I've done crap in the FF this round. At least 2 non starters due to suspension and, unless Robben scores a brace, the highest priced, least effective front 3 imaginable.

So not seeing either Germany or Brazil, what's the predictions for when they meet?

dante is an great sub for thiago silva, but i think without neymar the brazil attack is irreparably broken... then again, they're bound to have the ref in their pocket.

If Brazil win without him it'll be one of the great world cup stories. I previously wanted Argentina to win but would definitely love to see Brazil do it now - if only so they can answer the 'one man team' criticisms, and cos Argentina would've managed it in the most unconvincing way. Would still rather it be either of those though, than Holland or Germany.

Go Costa-Rica (although my FF team says don't score, just lots of ineffective passes into the box, shots on goal, and plenty of tackles ... but no goals!)

another 30 minutes of this plague?

Sure but those 30 were pretty spectacular.

Gutted for Costa Rica. Gotta give it to Van Gaal though, for the audacity of switching keepers.

i woke up a little in the end. costa rica managed to attack 3 or 4 times *as a group* not just the lonely long ball. otherwise the only fun thing to watch was robben.

i'm glad costa rica is out. they made the game boring. having two attacking teams battle it out in semis should be awesome (with apologies to pokeherrie, i'll be rooting for argentina).

krul was apparently ready for this-- it wasn't a surprise.

Ha. Given your comments about the Iran dullard game(?) I actually enjoyed the whole game.

Gutted for Costa Rica, but surely the big story is Van Gaal's keeper swap? Just brilliant and only he'd have the (drops pants in rage) balls to do that. The mentalist.

ha ha ha. you REALLY hate robben. i understand.

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ps- i'm hating brazil after yesterday's game and i'll be rooting for germany.

Hate is a strong word. Strongly dislike is better. He did keep diving to an absolute minimum which was nice to see.

What did they do?

they really wanted to win and scored and early goal. all good. but then when the colombians tried to piece together their attack the brazilians started just fouling the fuck out of everyone. particularly james. and the ref let it happen and didn't pull any cards.

so then the colombians got pissed and started dishing out in return. the game became completely choppy. there was a foul every other minute. nobody could play. it was fucking horrible.

for a while the colombians lost their shit. almost got into a brawl. luckily they didn't (there'd be more of that later). but they couldn't get their shit together for most of their first half-- with the goal against them, the ref letting rough play happen, unable to make simple pass combinations due to fouls, they looked truly lost for a good while. like, deer before the headlights lost. unable to comprehend. they barely held.

eventualy by the end of the first half they got a grip and started functioning like the usual colombia. except that it was colombia in hell. fouls, fouls, fouls, from both sides, and the ref nothing. so it got progressively worse.

by the 60th minute there had been 40 fouls accounted for! that's one every 90 seconds! that's not counting the instances where the ref looked the other way. then there were some yellow cards but either too obvious or completely irrational-- e.g. thiago silva got in front of ospina while he was trying to serve the ball, or james who was at the receiving end of infinite kicks was booked for some very light shit, or julio cesar kicked a colombian inside the small area when the guy no longer had the ball and could have been a red but he got a yellow. unreal. and yet, the guy who broke neymar's vertebra didn't even get a foul against him-- ref gave the advantage but there was no card, nothing.

anyway, brazil won, and in balance they controlled the game, and maybe it was a fair score overall seeing how both played super dirty and brazil prevailed slightly in that system, inspite of losing neymar to the brutality of it all, but the way in which they did it was not the way i want to see a world champion win. it was awful. and the ref a completely useless shitbird opened the door to neymar getting his spine fucking broken. well, vertebra, damn, it's now the whole spine but he'll be healing for 4 weeks. i hope you get to watch a replay so you can see-- disgraceful. fuckem.

Thanks for that!

Refs are obviously terrified of making a controversial decision against Brazil. Whoever wins this won't have done it with much style. In terms of quality it's been a very scrappy wc so far. The remaining 4 all probably deserve to be there but I don't think any of them are having a particularly strong tournament so far.

LIES. you've dethroned prince gerbilfeet and are closing in on king obiku!

last round of fantasy games i had my best round ever even though i made some fuckups. ranked at 50,769 which for me is the best ever (i'm no mike obiku). still not enough to win anything but eh.

got them like this:

NAVAS 15
HUMMELS © 42 (21) VAN BUYTEN 9 FERNANDEZ 0
RODRIGUEZ 10 DI MARIA 2 CUADRADO 2 MASCHERANO 9
NEYMAR 11 MUELLER 4 MESSI 3

only sub: OSPINA 5 (took him out for navas). everyone else ghosts.

i realized, i think, i had the chance to add another sub if i had been more lucid during transfers.

I really lucked out in the last game. The semis are a nightmare though. No team in either game seem like real favourites and no player feels like I banker. I screwed up early on by replacing my cheapest players thinking they wouldn't count as part of my squad once they were eliminated. So most of my remaining ghosts are in the 3-4 price range, taking an unnecessarily big chunk out of my remaining budget. We'll see. But I'm not expecting to do well in the remaining rounds at all.

Yep, the semis seem well balanced.
Not because the teams are equally great (that would have been a joy), but because they're equally depleted.
Neymar is out, Di Maria ain't too well, Van Persie's hardly breathing...

But considering the least diminished side a favourite would be too simple.

Brazil will be without two key players, so the side will probably have to change considerably, and Oscar might be given more responsibilities, with the strong possibility of a big flunk out. But they'll be supported by the public.
Germany has no problem for the moment, apart from strikers chosing to shoot at the keepers instead of the net. They might be the better side for this match.

Argentina hasn't won any game by a large margin but have slightly improved during the tournament. Plus their quarter was quickly won, their attackers are probably not too exhausted.
Netherlands fought over 2 hours.
Should Van Gaal drop RVP, the teams might seem to be on par.
I don't see Holland reaching the final.
They got caught offside too often against Costa Rica, and the Argentinian defence proved quite apt at that against Belgium.
Plus Sneijder has had so discreet a role...

Same questions for FF: shall I pick here and there or place a huge bet on a specific team to bite the demon's butt, should I choose strikers over defenders, how many replacements should I gather, etc.?
I'm currently left with a 14 men team (the rest ghosts) plus 2.5 in the bank with noone that cheap anywhere to bring someone else... Of course, by the time the ref whistles the first kick off, there will have been humpteenth reshufflings...

Brazil looks boned-- besides Neymar it looks like Willian got injured (then again he might play tomorrow--Neymar also wants to play if they make the final). Looks like they are terrible on the attack. BUT with the ref in their pocket and threat of riots and FIFA's blessing they can achieve *anything* (ughhh). [EDIT: it's Chiquidrácula from Italy-Uruguay! They'll stuff his pockets.]

I'm worried about Di Maria missing--while on paper he didn't always do a lot, on the pitch he was always opening up spaces. On the upside, the 4-4-2 seemed to have worked better for Argentina's defense, but we'll have to wait for Sabella's lineup because he surprises.

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TOTALLY UNRELATED TV QUESTION (EUROPA LEAGUE)

I'm looking at my TV budget for this year and it looks like a cable contract would be a pain in the ass (I don't watch TV in the traditional sense and I don't need to buy 300 useless channels for 2 years so I can get the 4 sports channels I want).

Getting a streaming deal with Fox looks good though---no national leagues unfortunately, but I'd catch CL games *plus* Europa League matches. Looks to me like if I get into Europa League I'd get to see most European top teams in greater variety and it would be a huge bang for the buck. Plus CL+EL = 300+ games for the season. There are other bonuses to this stream but only marginal to the deal for me. The real meat is the two transeuropean leagues.

SO-- anyone here following the Europa League? You like? You'd recommend?

Thanks!

A lot of English clubs hate the Europa league and often field weakened teams so as not to diminish their league efforts. I wouldn't consider it a vital part of the deal but it's a good bonus assuming your main interest is in the CL.

I was thinking of the CL as the meat and the EL as the bread for a complete football sandwich. The CL alone is tasty but wouldn't fill my belly….

This year will be the first time in donkeys years I'll be watching the europa league and that's only because Everton are in it this year.

It's a cup that kills teams in their main leagues as generally they don't have to squads to rotate, unlike the champions league teams. Oh and by god does it drag on. I'd say just get it for the Champions League games.

When Redknapp was at Spurs he pretty much pointblank said he'd rather finish a place below qualification, just to avoid it. West Ham were in it a few years ago and I was relieved when they got knocked out in the first round just because at least then they could concentrate on the far more important job of prem survival. I feel the same about the League Cup, and if things aren't going well in the league (which they invariably aren't) even the FA Cup, too. But the Europa league is definitely death by a thousand fixtures.

By hook or crook, Symbols needs to find a way of watching the Prem this season, or at least the press conferences; Mourinho vs Van Gaal is gonna be pure gold. The self-defined 'special one' vs the 'best coach in the world."