You have a point, unless you are at the game.... drinking beer and eating hotdogs. I for one do enjoy going to see a good hockey game, I don't like watching it on the tele tho. Futbal I watch nonstop on the tele and somehow it pulls me in. US Football, is only interesting if you look at it as a human chess match, the players are the pieces and the coach is the one you watch. But since watching chess being played sucks compared to playing chess, it is not top on my list of things to do.

England will get owned

If Germany doesn't pull it and they tie with Ecuador, they will face England. And really, being the home team in a World Cup affects A LOT. They tend to do better than the others and England facing Germany so soon will be bad.

I am rooting for Mexico. Seeing as how things are going, Mexico will face the Netherlands on the Round of 16. So, I don't know.

If Mexico faces Spain it could be a good match. And since Mexico is one of the rising powers in Football and Spain is one of the lowbies in Europe, I don't know

Being half-German and half-British my ultimate dream is to have the World Cup final be England vs Germany. I can't lose then! Edit: Of course this isn't possible this time around, as the longest England will have before facing Germany is the quarter-finals.

I agree that there are a lot of sports that are fun to play (and possibly to watch if you're actually there) but don't work so well as spectator sports. Personally watching basketball on TV bores the crap out of me, but I enjoy playing it. Fortunately that's not really a problem here as nobody really cares about professional basketball in the UK, but many people know how to play and enjoy a good amateur match.

Anyway, it's Sweden next for England, which will be interesting as they are probably the best in the group and England have a history of losing to Sweden, even though they can beat better teams.

That would be a great game to watch. Yea, Spain is considered the lowbies right now, it isn't because their teams suck. It is because they have had such bad luck at the tournies. The best they have gotten was 4th place back in 1950. But this time, I know they will do better... you have to have a little faith. They are on a 23-match unbeaten streak so far... and Aragones seems to be coaching them to victory this time.. We will have to see. So when Spain comes out from woodwork and lays siege to the rest of your pitiful futbal playin countries, I will laugh sadistically and raise my hands to the sky and sing "Ole, ole ole ole, ole, ole."

um, italy vs US we played better than any other team would have with 9 people, I don't wanna hear that we aren't good. Cause we are. We've made more improvements in the last 10 years than almost any other country. America is in the top 10 best teams in the world. No doubt. Even the rankings put us way up there

America bashing is, like soccer, an international pasttime. I watched most of the Brazil-Australia game the other day and it was boring as hell. Almost two hours of guys kicking a ball around on a field and usually ending in a 0-0 or 0-1 score. Exciting! Like football, soccer's main attractions are getting drunk, acting like an idiot, and acting superior to people from other geographical locations (though on a more global scale), not the game itself.

America's team is good because it has one of the largest populations of any of the countries. Consider that the UK has 6 million people to America's 279 million. It only makes sense that some of the Americans will be good at soccer.

Is China best at football? Don't think so.

exactly. That only has to do with a very small part-if you can even count it. Although, that does factor in sometimes. Like in high school football-bigger schools have bigger teams because they can afford to cut people that are mediocre because they have so many to choose from and the fact that their larger student body allows for more expensive equipment etc etc. I don't know how much of that would transfer over to a national scale though

...go Australia?

Hell we were celebrating when we lost against Brazil. "We lost, but only by two points and we played pretty well! Woo!"

I don't really follow sport. I like to watch swimming and diving and gymnastics for fairly obvious reasons though.

Did you see those things called "oliampics" two years ago in that city?

America is going to get owned. This thursday, we play Ghana, while Italy faces off against Czech. For us to advance, we need Italy to beat Czech, and then we have to beat ghana. If Italy doesn't beat czech, we need to beat Ghana by like 4 goals in order to advance.

Oh, and if we do miraculously pull this off? Yay, first match of the second round, we play the winner of group F. Who might that be? Oh, just Brazil.


Yay for being screwed from the start. My money's on Brazil, though I'm kinda liking the netherlands.

Just got back from Germany and saw USA vs. Czech Republic and USA vs. Italy. So obviously I'm rooting for USA.

Realistically, if the US plays like they did against Italy, we do have a decent shot at beating Ghana (I'd also like to vouch that our small corner of fans out-sang the Italians who seemed to fill the majority of the stadium in Kaiserslautern, and I like to think that really helped the team out ), and I'm hoping that the Czechs are a bit demoralized after their loss to Ghana and the injuries on their team and such. But unfortunately the USA will almost certainly be smooshed by Brazil, but at least advancing would be nice.

If USA is knocked out, I'm going to be rooting for Germany or Argentina, they both look nice to me. I don't think Brazil has it in them to win again.

I'd also like to inform everyone that half of the fun of being at the games is the fact you could make a crapload of money collecting plastic cups from beer, while getting free beer. Beer cost 4 euros, and if you return the plastic cup you get 1 euro back, so at the end of the games you can collect cups, or you can just grab four random cups and get a free beer. I know one person who made 70 euro, while my sister and I made about 20 . But the games are definitely more intense if you're there, and I'm really upset we sold our US vs. Ghana tickets.

You SOLD YOUR TICKETS?!!?!?!?!?


You're right about the actually being there part, some of my best memories were seeing some of the Arsenal games at highbury. There's nothing in this world to recreate the experience.

And you sold your tickets?!?! Pardon me while I go hurt something....


My cousin apparently is flying to Germany on like, July 8th. He has tickets for the finals. I hate him.

I went to two of the games. I couldn't afford to stay the extra four or five days I would have needed to in order to go to the Ghana game. I only had tickets to the first three matches though. Unfortunately as a college student I'm rather poor

Trust me, I'm about 20 times as upset as you are. I'm a huge soccer fan, I've played soccer all my life and absolutely love it.

Football makes a better spectator sport than anything else I've seen. It's complex, it's interesting on different levels (Strategically, tactically, and on the level of individual player skill) it's acrobatic, it's frustrating, and it generates a huge sense of accomplishment because it's a true team sport - a goal involves at least two people nearly all the time, and usually three or four people are responsible. The variety avaliable is immense, which is why is doesn't get boring.

Oh, and yes, pity the USA have to catch Brazil in the second phase and get creamed. I just hope Brazil starts to play better; we have a history of starting out slow and getting better as the competition goes on, so I wouldn't say we can't take on stronger teams later on.

I definitely agree. The main excuse I hear from people is that soccer isn't high scoring enough. Which I think is just a cop out, they just can't handle the intensity . I mean, in american football you get 6 points for a touchdown, and you stop every 2 minutes for long breaks. I bet if they started making soccer goals worth 5 points people would be more interested xD.

Or else you're like my sister who gets pissed at how much people fake injuries, but speaking from experience it really does hurt when your body flips over someone elses or you smack full charge into another person. In my co-ed intramural league this year I ran smack into a guy and nearly got the wind knocked out of me. Ouchies.

Being low-scoring is a Good Thing. It means that you can never be further ahead of your adversary than two points, tops, on nearly all games; that means that you're always on your toes and the game is intense and interesting all the way through. You can't just get a winning advantage and sit on it for the rest of the game. Football games can't be won midway through; you have to play, and play well, to the bitter end. Just today Sweden tied a game eight minutes before it ended, and eight minutes was plenty, in fact, for England to win back as it had a couple chances of scoring during that time that they sadly missed (Very nice match, by the way - England definitely deserves to go far in this cup.)

Just a thought on Brazil

They don't deserve to win.

They have not shown anything but a team that plays half -assed and wins soley for their "name". They thrust that the name of Ronaldinho and Kaka will affect the other team.

Brazil doesn't have a team, they have Ronaldo-Ronaldinho-Kaka and co.


That is all

Amen.