World Cup 2006 Thread

[Eurospec]

World Cup action starts in one week, June 9th. Who else is excited?

Who will make it to the semis? My prediction:

Brasil
Germany
Argentina
France

::Printable Wallchart (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sol/shared/spl/hi/football/06/worldcup/pdf/wallchart.pdf):: Full group schedules, dates and venues detailed here.

[mrjezza]

Australia for World Cup Champions.

[Eurospec]

Viduka is an arsenal, looking forward to his game :)

[///Motorsport]

im routing for germany, for obvious car-producing reasons. people think england will do something, but i'm not sure...

the world cup, the Tour, F1, rally, motoGP and various touring/road racing are the only worthwhile sporting events...

[StreetSpec_iS]

Aussie, aussie, aussie, oi, oi, oi!!!

great fucking game

[mrjezza]

Almost didn't get there too. What the hell was the ref thinking with the jap goal? Schwarzer was obstructed in a pretty big way.

Most exciting 8 minutes of soccer ever :)

[StreetSpec_iS]

oh dude, that was a shit house decision. wtf?!

aus was sloppy as hell for like 80 minutes of that game. but the end was awesome.

[mrjezza]

Apparently the referee appologised to Mark Schwarzer about 5 mins later saying "Yeah I made a mistake".

At least we won, imagine the controversy if we had lost it and that was the only goal?

[Eurospec]

Two of the best games played thus far... Brasil-Japan/Australia-Croatia

Good times :)

[D. Clay]

My brother is a soccer fanatic and has played himself since the late 60's. He.s over there right now for the games. He thinks England and Brazil are sandbagging and saving it up for the big games. Thus their notably less than spectacular appearances to date. This may be the year that the Koreans are exposed for fielding androids.

[m42 fan]

My thoughts on Team USA's recent debacle...I mean performance:

1) We stink. At least College (american) Football season kicks off in a couple of months.

2) I was watching the game at the Penn State student union building between classes, and there were about 10 or so guys from Gahna there also watching. Really embarassing.

3) Again, Penn State kicks off against the University of Akron on September Second. I'll be watching. From Pensacola.

4) Now that Team USA is out of it, I'm accepting suggestions/bribes on who to root for. Any ideas?

Brian

[haledj]

Wait hold up, Whats the World Cup??

[mrjezza]

The Australia-Croatia game was ridiculous; the reffing was a joke. Glad we came out on top... onto the round of 16!

[///Motorsport]

who saw the goal in the 9th minute of OT by Argentina? Hell yeah.

So i am mainly routing for Germany, but its sad that other teams i like will all be decimated by the hosts... Sweden was and Argentina may be... who can stop Deutschland?

[D. Clay]

England's game today - was that a shot by Beckham or what?

[Eurospec]

England's game today - was that a shot by Beckham or what?I'm not impressed on how they're playing as a team. It's dissapointing as they have so many talented players.

Who saw the portugal-netherlands match? Wowzah.

[e9nine]

I am less than enthused at the officiating in this world cup series. The red car in the Germany vs Sweden game for example....and then you saw 4 people on the bench in Portugal vs Netherlands...pfft.

[e9nine]

I'm not impressed on how they're playing as a team. It's dissapointing as they have so many talented players.


Totally agree with you. Had the Ecuadorians not had that first attempt deflected to hit the bar..it would've been an interesting game for sure. I think it was a nice match, I like how the Ecuadorians played over the Brits though.

[///Motorsport]

i was pissed by the netherlands/portugal officiating.

the aussies just got robbed! i didn't see the replay of the foul but come on!

[tim_s]

agreed about england's performances, they have probably underperformed, the team is perhaps overrated at any rate but maybe there's more to come - we can only hope. the aussies played great today, sad way to go.

[///Motorsport]

very sad. i have no affiliation with Australia but i was certaintly cheering them on. however, Germany uber alles!

[StreetSpec_iS]

Horrid!!!! that was so sad for the team.

what a let down too. stayed up all night to watch, damn.

[mrjezza]

Staying up was definately a health mistake considering how big my weekend was (just finished exams) and to make matters worse we lost.

Still, I have to commend them on how well they played. They proved to the world they have what it takes to compete with the best.

[///Motorsport]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what a great game, i would have though PKs would have showed a better result...

[Eurospec]

The ballerinas moved on, who would've thought??

Go Zizou and France!

[///Motorsport]

why7 would zinedine headbutt the guy? w t f. he lost them, still pretty badass though. the italian guy must have said something quite nasty.....
go germany 2010.

[Eurospec]

According to some reports, Materazzi insulted both ZZ's mother who is seriously ill at the moment, and his Muslim background by saying he is the 'son of a terrorist whore.

Despite all this, he managed to win the Golden Ball award... glad he did :)

LINK (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=395046&in_page_id=1770)