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At 7/2/14 10:56 AM, Haggard wrote: I'm a bit confused. German 2nd League is the 2nd Bundesliga. You won't find any B teams (or 2nd teams, or much rather "II-teams" as they are called for example "FC Bayern München II") there, as they are not allowed to play any higher than 3rd league.

Ah, i guess the systems are quite different then. The Portuguese Federation instituted that only professionalized clubs (distinct from amateur clubs, some bureaucracy differences, with no amateurs or part-timers allowed in professional clubs) are allowed access to the top 2 tiers of football. Any professional club can then generate B (and C and so forth) sub-clubs, which always have to field at least 6 domestic-passport (double-nationalities permitted) players under the age of 23. B clubs are allowed to access the tier immediately below their parent and no higher than that. It's basically like a mix between a boot camp and a laboratory, used to rotate less-used players, injury returns, and most importantly to acclimate new young transfers to the club's favoured formations, strategies and tactics, as well as their new host nation's football cultures, breathing the air of derbies and classics, even if it is a B-on-B.

At 7/2/14 10:42 AM, SansNumbers wrote: If they had brought in Jozy we might've had a slightly better chance. I can't say hindsight is 20/20 because I was screaming that in a much ruder way at my TV but as far as I know they can't hear my screaming from Brazil.

Don't be silly. Every true football fan knows it's all a question of shouting loudly enough and the manager will hear us.

At 7/2/14 10:16 AM, Haggard wrote:

At 7/1/14 06:42 PM, C-Hawk wrote: good to see Green off to a good start in his international career.

Good he is under contract at Bayern München. :D
Hopefully we can see him in the first team (rather than the second team) a few times next season.

I think B teams (or 2. teams in Germany i think it is) were the best thing to happen in a lot of European countries. If the German 2nd league is anything like the Portuguese, with the point differential between first and last place sometimes being all of 11 points at the end of the season, it's just about the best environment a young (19~23 y.o.) player could develop in, hellishly competitive. And it's a better arena in which to make stereotypical youngster mistakes in than the Premieres.

First rest day. Time to gossip about the nasty stuff.

My personal favourite player, Ricardo Quaresma, was part of the 30->23 cut outs, in detriment of Nani. The actual reason for this is well known: Paulo Bento, when he was still the manager at Sporting CP, got his ass handed to him by a young Quaresma during a Sporting-Porto Classic. Bento had just returned from a long career in Spain and had acquired a series of speech ticks, one of which being the overuse of the word "tranquility". Quaresma, who's never been shy about acting and speaking in his gypsy blood, said in the post-match interview that "Porto won today with great tranquility."

Interviewer: "Is that a crack at Paulo Bento?"
Quaresma: "No, it's a word in the Portuguese language. What, i can't use that word now?"

This caused a rift between the now national selector and the player, which, if Bento were a grown-ass man, he'd put behind him and think of the national team's best interests first.

Paulo Bento's excuse for choosing Nani over Quaresma was "tactical. Quaresma doesn't participate in defence." Ignore the fact that Nani doesn't defend either. Or attack. Or do anything (his goal could've been scored by the quadruplegic kid from the ceremonial first kick). Quaresma responded with:

"I don't defend? That's something i don't understand. I respect the decision, but i don't understand. Anyone who's actually been watching Portuguese players for the past 5 years, particularly this last season at Porto, knows that that's who i was in the past but no longer."

A Porto fan tweeted that there are other Portuguese players who don't defend.

At 7/1/14 07:57 PM, iWalker wrote:

At 7/1/14 06:42 PM, C-Hawk wrote: No shame in having gone down against this Belgium. There was a sense of real intrigue regarding them in this WC since they're not the most frequent WC participants,

i beg to differ. belgium has participated 5 times in a row (1982 onwards) during this period we never participated on the EC. (i think this was a magic trick by our most famous trainer) untill those idiots decided to organise the EC. spell broken and we needed the last belgian player to score on the World Cup as a trainer to get us back on track. i fully expect we will not qualify for the EC in two years.

My mistake, then. I guess the EC is what made me feel like "how come i don't see Belgium as often as i'd expect on the international stage?" 'Cause the times i do remember seeing you guys, you do end up performing well. It is weird that you qualify for the harder-to-qualify-for of the two. Every time i see Belgium, though, it's like "okay, i know him, and him... but who the fuck are these other 21 guys?"

Did you guys make the Belgians work hard enough for the win? I dunno, let's find out.
HEY JAN!... Jan? You alright bro?

At 7/1/14 06:49 PM, Zachary wrote: We played decent, but every game something seemed lacking. USA needs to be on the attack more if we want to go further in the future. I am sure losing Altidore made a huge difference though.

That's what makes me look at your centre and think you could do with one more guy in there. Two tacklers to recover possession and one guy who knows what the hell to do with the ball when you have it - either ice it and calm down the rhythm of the game or find some sneaky poacher on the front. Belgium had an excessive amount of possession, particularly in the middle, it would've been nice to defy that. Owning the centre circle doesn't guarantee anything, but it does allow you a stance of command over what's going on, and forces your adversary to rely on the wings, which forces a use of speed, which you can't keep up forever.

Added time is given in accordance to the period of time to which they apply; it was only one minute because it applied to overtime's 2nd half (15 minutes of play). Must admit i didn't pay attention to how much was given at the end of regulation time's 90.

No shame in having gone down against this Belgium. There was a sense of real intrigue regarding them in this WC since they're not the most frequent WC participants, and when they do qualify, it's pretty much a whole new and different package of players and often entirely different philosophies from what they brought last time.

I can't underline how much this is based 100% on "hindsight's 20-20", but if the US fielded a 3-5-2 formation, it would've gone quite a bit better, given the two anchormen to recover the ball in the middle and transition forward, so long as the widemen kept up with their responsibilities and not drift too far forward.

Tim Howard for MotM, hands down, and good to see Green off to a good start in his international career.

At 7/1/14 06:18 PM, Haggard wrote:

At 7/1/14 06:04 PM, C-Hawk wrote: I don't know if it's the legal marijuana or extra training with legal prostitutes or what, but they seem to go full Energizer bunny.

Marijuana isn't legal in Belgium. That's Uruguay.

Oh yeah, 2-1 now.

You're thinking of cannibalism.
The Yanks better shift gears now and take full advantage of the confused panic on the Belgian side. 2-0 -> 2-1 is incredibly dangerous on the psychological level, s'why everyone's trained to think in terms of "relax and sit on the result when you've got 3 on them".

At 7/1/14 05:57 PM, Haggard wrote:

At 7/1/14 05:53 PM, C-Hawk wrote: Jurgo going full "oh my gosh" american white girl. I laughed so hard. Probably the most un-German reaction to have to anything. Am i the only one disappointed that he hasn't raged the fuck off and broken some shit yet?

There are no Sanyo paperboard battery boxes anywhere.

The battery was talking shit >:C

Called it that overtime would be the worst thing to happen to anyone playing one of the two Low Countries. I don't know if it's the legal marijuana or extra training with legal prostitutes or what, but they seem to go full Energizer bunny.

Jurgo going full "oh my gosh" american white girl. I laughed so hard. Probably the most un-German reaction to have to anything. Am i the only one disappointed that he hasn't raged the fuck off and broken some shit yet?

At 7/1/14 05:15 PM, Haggard wrote: Still 0-0, but much more entertaining than Switzerland - Argentina or that dreadful Germany - Algeria.

I told Amaranthus a little while ago that the US plays high-intensity quick football, which is all well and good, anywhere outside of Brazil. The last 30 minutes will belong to Belgium, which, although not to the same level of the Netherlands, also seem to have great lungs, specially when you look at their score sheets' minutes. They just subbed-in Mirallas, who isn't exactly the slowest player you've seen. If this goes to overtime, Belgium's stamina advantage will be even more important.

But football's not played on paper, Andy.

At 7/1/14 03:55 PM, SwisherCovent wrote: Looking forward to Portugal v Belgium tonight! Hey, wait a minute...

Ain't even.

At 7/1/14 03:16 PM, ChaRee wrote:

At 7/1/14 03:13 PM, C-Hawk wrote: Lmao Yanks all pissy that the referee speaks French. Yes, FIFA has five different official languages. Some places don't speak English. Like California. Shut up and deal with it, football is a universal language: the referee's hand signals. I can watch a match between Syria and Germany reffed by a fucking Eskimo and still understand that the reason he stopped play was because of an offside based on his hand gestures.

Always seems to be this sort of hassle. There was a similar disdain when Howard Webb was chosen to ref the Spain vs Netherlands final in 2010, seemingly because the Dutch had more players playing in English speaking countries.
A yellow card or a "play on" gesture is the same in every language.

Which posits the obvious question: what do you do to cover all the languages that all the players speak? A decision has to be made, and it has. As much as English speakers hate to admit it, the English language isn't the most spoken one, it isn't the easiest one, it isn't the most complex... It isn't the most anything. I wouldn't react one iota regarding some irony about Shakespeare inventing the word "plagiarism" himself.

Not only that, but show me one instance of a referee changing his mind due to a conversation with a player. They don't, as well they shouldn't, no matter how much they realize they've just fucked up, because that would encourage all players everywhere to harass refs to death at every single call. I do believe the best referee would be a deaf one.

Cue joke about Hellen Keller being a better ref than half the ones at the WC right now.

If and when a referee is compromised or under orders to manipulate a result, he's compromised, and there isn't shit you can do about it.

The English have been playing with non-English speaking refs for a very long time now, and although, as has been discussed in this thread, the British media absolutely love to point out the nationality, blood type, hobby and mother's maiden name of every referee they ever see, the English at least accept that it's a fact of life. Most probably a cultural aspect regarding having actually been exposed to a myriad of other people, languages and cultures on a weekly basis. The fans of any major European football club become trilingual on accident by singing their hearts out at the beginning of each match of the single most important sports event worldwide. Yes, more than this.

Die Meister... Die Besten...

Whether they accept it or not, there is life outside of the US.
I do believe that in the previous WC they also bitched about a French-speaking ref, during a draw against Slovenia. Slovenia doesn't speak French either. It's called balance, equilibrium, a fair fight.

Lmao Yanks all pissy that the referee speaks French. Yes, FIFA has five different official languages. Some places don't speak English. Like California. Shut up and deal with it, football is a universal language: the referee's hand signals. I can watch a match between Syria and Germany reffed by a fucking Eskimo and still understand that the reason he stopped play was because of an offside based on his hand gestures.

Well this is just about the second-worst ending possible to this match. Tableflip.gif.

At 7/1/14 02:18 PM, lapis wrote:

At 7/1/14 01:52 PM, C-Hawk wrote: watching all the players (...) trying not to die.

Hopefully one of them fails. Nah, just kidding, but although a penalty shoot-out may provide some entertainment, the worst thing about this match is that one of these two teams is going to advance.

I fully and wholeheartedly agree. The best possible thing that could happen would be a scoreline of CHF 5-4 ARG, with all goals being Swiss (own-goals), Messi vomiting on the pitch and being found guilty of the most obvious doping case we've seen since Armstrong, and an actual inquiry that would make a difference, ending a few Swiss people's careers. A man can dream.

Lmao Shaquiri threatening to bitch-slap the ref for getting in the way. Nobody ever accused the Swiss of being nice people, but i never knew they were outright belligerent.

One of my favourite parts of the knock-outs in Brazil: overtime, and watching all the players do the most recovery and maintenance as possible, drinking gallons of powerade, trying not to die. The area next to each of the goals is full of empty bottles.

At 7/1/14 12:52 PM, lapis wrote: Match analysis by Dan Walker on the BBC website: ""Argentina are like Donald Trump's hair... flash up front, plenty going on in the middle but rather ropey at the back".

And yet Benfica are so proud of having sold Garay for 6M€. Dude's an embarrassment.

"I dunno, man, i feel like if Ronaldo really is the best player in the world, he should be able to carry Portugal on his back in spite of the 7 injuries and only 1.5 other notably high-quality players, i'm not sure if he should've been the one to win the Golden Ball."

Looks at Di María, Higuaín, Lavezzi, Agüero, Mascherano, and... Messi.

At 7/1/14 09:44 AM, NuScarab wrote: That said, Thomas Muller doesn't have his own museum. We were wondering whether #CR7 would be adding a cardboard cut-out of Philipp Lahm, a ball, and a sign reading "Can you hit the one-man wall???" to any future exhibits.

Considering the documentaries made by Portuguese media about the team's trips to WCs and Euros, i wouldn't be surprised, he mocks himself enough to do that. And if he doesn't, Nani will rip shit into him for it and then challenge him to SERIOUS FUCKING PING-PONG, BITCH.

At 7/1/14 05:51 AM, Haggard wrote: Best scene yesterday: Germany gets a free kick, 5 players are running over the ball, Müller stumbles and falls down. Free kick doesn't get past the wall.

That's part of what i was telling you about Ronaldo's Microscope. I must've been shown between 3 and 5 gifs of the Ronaldo freekick that blasted against the one-man wall, but i didn't see Müller's. Sounds like one that his teammates are going to poke fun at him about for a while.

At 6/30/14 02:03 PM, Haggard wrote: Wow, Matuidi should've been sent off for that foul. I know Ribéry was sent off for a similar incident in the CL once.
http://mediadb.kicker.de/wcms/2961/28330/3E4849A6-993A-45F4-96E3-B5D11775AA82.jpg

Yeah, quite a few result-deciding fuck-ups from the refs, but hey, that's how "Blattini" goes. Hand of Frog, this joke of a match with a non-existent penalty awarded in extra-time to save France from a shootout, etc etc etc.

Full fault on the keeper for that one. You come off your 6 yard box when you know you're going to destroy the play, not play a volleyball pass to the attacking team.

At half-time, seems like Nigeria are on their front foot more, but they're slamming face-first into a very well disciplined French defence. That bearhug, though, hilarious stuff. Ref's blind eye went into my counter. WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE YOU.

Oh god, that bearhug from behind by the French defender during the corner i'm still laughing much penalty such clear wow.

I know this is a bit late, but Júlio César's latest post-match interview, emotional to the point of tears, was another great moment in translation history.

ESPN's translation of César's statements - "There were a lot of doubters out there about what i could do, specially at a club level, but after this i think those voices will fall silent."

Actual statement in Portuguese - "Besides my teammates, my family and myself, only God knows the effort and struggle it took to overcome so many obstacles, including today['s penalty shootout]."

At 6/29/14 06:29 PM, Head-Full-Of-Acid wrote:

At 6/29/14 06:23 PM, C-Hawk wrote: Does it show i'm Portuguese?

I don't think I quite understand the context of this statement, but I do find it amusing.

This is why.
Greece out. Time to dance on the grave of their hopes and dreams.

At 6/29/14 05:52 PM, Head-Full-Of-Acid wrote: beautiful goal

Shut up. No it wasn't. Fuck Greece. Fuckers. And it's overtime with Costa Rica with 10 men in Brazil. Fuck.

Does it show i'm Portuguese?

Also, it'd be amusing if reviews existed and Robben got a yellow card but the penalty was still awarded. Like "yep, penalty, but here's one for being a twatwaffle."