i think you meant bandido

Mmm, nice! :D

everything for everybody, nothing for ourselves

guerilla

magilla

but who is paul the psychic octopus gonna choose for the final?

That's brilliant. :D

^Enough said!

wow!! awesome!

Toni's pictures are fun (and the party seems to carry on in Rob's signature)...

The third place is quite interesting. Sometimes, a team is so torn that its main players are not even fielded (France, 1982, as if Schumacher's hip had fractured everyone's jaws).
The other team might want to reach the third place (France, 1986) to leave on a glimpse of hope.

And remember, some team might want to leave with a consolation price: best scorer (Croatia tried to do that for Davor Suker in 1998, but I'm too lazy and not so fond of the player to check if the goal was reached).
Perhaps that could be that, with Forlan, who' won't play another cup. And for Germany, you have Klose, who's 1 goal short of reaching Ronaldo's record of 15 goals during his world cups.

Noone's ever gonna beat Just Fontaine's record of 13 in just one world cup.

Howie Webb is gonna be the ref, that's great, I like him. One of his assistants slightly screwed up during the European cup and he was sent home too early (I saw a documentary about the referees, the Italian being happy with his team elimination and the Spanish - who had been great - almost deflated to see Spain reach the final, when they never could achieve that... this last referee in the documentary was shown leaving, just like that Mexican(?) boxer who pissed blood, in John Huston's Fat City)(I know Huston shot a movie about, erm, football, but it was crap - Stallone a goalkeeper)(films about football usually cast a guy who's a disaster with a ball - Patrick Dewaere, grrrrrrrrreat actor, for instance, in Coup de tête).

Well, Webb then.

Paul the physic octopus chose Spain. has he ever been wrong?

no, not once during this this Cup..

I'll certainly be rooting for Uruguay and I expect a good game because Forlan still has an outside shot at the boot and as mentioned Klose is chasing history aka Ranaldo. Germany has a quite a few young players who certainly don't want to leave with the taste of that defeat in their hearts and minds and you know Uruguay is not going to lay down for anyone

what is the schedule? is the 3rd place match saturday and the final sunday?

Yeah, it's saturday, and Chicka has a good point about Klose and Forlan chasing the golden boot, etc. I'll also be supporting Uruguay. I'd like to see Forlan get the third place medal if only because I suspect this'll be his last World Cup and he's definitely been one of my favourite players during this one. A case of 'come on Uruguay, do it for Diego'. Although I'm also biologically incapable of supporting Germany against anyone - except Italy (I just think I'd ignore that match altogether).

as much as I don't like Alemania, I can't forget what Uruguay did to Ghana, and while I also enjoy Forlan and Saurez playing, and I was rooting solidly for Uruguay since their first match in the group stage, I can't possibly root for them anymore, and Alemania gets my vote. Shit, the chicano activist in me was straight dissing the shit out of Espania (when they played chile) but in the end, I found it almost natural to root for them against Alemania, a team I like less then Espania..

The problem with National teams is that its very very hard to separate the cultural/political/social baggage from the athletics. Is Espania a great team? Yes. Is Espania a great country? Fuck no, and there is MAAADD bad blood.

Now with Alemania I got a similar but opposite vibe, in fact is simply because of their outstanding world cup history that I have to support an underdog team like Netherlands or even Espania over them (while both are World class teams neither have a Cup under they belt)

I am rooting for the Netherlands and for Alemania in third (as much as they don't deserve it, Uruguay forfeited all my raspect)

Eh?
Don't think Holland are gonna park the bus vs Spain. That's only worked for Switzerland so far and it's not their style.

Sure, Spain may have the better players and the passing they showed vs Germany was absolutely phenomenal (half their team plays together on a daily basis at Barcelona), but for all their skills and talent they've been hardly effective, scoring barely 7 goals in 6 games. If Spain win by scoring less than 4 goals on Sunday, they'll be the lowest scoring World Cup winner of all time. Brazil won it with 11 in 1994.

They'll need to be more effective than they were Wednesday because I doubt they'll get the same amount of chances. I think Germany (whom I have to give much credit for their impressive style of playing this tournament!), being a young and fairly inexperienced side, were showing way too much respect for Spain.

The ball posession stats said Germany 39% vs Spain 61%. I guarantee you that Holland won't let them see as much of the ball. And yes, that does mean they will get physical if needed. Van Bommel and De Jong certainly won't have their eyes on the popularity prize. Question is whether they'll get booked in the 10th minute or the 80th minute and what the score will be at that time. I think the main battle will be about who controls midfield. Sneijder or Xavi?

Don't get me wrong, I think Spain clearly should be considered favourites, but I'm fairly sure that Holland will score, like they've done in each and every game. The question is whether Spain can profit from Holland sitting less deep than their earlier opponents or not and can score more than 1 this time.

Personally of course I hope that Holland can finally excorcise the demons of '74 and '78 and everyone's favourite player Mark van Bommel will be lifting the cup in the end, which isn't called the Jules Rimet cup anymore ever since Brazil got to keep that one after winning it a 3rd time in 1970. It got stolen later and has never been recovered.

Heh, that's from the Euro 2008 final, but hilarious all the same.

Besides not being Holland's style, it'd be sure to work against them. That would be when Spain really could just take over possession almost entirely. And I'm still not convinced that Holland has strength enough at the back to soak up that kind of pressure. The Spanish have a stronger defence but I'd say Holland has the stronger forward line - if Villa gets marked out of the game, Puyol's head aside, Spain's strike threat is largely eliminated (while we know Holland are capable of scoring from all over). And Spain still has that problem regarding what to do about Torres.


I don't think the players necessarily were but I do think the way Loew had them playing maybe did. Although he was clearly also trying to deal with the absence of Muller.


I think that particular battle, between Sneijder and Xavi, could go either way (although right now I'd have to favour Sneijder). It becomes more difficult for Holland though, I think, when comparing the quality elsewhere in both team's midfields, and in that respect I think Holland may have real problems dominating it overall - especially as I fully expect Van Bommel to get booked pretty early on.

Spain do, as you say, have to be considered favourites, but I'd be surprised if there's more than a goal between them at the end. And penalties - which I wouldn't be at all surprised if it goes to - is obviously just a 50/50. During normal and possibly extra-time, though, i'd put Spain as no more than 55/45 favourites.