charmed60 Posted July 2, 2010 Report Share Posted July 2, 2010 I'm so sad for Ghana. At the end of the day though they can hold their head high and know that they played fairly and graciously and played the best they could have done (unless another certain team I could mention.) Uruguay had some dirty playing and a lot of arrogance in their attitude which makes it even more painful that they won but I'd rather loose graciously than win by cheating as Uruguay seemed to have done. That horrible blonde one - I just have no polite words to say about him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted July 2, 2010 Report Share Posted July 2, 2010 My signature has my thoughts on the matter. Until what could be classed as a loophole is closed, I'd be disappointed if a Scot hadn't done that in the last minute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Ranger 1 Posted July 2, 2010 Report Share Posted July 2, 2010 Brazil are out!Wasn't expecting that.I think whoever wins out of Germany and Argentina tomorrow(er, today, another late one here...)will win the whole thing now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slade Posted July 3, 2010 Report Share Posted July 3, 2010 Yes you could argue it was cheating, yes Suarez had been at it throughout that game (i.e. trying to con the referee and feign injury) and yes you could argue that Ghana certainly should have gone through because that was a goal and yes it was really annoying seeing Suarez celebrate after Gyan's penalty hit the crossbar (arghh). Personally I'm really disappointed Ghana are out hope the Netherlands thump Uruguay (even though I'm not that keen on them either). HOWEVER what hasn't been mentioned is the free kick that eventually led to the hand ball was not a free kick. The Ghanaian player dived. Also there were a lot of tackles and decisions in that game that went Ghana's way. TBH realistically a lot of people in Suarez's position would have done exactly the same thing - The Ghanaian's certainly would! Anybody that assumes otherwise is not being very realistic. Suarez took a gamble and it paid off and certainly turned out to be the right decision (certainly from Uruguay's point of view as they would have been out otherwise). It's bad I know but as Ryan mentioned the problem is a loophole with the actual law and until it changes people will continue to exploit it. I think in Rugby in situations like that they can award penalty tries. When Gyan went to take the penalty I knew he was going to miss and I knew Ghana were going to lose on penalties. It was like the writing was on the wall. TBH I think the keeper is partially to blame. Forlan's free kick should have been saved and even after watching him for the first 15 minutes I thought to myself he's going to struggle. Throughout a lot of the match he didn't look confident at all during the set pieces and there was even once instance where a defender passed the ball back to him, not a particularly heavy pass but he scuffed it and gave away a corner. So again it was no surprise Ghana lost on in the end because he didn't even look like saving a single penalty. I was shocked that Brazil went through however having watched the game apart from Robben who was causing the Brazilians a lot of problems I don't think the Netherlands were that great. The two goals were from defensive/goal keeping errors and should have been dealt with, with relative ease. Also both teams came across really badly in that game - diving feigning injury, and trying to influence the referee into making decisions and towards the end the Brazilians uncharacteristically lost it. This result now blows the competition wide open. I don't think it's a dead cert the winner of the Argentina Germany game will lift the trophy. If Argentina win I think they can probably win it as assuming Spain beat Paraguay as their style of play will suit the Argentineans. On the other hand if Germany and the Spanish win their respective quarter finals the Germans will have real problems. Still I think the winner will come from their half of the competition, which is certainly the stronger one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miranda Posted July 3, 2010 Report Share Posted July 3, 2010 Well that was an awesome display by the Germans! So, we did better against them than Argentina Apparently the Germans are on average 5 years younger than the Argentinians so they must be a lot faster I think the Germans will win the cup now. I don't think Spain are what they were two years ago with Torres' injury problems. I didn't see Holland/ Brazil but I get the idea it was a bit lucky for Holland to win that match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Ranger 1 Posted July 3, 2010 Report Share Posted July 3, 2010 Well...go, the Europeans!Started the round with only three teams out of the eight remaining, ended it with three out of four.If Uruguay had gone out, which could easily have happened, that would have been it for the South Americans... (Yes, I know, it's pretty sad that the British teams are so bad I have to end up cheering the continent...) Well, Germany hammering Argentina makes me feel a bit better about what happened to England.I definitely think they'll win it now, it'll be a Germany/Holland final and they'll beat them.Spain had real difficulties against Paraguay although from a neutral point of view it was really entertaining:Two missed penalties in about five minutes and a goal that seemed to hit every player and post before going in.So, semi-finals and could be some good stuff in there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idris Posted July 3, 2010 Report Share Posted July 3, 2010 Spain:- I'm amazed that Torres is on the African continent, let alone playing in a (The ?) World Cup. He's obviously chronically injured (i.e. not just coming back from an injury, but still suffering from one,) or clinically depressed. Probably both. I speak as a member of a family of Red Army fans btw. Pundits keep on bleating about how Spain pass the ball around (until they're put under real pressure ... like they might be at a World Cup ?) but fail to spot a glaring problem with their team selection. Xavi and Iniesta are interchangeable, neither will shoot from distance (unless it's against Chelsea) or produce surging runs into the penalty area. Fabregas will do both of those things, and he's got gumption (like playing with a broken leg for Arsenal.) Germany will beat them easily I'm afraid. Having said that, and being as fair as I can be to a team that have a pair of 1960's Merseybeat boys managing them, I'm glad the Germans have changed their all too often efficient, pragmatic style of play to the most attractive one at these finals. Any England (or Australian) fan will know how hard it is to say that, but fair's fair. Refereeing at these finals ?? etc. etc. etc.... and so on and on and on...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan. Posted July 3, 2010 Report Share Posted July 3, 2010 If Spain or Germany win the World Cup, New Zealand will go down as the only team in 2010's World Cup to not lose a game. I like that idea. GO SPAIN AND GERMANY! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slade Posted July 4, 2010 Report Share Posted July 4, 2010 I have to say Germany were excellent. They outclassed Argentina and played some really great counter attacking football. I think this also exposed Maradonna's relative inexperience. I think a better manager would have been able to turn the game around. I wouldn't take the German's thumping of Argentina as evidence that England did better. Argentina were only bad in one game and scored 10 goals whereas England were pretty woeful throughout the whole campaign and scored 4 times. It's almost guaranteed that we will have an all European final now. We could even have a repeat of the one in 1974. Spain were really disappointing last night. Paraguay had a goal disallowed and if that went in they would have surely shut up shop completely. If Spain play like that on Wednesday they won't have a hope in hell. I still think they'll have real problems anyway. The German's will probably adopt a similar approach that Paraguay took except that they will be far more aggressive and have a lot more pace when they break. We saw it with the Argentineans during the first half where they kept losing the ball the front players were nullified and they had really problems getting their game going. I think the Spanish manager has to be bold and just drop Torres. Every time I've seen him go off and someone's replaced him there's been a marked improvement going forward. Germany have such an amazing record in this competition. One of the BBC pundits said this is the 11th semi-final they've reached out of the last 16 - wow! It's funny because since the second world war out of the 15 World Cup finals 13 of them have featured either Brazil or Germany so you always expect one of the two to be there or thereabouts. The refereeing in the finals has at times been pretty poor but this happens at every world cup. The decisions are bad enough but what makes it worse is the level of inconsistency. Take the Argentina-Germany game. An Argentinean deliberately handles the ball and the referee has a word with him. The German does it and gets booked. It was even worse with the Spain Paraguay game. Alonso scores a penalty but it is disallowed because of encroachment. But when the BBC showed an aerial view of all three penalties taken there was encroachment in each and every one and no action was take for the other two. Also Villa is the last man and is fouled but the defender only gets a yellow card. This tournament and football in general is crying out for video technology but Sepp Blatter won't allow it and the sceptics will argue where do you draw the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamey-Maria Posted July 4, 2010 Report Share Posted July 4, 2010 Messi i was counting on you and some of your magic. I guess I'll be going for Netherands now. Anyone but Germany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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