Posted on 06/18/2006 5:46:50 AM PDT by soccer_maniac
Sunday games in the 2006 FIFA World Cup will kick off at 9 a.m. ET (ABC) in Nuremburg with a meeting between the only two winless teams in Group F, Japan and Croatia. They will face each other knowing that a defeat will put an end to their World Cup adventures.
In their opening match against Australia, the Japanese could not maintain a 1-0 lead and they were scored on three times in the last 15 minutes. Croatia's debut was not any better, as Brazil's Kaka scored to give the South Americans a 1-0 win over the Europeans.
In Sunday's other Group F match in Munich (11:30 a.m. ET, ABC), Brazil will continue the defense of its title in facing Australia, which enters the game with high hopes after earning its first ever victory by defeating Japan 3-1. In that game, Tim Cahill became a 'Socceroo' hero when he scored two goals after coming off the bench.
Leipzig will be the stage of Sunday's only game in Group G, pitting 1998 champions France against the Republic of Korea (2:30 p.m., ABC), with the pressure of improving on their first game in which they could only muster a scoreless tie against Switzerland.
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"I have been quite impressed by trge Socceroos."
Should read:
I have been quite impressed by the Socceroos.
I see where you're coming from. Makalele and Viera are really in charge of the midfield. Good thing they got Claude out of retirement, because he's still the best def. midfielder in the game.
I was very surprised that they continued to play positively and press forward after the first goal. The conventional wisdom in that situation has to be to play defensively, not let the score get out of hand, and try to get a result against the Croatians.
Good on them for doing it.
Happy Fathers Day, btw.
Now, of course, the only reason Europeans crap on baseball is because you suck at it and have no skill. If you ever want to humble a soccer fan on his high horse, just hit a fly ball to them and then be prepared to laugh. You see, it takes quite a bit of skill and excellent reflexes and hand/eye coordination to catch a fly ball, hit a curveball, or a 95 mph fastball. Kicking a round ball on a field of grass is far easier, hence, why the sport is more popular.
Thanks for stopping by!
The frenchies were singing Ode to Joy
I think it's the Koreans who do that. The funny thing is they sang it the entire game against the GERMANS in the last world cup.
What do the Americans sing? With all those top hats, I have expected Yankee Doodle.
Is there a crib sheet with the teams' nicknames? I watched a bit of the World Cup back when Cameroon was in it -- "The Indomitable Lions" they were called -- and I asked a soccer fan (at least he said he was one) if any of the other teams had nicknames like that. He said no, but it appears that some have adopted nicknames since then.
Can't think of anything off the top of my head. I suspect they figure they'll leave the singing to the Europeans.
We could always fall back on the "That's all right, that's okay, you're gonna work for us someday" chant.
Take Mexico's group, for example - the top two teams are Portugal and Mexico, each of which the US beat last time and the US continued to beat Mexico this year, meaning if the US was in that group, they would have a good chance of coming in first, while they will be lucky to even make it out of group E. Bunch of crap.
I am a hardcore fan of baseball (my NY Yankees ballcap that I'm wearing is turning orange--the black part of it!), but I'm still not willing to say that baseball requires more skill than soccer. I've played both, and it takes a lot more skill to not trip over yourself while dribbling (let alone try to dodge other players) in soccer than it does to hit the ball in baseball. With that said, I should also note that playing as a pitcher is probably one of the most skillful jobs in all of sports and is more difficult than any position in soccer. But on average, I would say that soccer is a much more difficult sport. To say otherwise, IMHO, is hubris.
"Ticos" - Costa Rica
They briefly tried "Screaming Eagles" for the US side, but it hasn't really caught on.
"Oranje" - Netherlands
Handball???? Looked like it from here.
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