Uruguay 1 Costa Rica 0..........in the Costa Rican artificial turf. So proud of my boys. Now lets have a party Wednesday in Montevideo
You guys are still very much in that tie Alen. Portugal will not fancy going to Bosnia and if you guys can grab the first goal, I think you will go through
Slovenia and Ireland both up 1-0 near the half. Portugal Bosnia still 0-0. Bosnia is looking a lot better. That finish should be good. USA down 2-1. Frankie Heyduk should never be allowed to play internationally again.
lol - you hate portugal or just rooting for bosnia? in other news, russia was defeated in a dramatic game. ireland scored against france, would love to see france lose to ireland if it happens.
Ireland France going to extra time. Kinda want France to lose just because it would be awesome but kinda want them to win because I want the best teams at the WC
Russia lost 0 - 1. I have seen many, many soccer matches. I have not ever, ever, ever ever EVER seen reffing so terrible. HORRIBLE
Check out the Henry handball. Glad im not Irish because they just got cheated out of a spot. Anelka starts of the extra time by taking a dive in the box. Then Henry's handball that led to the goal. On top of that they were offsides as well so there were to reasons to disallow the goal. Then henry and anelka both handball again. The last 5 minutes were just Lloris rolling around the ground. Not cool France.
Robbed, clearly robbed. Just have a look at Gallas' goal, it was clearly handball by Henry. I will post it when I get a chance but I am completly depressed by the result, Ireland were the better team. ****ing joke
No worries, it was somewhat expected to be honest. I stopped watching after they scored but I thought defensively we played pretty well and offensively, we didn't get many shots on the goal. I think we had like one on target in the first 60 minutes? Pretty disappointing, especially with Dzeko up front.
Think you guys lost it in Portugal TBH. I think it was Dzeko who hit the bar with a header from 5 yards out that he really should have scored. An away goal would have made a big difference in Bosnia. You guys will get to a big competition sooner rather than later I feel. You have some good players and are progressing every qualifying competition, so I think you will make it too te Euro Championships in 2012.
Heres a vid of the Henry handball [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha4hTxmlYLA"]YouTube- France VS Ireland 1-1 - (Gallas) (WC Play Offs) (18/11/09) France In Cup 2010[/ame]
rofl @ paul. seriously..... alen - sorry to hear about your team, didn't know you were from there. cool man yeah the thierry handball was ridiculous. i don't think henry was trying to hand the ball, i think it was incidental.... but still, the refs have to catch that. i also don't blame thierry for not speaking up at the time - can you imagine how his country would treat him if he did that and if the ultimate result would have been france not going? oy, would not have been good at all. france coach kept his job, henry is a hero in france, they go on. i feel bad for ireland. totally maradonna'd, man. they deserve a spot in the WC.
Oh man! that really sucks, I feel bad for Ireland too ... four years wasted Alen, Bosnia was so close, damn!
to france's credit (jesus, i never thought i'd say that in my lifetime), many in France are lobbying for the match to be replayed. even Henry himself is saying the match should be replayed - it seems that most of france is acknowledging how hollow this "victory" is. of course FIFA is too proud, citing that the match will not be replayed. i don't understand why FIFA can't swallow their pride, accept that a ref missed a crucial call, and replay the match? this isn't league play we're talking about, this is the world cup. no more maradonna incidents, let's fix this. get it right FIFA! in other news, the new FIFA world rankings came out. Spain is in first, US falls to 14th. i think they underrate the US - faulty to judge our team on the last two friendlies where we didn't have half our starters and were testing out new rotations.... but whatever, they're just power rankings. don't mean much.
Couple of factors you need to take into concideration. Two weeks prior to the end of the qualifying campaign, UEFA (run by Frenchman Michel Platini) changed the playoff system, whereby the top four teams going by FIFA rankings would be seeded. Earlier in the season they stated that would not be the case. Now to many it seems that when it looked as if big nations like France, Portugal and Russia were not going to get through automatically, UEFA introduced the seedings to give them a better shot at doing so. I mean, why else introduce it when they did? You have to realise that this is what FIFA wanted, the big nations getting through as it would provide more sponsoship and revenue from the World Cup and their organisation. Dont get wrapped up in all this fair play ****e that FIFA pretend to stand for and want. All they want is more money in their bank accounts.
Gotta agree with Roy Keane on this one , as much as it was a **** outcome are the FAI gonna go back and get the Georgia game replayed as Ireland were awarded a penalty that was never anywhere near it ? I watched that game and Ireland got humped and only got the draw from a dodgy decision. If FIFA replay this game then we may as well forget having any matches decided by the outcome after 90 mins , ref mistakes in every game , dodgy penalties , guys wrongly sent off etc , very very dangerous precedent to set and FIFA know this and IMO wont sanction a replay. Take this one on the chin and move on its about all the Ireland team and fans can do.
I'd agree with that. People over here need to let it go. If lets say Paul McShane had handled the ball out of play and France went on to lose the game, then Irish fans wouldn't care. Ireland should have had the game won in 90 mins anyway. But the need for technology is clearly obvious and that is ultimately the main point to be taken from that match. Football is behind sports like American Football, Tennis, Cricket, Rugby League, Rugby Union, etc in this regard. And there is actually no good reason why they don't introduce it for top flight football. Why not work it on a similar basis to the NFL, that the coaches have two challenges per half. Would make sense and barley stop the game. At least big decision would could be reviwed and gotten right.
yikes! you guys seem to have already thrown your hands up, giving up. well obviously the replay won't happen, but that doesn't mean people can't ask for it. i still think it is warranted, but whatever. i know it won't happen and i know why. emerald, i think your analysis is spot-on. money and bigger countries. in other news, i went to the MLS Cup last night. it was a blast! went double overtime and was decided on PK's. i know many hate that, but hey, the teams had 120 minutes to win and they couldn't do it. in my opinion, if you can't win in 120 minutes, you deserve to go to PKs, so deal! from a spectator's standpoint (who had no dogs in the fight), the finish was thrilling and we definitely got our money's worth. i also ran into chad marshall in the concourse. he was wandering around by himself and i stopped him for a quick photo op: i realize none of you probably know who he is, but i do. and i want to share my excitement somewhere, but i don't know any soccer fans lol ultimately was happy that RSL won.... underdog, better team chemistry, and their fans were definitely a million times better than LA fans. RSL fans were cheering their team the entire time. what did the LA fans cheer? "F@#k Seattle". classy, LA. classy. To beckham's credit, he was one of the only galaxy players who stayed after to congratulate all the RSL guys, and he did a lap thanking the fans afterward - the only galaxy player to do so. respect to becks for that.
Thats pretty cool dude, its always cool to meet professional sports people or entertainers, even if not many know them. BTW, whats the general opinion of Beckham over in the States these days? I know he had it pretty tough at the beginning of the season, but whats the opinion of him now?
it depends on who you ask. a lot of the more hardcore soccer fans - the ones who've followed soccer long before MLS and count an EPL or Serie A team as their favorite tend to snub their noses at becks.... but these also tend to be the eurosnob fans, or basically the americans that wish & pretend they are european with their fandom of soccer. these are also the people who hate everything about the way america does soccer, i've noticed. the newer & more open minded fans embrace beckham and what he has done for this sport in this country. for every fan that hates him, there are 10 new fans to the sport it seems.... so the proof is in the pudding. you know what happened with his loaning to milan last year, so i don't need to recite that for you. that didn't sit well with many people, and i can't blame those that don't like him for that. of course, the fact he's returning to milan again won't help his case. if he wants to be able to come back, he should return before the season starts here next year instead of staying with milan through the WC. if he does that he can enjoy permanent exile in the hearts of fans here, i can guarantee you that. it did seem that he stepped up his game here after grant wahl's book came out and it was revealed that donovan wasn't high on his motives. donovan and becks apparently patched things up and have since played very well together, (obviously) making it all the way to the cup. i think beckham has lost too much of a step at this point.... he's out-matched even in MLS play, often. i don't know how england figures he'll help their WC team as i think the days of playing at that level have long past him. arguably his biggest strength - set pieces - has fallen off so far that he wasn't even getting balls near the goal in the MLS Final. so..... yeah. appreciate the maturity he's bringing right now, but his play isn't exciting to watch and his motivations in the recent past have been suspect. he's a very love-or-hate type of figure here, and you'll get the whole spectrum of responses depending on who you ask i guess.
Why is France *****ing about not being a seeded team. They don't deserve to be. If you need to go to the playoff stage to qualify from Europe you are not 1 of the top 7 teams in the World Does the host team always get a seed with the top 7 teams. If they do that is a major edge South Africa could be in a poll with New Zealand and Honduras 2 hours to go, before we see half the countries claim they are in the Group of Death
will be watching.... USA and England in same Group C....very cool. (Play opening round match) England is 1st team USA is 2nd team Algeria is 3rd team Slovenia is 4th team not a bad group for US hopes?????
http://www.fifa.com/live/competitions/worldcup/finaldraw/index.html (the live match schedule feature is very cool) USA plays England (June 12), Slovenia (June 18), then finishes with Algeria (June 23)
group a south africa mexico uruguay france group b argentina nigeria south korea greece group c england usa algeria slovenia group d germany australia serbia ghana group e holland denmark japan cameroon group f italy paraguay new zealand slovakia group g brazil north korea ivory coast portugal group h spain switzerland honduras chile
USA-England will be fun to watch. My picks to move on to the knockout stage: Group A: Uruguay, South Africa Group B: Argentina, South Korea Group C: United States, England Group D: Germany, Australia Group E: Netherlands, Japan Group F: Italy, Paraguay Group G: Brazil, Ivory Coast Group H: Spain, Switzerland