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Subject: 2006 World Cup Discussion Posted by: Mike D - Sustainer [41831612] Wed, Jun 08, 2005, 10:12 With the qualifying getting further along (and much more intense), thought we could have a thread for discussion. | ||||||
| 1 | Mike D Sustainer ID: 41831612 Wed, Jun 08, 2005, 10:13 |
*** Spoiler below *** Japan beat North Korea 2-0 behind closed doors in Thailand on Wednesday to become the first team to qualify for the 2006 World Cup alongside hosts Germany. | |||||
| 2 | Mike D Sustainer ID: 41831612 Wed, Jun 08, 2005, 10:27 |
Exciting night tonight with the Brazil/Argentina game and to a lesser degree the USA/Panama games. If anyone knows of live or taped TV for these please pass it along. I watched the Brazil/Paraguay game last night. Brazil continue to be both fun to watch and frustrating to watch. They are electric and sloppy at the same time. In the US match, Eddie Johnson (turf toe) sits again and that's a shame, because he gives them an added dimension and could use the experience. | |||||
| 3 | Twarpy ID: 49321191 Wed, Jun 08, 2005, 10:43 |
We have Holland versus Finland live on Foxsports up here in Canada at 2PM, but unfortunately no Brazil/Argentina. The next coupld weeks will be very telling of the World Cup qualifiers, and I think you might see quite a few new faces in this year, especially in Africa where things seem to be completely up in the air on which countries are going to qualify. I wish we got to watch more high calibre games up here, but until North Americans fully adopt "soccer" as a sport were going to continue to miss out on matches. | |||||
| 4 | Mike D Sustainer ID: 41831612 Wed, Jun 08, 2005, 12:02 | I hear ya Twarpy. We got lucky in that GolTV was added to our Sports Package on Direct TV here in PA. GolTV gives me soccer from everywhere around the globe except for little to no English soccer. But I already get Fox Soccer Channel which shows tons of Premiership games and highlight shows. So combining the two I feel pretty lucky. | |||||
| 5 | Mike D Sustainer ID: 41831612 Wed, Jun 08, 2005, 12:49 | Holland/Finland on here too on Fox. | |||||
| 6 | swami ID: 46851118 Sun, Dec 11, 2005, 00:22 |
Draw is out. USA was screwed in their draw and lack of receiving a seed. We finished higher than Mexico in qualifying and beat them in the '02 WC. Somehow they earn a #1 seed. A win vs Czech is going to be a must for advancement. Success in this tourney is so driven by your draw. This doesn't look good. | |||||
| 7 | Seattle Zen ID: 91152620 Sun, Dec 11, 2005, 15:09 | We got a "Thanks for re-electing George W. Bush" draw. BRUTAL! | |||||
| 8 | ny studs ID: 24114810 Sun, Dec 11, 2005, 20:24 | soccer fans have loooong memories. remember in '98 when the US finished dead last (32nd)? well, i would suspect that played a big part in mexico getting seed higher. | |||||
| 9 | Motley Crue ID: 2192327 Sun, Dec 11, 2005, 21:31 |
There's a system that they use to make the determination and I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it's based on match results over the last couple years, etc. I think the FIFA ranking comes into play as well but obviously that didn't save us. Make no mistake that the Czechs are the most dangerous team in our Group. The Italians aren't as good as they used to be. Not saying we'll beat them, but the Portuguese lost to us in `02 when no one thought they would. I read today that if we finish 2nd in our Group, our likely opponent in the next round is none other than Brasil. Yikes. | |||||
| 10 | davekuk ID: 401123129 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 10:30 | The seed system is a combination of recent results (ie world ranking) and performance on the last 2 world cups, so yes, the US performance in 98 would have had a big effect on them just missing out on the top seeding. Holland were also not seeded even though they are ranked very high in the current world rankings, so past world cup finals performance must have been given a fairly large bias in the choices. | |||||
| 11 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 10:46 |
The seed system is a combination of recent results (ie world ranking)... World ranking is not solely based on recent results. I'd say it's more like a rolling system. If the 50th ranked team beat Brazil in a friendly, they wouldn't neccesarily move up to Top 10. They'd have to earn a move that high by beating several teams. And Brazil would drop no more than a few spots. Everyone knows they are a Top 5 team, whether they lose one like that or not. But I agree with what you said, davekuk. I just want to point out what seems to me to be a subtlety in the rankings. | |||||
| 12 | leggestand ID: 11102399 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 10:57 | MC, when do you think we should start gauging interest in our World Cup competition? | |||||
| 13 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 11:31 |
Now would be a good time in my opinion. My brother-in-law wants to play. He's a Fantasy Football guy, but he's from Brazil and loves soccer. I told him he could get in. I know we can have several leagues. This will be great. | |||||
| 14 | leggestand ID: 11102399 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 11:34 | Alright, let's talk over email about some rules and thoughts about how to make this work, and post a thread later...I'll send you an email probably later today. | |||||
| 15 | Mike D Leader ID: 41831612 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 11:44 | FWIW, I'm in this league, but not from the beginning so no hope of finishing high. | |||||
| 16 | leggestand ID: 11102399 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 12:01 | Thanks Mike D. I think MC and I were thinking about making some sort of game tied to drafting full teams (i.e. Italy, not Luca Toni), and getting points for wins, or negative points for losses. It would probably revolve around multiple leagues with 4 or 8 managers holding a team draft prior to the start of the WC. Any thoughts or comments would certainly be helpful. | |||||
| 17 | Mike D Leader ID: 041831612 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 16:50 | Yeah IIRC ESPN had something similar to that 4 years ago. Any and all are cool. But drafting individuals is neat. | |||||
| 18 | Piccolos Donor ID: 24933916 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 17:14 | I'd certainly be interested if any type of WC game was devised. | |||||
| 19 | Twarpy ID: 279342714 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 18:23 | I would ve very interested, as I am going to the WC next year. | |||||
| 20 | Mike D Leader ID: 041831612 Mon, Dec 12, 2005, 18:36 | We are? ;) | |||||
| 21 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Tue, Dec 13, 2005, 13:36 | Did I miss something? Are Mike D and Twarpy attached at the hip? | |||||
| 22 | Mike D Leader ID: 041831612 Tue, Dec 13, 2005, 23:01 | I'm sure he got me a ticket. And transportation. And the money for it all. | |||||
| 23 | davekuk ID: 531158147 Wed, Dec 14, 2005, 08:59 |
Re:Post 11 yes you correct that the world rankings are on a roling stage, i just meant that they are more recent than going back to the '98 world cup to work out the seedings, (not sure if the world rankings work on a 2 or 4 year rolling scale, but its something like that, and indeed as you say for someone like Brazil to ever drop out of the top 5 or 10 slots they would have to lose several games over time, which is hardly likely to happen) I'd also be interested in any sort of world cup comp, will hopefully get over there in the summer (not exactly far for me to go from the UK!) | |||||
| 24 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Wed, Dec 14, 2005, 15:43 | Dave, you know what 'kuk' means in Swedish, right? | |||||
| 26 | daveuk ID: 531158147 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 07:14 | lol, no i can't say i did realise what 'kuk' was in swedish, the name wasnt supposed to be dave kuk, but rather dave k uk | |||||
| 27 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 09:33 |
Ahhh. Well it's probably not hard to figure out what it means. Are your boys going to handle Sweden this time around? I hear that's going to be quite a good matchup, and quite a battle to get through to the next round in that Group. Paraguay is no slouch team. I'm really worried about the U.S. The Czechs are really good, and I don't know if we've ever beaten Italy. 2 ties and a loss won't cut it. We need to beat Ghana, and I'm not even sure we'll do that. In World Cup matches in Europe, the Americans are 0-7-0 and have been outscored 20-4. In World Cup play, the USA is 3-9-1 vs. Europeans and has been outscored 29-13. From this USA Today link. Apparently we get a real case of nerves playing in Europe. If that doesn't change this year we could easily be embarassed and have a severe erosion of the excitement 2002 created here. | |||||
| 28 | leggestand ID: 11102399 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 09:44 |
We might scrape through with a tie against Italy, as they didn't impress me in 2002 and I don' think they match up well with our style of play. We will pressure their possesion all over the field, and Italy plays better when people give them respect and lay off their back line (similar to what happened when we played Portugal). We should beat Ghana fairly easily. They also don't match up well against us. They have speed, we have speed. The difference is our strength, and I wouldn't be surprised with a two goal win. US vs Czech Rep is the game, though. Of the teams in our group, they give us the biggest matchup problems. They are stronger and faster than us, and if they take our strengths away, it could be a long game for the US. MC, how did my second email look? | |||||
| 29 | The Beezer Leader ID: 191202817 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 09:59 |
I take our European WC results with a grain of salt. Three of those losses came in 1990 when the U.S. was still pretty terrible compared to the best in the world. Another was in 1934 to Italy which isn't terribly relevant to now. '98 was definitely a bad year but IMO a lot of that had to do with the coaching. I think we'll tie Italy and Czech Republic, then beat Ghana for 5 points. Assuming Ghana at least gets a point somewhere that should be enough to get us through to the second round. If the U.S. is going to make a serious run at making Project 2010 a reality, they need to come out of this group and show they can overcome a tough draw. | |||||
| 30 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 10:30 |
legge, that link I posted shows our All-time record vs. Italy as 0-3-2. I realize some of those games were played 70 years ago, but that doesn't bode well for us. I got your e-mail and haven't thought about it too much, honestly, because it's so far off and I've been going full bore with fantasy football research and chatting with my internet girlfriend. I think it boils down to it being your idea, and I want to defer to you as much as possible. I just think the initial proposal was a bit complex, especially the part about including real players. If you want to have a higher payout, you could always charge $3 per loss, or even $5. I think it's a good idea to reward wins in the second round with higher paybacks. That's good. I don't see how we're going to beat the Czechs (or even tie them) 500 miles from their home turf. I guarantee the crowd will be pro-Czech. I can see us beating Italy as more likely than us tying the Czech Republic. We could get to 6 points that way. | |||||
| 31 | daveuk ID: 41121510 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 11:02 |
When the draw was made, from an English standpoint everyone was looking at it being just about the best we could have hoped for, the press and public fully expect us to comfortably qualify, Sweden will be a tight game, however it is one we will take seriously and i can not see us losing it, and a draw would probably be good enough, Trinidad should not give us any problems, the one that i worry about is Paraguay, while i do think we will win the game, i worry that we may underestimare them, as i said, everyone in England seems to think it is a foregone conclusion we easily win the group, and complacency could be our biggest enemy. The draw was not kind to the USA, they have in my opinion the hardest group to try and qualify from, with the 3 teams all ranked in the top 12 of the current world rankings it seems the seeding system was slightly unbalanced to result in that draw. | |||||
| 32 | Motley Crue Dude ID: 439372011 Thu, Dec 15, 2005, 12:00 |
Funny that you bring that up. I read where Group C (Netherlands, Argentina, Ivory Coast, Serbia & Montenegro) has been nicknamed "Group of Death" by EuroJournalists. That's obviously a backhanded dis at the USA--I'm sure most consider Italy and Czech Republic the favorites in our group, despite our ranking. As far as I can see the only people that need to worry about "Death" in Group C are S&M and Ivory Coast. That should be a bloodbath if Argentina and the Dutch play to their potential. | |||||
| 33 | ieque ID: 2511341814 Sun, Dec 18, 2005, 15:35 |
Hey Guys, do you know which channel(s) here in the US are gonna air the games of the 2006 soccer world cup live? (fox soccer channel, ESPN,...). Tks | |||||
| 34 | swami ID: 46851118 Sun, Dec 18, 2005, 18:31 | ABC, ESPN & ESPN2 will carry all of the games I believe. | |||||
| 35 | Mike D Leader ID: 041831612 Sun, Dec 18, 2005, 18:57 | I heard that too. | |||||
| 36 | arkha ID: 36148239 Thu, Feb 23, 2006, 10:48 |
check out the new forum about the argentina national football team. it is worth having a look. here is the link: www.en.tangooo.com | |||||
| 38 | Myboyjack Dude ID: 014826271 Thu, Oct 12, 2006, 08:19 |
 Don't come back | |||||
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