Posted on 06/29/2006 10:46:37 PM PDT by soccer_maniac
The Elite Eight!! The quarterfinal round of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany gets underway Friday with a pair of highly-anticipated matches. The hosts kick things off against Argentina in Berlin (10:55 a.m. ET; ESPN). Italy will face Ukraine in the day's second game (2:55 p.m.; ESPN2).
Two of the quarterfinals are rematches of championship games: Brazil-France (1998) and Germany-Argentina (1986 and 1990).
(Excerpt) Read more at fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ...
Just think the Mafia will have a say in the result.
SOunds like a flaw in the way the game is officiated. There should be penalties of some sort for diving and the clock should stop for injuries, real or fake. It's the subjectivity of the game that bothers me...
I agree.
I guess I got really angry when I realised I was not going to be seeing Messi tonight.
I cursed the Argentinian coach, and started rooting hard for Germany,
Too many Norwegian Piltzners too probably :-)
Pekerman was a coward. Taking of Riquelme. OK. Put on Saviola or Messi then. He did not.
Then he subbed Crespo.
This was a man clearly going for the 1-0 win, by defending and "running out the clock".
I like to see offensive cavalier approaches succeed, and cowardly strategies to fail.
>>The 4th official keeps track of injury time
They do a horrible job of it. Last WC I used a stop watch to track how often the ball was in play (yes I know, not the same as injury time). It was only 68 minutes for a 90 minute match (+2 injury time).
Try it during a match sometime. You'll be surprised how little they actually play in a 90 minute match.
I agree.
When Riquelme was taken off, we should have seen either Messi or Saviola.
Italy
1. Gianluigi Buffon, 3. Fabio Grosso, 5. Fabio Cannavaro, 6. Andrea Barzagli, 8. Ivan Gennaro Gattuso, 9. Luca Toni, 10. Francesco Totti, 16. Mauro Camoranesi, 19. Gianluca Zambrotta, 20. Simone Perrotta, 21. Andrea Pirlo
Ukraine
1. Oleksandr Shovkovski, 2. Andriy Nesmachnyi, 4. Anatoliy Tymoshyuk, 6. Andriy Rusol, 7. Andriy Shevchenko, 8. Oleg Shelayev, 9. Oleg Gusiev, 14. Andriy Gusin, 15. Artem Milevskyy, 19. Maksim Kalinichenko, 22. Vyacheslav Sviderskyy
It's still probably more than in an NFL game.
If you assume 120 plays in a football game with each play averaging around 10 seconds, that's about 20 minutes of actual play out of 60.
What have they done that is any different from Italy or other teams that typically squeak out close wins? Both Italy & Germany have won the World Cup multiple times and you can rest assured that (West) Germany were slated as boring, mechanical, cynical, negative, etc. during the Beckenbauer/Muller years...now they are remembered fondly along with other Cup-winning sides. Italy got their comeuppance in Korea in 2002 and I have never understood why such a talented country/team always plays such negative football. I'm not crazy about these kind of tactics on the game's biggest stage but the competition is so intense that this type of match often results. Argentina abandoned their high-flying style because they knew Germany would exploit it, i.e., Germany got to play their kind of game and Argentina are going home because of it.
Kalinichenko and Shevchenko could be the match winners, unless they've already taken a thick brown envelope from some Mafiosi dude.
I hate Italy too.
>>It's still probably more than in an NFL game.
Likely you are correct as I don't really follow the NFL. Hockey and college hoops are my only 2 sports that are played here in the US.
VS.
Italian or Russian mafia?
Argentina did well for a bit when they played balls high percentage properly out of bounds. But they erred when they failed to take balls they could control and then turn the play around.
Agree on the subs as Messi was lost when the keeper had to come out.
A shame actually.
Let's see Sheva deliver his quality and a cinderella shocker into the comfortable big powers.
Definately more but American football is a very different game than soccer, hockey or basketball which are continuous flow games. The play is over when the ball/ball carrier is down. The other games the play is only over when the ball/puck goes out of bounds. Comparing apples and watermellons.
No brown money bags in this one. This isn't Serie A.
Look for this button on ESPN.com's website
You seem to have a sensible approach, more so than many sports fans who are fanatical protective of "their" game.
I love American Football, but it is a different game than real football. Real football will always be closest to my heart as it is the game I grew up with.
Which game is better is pointless to dicuss.
To quote James Bond:
[James is in bed with a Ling, a Chinese woman]
James Bond: Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?
Ling: You think we better, huh?
James Bond: No, just different. Like Peking Duck is different from Russian Caviar. But I love them both.
Cheers.
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