World Cup 2010
 

June 11 - July 11th - South Africa.

Official site.

A Beginners’ Guide to the World Cup

The USA starts in Group-C and plays UK in their opening game. The first level is a round robin with two teams moving up from each group then it goes to single elimination.

Waka Waka – Official World Cup 2010 Song by Shakira

Not an easy game to open with....the UK is one of 3-4 teams with a realistic shot to win the cup.

But I figure the US will advance out of their group.

Not that I consider myself any sort of international soccer expert.

Soccer is, in my view, only interesting if you're watching in person. It is an awful TV sport. Since I'm not in South Africa I'm sure I'll fail once again to care. Though '94 was lots of fun as was going to the DC venue for Olympic soccer in '96.

Also fun if you're in London, watching Italy vs. Brazil in the finals at an Italian restaurant run by Brazilians.

I played in a soccer league for 9 years, and continue to play recreationally when I can, but I still can't watch the game on TV. But I'm sure I'll try to catch bits here and there as the Cup plays out.

Soccer is like hockey played on grass. But completely different.

I'm going to a kick off party for the USA v. England game. Should be fun. I love watching it on TV.

I am reminded of Andres Escobar, the Columbian defender who scored an own goal in the 1994 World Cup vs. the USA and was murdered a short time after. I sure hope British soccer fans are more forgiving, because that was one massive gack. A 1-1 tie for the US against one of the favorites with a real chance to win it all is a huge victory for the US team. I would suggest it virtually gaurantees advancement, unless the US has a major gack of their own.

For the conspiracy-minded (and they abound in soccer, that's for sure), with 2 weak opponents in their draw, neither the US nor UK needed this win to advance, so a draw is a good outcome for both. Just sayin'

We had a family brunch in Hermosa Beach this afternoon so I had set the TiVo to record the match. But as it turned out we, there was a bar a block and a half away from my aunt's condo. We could hear the roar for each shot, so we were kept informed, no need to watch.

Heh, a couple suggestions for home-audio-engineering solutions to vuvuzelas here

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!


I mean. Woooooorrrrk!

WTF? Did they call that offside?

I love that with the endless replaying of that goal that will commence, all the talk will be about the terrible offside call, but no one will even bat an eye at the 5 Slovenian players that have wrestling holds on US players.

Wife has been testing me about that. Apparently it was a pretty horrid call that the announcers haven't stopped talking about.

I wasn't listening to the audio (I was streaming through Univision, so the audio wouldn't have done me much good anyway), so I didn't hear the call, but a twitter search confirmed that the call was offside. It's the wrong call. The replay is pretty clear on that. US players were PISSED after the final whistle.

Here's a scenario. Assume that England beats Algeria today by more than one goal.

Then in the next game Slovenia and England draw 1-1. US beats Algeria 1-0.

The result would be a tie between Slovenia and US in all tie breakers (+1 goal differential, 2 goals each in head to head, both will have scored 4 goals and allowed 3).

At that point they'd flip a coin over who got to advance. If Slovenia wins that coin flip then soccer is a pre-teen hobby for another 20 years in the US.

Eh, even if the US wins that coin flip odds are it won't fare much better.

True, but for 20 years you'd have to hear about how stupid it is. We already hear too much about how stupid it is that ties are allowed.

And it would be harder to argue that advancement by coin flip isn't really stupid.

I would figure that the US should beat Algeria and that England should beat Slovenia.

Should.

If so, the US moves on. Unless I'm missing something.

Yes, in that scenario Slovenia would have four points and U.S. five points. England would have at least six.

This recap has a replay of the disallowed goal (the refs apparently never even said what the call was). It's at about 2:30 in.

Wow, now that Britain drew with Algeria we're down to it, eh? It's still anyone's game in Group C.

US and Great Britain are both in win-and-in situations. If either lose, than they're out.

If the US draws against Algeria, then they need GB to lose, or draw in such a way as to give the US the tie breaker (advantage US right now with a 2 goals-for lead). Reverse is true of GB draws (US loss, or US draw where the goals scored gives GB the tie breaker).

That leave the US fairly secure, but by no means can they feel comfortable.

So, US advances if

A) US defeats Algeria or
B) US and England both draw and England does not score at least 2 more than US in their draw.

If, for example, US game is 0-0 draw and England/Slovenia is 2-2 then U.S. and England will draw lots to see who advances. The ratings for that would put the Lakers/Celtics Game 7 to shame I'm sure.

Again? AGAIN!?

WWWWOOOOOWWW!

Shouldn't have had to come to that, but that...was...awesome! After all that, US not only advances, but wins their group!

USA USA USA USA


Game watching party Saturday 2:00pm at Casa Da Moonie!

Looking forward to seeing highlights of the game. I all know is the goal was in stoppage time....pretty dramatic.

I wish there was a feed that filtered out those fvcking horns. I can't watch the World Cup cause that sound makes my eardrums bleed.

Somewhere on LoT there are a couple of posts about how to minimize the effect of the vuvuzelas. Unfortunately, a search by "vuvuzela" gives no results, so I can't point you to those posts.

If I find those posts, I will link...

The two methods were either using an equalizer, dropping out 300Hz and bumping up the freqs just above and just below. The other involved using an audio program like audacity to generate a noise-canceling frequency and setting up a 2nd set of speakers. Neither was particularly practical.

That said, the feed from the world cup has been filtered quite a bit, it's far more tolerable. Unfortunately the result is that you can't really hear much of anything.

#1 reason to hate World Cup Soccer

:mad:

So I saw the highlight briefly on the internet but haven't been near a TV since the dramatic goal yesterday.

For you soccer afficianados, I am curious - the first shot on goal bounced off the keeper and Donovan put in the rebound (if that's the proper term). After the first shot, someone before Donovan ran though and it appears as if he made contact with the keeper. COuld that have been interpretted as some form of interference and the goal disallowed?

Nope. They were both going for the ball, perfectly legal to contact the keeper if he doesn't have control of the ball and you're both making a play for it.

OK - thanks.

His question was "could" it have been so interpreted, and the way things have been going for us, the answer has to be yes. Or the goal could have been disallowed because the referee thought he saw the dead rising from their graves.

Check out the first four minutes of last night's The Daily Show

I will preface this post by saying that I know nothing about soccer, other than a bunch of guys kick a ball around (and other than the goalie, they aren't allowed to use their hands) and try to kick it into their opponents goal.

I was having lunch with a co-worker and he was explaining that soccer really doesn't have any rules: they are all laws (although I am not sure why that distinction is important) and the referee has a lot of leeway as whether something is a foul or not. Also, the ref doesn't need to even explain what an exact penalty was - he can just say there was a penalty.

Is this effectively correct? Sounds mighty bizarre to me.

Not entirely accurate. Some rules have specific definitions. For example, the definition of offside is when an offensive player goes past all defensive players (except for the keeper) before the ball does (there's more detail than that in the full definition, but that's a mostly accurate summary). There should technically be no room for "interpretation" or "leeway" on that, either you're offside or you're not. Of course, it comes down to whether the refs see it accurately (or are being paid off).

But yes, there are other things that are less precisely defined, mostly revolving around physical contact. You're allowed physical contact as long as it's not dangerous and doesn't give you an unfair advantage. And the lines there are left up to the refs to draw. And no, they don't have to identify a specific penalty that's being called.

And when the players are selling fake injuries better than most pro wrestlers, the referees end up looking about as on top of things as wrestling referees.

Great moment, but . . . a posited $10 million in endorsements for Donovan for not blowing a gimme past a fallen goalie. Kirk Gibson it wasn't.

I like the option added to all videos on YouTube to add vuvuzela noise over the videos while you watch.

Good first half. Anyone else's teeth hurt?

Tuned in just in time to see the header to put the Orange team up 3 to 1.

Light blue must be bummed.

That was a great goal. The previous one, that put netherland up 2-1, was a bit of luck.

The dutch started out in control. Uruguay showed life closing out the first half and starting the second, but Netherlands has really taken it over at this point.

*** TWWWWEEEETTTT ****

Wow. Great finish.

Go Orange!

I'm confused. I though the World Cup ended when the U.S. lost.

Oh not at all!

After beating USA the Light Blue team went on to crush Red with Yellow stripes while Orange stunned the hell out of Blue, Black blitzed all over Blue with white stripes, and Redish-Orange squeaked by Red with white stripes!!!!

Today Orange won again with a close showing over Light blue.

And it's still not over!

Dang, I had to walk away at the 88 minute mark. What'd I miss?!?!

Netherlands got caught sleeping and Uruguay slipped one in to make it 2-3.
With three min of overtime Uruguay had a couple of good shots on goal, towards the end the Dutch thought the whistle blew when it had not. This lead to some on field confrontations with the Uraguay players who, perhaps correctly , thought the Dutch where delaying. After the actual final whistle, there way a minor melee on the field between players that I would speculate realted to the time wasting issue.

For those not sure what I was talking about:

(spoilerized for the squeamish)

I have nothing against Spain or Germany the German world cup team. However, I would like to go on record as saying....Go Netherlands!

No! Those things hurt my ears :(

I didn't even look. For a hockey fan I am ridiculously squeamish.

And I'll root for the Netherlands cause I've got an awesome friend from there. Doesn't mean I'll be watching (mostly cause I'm at work, but also those stupid vuvuzela's).

There's no blood or body parts out of place in the clip, just a pretty ugly impact.

Germany's been my pick from the beginning. I'm still rooting for them.

Apparently two minutes plus some overtime.

...and parts flying!

If Germany makes the final, it will be cool to see all the Netherlands supporters turn out in their orange jerseys and Anne Frank masks.

And four years later . . .

this guy's still flopping.

I believe all that can be seen flying in that clip is grass (hah! clip...grass) off the Ugandan player's cleats.

My teef hurt.

Best match I've watched.

There are two distinctively different items seen flying. The first is a small white (or light colored) object that goes flying immediately after impact. The second is a small tuft of grass. The small white object is moving at a much higher velocity.

I vote tooth, but mainly because A) it isn't me, and B) it increases the fascination level.

****.

It's not. The angle that shows the bottom of the offending foot clearly shows that it's a smaller piece of turf flying straight up off the toe of the cleat.

Spain earned it. They controlled the field that 2nd half. Germany looked complacent the entire match, happy to sit back with 7, 8, 9 defenders, until they were down a goal. THEN they finally put some offensive effort in, too little too late.

I couldn't watch. I'm working. Oh well. At least I won't care if I miss it on Sunday. Go Netherlands.

Here's a good still of the Boot To The Head...

Was that bicycle kick a penalty? I can't remember the rules on high kicks.

No, no penalty called. Both going for the ball, and the Dutch player basically put his face in between the foot and the ball.

Talk about taking one for the team!

Well, if I was only going to watch five minutes of the final, I guess I picked the correct five minutes.

To the extent I cared, I picked Netherlands but only because Spain (I know, those are club teams not national teams) came off looking so horrible in the Bryant Gumble/Real Sports story on racism in European soccor.

That was an ugly assed game. I was rooting for Spain, but I thought they came off looking like Tom Brady at his most complacent.

Agreed.

I also thought the officials were a bit too quick with the whistle and yellow card as well. It's the World Cup finals, let them play some.

...with the exception of this play, yellow card seemed like a bit of under reaction.

That's seems like a perfectly legitimate soccer move. I'm pretty sure I saw it in that Chinese soccer documentary, Shaolin Soccer.