Who's ready for the World Cup?

[TheRiddick]

Funny that now commentators are paying attention to Messi not showing much at WC. What about Torres? Complete zero as well.

McNanaman could not even pronounce players' names properly, how does one get a job like that? Sign me up, I am ready. Someone should point out to him that Viera plays for ManCity, Vera does not. And it is Ee-ker Cassilas, not Ay-ker. So, bad on rules, bad with names...

I hope remaining games get good refs, this WC is getting stupider by the day.

Originally Posted by TheRiddick

Funny that now commentators are paying attention to Messi not showing much at WC. What about Torres? Complete zero as well.

Torres has been no good but he had knee surgery a couple of months ago and clearly isn't his normal self. I'm not even sure why Del Bosque is starting him. There were a couple of times today when Iniesta and Xavi put the ball through and I expected Torres to get onto it but he just wasn't quick enough.

He's definitely not playing the way he plays for Liverpool.

[Pass]

Originally Posted by kazzaca

Torres has been no good but he had knee surgery a couple of months ago and clearly isn't his normal self. I'm not even sure why Del Bosque is starting him. There were a couple of times today when Iniesta and Xavi put the ball through and I expected Torres to get onto it but he just wasn't quick enough.

He's definitely not playing the way he plays for Liverpool.

He's definitely uncharacteristically flat this tournament. Why he's starting I have no idea... But what I do know is that if they keep playing the way that they have thus far, Germany will make short work of them -- if Germany continues rolling the way they have.

edit: PS: If by some fluke Spain does beat Germany, this will officially be the most garbage final that I've witnessed.

[TheRiddick]

Originally Posted by kazzaca

Torres has been no good but he had knee surgery a couple of months ago and clearly isn't his normal self. I'm not even sure why Del Bosque is starting him. There were a couple of times today when Iniesta and Xavi put the ball through and I expected Torres to get onto it but he just wasn't quick enough.

He's definitely not playing the way he plays for Liverpool.

Remind me, please, didn't Rooney fight with ankle injury for the last 2 months? Just saying...

[Pass]

Originally Posted by TheRiddick

Remind me, please, didn't Rooney fight with ankle injury for the last 2 months? Just saying...

Yup... But the key difference between Rooney and Torres is that Rooney went home early.

You better bet that the whole of the Argentinian squad is going home to some seriously bad press. Especially Messi and Maradona. Spain will too... but it won't be as bad b/c the DID make it to the Semis.

Rooney's getting bashed b/c England went home early. Press forgive star athletes so long as the team is winning. But when they aren't... The stars usually take all of the blame.

[TheRiddick]

Originally Posted by Pass

Yup... But the key difference between Rooney and Torres is that Rooney went home early.

You better bet that the whole of the Argentinian squad is going home to some seriously bad press. Especially Messi and Maradona. Spain will too... but it won't be as bad b/c the DID make it to the Semis.

Rooney's getting bashed b/c England went home early. Press forgive star athletes so long as the team is winning. But when they aren't... The stars usually take all of the blame.

Look at the stats. Messi played just one more game, but took almost twice as many shots as Rooney (through WC). What someone needs to track is how many times Rooney, Messi and Torres (and others as well) actually had the ball, I suspect that Rooney's number will be way, way lower than others' due to the "wonderful" service provided by the Gerrard/Lampard/Barry "support girls". Gerrard and Lampard never could play together, I now hope Chelsea buy Gerrard so we have one less team to worry about in the future. And it looks like Barry's days playing at ManCity are also done with the latest buys, he will get well acquainted with the plank next season... That is, if he even makes the bench...

Both Messi and Torres had plenty of support and saw the ball plenty a time and yet both fell flat. Hell, Torres could not even pass.

I suspect there will be a run on Paraguay players after WC. They made Roque Santa Cruz irrelevant. Defenders, in particular, were very collected and unperturbed on the ball what with vaunted Spanish mids running around.

Originally Posted by TheRiddick

Remind me, please, didn't Rooney fight with ankle injury for the last 2 months? Just saying...

Totally...and he was just as garbage as Torres has been. The difference is that Torres has enough quality around him that it hasn't mattered for Spain.

[landhoney]

The Netherlands almost have this wrapped up!

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by TheRiddick

I hope remaining games get good refs, this WC is getting stupider by the day.

I doubt it. The point of this World Cup is now to highlight both how much work FIFA needs to do in terms of improving the caliber of its refs and just how badly the adoption of technology to aid the refs in making the correct call is required. FIFA continues to make the "premiere" sport in the world more and more of a joke and spectacle of ridicule. Hopefully this World Cup will be enough to convince the member nations to stand up and force FIFA to pull its head out of its arse long enough to try and put some credibility back into the game. If not, soccer is just going to go into further decline.

[TheRiddick]

Originally Posted by mithrilG60

I doubt it. The point of this World Cup is now to highlight both how much work FIFA needs to do in terms of improving the caliber of its refs and just how badly the adoption of technology to aid the refs in making the correct call is required. FIFA continues to make the "premiere" sport in the world more and more of a joke and spectacle of ridicule. Hopefully this World Cup will be enough to convince the member nations to stand up and force FIFA to pull its head out of its arse long enough to try and put some credibility back into the game. If not, soccer is just going to go into further decline.

Although most of us want and expect improvements I am not sure we're on that road just yet.

Take today's Spain game, for example. Some replays were forbidden from being shown, this is how Blatter plans to "improve" things in the future and we had our first glimpse. Blatter resisted technology/extra refs for some time now, he will simply wait for things to calm down and carry on as before. Only because he stated a few days that the sport needs improvements in regard to officiating doesn't mean he will actually do something. "Masking" bad calls, as they did today, is Blatter's way of "improving" things.

Besides technology, they need to ban any and all refs from Third World leagues, but there is a fat chance of that since these leagues are the only reason Blatter has been elected time and again. He is not going to cut his own throat...