World Football Thread XXX - Germany 2006

[Winston]

While our American posters have given us a good run, joining in and taking great interest..

[duke o' york]

Buggeration. Suppose I'll have to switch back to my usual flag now then.

Well done to Korea though.

[reismark]

Its a random draw, so matching up group winners and runners up is the only fair thing to do.

I guess the more interesting experiment would be to see what the groups would have been if they'd been done totally on seedings rather than on the weird mish-mosh of "top eight" and randomness that we actually get.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by Dauphin
The other problem with assigning the brackets at the completion of the group phase, rather than beforehand, is that the scheduling is a major problem.

That's also correct. A team who qualifies out of Groups A and B could potentially have over a week until their next game while a team out of Groups G and H could potentially have to play a game on the other side of the country in 18 hours time (!)

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by reismark

And the U.S. will finish in a tie for 25th with Iran, which is still pitiful but better than finishing dead last in France eight years ago...

25th isnt pitiful unless you think the US team is better than it actually is. Take away the hype and unrealistic expectations and you'd have to say they did OK. Sure it was possible that they could have done better but their group was very tough (and they didnt play well anyway).

[Colon™]

Now that final 16 are known: 10 European teams, 3 South-American teams, 1 North-American, 1 Oceaniatic team and 1 African team. 13 out of the 19 teams from Europe and South-America advanced, while only 3 out of 13 from the rest of the world advanced...

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Sure it was possible that they could have done better but their group was very tough (and they didnt play well anyway).

No, but the guts they showed against Italy proved that they can compete on the world stage, and if the World Cup was in a league format then they'd do a lot better than 25th.
You should be proud of the US team's showing in Germany.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by duke o' york

Well done to Korea though.

Bah! I dislike the way the Korean's play. They are good enough that they shouldnt have to dive every time one of them gets touched near the box. It's especially bad this year given the poor refereeing.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by reismark
I guess the more interesting experiment would be to see what the groups would have been if they'd been done totally on seedings rather than on the weird mish-mosh of "top eight" and randomness that we actually get.

Which seedings? The FIFA rankings?!

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by duke o' york


No, but the guts they showed against Italy proved that they can compete on the world stage, and if the World Cup was in a league format then they'd do a lot better than 25th.
You should be proud of the US team's showing in Germany.

Well that was my point. I think the americans are a decent team who cant be overlooked. I just dislike the false hype that they are "ranked 5th" etc.

[duke o' york]

Well I don't think you'll find anyone here who takes the FIFA rankings seriously. Things might be more interesting if you entered the South American tournaments - you're unlikely to beat Argentina or Brazil, but would have a decent chance against the other teams (even Canada ).
The sooner the entire Americas compete together the better as far as I'm concerned. Then you can have proper qualifying rounds to eliminate the Panamas and Turks and Caicos Islands of the groups, and concentrate on improving the quality of football across the two continents.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well I don't think you'll find anyone here who takes the FIFA rankings seriously.

That's also why 'seeding' the teams is silly (*looks at reismark*).

[Footie Mad]

Now that the group stage is over, what are your impressions, favourite games and biggest disappointments?

I've watched every game apart from the first half of Italy - Ghana and of course I wasn't able to see everything from the last round since games were played simultaneously. Here are the games that I thought were best to watch, in no particular order.

Argentina - Ivory Coast
Ghana - Czech Republic
Brazil - Croatia
Mexico - Iran, first half at least
Germany - Poland

Biggest dissapointments for me....

Serbia & Montenegro, ok they lost Vidic but still would have expected more.

Czech Republic, very crippled by losing Koller it seems.

Iran, had them to go through with Portugal from their group. But Ali Karimi was not in form at all and they had some sloppy defending several times over that cost them.

Largest positive surprises....

Ecuador, powerful, technically skilled and tactically smart play was very impressive to me. I knew only of Delgado, Kaviedes, Hurtado and Valencia before the tournament but they have a number of good players from native clubs as well.

Ghana, I knew they had potential with Appiah - Essien as the engine of the team. But still surprising that they could go through from that tough group. Thank you for holding the flag high for Africa it would have been depressing without at least one team from the continent doing well.

Australia, Guus Hiddink is the man. Who here is not expecting Russia to qualify for the next european championship and world cup now?

[Solver]

The FIFA ratings are nonsense. They are, generally, fair insofar that teams in the top 10 are stronger than teams ranked 20 places lower, but they're mostly nonsense. Mexico and the US are so very high because they are facing weaker opponents and thus have very good results in their areas, for example.

[SpencerH]

Americans who know nothing about soccer take it seriously since that's what the parrots tell them. Then the USA gets beat and it looks like they suck (and they dont).

Hopefully the MLS will improve. If that happens then the US teams will become a real threat.