mulehead.

re: the condescending/patronizing post you deleted. let me give you an example.


spain won the euro in 2012.

maybe i'm patronizing--or maybe i'm just honest.


anyway, i don't know half of what others posting here know. this is not about me knowing more, it's about you being muleheaded. you wanna learn about spanish football? ask h8kurdt or slavo or jico/cunt.

h8kurdt went on vacation to the bernabeu, for fucks sakes. i couldn't even begin to pretend to match that.

Spain did win in 2012, but if you go back and check you'll find I said their win wasn't very convincing, in fact, they looked rather half-assed and THAT was exactly when I predicted that it was demonstrative that they would go into decline, for the exact reasons I've stated recently, that you can't win them all, and the more big games you win in a row, the more likely you are to finally lose some.


I love to talk sports with those guys, they aren't HALF as condescending as you are. They don't phrase things as "You don't know shit so learn from me" they respect my opinions and share their own. Something about good sportsmanship that you could learn from ;)

well, i have a lot less patience than they do for your muleheaded antics.

i'm definitely an impatient person. it's a character flaw.

that doesn't make you any less muleheaded though! ;)

I will chose to simply ignore you, which I pray I could do more often.
More so I am going to have honest fun celebrating my prediction. No, it wasn't a wild guess. I've made plenty of wild guesses in sports, but not this time. Peace out Spain. Total respect for what you've done, but your reign of terror is over.

it was a reign of genius and beauty

It was indeed remarkable, to be sure, but many of us are quite happy to see it end and move on. I respect what they've done, and I'd be silly to even remotely deny or belittle it, its called good sportsmanship ;)

If I go back to the Mexico-Brazil game, I found the Mexicans very good and surprising.
From my point of view, they were not playing defensively. They have defenders, who defend. That's OK.
What surprised me was that their midfield didn't pass the ball to the backline to avoid any Brazilian counter-attack.
I liked that. Yes, they shot well wide. OK.

Brazil seemed less tense than during the first game. Globally banal.
Fred looks like Francis Perrin, a French actor who's played the stammering innocent almost idiotic hero in cheap 1980 comedies.
http://www.toutlecine.com/images/sta...is-perrin.html
I never could take Fred seriously for that reason (even though he won the French championship 3 times and was quite efficient).

I have not seen the second Australian game; but I liked their spirit.
Cahill was the only one I knew, apart from Jedinak who I don't fancy. I liked that Leckie guy.

If y'all suppose that only shooting 10% of your shots on goal meanwhile staying alive because of getting 8 SAVES in a scoreless draw is offense first futbol what can I say? Hey, !@#$%!, save this in your self-aggrandizing Gospel of !@#$%!, SuchFriendsAreDangerous was wrong.

I will say this. I am glad that all the comments I've read online had agreed with exactly what I told my friend when that game finished yesterday, that may have been one of the most exciting 0-0 draws I have EVER SEEN.

Cameroon has NOT been playing that kind of brutally physical defense that they are renowned for, I hope they pick it up in this game.

Australia played pretty awesomely....that first goal...amazing.

Australia did, I was totally impressed that they refused to concede ground to a clearly better team. Ultimate respect for performing so well on the big stage, they can go home with their heads up high and anyone who shits on them should be embarrassed.

I haven’t been following your posts, what was it exactly that you predicted? If you’re saying Spain’s style of play is dead I’d say you’re wrong.

Spain’s under 21 play this same style and were european champions last year.

Del Bosque made the decision to not renew squad. The witch hunt is on but it ultimately comes down to that political choice.

When they won the Euro Cup in 2012 they looked lethargic, I felt like they were running out of gas or more particularly that as happens in sport, other teams figured out what Spain was doing and how to counter it. So predicted they wouldn't win a tournament again, which in 2013 Confederation Cup turned out to be right! Then in 2013 I predicted that they would not recover. Which is turning out also to be true. I DIDN'T predict they would do THIS bad THIS early though, that was indeed surprising.

....

Mate, they’ve been playing the same for over six years.
You didn’t even know what their squad would be. How can you argue that your predictions are non-trivial?

When they come true TWO consecutive tournaments how are they trivial? How did teams NOT figure out how to counter the things that previously gave them so much success?

Come off it brah, why can't folks just say, "SuchFriendsAreDangerous was right last year"

I got no problem accepting when I am wrong, but shit, how was I NOT fucking right about this when for TWO fucking years I have been saying Spain won't win it all again?? Sounds like y'all are just mad because y'all predictions didn't prove correct ;)

Is that you, Nana Kwaku Bonsam?

Whatver yo. Spain lost. I called it. Its on public record here on SYG. Enough said.

I'll interrupt this awkward moment with the strange news that my "last round" score has mysteriously dropped from 85 to 82. why? i have no idea.

i though maybe because i changed captains in the 2nd round, but the math doesn't add up.

speaking of which-- are we supposed to keep the same captain through all 3 rounds? or can we swap them freely?

can't find the explanation for this.

The scoring seems to change. I found some stuff on another forum. Seems the people behind the game (Sepp Blatter and Ronald McDonald?) are trying to iron out some issues on the fly so I imagine it'll sort itself out over the next day or so.

Points for goals conceded weren’t being added up, it seems they’ve finally fixed that (e.g. Ramos 9 -> 7) but there’s still players with incorrect scores.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?pli=1#gid=0

Spain’s future is grim:
De Gea, Montoya, Bartra, Iñigo, Moreno, Carvajal, Illarramendi, Thiago, Rafinha, Deulofeu, Jesé, Rodrigo...

Anyway, credit to Aragonés to what he did with this current generation.

Group B keeps delivering!

Pffff... I knew the Australia game wasn't going to be easy for the Dutch, but I didn't think it would be such a thriller.
Australia won hearts and minds last night. Incredibly passionate performance and an amazing goal, it's sad to see them go. I would've fancied their chances in some of the other groups.

Compared to the 5pa1n thrashing, sure. But this was a much better indication of the current Dutch standard. They're really not that good and you can expect to see some more struggling when they play Chile on Monday. I'm not so sure they'll be able to cope with them plus Van Persie will be suspended of course. Probably a draw is needed to avoid Brazil in the 2nd round. With Martins Indi out, back to 4-3-3 perhaps? (like they did the 2nd half last night)

Still, 6 out of 6 is an excellent result and it's good to see the team come back from behind to win for the second game in a row... also Cillessen gets to practice his penalty save yet again. Who knows he might actually save one later on, should there be a shoot-out. :rolleyes:

Isco? Morata?



My fantasy score dropped as well, from 116 to 114. Dunno, the score seems to be changing constantly. When can we see each other's teams?

You can easily swap during the round for a player who hasn't already stepped on the pitch, if you're not happy with the points your first-choice captain brought you had he had a bad day.

This I didn't expect; it is disappointing, I think we'll not be allowed to.
Plus we can't see how good a performance in real life is credited for for a player we've left behind.

The solution would be for you to give me your email address and password, and I promise I'll mess it up do the same.

Mine for this round is:
Haghighi (Courtois will be brought in if Haghighi scores less than, say, 7)
Ramos (8), Marcelo (9), Srna (8x2), Manolas
Oscar (low 5), Arroyo, Di Maria - Lulic to replace the lowest-scoring midfielder; De Bruyne might do too
Vargas (10), Osako (Emenike to replace if Osako's too bad, but Emenike, from the reports...), Benzema

End of an era for Spain last night. Thankfully Tika Taka is now probably over, it was effective but my god it was boring to watch after 10 minutes of it. Spain just couldn't play it at the intensity they did 4 years ago when Xavi & Iniesta were in their prime, it's a shame to see Xavi bow out like that, one of the all time great midfielders. I think they missed Puyol at the back too, they needed a real leader like him to pick them up this tournament. Still some questionable decisions by Del Bosque, taking Torres over Negredo and Lorente plus not dropping Casillas who's confidence looks shot. Despite winning the U21 european championships, I think Spain's dominance is over, they aren't going to have players come through who replace Xavi & Iniesta, they are once in a lifetime players. Anyway I thought Chile were great, well disciplined. Alexis Sanchez was incredible as was Vidal. The match with Holland should be great.

Holland vs Australia was one of the best matches so far, great end to end stuff.

ahhhhh… that was it! i actually had ramos. plus someone else lost a point.


haa haa haa


and i still like javi martinez but in a different setup. yesterday he had a poor day as those in front of him were overpowered and he plays better more upfront. here's an intriguing article… well, more of a puff piece, but still:

http://www.bundesliga.com/en/tournam...0000295783.php

worth thinking about or marketing bullshit?


and aránguiz, and díaz, and medel--oh, and bravo! (who is now going to barcelona)

--

i don't think we can say tikitaka is "dead" if by that we mean possession football-- it will simply evolve and adapt. chile itself is an example of it, but with more direct attacks that make them more fun to watch these days. tikitaka is only boring when it lacks teeth-- kick-and-run teams can be very boring too.

i think the problem with spain's latest failures is that they lacked dynamism and del bosque was too fond of some players & schemes, and didn't renew or reform his squad to accommodate new blood. yesterday it made me sad to see his sad grandpa face, but i think this was ultimately his doing.



he's staying till the next euros, supposedly, so we'll see what happens. i am curious to see what he'll do vs. australia--put the geezers in for a final funeral, or put in the whole fresh hungry bench to usher a new era? i seriously hope it's the second.

mexico croatia should also be a fun one!

What is the furthest that an African nation team has gotten in World Cup?

i think cameroon made quarterfinals in 1990? they famously beat argentina that year.

ps- yeah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FI...ce_of_Cameroon

pps- looks like senegal and ghana too

Quarter finals.

Cameroon - 1990 (beating world champions Argentina indeed)
Senegal - 2002 (beating world champions France)
Ghana - 2010 (so close to the semis, Suarez handball on the goalline)

I think that's it, but I may have missed one. I didn't even have to look that up, think I heard it mentioned during one of the recent games.

Why does the USA team play such wimpy ass, shitty passing, soft futbol? I do not know enough about the preparation that goes into futbol teams, especially national teams.
I know that most good teams play so much together and practice so much together that their moves and decisions are nearly second-nature. Is the USA team's problem that it only plays together on weekends or something?

thanks !@#$% and pokeherderrierre

Excellent plan Bertrand. However, for security reasons I will need your full credit card info before I can send you my email address and password. Please PM them to me or post them here in this thread.

Looking forward to Uruguay - England. Both teams needing a win, should make for a great game. Plus it's not in fucking Manaus this time which should also help things. During the last 25-30 minutes of Italy-England you could see the teams succumbing to the heat, especially England because they had to try and equalise while Italy could conserve energy a bit more defending their lead.

hey! passing is an improvement over kick-and-run primitivism! brains over brawn.


i think that's the rule more than the exception--only a few national teams with strong domestic leagues tend to follow the scheme of a central team. germany's core is made up of bayern munich players, and changes in the team now even reflect changes in bayern (e.g. lahm as midfielder) . spain mirrored barcelona during both team's best years. the core of italy is juventus right now. holland during its legendary days built upon ajax-- don't know about these days.

problem with USA as with most national teams is the best players play abroad, and have little time to gel together. e.g. brazil and argentina have some great players, but they all play for different teams, and aren't fully connecting.

i think england suffers the opposite problem-- while most/all of their players are locally employedd, the core of their best teams are foreigners, so again there is no one skeleton team to build upon that i can see. but i'm no england expert so i'll wait for the ingleses to confirm or deny.

but even without a core team, whenever there is a strong link between players, that tends to get exploited. e.g., zonalmarking's article on chile's game mentions how isla and alexis sanchez combined well because they used to play together at udinese (italy):
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2014/06/...age-day-seven/

the rabbit hole goes very deep!

That surprises me. I'd have thought he'd go immediately, not cos I thought he made any outrageous mistakes (mistakes yes but not ones that lacked any kind of logic) but to make it easier to start a new era under someone else. But even with a new manager there'll still be an overlap. I'm sure the mood in Spain will be to start with a completely fresh slate but there are still players, like Busquets and Ramos, who probably still have at least a couple more big tournaments left in them.

Either way, Chile were brilliant.

Right. England.

Rooney likely to play in the centre behind Sturridge = good move
Same back 4 as started against Italy = good move

Predicting a 2-1 win to England

In Roy I trust

Rob, if you're basing your analysis on the one game this far, that is too small of a sample size.. Lets see what happens in the next two games..

The bigger issue with the USMNT and cohesion, this has been a bit of a roster tweak since Jurgen is trying to keep everybody on their toes. Even in practices the line-ups have been shifting around, which is giving even less than usual opportunities "to gell"

Also, Ghana just played fucking great. They shot 21 times to our 8. They were in attack mode. USMNT was put on the defensive, and since for most of the past 20 years we've been a defensive oriented team, you could see guys fall back on their instincts and get less focused (to say it euphemistically) on offense.. The upside is that while Ghana shot the shit out of us, we had 7 shots of our 8 on goal and both teams had 5 saves, so our defense disrupted the quality of their shots which is kind of what USMNT does. Our fall back for at least the past 12 years is stop goals even if its ugly.

In the Gold Cup and WC qualifiers in 2013 the team had a lot more offensive flow and chemistry, lets hope they can get back into that kind of form.

Ivory Coast has a real challenge for them today, they can find out if they're real deal against Colombia..

Rob, if you're basing your analysis on the one game this far, that is too small of a sample size.. Lets see what happens in the next two games..

The bigger issue with the USMNT and cohesion, this has been a bit of a roster tweak since Jurgen is trying to keep everybody on their toes. Even in practices the line-ups have been shifting around, which is giving even less than usual opportunities "to gell"

Also, Ghana just played fucking great. They shot 21 times to our 8. They were in attack mode. USMNT was put on the defensive, and since for most of the past 20 years we've been a defensive oriented team, you could see guys fall back on their instincts and get less focused (to say it euphemistically) on offense.. The upside is that while Ghana shot the shit out of us, we had 7 shots of our 8 on goal and both teams had 5 saves, so our defense disrupted the quality of their shots which is kind of what USMNT does. Our fall back for at least the past 12 years is stop goals even if its ugly.

In the Gold Cup and WC qualifiers in 2013 the team had a lot more offensive flow and chemistry, lets hope they can get back into that kind of form.

Ivory Coast has a real challenge for them today, they can find out if they're real deal against Colombia..

oh man colombia needs a good finisher. teo is not.