were good obviously and I was especially impressed by their relative no-name d corps, but Spain's performance was just absolutely horrible and surely the Dutch are not THAT good. Uruguays defeat was a shocker for sure, I was expecting much of them but it sure doesn't look too good now. If Costa Rica's forwards were able to tear that d apart, I wonder what Balotelli and co. or the quick England will do.

Belgium would be my darkhorse candidate, they've got a surprisingly good team on paper at least. They're probably too inexperienced to be truly considered contenders though but it'll be fun to see what kind of damage they can do.

[betabox]

Brazil-Croatia was believed to be straight-forward and one-sided. I'm sure those who've watched, pretty much expected Brazil to win easily, but that wasn't the case. I was kind of surprised that Croatia held up as well as they did, TBH. But Brazil scored on themselves!

England-Italy last Saturday is noteworthy, but because it kind of sucked. Balotelli's headbutt into 2-1 was great, though. Heh, my friend was rooting for England and even spent some money on a bracelet. Now all of a sudden, forget England, Germany is where it's at. But yeah, like some of you guys said, Germany is looking quite promising. God that Portugal match was a crush.

[Springy]

Germany of course! You could argue that Brazil will be a top pick due to the home advantage. I stopped getting my hopes up for England 8 years ago as we never seem to co-operate as a team. We started off great against Italy but the defence was utter shit, Rooney was in the complete wrong position, haven't a clue what Gerrard was doing, Welbeck is well, just shit and doesn't bother playing properly (same with Henderson). The Germans however, know how to coach their team, they have a fucking strategy and know how to counter attack the players are in the correct positions too, plus they have the likes of Ozil, Mertesacker, Gnabry and Podolski. ;) Spelling is probably going to be shit seeing as I have a very tiny phone keyboard.

[Joshy]

AUSTRALIA!

...

... Who am I kidding? Bah.

I haven't watched too much of the world cup since I've got a bunch of essays to write, but I'd say either Germany or Netherlands are the current likely teams to win. Italy don't look too bad, I was hoping England would beat them though because screw them, that's why. Would be interesting to see how Argentina and Brazil goes too.

[Joshy]

Pardon for the double-post but I thought this was too awesome not to post.

Article on this video (how a deaf-blind person was able to 'watch' Brazil play):

[Kontra Kommando]

I just got into a world cup dispute with a someone outside. lol

I insisted to him that Italy was going to win the World Cup. I would also be happy to see the USA win. But that's only who I would like to see win. Anyone could take it really, those are the best 32 teams in the world. They beat out the rest of the world to qualify; I don't underestimate any of them.

The Netherlands had a very impressive victory over Spain. I was really stunned.

Here are my 4 picks for who might take it:

Italy
Netherlands
Brazil
Germany

I would have put Argentina on that list, but their performance against Bosnia was not convincing. As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for that unfortunate own goal; they would have tied.

That poor guy must feel like crap. Hopefully, he won't end up like him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Escobar#Death

[SFoZ911]

Holland all the way baby!

[Hellbent]

I thought the USA Ghana game was very exciting. Interesting spacing of the goals. I was very pleased with the result. :) The Mexico- Brasil game today was also very fun, even though no goals were scored.

P.S. Does anyone know if it's possible to stream all the games in the world cup live on my Mac without having a subscription to cable or dish or comcast or other tv networks?

[glenzinho]

Try The World Game site for free streaming in HD. What about espnfc, no streaming there?

[Zed]

Kontra Kommando said:

Hopefully, he won't end up like him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Escobar#Death

No, I don't think so. As far as I can remember, at the time of the US '94 World Cup, people had pretty high expectations for Colombia, which doesn't seem to be the case with Bosnia (of course, we are assuming that "revenge" was indeed the cause for Escobar's murder). Besides, the '94 own-goal was far more "dramatic".

[Kontra Kommando]

Zed said:

No, I don't think so. As far as I can remember, at the time of the US '94 World Cup, people had pretty high expectations for Colombia, which doesn't seem to be the case with Bosnia (of course, we are assuming that "revenge" was indeed the cause for Escobar's murder). Besides, the '94 own-goal was far more "dramatic".

I remember seeing that game back then. I can't believe that was twenty years ago already.

[purist]

Yeah, lots of own goals are scored and very few footballers are murdered. Escobar is, thankfully, an isolated incident.

What's up with Brazil? Against Croatia three dodgy ref decisions went their way (Neymar avoiding a red card, the penalty and the disallowed Croatian goal), which masked an average performance. And last night against Mexico they were abject. Fred totally useless.

[dew]

It's like Fred doesn't even want to be on the pitch, the way he lazily strolls around in offside positions. And Neymar trying to slalom past 4 defenders on his own... this isn't the 70's anymore, boy. One of the on form aggressive teams would rip Brazil apart.

Except for the spectacular saves by the Mex goalie, this was easily the most boring game day so far. Belgium got lucky against the parked Alegrian bus in the end, but they looked disinterested and rather average, especially starlet Hazard. I didn't even bother watching Russia v. Korea. :)

[Phobus]

Have to admit, I took one look at the line up of games yesterday and decided to not bother. Looks like I made the right call, if the results are anything to go by. Brazil won't be getting very far in this tournament, if they keep this up!

Couple of more interesting teams on tonight, although the Netherlands/Australia game will be on too early for me to catch most of it. Spain afterwards is more to see if they really are past it, more than anything else now :p

[Zed]

I agree. My country's team, while good, isn't in the "top 10" (by far), and if that is enough for a draw with Brazil, I don't see them (Brazil) advancing much further.

Germany, Argentina or Italy will win this World Cup, as far as I can see.

EDIT: Clarity.

[geo]

My only experience with the World Cup this year was at a bar. Argentina vs the losers. Argentina scored first 2 minutes. The place was hoppin and laughing because of that. 40 minutes later, the entire bar cleared out, because they knew who'd win. Then it became Argentina 2 - 0. The rest of the bar cleared out.

[purist]

Good matches today. Cameroon, Croatia and Spain all playing for their lives. I'm particulary interested to see Spain vs Chile as Chile and Colombia are my dark horses for this World Cup.

[dew]

Glorious. Reigning champions shamed in a spectacular fashion. Tiki-taka deader than disco.

[Phobus]

Wow, Spain out and Australia giving Netherlands a run for their money there - what a great couple of games to watch just now!

[Ledillman]

Wow, i didn't expect my country to win against Spain. great game indeed. Alexis, Medel, Vargas, Bravo, Vidal are the best in the team.
Next match will be against Netherlands and i'm 99% that we'll lost because... well, they're Netherlands.

[Kontra Kommando]

That was nuts, I didn't think Spain would have been eliminated so soon. Like the announcer said, the rest of the world is learning how to counter their strategy.

[purist]

I dislike dominance in any football competition so I'm pleased Spain have been eliminated after winning three major international tournaments in a row.

I was impressed with Chile and Holland showed character to again win from a losing position. They will be fighting it out to avoid meeting Brazil in the next round but the hosts are going to have to seriously raise their game to beat either of these teams.

My appetite has been whet. I'm going to wait up to watch up and watch the next one :-)

[dew]

[FTM]

Yay! chile won, now it's Italy turn to win again!