Official World Cup Thread

If Germany keeps up their level of play not many teams can compete with them, they look so good right now its crazy, i never really thought they would make it this deep
 
who saw that HUGE DIVE in the spain game.. like wtf.. that little bit of acting cost them the game..

i think they need more then 1 ref in soccer..
 
spain player diving? or french?

and they do have more than one ref in soccer. at these matches they have like five officials. one in the middle, two ARs running the sides. the guy who stands at midfield for subs and to keep the people on the bench. and another who's there, probably for another opinion.

and for high school soccer in my area, they have two center refs. and it is actually worse than a center and two ARs. and even if they don't agree on a call they usually don't change it.
 
fool. if you could read well and not jump to conclusions, you'd realize that i said exactly that; refs dont have instant replays, therefore they call what they see, and cannot review their calls until after the game. fans can afford the luxury of instant replays from different angles, making it much, much easier to see what actually happened. the ref has a matter of a few seconds to make the call, if he waits too long everyone becomes a skeptic and the ref loses contol of the game.

for anyone that is familiar with WC history, Maradona's "hand of god" proves my point. that missed call is just as bad as any call made in the current WC
 
If that happened in this years WC I think the fans would immediately rush the field and beat the shit out of the referee
 
Yea man that was awful! Tied game 1-1, Henry takes a HUGE dive, gets a freekick and they score and win. Diving is becoming a really big problem in soccer, and so is the referee situation. So far the refereeing has been the major topic of conversation in this world cup. That is definatley what the world cup should not be about
 
Agreed, there was HUGE drama by henry to get that free kick.

BUT, the free kick was WAY out, and the goal was not scored by the free kick itself. The Spaniards vould have stopped the goal, viera's header was right on the golaie, but the spaniard deflected it in.
 
Dives were often and obvious on both sides, althought I agree Spain was probably guilty of most of it. It's shocking how no one jumps out at Spain when they clearly take dives an entire match, but if Italy gets a favourable call, they obviously dove or payed someone off. You people should definetely realise that Spain is the new king of diving.

Oh and no way should France have won, Henry should have been carded for that stunt, made me sick to see a goal.
 
No on'es fault but theirs to ahve that rep and players who live up to it day in and day out.

Henry was playing à l'italienne there for sure, but suppose Zidane still would have scored, it's 2:1.
 
That is I guess what irritates me, they definetely earned it own their own, just as they earned the belief that they play boring defense soccer. But look at them this world cup, you easily find many other teams taking more dives then them and you see teams such as Greece (Euro 2004) and Great Britain being just as lame as they used to be. Still Italy gets tagged with it. Whatever.

As for Zidane's goal, Im not taking anything away from it, I think it was a really pretty one. I just tend to lean towards the thought that Spain wouldnt have gotten caught if they werent a goal down and trying to push up in attack.

To be honnest, the way France had played so far in the tournament, Spain should have been able to get another goal (Joachin was AMAZING). Hopefuly France can step it up agaisnt Brazil and do the same as in 98
 
To me, the African teams seemed to spend a lot of time on the ground, especially Ghana.

I was completely surprised that France won actually, i was thinking spain would eat them alive.
 
Ahhh, I had faith that France would pull through. I mean after that disappointing showing in 2002, I was sure that Zidane would want something more for his last tournament. Hopefully they pull through against Brazil. Well, I can dare to dream.
 
i just hope for a great game and not some lame ass diving show... hopefully ronaldinho will start making some of his magic and henry getting back in the game and scoring a few!
 
i have no idea, they just seem out of it.. okay, henry is all alone up there in france and maybe that's a explanation... but what does ronaldinho have to say for himself ?
 
That's probably the most probably explanation for Henry. The coach is an idiot and is playing him as the lone target man, where instead he should be behind one or even two other strikers and feed them. With all his talent he's wasted; he's too far up and gets surrounded by defencemen up alone.

I find Kaka has taken some of Ronaldinho's role, he's being a great playmaker and feeding Adriano and Ronaldo. But yeah, Ronaldinho should definetely be converting; I thought he would tare it up agaisnt the smaller teams in the group stage
 
yeah, you pretty much got there problems in there! let's just hope that the french coach gets his shit together and puts trezeguet in!
 
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Ref Poll sent home from World Cup

Graham Poll has been named as one of 14 referees who have been sent home from the World Cup.

The English referee has paid the price for his yellow-card blunder in the Australia versus Croatia game when he booked Josip Simunic three times.

Russian Valentin Ivanov, who issued a World Cup record 16 yellow and four red cards in Portugal's fiery game against Holland, is also on his way home.

Argentine Horacio Elizondo will referee England's quarter-final with Portugal.

Poll, 42, had been tipped as a possible World Cup final referee prior to the tournament getting under way.

But a series of errors in Australia's crucial final Group F match ended any such hopes of being given the showpiece final.

Poll's biggest mistake led to him cautioning Croatia's Simunic three times before finally sending him off.

But the Tring official also dismissed Australia's Brett Emerton and Croatia's Dario Simic.

And Poll awarded the Socceroos a first-half penalty for handball by Stjepan Tomas but failed to spot an even more blatant handball by the same player after the break.

Mark Viduka also seemed to be bundled to the ground in the box during the first half, while it appeared that Harry Kewell was offside when he scored Australia's second equaliser.

A statement from Fifa referees committee president Angel Maria Villar Llona defended Poll but also conceded he had made a mistake.

The statement read: "Graham Poll is an exceptional referee and a great sportsman, who will be able to overcome the situation thanks to his strong personality and love of the game.

"Thursday evening's 2-2 draw between Croatia and Australia in Stuttgart saw referee Graham Poll make an error.

"The experienced official is disappointed at having committed the error, the first such mistake in his 26-year career.

"The Fifa referees committee also recognised the oversight and the fact that none of the match officials at the stadium picked up on the error.

"In explaining his actions to the committee, Poll said he incorrectly noted down the name of the Australia number three Craig Moore when booking Simunic for the second time and failed to realise his error."

Poll's assistant referees Philip Sharp and Glenn Turner will also not be involved in the latter stages of the tournament in Germany.

Referees for World Cup quarter-finals:

Germany v Argentina ( Lubos Michel, Slovakia )

Italy v Ukraine ( Frank de Bleeckere, Belgium )

England v Portugal ( Horacio Elizondo, Argentina )

Brazil v France ( Luis Medina Cantalejo, Spain )

Other retained referees:

Toru Kamikawa (Japan), Coffi Codjia (Benin), Benito Archundia (Mexico), Jorge Larrionda (Uruguay), Mark Shield (Australia), Massimo Busacca (Switzerland), Markus Merk (Germany), Roberto Rosetti (Italy).

Story from BBC SPORT:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/spo...06/5108722.stm
 
Friday: Germany vs Agentina on ESPN @ 11:00 ET

Italy vs Ukraine on ESPN2 @ 3:00 ET

Saturday: England vs Portugal on ABC @ 11:00 ET

Brazil vs France on ESPN @ 3:00 ET
 
Yo I was like GO ENGLAND!! but I used to alwyas be go FRANCE go and I watched the France game the other day and my heart went back to my old team I think!! anyway they r both my fav!!
 
wanted spain. im here in spain right now during the world cup and its a whole ew world. plus drinking is legal, so its added fun. now that theyve lost, i think its gonna be brazil, but i want argentina
 
argentinians kinda controlled the game though, they had many chances on the goal and controlled the ball.

Argentinian dude almost scored last minute of reg time...
 
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