see the post above. WTF was going on? the whistle after the dissalowed goal didn't sound like a game-ending whistle. 3 yellow cards!?! i need to see last 15 minutes again.


anyway, i'm glad australia made it, they well deserved it.

Earwicker wrote:
One of the pundits the other day mentioned how two South American countries apparently went to war in the 60s over the world cup!
I haven't been arsed checking up on this so do drop in any info if you've got it.

i think this might be the conflict you are thinking of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War

you can't make this up (not world cup related)

Wood Goblin wrote:A few days ago, I felt that Ghana were the plucky underdogs, and I would have been happy to see them progress. Now I consider them a dirty team that doesn't belong in the tournament. What we witnessed this morning was appalling. It was as dirty a game as I've ever seen.

I'm not that keen on Brazil this time, but I really hope they beat Ghana. Badly.

did anyone catch the bit by the American commentators about how Ghana were sizing themselves up as "the African Brasil?" i mean, it's kinda cool that it's their first World Cup, poor African nation, etc., etc. but the arrogance of these guys i just could not believe.

remember when the U.S. purposely kicked the ball out of bounds to give the downed Ghana-rhean* time to recover and be treated? if Ghana can make the U.S. look humble, that's pretty bad.

*(i stole this joke from Stephen Colbert, in case there's any question.)

instant_zen wrote:... kicked the ball out of bounds

johnnyshape wrote:

instant_zen wrote:... kicked the ball out of bounds

I'd actually been holding off doing this, but...

instant_zen wrote:perhaps they'll pull an England, what with that home field advantage and all.

Does anyone remember The Day Today's (The Mary Whitehouse Experience?) spoof before the 94 World Cup?

"HEADSTRIKE! SCORE!"

daniel robert chapman wrote: Does anyone remember The Day Today's (The Mary Whitehouse Experience?) spoof before the 94 World Cup?

"HEADSTRIKE! SCORE!"

Yeah, that was the Mary Whitehouse lot. "Time for World Cup..(looks at sheet)....soh-chair!" Only twelve years before those fucking tedious Budweiser interstitials on at the moment.

Okay, I have a question:

Someone put me right here:

In the World Cup, you've got 16 groups of 4, and what happens first is each team plays each other team in its group once, right? So each team plays three games, receiving 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and nothing for a loss, right? And then, once those six games have been played, whoever has the most points is the winner of that group, and goes on to the single elimination play-off dealie, right?

Okay. Assuming I'm right so far, in the US's group, we had first: Italy beat Ghana and Czech Rep. beat US. So we had:
Italy 3
Czech Rep. 3
US 0
Ghana 0

Then, we had more games, and the US drew Italy and Ghana beat Czech Rep. So we had:
Italy 4
Czech Rep. 3
Ghana 3
US 1

And one game left to play for each team. At this point, I kept hearing people talking about how the US "stayed alive" by drawing Italy. How? Even if the US won, and ended up with 4 points, Either Italy or the Czech Rep. would end up with 5 or more points, right?

So were the people I was hearing wrong? Or have I missed something? Let me know!

(And I'm sorry if I'm using some wrong terminology for soccer stuff, but if you are going to call me out on it, then it is my right, nay duty, to remind you that if it weren't for my grandpa and Americans like him, you would be discussing the World Cup in German!)

Actually it's eight groups of four.

If there were 64 teams in the finals that'd be half the bloody world.

And those people were quite clearly talking out of their arses.

If the US had beat Ghana, they would have had a record of 1-1-1.

Italy beat the Czechs and left them with a record of 1-0-2. Ghana would also have been 1- 0-2 had the USA beaten them. The USA would have advanced.