World Cup Discussion

[Comadevil]

[quote=""StrokeyBlofeld""] And whats with the "that is what england get for their "goal" in 1966?" No, it's not more than fair. Get it straight, firstly, that ball was PROVEN to have crossed the line, and secondly, since when did that goal affect the final outcome? [/quote]

When it got proven and by who? A study of Oxford university in the 90s comes to the conclusion, that it wasn't a goal.

I think the US comes closer and closer to the good teams and they are not so far away. They were the only ones who beat spain since 2006 before the WC. Ok their strengths are spirit and strength but this is also how Germany managed often to go far in World Cups

[Soccerman771]

[quote=""Aaryn_GenD""]no it isn't, as günther netzer says soccer (or better to say football) lives from false decisions and so on, it creates drama^^
also that is what england gets for their "goal" in 1966, so it was more than fair

what i don't understand socerman... the usa is clearly extremely good in basketball and baseball, so why do you pretend they are great in soccer as well?? they are defnitely not bad, but nowhere near good, sorry man

greece is also crap and they won in euro 2004w with their lame tactic nobody oculd counter back then,
plz prove for a certain period of time that the us is constantly playing good then start making these theses plz^^[/quote]

I want to know how you determine good and great. What criteria do you use? BTW, I'm not saying the team is great, and I haven't made that claim in any of my posts. You are the one to say we can't cope with the European teams. All but 2 of our starting eleven play or start on European club teams, and one of those is our best player - Donovan. Howard is easily one of the top 5 GK is the world.

We have a HISTORY of being great in BasketBall and Baseball, that's true. However, the Caribbean nations (Dominican republic, cuba, etc.) are much better than the US in baseball, and there are European teams that are catching up. I'm not arrogant enough to say that one day the European or African teams will not be good. I won't even go so far as to say that they aren't playing at a high level now, because truly they are.

As to the sport in question: football. The US has qualified for the past 6 world cups. We've advanced in 3 and made it to the quarter-finals in one. How is that not playing at a high level consistently?

In the past 3 years alone we've played consistently high beating good European teams and we've been highly competitive with most losing by 1 or 2 goals and not getting blown out in any games.

You clearly have a bias because looking at our results in the past 16 years, we've done quite well for ourselves. We have a long way to go, and I hope the European teams keep disrespecting us. It'll just be that much sweeter when we go deep into the next few WC's...

[Aaryn_GenD]

[quote=""Soccerman771""]
You clearly have a bias because looking at our results in the past 16 years, we've done quite well for ourselves. We have a long way to go, and I hope the European teams keep disrespecting us. It'll just be that much sweeter when we go deep into the next few WC's...[/quote]

yes i agree the US did pretty good considering their skills. but it's a bit weird if you wanna compare donovan to top european players.i would give the usa a 5/10

[deadhanddan]

so much anti-usa :O


do ppl luv to hate us so much?

if u do idc , all it means is that there was ONE thing ppl could beat us @ and they are enjoying the moment

[Soccerman771]

[quote=""Aaryn_GenD""][quote=""Soccerman771""]
You clearly have a bias because looking at our results in the past 16 years, we've done quite well for ourselves. We have a long way to go, and I hope the European teams keep disrespecting us. It'll just be that much sweeter when we go deep into the next few WC's...[/quote]

yes i agree the US did pretty good considering their skills. but it's a bit weird if you wanna compare donovan to top european players.i would give the usa a 5/10[/quote]

I'm starting to question if you even know what you are talking about. There are 36 European National teams:

Team
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Albania
Portugal
Spain
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Serbia
Austria
Italy
France
Malta
Republic of Ireland
Montenegro
Slovakia
Denmark
Belgium
Bulgaria
Finland
Czech Republic
Northern Ireland
Netherlands
Georgia
Greece
England
Scotland
Romania
Andorra
Croatia
Germany
Poland
Norway
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
Russia

Which 18 of these are better than the US?

I'll give you Germany and the Netherlands free with no argument.

[StrokeyBlofeld]

[quote=""Comadevil""][quote=""StrokeyBlofeld""] And whats with the "that is what england get for their "goal" in 1966?" No, it's not more than fair. Get it straight, firstly, that ball was PROVEN to have crossed the line, and secondly, since when did that goal affect the final outcome? [/quote]

When it got proven and by who? A study of Oxford university in the 90s comes to the conclusion, that it wasn't a goal.

I think the US comes closer and closer to the good teams and they are not so far away. They were the only ones who beat spain since 2006 before the WC. Ok their strengths are spirit and strength but this is also how Germany managed often to go far in World Cups[/quote]

It has been proven and dis-proven in many studies, no-one will ever know for sure due to the quality of the tape, but you are missing the point I was making.

As for USA, watch this space in 4 and 8 years time. Every time they come back to the world cup they are better and better, and their understanding of the game gets better too. They are not the push-over you make them out to be.

[huGGy]

Great game today! Not only because the Krauts won it, but because it was a great and intense game with alot of goals and chances to score. Not seeing that this was a goal is a joke. A 2-2 might have changed alot, might. Nobody can say this for sure. I'd prefer to win this game without such a crappy decision, though. England always seems to be some kind of exhausted at the tournaments. I think their season with all the cups and international games is too long. They seemed to be tired and not playing what they could play (and what i have seen before). Germany played better than i expected. Still, Argentinia might be too strong this year, but you'll never know. I didn't expect a 4-1 vs England as well.

Cheers to the english supporters. Nobody is singing as loud as them. That's just a fantastic audience at the World Cup or European Championship.

To the American Discussion: The US Team did a good job this Cup, they lack international experience, though. They probably would have more success if more of their players played in big european teams.

[Aaryn_GenD]

omg soccerman, just no comment.
know what? i'll just stop this argument, there is no point anymore.
to answer your question: half of those euro teams are better than the US and that is alot, considering we also got alot of weak teams in european.
turkey also >> USA :-P

i think instead of arguing here we should get our N3O tourney games played ;-)

and i completely agree with huggypierre!
the english fans are clearly > those damn vuvuzelas

[Sporting_Lisbon]

[quote=""Aaryn_GenD""]omg soccerman, just no comment.
know what? i'll just stop this argument, there is no point anymore.
to answer your question: half of those euro teams are better than the US and that is alot, considering we also got alot of weak teams in european.
turkey also >> USA :-P[/quote]


USA has improved in the last years and the world of football is eager to welcome the american people to this great sport that everyone enjoys. I don't care if Slovakia goes further than USA, USA are the ones that can make the sport even bigger than it already is and that's what we're discussing here.

I also appreciate that some outsiders from south america are doing well like Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. It's nice to see some new faces once in a while.

[Comadevil]

[quote=""Sporting_Lisbon""]
I also appreciate that some outsiders from south america are doing well like Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. It's nice to see some new faces once in a while.[/quote]

They aren't really new. I have have seen them once in a while in WC esp. Uruguay and Paraguay. Just a matter of age

And Uruguay already won two times the WC (1930 and 1950, as many times as Argentina). But that wasn't even my time. :-P

[etrips888]

Gotta agree in that the England goal that "wasn't seen" could have really changed things around. Germany capitalized late in the game, but that equalizer would have changed the whole dynamic at that point.

After watching the game, there was a debate going on about whether instant replay of goals (not penalties or anything) should be allowed or not and was wondering what you guys thought. From the broadcast I watched there seemed to be a general consensus that it should be brought in, just so these types of things don't happen, but wanted to know what people outside of the US thought.

And I know i'm biased being from the US, but how can you not consider them a world class team? Yeah we have a long way to go to be among the very best teams, but as soccerman pointed out we have been coming out and not only qualifying for the cup, but also competing with a lot of top teams in the tournament.

[froggyman]

GHANA TO WIN WORLD CUP !!!!!!!

[DutchNvG]

[quote=""froggyman""]GHANA TO WIN WORLD CUP !!!!!!![/quote]

I prefer to see the Dutch winning it :roll:

[Bart331]

on the USA discussion, yeah they perform quite well on the wc and always survive group phase, but they haven't got the qualities yet to have a shot on the overall victory, many teams have much better players.

The MSL competition is a joke and i doubt any strong player wants to play there (except to earn cash at the end of career). Funny thing to see this WC is that the level of games during the big champions leaugue matches is much higher then the average WC game. So that's why we conclude quickly usa "sucks", cause they loose from ghana who also "sucked". If you watch the big european club teams play eachother the quality of the matches is so much better. Most teams on world cup didnt have enough time to really get used to each other, and the most important players in the competitions are mostly foreigners so the local players dont have a chance to reach the next level. This affects the level of the national team (england, france , italy) But you see that in german competition and in spanish competition relatively a lot of germans and spanish players play so they also got very strong national teams (the players are used to play at high level).

Conclusion, usa team performs well but the quality of the players isnt high enough, thats why the big euro club teams will never contract one. Thats why they will never reach the level of a World Cup candidate.

[Sporting_Lisbon]

Never say never, we'll have a talk in a few years.