meh, i fucked up there, koscielny is french (i always mix up the belgians w/ either the french or dutch, e.g., van buyten, i used to think he was dutch-- it's their fault for being a weird country like that). but fellaini, oh, ha ha ha, i'd like to see any american striker try to match him-- good luck to clint d.

anyway, twelve years is irrelevant, their current players are brilliant, worst relevant record though is they didn't qualify for the 2012 euro (not sure why), but if the team gets it together they should be a major force, just watch.


http://sonicyouth.com/gossip/profile...t=ignore&u=368

Finally, its about time fucker! Too bad..

Player for player, Belgium will have one of the strongest squads of any country but they'll be hoping Kompany stays injury free and that Fellaini regains his form since moving to MU. If everything goes well for them there's no saying how far they could go but I still make Spain favourites, just because they know how to grind out a tournament win and their key players are now so familiar with each other and the system. Germany look strong but I can't help thinking they'll choke again and Brazil still feel like a bit of an unknown quantity - even with the confederations cup win.

Assuming the USA aren't placed in any kind of 'group of death' they (like England) I expect them to heave their way into the knockout rounds before being eliminated by the first really decent team they face.

While that is a safe prediction, don't sleep on US, if things go right US can sneak at least into the Quarter-Finals..

We'll have a better idea of how individual teams might do after the draw for the Group stage on Friday.

I think it's getting obvious that Spain will be the biggest disappointment of the WC.

I don't think they'll play especially well but their experience and the fact everyone in their team knows exactly what they have to do will be enough to get them to the semis at least.

I think they won't make it out of the groups stage, but we'll see.

Who's in pot A, who's in pot B, is there any chance Colombia face Germany...
Elements there
http://www.theguardian.com/football/...aw-interactive

that app scared me, it kept putting US in groups of death! I'll wait until the actual groups have been announced and play with ESPN's NFL Playoff Machine instead, its more legit based off actual upcoming schedules rather than pure projections..

Just a reminder that Brendan Rogers is A SILLY TWAT! He bitches and moans about his squad not being big enough cos they lost two fucking players and lost to fucking Hull 3-1. Piss off you tosspot. How much did you spend this summer again? Total goon.

Used to not mind him but SILLY TWAT seems increasingly right

You blokes speakin that Queen's English got me all confused and all.

The humidity in Brazil will be a factor for a lot of the teams. Just read an interview with Roy Hodgson saying (admittedly half jokingly) that the weather bothers him more than the opposition. 99% humidity predicted in some parts. Players like Rooney are gonna melt. Even more reason why everyone wants to be in Switzerland's group.

To add up some games will have 13:00 kick-offs.

Some good ol' fashioned Sunday NFL games with an afternoon kick-off time of 1pm (westcoast) though it does trip me out, that they'd be playing at 10AM on the east coast where most of these games are played. Like, fuck, who wants to be at a beer-oriented event at 10AM?? tale-gating at 8:30AM?? That being said, 1PM isn't the worst is then is it, I actually like that time. Games are over by 4pm, also, couldn't be worst than the last world cup, I was up watching matches at 4:30AM before leaving for work!!


I like our chances in that pot to avoid a group of death. Yeah Korea and Japan won't be a walk in the park, but its better than having to play the South Americans or the Eurotrash in the group stages, though actually, I don't mind a challenge in the group, when the group stages are too soft teams that advance out get clobbered in the Round of 16 because they aren't ready..



And what in the world was Carrie Brownstein doing in the Portland Trailblazers' post-game lockerroom last night??? Fucking hilarious yo!

Yet more proof (as if it were needed) of Blatter's/FIFA's utter contempt for the European countries.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...a-england-pots

Prick

Damn. Groups of Death for all!

wait, bosnia is rated higher than france? wow. even without zlatan who is swedish or shaqiri who is swiss? impressive (or sad, depending on how you look at it).

hard for me to look at uruguay or colombia or belgium or switzerland in pot 1 but not italy. i get that uruguay did well in the confederations cup, but these rankings are bananas. am i missing something? italy does not belong in pot 4-- i mean, in real terms, it should be seeded/

anyway i don't see the "contempt for europe". there are just too many european countries these days and they have to fit somewhere. e.g., croatia and bosnia used to be yugoslavia, so that's a twofer.

i'm going to predict now, early, that uruguay will be the seeded team that won't make it to the next round, in spite of their supposed ranking. also, i don't think england will be in any way "lucky" if they face colombia-- they could get a thrashing. they should be more lucky to face, i don't know... russia?

don't know if you mean that this will happen or that you want it to happen, i'm going to guess the latter.

because the way things look now, if i'm understanding the mechanics of the draw correctly, argentina could get algeria, australia, and croatia, and sleepwalk to the next round.

What I see is France being benefited once again.

Would Ukraine get the same treatment?

Looking at it, Cunt's right (as cunts invariably are). I'm convinced FIFA (and especially Blatter) has an anti Europe agenda but this particular move seems more about Plattini trying to safeguard France.

There are a lot of European countries involved but so long as the WC wants to showcase the best of World football in terms of quality it has to be the case. Otherwise it just becomes a kind of Bennetton ad where we can all patronise the smiling no hopers.

And Uruguay. Did you see Suarez's hat-trick last night? Uruguay aren't a one man team but if he can take his current form into the tournament he could be a real difference maker. Not saying they'll win the thing but nobody'll want to face them with him in full-on goal-scoring mode.

There'll be no easy group for England, just varying degrees of 'we're doomed'.

COYB!!!! Have I done a u-turn on Martinez or what?! So that's 11 years and Moyes STILL hasn't won at Old Trafford with Everton there.

Haha. I was thinking of you when I watched it last night. Man U won't sack Moyes but I know some fans who now really question his ability to ever be a success there. If anything MU are lucky that none of their main rivals (with the possible exception of Arsenal) are looking that good. Besides that I'm just loving seeing their fans struggling to cope with the possibility of them becoming mid-table mediocrities. MU fans have a saying, 'not arrogant, just better'. You can pretty much reverse that now.

i don't understand why. in the end there was going to be one random leftover in pot 4 and that was going to fit a hole left by pot 2. no? same fucking thing.

i really don't get it.

is pot 2 rated lower than pot 4?

---

edit: i don't really get the fuckin pot X.

It's not a contempt for European countries as far as I see it, but it's certainly an utter contempt for integrity and transparancy.



Yeah, it's plain obvious that Platini (whaddacunt) is the driving force behind this decision. And no, Ukraine wouldn't get the same treatment... neither would Bosnia had they'd been the lowest ranked European country.

it seems like you futbol fanatics talk 1% actual match action and the other 99% it's soap-opera bullshit.

There have been 13 places for Europe for quite a while. The "problem" is that only 4 of them are seeded this time, meaning the remaining 9 unseeded Euro teams don't fit in a single pot.

This happened before at the 2006 World Cup and back then the lowest ranked country (Serbia and Montenegro) was placed in pot 2 which has "weaker" sides than the Euro pot.

For 2014, it was expected that France - being the lowest ranked European team at the cut-off point of October 2013 - would end up in pot 2.... because that's what happened in 2006 too, right?

Since you can't draw teams from the same pot you are in, being in pot 2 is a massive disadvantage. It means you can't draw "easy" teams like Algeria or Ecuador from pot 2, but you can draw teams like England, Italy, Holland or Portugal from pot 4 (teams you would avoid if you are in pot 4).

It also means you cannot draw "easy" seeded teams like Belgium and Switzerland from pot 1 because you automatically get a South American team to avoid having 3 teams from Europe in the same group. That's why the Guardian qualified Colombia as "England getting lucky", because in pot 2 the only other available options would be Brazil, Argentina or Uruguay.

In pot 2, France would be certain to get Brazil/Argentina/Uruguay/Colombia plus have a 50% chance of drawing Netherlands/Italy/Portugal/England.

In pot 4, the chance of drawing a group of death is much much smaller, because then France could also draw Belgium/Switzerland from the seeded teams, plus they'd only have a 12.5% chance of drawing the European country from pot 2 (which in itself could be any of the European countries).


FIFA claims the draw is based on geographical location and the October 2013 FIFA rankings. But what they do now means:

1. It means that being ranked 8th (Netherlands), 9th (Italy) or 21st (France) doesn't make a difference for the draw.

2. It means that being the first two European countries to qualify (Netherlands and Italy) or the last country to qualify (France scraping through the play-offs) doesn't make a difference.


Now, while that might seem a bit silly, I'd absolutely have no problem with it if it was decided well before the qualification started. But what makes this such an inexcusable dick move is that it's been decided 3 days before the draw!

Everything about the World Cup is carefully planned, discussed and written down in a set of rules. From the brand labels on the drinks sold at the stadium to the colour of the stadium seats, etc etc etc... but not the rules of the draw? Yeah right.

Also, FIFA stated that this decision was made after talks with the continental confederations... meaning also UEFA... meaning Platini. What a cunt indeed.

that's part of the fun, man!

Firstly, duh, its international sport, so obviously there is much gossip, and secondly, isn't ALL sport about the other 99% that is not just the games played themselves?



All this drama about the pot/bowl system makes me think, "fuck it." Why have such an absurd system in name of face-saving quasi-arbitrariness? Why not just have a more traditional table system and match up teams directly by ranking rather than by this sort-of-randomness in the drawing from the pot/bowls?? Yes, its not random and involves math, but the pot/bowl system essentially still guarantees that crap teams will be in a group with power-house teams, so fuck it! I don't usually like tables, I think it doesn't allow lower seeds a fair chance to advance into playoffs, it automatically buoys the best teams which is why I like the American system of Conferences and Divisions which still reward better win-records but also mix up the competition a bit by allowing teams with a lesser win-record to play in higher seed rankings based on Division leaders.

Let's talk about the fixed matches, bought players, bought crooked refs, multinational corporations owning teams engaged in fraud, soccer clubs money laundering drug money in latin america, etc.

Maybe for casual fans. For actual sport fans it is the other way around.

What, and none of that ever applies to the NBA and your precious Rockets or the NFL and the, uh, Texans? Come off it man, sports isn't exactly the Virgin Mary yo! Its crooked, rigged, dirty, and corrupt. Its also a fun narrative to enjoy watching and following (hence the other 99%) and also a way to engage and relate to people all over the country and the world.


Easy with the ad hominem there Robsy my brotha, its not very nice ;)

I love ad hominem, especially cooked as grits with bacon and butter

How many corruption scandals, high level ones, has international top shelf futbol had in the past 5 years? I mean MASSIVE scandals, drug running, corruption, fixed World Cup qualifiers? involving actual parliamentary members? At least 6 that I know of, and many more that I never heard of!

How many scandals have the Rockets been a part of since 1980? one, and it was a claim that the someone cheated getting the lottery pick that netted us Hakeem Olajuwon. NOT the same thing.

futbol has no instant replay, one single ref (plus ineffectual line judges that arbitrarily enforce the offsides penalties) which makes it very easy to corrupt. very easy to BUY.

its not about the rockets, its about the NBA in general, which is NOTORIOUS for questionable officiating otherwise known as match-fixing. Its a fact of basketball, and EVERY NBA fan knows it. Same with the NFL, though the more obvious scandals have been less about officiating and more so related to teams outright cheating (Spygate) or playing totally dirty (Bountygate).. Again, if you somehow think that futbol is more corrupted than the American sports you follow, then you are either hopelessly dense or dangerously naive. Either, way, come off it man! Sports are hardly the appropriate manifestation of holier-than-thou smug self-righteousness..

damn gringo plague can always be counted on to drive the futbol conversation into the shitter.



anyway...


right. but thanks for the explanation of the changes--they are quite byzantine. indeed the last-minute change is a dick move.

This man really doesn't like Chelsea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Qxe8cFIfo

Yeah, football is just like society.

Football clubs laundering drug money in Latin America!? Whoaaaa, let's get rid of football then... surely that will free the Latin American countries of their drug problems.


Comparing what is by far the biggest sport in the world to one single basketball team is NOT the same thing indeed.

Unfortunately, if there's illegal money to be made anywhere then there's crooks coming to get it. If there exist such thing as a professional sport that lures no criminals at all then it's a sport that doesn't matter.