Yes, that's right! There's only about 57 days and 11 hours left till the start of the most important international sporting event in the world! Now that we've reached the point in the season where both my English and Czech teams seem pretty secured in mid-table irrelevancy, it's time to start getting excited about the summer spectacle!
I'll miss the opening ceremony and first game due to being at work, though I can't say the thought of not seeing Mexico beat South Africa fills me with gloom. The game I imagine most of this board are looking forward to more will be Saturday evening (or late morning/early afternoon for most of you) - England-USA. I know that the English have a tendency to say this more often than is justified, but I do genuinely think that this is our best chance at winning it for a long time - we finally have a competent manager to go with good players. The US is our biggest challenge in the group stage, but I'm still confident that'll be a comfortable win.
I don't actually think we'll win the tournament, though. My money there has to go on Spain, or possibly Italy*. I'm hoping more the former, as Italy are one of the most boring sides in Europe - if they win it will be by closing down games and taking all the fun out of it. I have no idea whether Brazil are serious contenders this time, as I haven't seen them play for years.
*actually, my money went on France, but that's because the odds were so long and the French are stuffy enough to luck their way to victory.
I think you'll be surprised big time by Argentina, a la Italy in the last cup. They won't win like Italy did, but they'll do very well.[/qs]
I didn't think there was anything surprising about Italy in the last cup - just disappointing. As for Argentina, though, not a chance. They've got some stars, but Marradonna has less understanding of football tactics than the average 7-year old fan. They've fluked a lucky run, so they might make it as far as the Quarter-Finals, but there they could well run into either England or Germany; who will demonstrate why sound tactics and organisation are important.
I could easily see Argentina losing to Korea and Nigeria and struggling against Greece though, so they might be out long before that.
Spain to win. Brazil to do well. Argentina to do badly (my other half is Argentinian so there is some rivalry there) and England to get to the semi- finals before losing heroically but dissappointingly on penalties to Germany as always (it may be that this is impossible in terms of fixtures I haven't checked - but something like that anyway)
If you want to work out who's likely to play who in the later stages without having to think or count, go here. It's a Java applet where you just fill in the results of matches and it automatically shows you what the later fixtures will be.
Reyna's pretty good, although admittedly the best American players i can think of are both goalkeeprs (Howard and Friedel). The reason there are so few might just be because American kids don't spend enough time playing football. That's what we used to spend pretty much every summer doing all the time as kids, and in this sort of environment talent is going to get notice and encouraged. I'm guessing it's less common there.
As for the USA's ranking - they're aren't half as good as it makes them look. Their ranking is grossly inflated by the fact that Mexico is the only other worthwhile team in the CONACAF region - the US spends most of its time playing terrible teams, so they win a lot.
I can't speak for anybody else, but when I talk about footballers being paid so much it isn't because of a disapproval of society's priorities. The problem is that the intense competition for the signatures of world-class players make it very difficult for lower-ranked clubs to move up to the top. Football is less interesting the more it is dominated by the same teams over and over again, but most clubs simply cannot offer the wages that the super-wealthy like Chelsea or Real Madrid can.
I don't know if I'm really in favour of wage caps, as it seems almost impossible to police 'side benefits' granted to players, and there is still competition at the top - this year there are no English teams in the semis of the Champions League for the first time in 7 years. But it does seem unfair the way some clubs are able to use their vast resources to simply buy players left and right to deny them to rivals, the way Real operates.
The USA doesn't even have a promotion/relegation system, so I usually don't think about this aspect of the game. Lower-ranked teams are only used for promoting players to top-tier teams.
The promotion and relegation is what makes football so special and gripping, to me. I love the huge, pyramidal structure of it all. My local team back in England aren't very good, and recently fell out of the league ('the league' means the top four divisions of English football), leaving them only one flight above regional football. But even if the worst happens, and they're relegated to the Blue Square North*, I know that they're still playing in the same vast system as the superstars on the TV. The only thing that would be standing in their way of taking on Bayern Munich or Lyon in the Champions League would be 6 consecutive league victories - spectacularly unlikely, but theoretically possible nonetheless. And competitions like the FA Cup mean that tiny little local teams do get the odd chance to go and play against millionaires in top stadiums.
I feel the same way about most sports. Association football especially, I think. In the English Premier league, for example, it seems like there are only ever about 5 teams that have a shot at the top (and they're the same ones every year), and maybe 8 that are always playing to avoid relegation. The other half are generally able to tactfully avoid all the drama that makes the sport interesting.
Whilst annoying, the Premier League isn't the worst in the world. It's dominated by four teams (and this year one of those is currently sitting precariously in 6th place), while there are a depressing number of national leagues dominated by just two. Since the start of the Scottish Premiership in 1998, Rangers and Celtic have finished either first or second every year except 2006, when Hearts came second.
*as another aside, I hate the way sponsorship has changed the names of all the competitions, of grounds, and even sometimes of teams.
I like the system too: it makes the game more interesting, with new teams entering the league all the time. It also makes the teams have to perform to at least some level in order to stay, so you improve the chances that the league or division will have the best teams possible. For that reason alone, I wish USA sports would try the system out (but, since the leagues here are actually run by the franchise owners, this is obviously less likely to happen).
I think I like the way Elitserien (Swedish Hockey) does it better though: there's a qualifying tournament instead of automatic promotion/relegation. It makes sure you don't get a crap team in by a fluke.
Which I think shows you're looking at it in a very different way to me. You seem to be viewing the system over how it affects the important competition at the top (the Premier League), but the Premiership is only a part of it. The other leagues matter too.
The Swedish Elitserien that you're descrbing is, again, just about one competition. There doesn't seem much point in taking part in the playoffs if you don't seriously think you can qualify. The League Pyramid is different. Most teams are far, far away from the top divisions, but they have their own little local titles to play for, like the East Anglian Combined Counties Second Division or some such nonsense, whilst still knowing that they're part of the same system as professional footballers. This means the scope is essentially unlimited; whereas a yearly playoff couldn't accommodate every team in a country like England (even the FA Cup, which nowadays has 8 playoff stages before the top clubs join in, doesn't have room for all the teams in the league pyramid).
By the way, can you (or anyone) explain to me a little how the international competitions work? I know UEFA Champions League is the highest European competition, and UEFA Europa League is next, but how do they determine which teams go to which UEFA competition?
Each country in Europe has a coefficient rating, which is decided based mostly on the performances of their clubs in European competitions, but also by the performance of their national team. Based on this coefficient, they get a different number of places in each competition. A country like England, which is at the top, gets 2 teams automatically into the first round of the Champions League, another two straight into the third qualifying round for the Champions League, and two teams directly into the Europa League. The bottom countries, like tiny little Malta, will just get one team each into the first qualifying rounds of the Champions League and Europa League.
These places are usually decided by finishing positions in the league, so the top four teams in the English Premiership this season will go to the Champions League next season and the next two to the Europa League.
There are also a couple of places dished out each year as rewards for fair play, and last season's winner qualifies automatically nowadays, but mostly it's decided by domestic league position.
Are the rules for who goes determined by UEFA, or by the individual leagues?
UEFA, I think, but I don't know if it always has been. The system's changed quite a bit over the years, and teams used to be able to qualify for the UEFA Cup (the forerunner to the Europa League) by winning domestic cup competitions as well as by final league position.
I think football associations employ lots of people with little to do but analyse how competition structures work, as something seems to change every season. This season it was the qualifying rounds for the Champions League, which were changed to give teams which won their leagues a bit of an advantage over runners-up from nations with multiple qualifying teams.
quote:Then we predictably go out on penalties in the quarter finals. Probably to Germany. Bastards.
We're more likely to get knocked out by Argentina in the quarter-finals, in some jammy and undeserved victory despite their total absence of any tactical leadership. Oh well.
My original semi final predictions were England-Holland and Spain-France, but the second time I tried working it out I got England-France and Spain-Brazil. I'm not sure if my opinions changed or I just keep making mistakes.
If you want a team to support as a disinterested neutral, take the Netherlands. They're one of the best teams in the world to never have won a World Cup, so you can combine the plucky underdog with the possibility of actually advancing to the later stages.
That, or cheer on New Zealand, just out of respect for them being willing to fly all the way to South Africa just to lose three games.
quote:Surprised the Yanks actually tied with England. Not at all surprised the Krauts bested the Aussies.... But 4-0???
I take back all my earlier optimism. Without a vast improvement in performance, there is no possibility of England winning the World Cup. If we'd been playing like that against a team that was any good, we'd have been hammered.
It's not been thrilling so far - Germany have been the only team to impress, but we're still to see Spain, Brazil or Holland. I'm gonna catch the first half of Holland-Denmark on my lunch today - I've read many people tipping Denmakr to be the darkhorses of the tournament, so looking forward to this.
quote:Don't get too downhearted. The result and performance was par for the course for an opening game for England. We nearly always start with a draw.
Par for the course is not what I was hoping for - this would mean a quarter-final exit on penalties.
quote:Hopefully Barry will be fit for the next game which means we can put out a more ambitious attacking formation. I'd like to see Joe Cole play on the left and Gerrard further forward, just behind Rooney. That ought to give us a lot more creativity and movement.
He's been back in training, so we can be hopeful. I don't think we'll have too much trouble with Algeria or Slovenia regardless - they didn't exactly impress yesterday. I'll just be happy to not see Shaun Wright-Phillips on the pitch.
On a lighter note, it looks like the French are going out.
And thank buggery for that! If only Italy hadn't equalised against Paraguay we could be hoping to wish them both goodbye and have the promise of an interesting end to the tournament.
The French played terribly. I have a sneaking suspicion that Domenech is actually an English spy. Not many could take such raw talent and mould it into such an insipid and ineffectual team - you'd have to be trying.
Why does everyone only keep showing us that goal? I've seen it on Czech TV about 6 billion times already. It isn't the only crap goal of the tournament so far!
Germany just lost to Serbia, which means Ghana could well win the group! Just watch England succeed in topping their group now - only to face Germany next round as a reward.
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