World Football Thread XX: Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

[Kitschum]

I'm not so sure. The Slovak seems to stick his right leg out making the Italian onside.

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

Like the disallowed US goal, it is a matter of milliseconds: when exactly is the ball struck and where are the players' feet at that time? I don't blame the linesman. It's an extremely hard call to make not the least because it likely decided the match. The onus was however on Italy not to put themselves in that situation, but they always seem to sleepwalk until it's do or die time and then barely scrape by.

These are the kinds of situations I'd be open to video review of. Let everyone play as if he's onside, then if a goal is scored have a time out by request from one of the coaches (limited number of challenges per match). Or to preserve the referee's authority it can be left up to his decision, although I think that would be suboptimal.

[SpencerH]

You may be right. I was focused on the torsos and missed that leg.

As for the video replays, forget it. I think most soccer fans would rather have the occasional bad calls, especially since it gives us something to gripe about, than the delays caused by a replay system.

[SpencerH]

Its been a strange world cup so far. Both Italy and France out in group play. Both England and Germany less than impressive. All we need now is for Netherlands to lose to Cameroon (who havent shown me anything so far) and I'll keep my eyes open for plague of locusts and toads.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It is interesting how the Round of 16 ended up. There are 6 European squads in the Round of 16... each of them are playing another European squad (Netherlands v. Slovakia, Germany v. England, and Spain v. Portugal). There is also 1 African squad, 2 North American squads, 2 Asian squads, and 5 South American squads (and in only one matchup - Brazil v. Chile - is one playing another SA squad).

[Cort Haus]

I'm sure we went through the who thing about the nomenclature of 'teams' v 'squads' four years ago.

Never mind.

A psychic octopus has predicted that Germany will beat England. They know their stuff, these octopi.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10420131.stm

[Frozzy]

I think it would be awfully embarrassing for England to lose to a team coached by a man wearing a cardigan.

[Drake Tungsten]

Better than losing to a team coached by a crazy person in the next round.

[Dauphin]

these octopi.

Octopodes.

[Cort Haus]

Damn! -10 points for me on QI.

[Kitschum]

Octopodes.

vuvuzelae

[duke o' york]

But it's vuvuzelas, because there is no Latin root.

[Cort Haus]

plural of vuvuzela is migraine.

[duke o' york]

Apologies to all my US friends for everything I may say today, but Ghana are my team this World Cup:

Get in Ghana!



"His shirt says 'Prince', and he is funky"

[Cort Haus]

I'll even forgive him his Spursness.

[duke o' york]

Who was that player who had a huge chunk taken out of his knee in the last couple of days? It was a complete accident, but it made me ill looking at it.