[Dragon]

Meanwhile, outside the stadium: protesters and police brutality.

Well, it's a public secret that Brazil can't afford the World Cup. It's a pretty dark background for an otherwise nice event. I don't care much about soccer (not anymore, at least), but let's say that Brazil's handling of the situation is not something to be passed over.

[Rodo]

It was not a fault, not here and not in japan either.
Watch the replay and you'll see he's BARELY touched on the shoulder. It's definitely not enough to make a player fall.
And if he was already leaning to fall because he was loosing balance then there's no reason to call the fault because he was falling alone.

That goal changed everything on the match, Brazil could not break Croatia's defense and in time Croatia was making some good comebacks from time to time, it was an open match. The goal swings the balance towards Brazil's side and forces Croatia to move on the offensive leaving their already tired defensive players spread out and without support.

[Colonol Dekker]

Meant to add, I have Netherlands and I forget who else at my work world cup sweepstake.


edit - URUGUAY.

[Grizzly]

At our home we are making full season predictions.
I have predicted that in a series of actually quite likely victories, Belgium will win the cup
(However, the conditions that make those likely victories possible are themselves completely ridicilious )

[Black Wolf]

COME ON ENGLAND!!!

I admire the patriotism.

But we're screwed mate.

Not as mush as we are!



Luckily, soccer is of minimal importance here. I'll pay attention at the cricket world cup next year.

[Lorric]

I'd try and enjoy this World Cup Black Wolf, even if there is a chance your team will get mauled. With a lot of Australia's best players getting old, Australia could struggle to qualify for future World Cups.

I've seen Australia's home games and they always get strong crowds. Aussies just love their sports. I remember seeing a video on Youtube of huge crowds of people celebrating in the streets after they finally broke the playoff curse and defeated Uruguay, and lots of comments from people surprised at how much it meant to them, since Australia makes you think of rugby and cricket when you think about team sports there.

[cahdoge]

The 3:1 was a littel embarrassing for the Brazil's.

Especially because Croatia hasn't shot one goal.

[Herra Tohtori]

I predict England will win the cup on penalties

where can I claim my prize

[Lorric]

I predict England will win the cup on penalties

where can I claim my prize

At whatever bookie you use to place the bet. I bet you'd get really good odds.

I recently saw what this looks like actually:

http://www.uefa.com/under17/video/videoid=2109139.html?autoplay=true

A dream come true.

[Phantom Hoover]

COME ON ENGLAND!!!

I admire the patriotism.

But we're screwed mate.

at least the english regularly qualify and get past the first round, in scotland we have to just support everyone playing against the english for being scottish in spirit

[Colonol Dekker]

Och aye..

[Luis Dias]

He had hands on him, but wasn't pulling him or anything.

How do you know?

This is the silliest thing. It was too obviously so not a penalty it isn't funny. The only redeeming thing about this is that we can all reason that the referee was fooled by a convincing dive.

This whole text about not touching players with "hands", etc. is also silly. I'm facepalming furiously. Come on now, this is football.

[Lorric]

And the superb refereeing continues. Mexico score a legit goal. flagged off for offside.

[Lorric]

Mexico are denied ANOTHER legit goal! Flagged for offside, but the last touch was a Cameroon defender.

[Luis Dias]

Referreing shenanigans continue! This worldcup promises.

[Rodo]

Well sometimes it happens, that kind of error can be forgiven since it was actually hard for the line referee to actually see who touched the ball last.
Also Mexico still has another 45 mins to make the difference, which I believe they'll manage to get within that timeframe.

[Lorric]

FIFA could greatly reduce this by bringing the best referees in the World to the tournament. But no, they spread it around the confederations.

When I watch Premier League and Champions League games, mistakes like this are extremely rare.

[Rodo]

Of course, but doing that would mean FIFA acknowledges referees from "certain" parts of the world to be "better" than referees from other "certain" parts of the world, thus making them vulnerable to all sorts of media rage.

[Luis Dias]

Some best-ofs already:


penalty? rofl



not offside



again, not offside (it wasn't even a mexican player that deflected the ball)

[Rodo]

I didn't catch that first offside, that was a really bad call. God dammit what a bunch of horrible referees.