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World Cup 2014
Bunks
Australia Veteran
Only two weeks to go......starting to get excited!
Who are people following? Who do you think will win it? Where will you be watching it?
I will obviously be following Australia however I would be surprised if we even get a draw in our group let alone a win (up against Spain, Chile and Netherlands).
Most the games are on overnight here so I'll just watch them at home.
2
Comments
Ghana!!!!! ..
..
If there’s any justice in world soccer, Ghana will win the 2014 World Cup.
That’s a bold claim for a team that made it to the quarterfinals for the first time ever in 2010. But it’s tough not to love Ghana, a team with great players and a talented homegrown coach. Unfortunately, they also have a whole lot of bad luck.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_spot/2014/05/27/ghana_2014_if_there_were_justice_in_international_soccer_the_black_stars.html
Black Stars in my house!!!
Awesome! I worked with a guy from Ghana many years ago in Denver. He was a lovely man!
On behalf of him and you I'll keep an eye on their progress too.
Tough group though - Germany, Portugal and the USA!
Socceroos all the way baby. Though I must confess to sharing your thoughts on our progress. But if the Blues winning the first game of Origin last night is an omen:
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE - OI OI OI! /end bogan mode.
Ahem... We knocked USA out in 2010, no? ..
..
Tough yes...we're ranked 21..hahaha..but I'm ride or die!
Here is the match schedule ....
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/
Here's my predictions/who I'm rooting for by group:
Second Round
A1
Brazil
B2
Netherlands
C1
Ivory Coast
D2
England
Quarterfinals
A1
Brazil
D2
England
Second Round
E1
France
F2
Bosnia-Herzegovina
G1
Germany
H2
Belgium
Quarterfinals
E1
France
G1
Germany
Second Round
B1
Spain
A2
Mexico
D1
Italy
C2
Greece
Quarterfinals
B1
Spain
D1
Italy
Second Round
F1
Argentina
E2
Honduras
H1
South Korea
G2
Ghana
Quarterfinals
F1
Argentina
H1
South Korea
Semifinals
A1
Brazil
G1
Germany
B1
Spain
F1
Argentina
Final
A1
Brazil
B1
Spain
WORLD CUP CHAMPION
Brazil
Very thorough @Jason!
I can't say I'm a soccer fan, but I hope everyone who is watching enjoys the show! I'm more of a hockey fan but my team was eliminated in the second round of the playoffs. I have no idea bout any of the teams, but in those situations, I always cheer for the underdog. So whoever they are I hope they win, lol.
Do you mean ice hockey @karasti? I went to a couple of games live when I lived in Denver. Great sport!
Gooooooooooaaaaaaaaalllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slashing my wrists now would be counter-productive.
I aim to time it the second my husband's team is about to score their first goal, then stand in front of the screen and do it with a majestic and defiant flourish.
I LOATHE football.
I will maintain my tragic and valiant support for the land that birthed me..knowing that Mr Disappointment and Madam Despair await in the wings at every stage.
I have after all only now recovered from Liverpool's failure to win the league..
Even my wife was cheering for them and she's from Manchester...
So I have back up plan...once England shuffle back up to the airport heads hung low..
( Just one request lads..no penalty shootouts. Score a blatant own goal in extra time rather than that.)
Spain ! I will even learn to love Ronaldo..
For my emotional protection I’ll keep up a relativistic attitude, but my heart will be with the Orange team.
It doesn’t look like we will be in the tournament for long.
We are in a difficult group with Spain and Chile. We must beat Australia, but they’ll surely fight for it and our defense is (traditionally) vulnerable.
Should we end second in the group - which would be a very good result - we will probably meet Brazil. We knocked them out in 2010, but I don’t think we have much of a chance of repeating that stunt in Brazil.
After watching the report on this month's Real Sports (HBO), I can't get too excited about the World Cup. Seems like an awful waste of money in a country already in the grip of crushing poverty.
She's from MN. If she says "hockey", you can be certain she means ICE hockey.
At least you are passionate about it.
Bill Shankley.
@Bunks ice hockey, yes. Initially when I read your post I was thinking "Are there other types of hockey??" Then I recalled playing floor hockey in gym class and remembered there is field hockey, too.
Yes. Field hockey is quite popular here.
Ice hockey is virtually unheard of.
I'm just going to SUPPORT England; it's always good to be disappointed from the outset; THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER after all....
There is unfortunately, not such good news for the poor street children of Brazil. I shall say no more, save that it's a tragic and horrific indictment of a nation that is hosting a game which should be a symbol of sportsmanship and fair play...
It's not that kind of a symbol in this country either, but 'enough said; wouldn't want to spoil the game for everyone!
I think if the players going over there knew what was going on, they might even boycott the whole event....
(
As a long term sports heretic, I find the potential diversion of capital from the truly needy to our tribal expressions of one up man ship (sporting events), to be one of the sadder expressions of the human condition.
Same with the Olympics. As much as I love soccer, it's hard to get excited about the way organizers, promoters, and politicians turn these kinds of events into giant money-making machines for private companies while sucking public money away from social programs and displacing local inhabitants. Part of me is excited about the World Cup, and part of me is rooting for the protesters to shut it down.
Ok, I'm sorry I broached the topic, but this actually made me cry.
@ Jason
Someone just emailed me today speaking of a report about the record number of cities who had applied to host upcoming Olympic who are now withdrawing their applications.
Perhaps this tide of Olympic idiocy is turning.
It would not do their contractual obligations much good - but be great to see someone make a stand eh!
At least they don't have Sharia law in Brazil - just plain good old fashioned corruption and abuse. I don't thin k they could get away with stoning someone to death outside a courthouse for 40 minutes in front of the police because the family didn't give permission for a girl to marry the person she loved...
Anyway back to worldwide injustices...
I am with you @Jason!
I love the "soccer" World Cup (no interest in the Olympics) and I am really looking forward to watching it. On the other hand, it is sad to think about all the people who may suffer due to money being taken away from public services.
Bittersweet probably best describes it.
I would call shooting 10-year-old children and murdering them in cold blood, a little more than 'corruption and abuse'....
Myself....
Point made - there is always something to turn your stomach if you look hard enough!
I don't know how they couldn't. The story has been in the American press for months and we're not what you'd call a big soccer/football country.
I suspect that money and national pride speaks louder than the needs and abuse of the poor.
I know Rome (2020) and Krakow(2024) withdrew.
This is a Good Thing. The whole Olympic thing, hell, big-time sports in general has gotten completely out of hand. Hosting the Olympics in 2004 is credited for playing a role in turning Greece's economy into a train wreck.
Minneapolis is building a new stadium for a football team that's never won a Super Bowl. 975 million dollars, most of it at taxpayer expense. They even get a Super Bowl played there. Think of what Minnesota could do with half a billion dollars besides build a stadium. Fix roads and bridges for one. Feed the poor. Reduce tuition at U of M.
The money we spend on sports is obscene.
What in the world does Sharia have to do with anything regarding the World Cup in Brazil, hmmmm?
We're dealling with a state that's rapidly descending into police-state fascism. A state where they're spending billions on stadiums and other infrastructure that will be completely abandoned within two years, while the people are among the poorest in the world and will remain so. When they speak out against that injustice, they're killed.
And we applaud this tournament.
People are starving and being murdered for our entertainment.
Perhaps newbuddhist.com isn't the best place to start a football thread
Not that I have any control over where a thread goes of course......
newbuddhist.com is the perfect place to start a football thread. It demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that we are all more aware than most of just what it all really means, and are not shy about talking about it, and bringing it into the open.
Power corrupts. Absolute power - and indecently massive amounts of mis-spent money - corrupts absolutely.
I can understand when people see no meaning in big sports-events. Kicking a ball, running in circles, hitting a ball over a net; it’s all nonsense.
If that’s the way you want to look at it; every dollar spend on sports-events is wasted.
But then life is full of futilities, not just sports. Money is thrown away for no good reason every day on a huge scale.
Why do people spend money on electronic gadgets for instance? What is wrong with last year’s smart-phone that urges people to buy this year’s version?
There could be at least ten threads about money we throw away on: fashion, unhealthy food, eating meat, the arms-industry, the film-industry, travelling, keeping pets, keeping politicians, the annual fireworks or cosmetic surgery.
If all this money would instead be spend wisely on basic needs and useful things, we would live in a properly organized and sane world.
The problem is bigger than just organizing the tournament or not.
The World Championship of football is only one expression of human madness.
Anyone mind if I drag the topic back to the OP ?
I am as patriotic as the next person, but I think England will have done very well if we make the Quarters.
I suspect that Hodgson, nice and avuncular as he is, will prove to be another blunder by the F.A.
I suspect that they will go a long way...semis at least.
My ideal Final would be Spain- Ghana.
Heresy though it is, I don't care for Brazilian football. .. ( yes, I know. )
A man takes his seat at the World Cup Final. He looks to his left and notices that there is a spare seat between himself and the next guy.
The man: “Who would ever miss the World Cup final?”
The guy: “That was my wife’s seat. We have been to the last five World Cup finals together, but sadly she passed away.”
The man: “That’s terrible, but couldn’t you get another member of the family, friend, or someone else to come with you?”
The guy: “No…they are all at the funeral!”
Hours after the end of the world, a border dispute emerged between heaven and hell. God invited the devil for conversations to find a way to resolve this dispute quickly. Satan, the devil, proposed a soccer game between heaven and hell.
God, always fair, told the devil, "The heat must be affecting your brain, the game would be so one sided, don't you know all the 'good' players go to heaven?"
The devil, smiling, responded "Yeah, but we've got all the refs'..."
That - would definitely be my husband.
I'm mildly encouraged by England's win over Peru in the warm- ups.
Not so much because it was a win..but by the manner of it.
Sturridge's goal was a cracker.
I remember learning hockey at school. I think the second thing I learnt is to make smacking someone on the ankle with the stick look like an accident.
The first thing I learnt is that getting smacked on the ankle bloody hurts!
...
Namaste all,
I am proudly wearing my Socceroos scarf today. I share @federica 's views on the treatment of the Brazilian street kids and I find myself torn between wanting to support my country and yet knowing my country are playing in a country that routinely rounds up both street kids and stray animals and executes them. How can the world NOT protest this?
...
In metta,
Raven xx
I played hockey once, at Boarding school - as Centre.
Ground, stick, ground, stick, ground, stick - tackle!
WHAM!! The ball shot up perpendicularly and smacked me right in the eye. I had a shiner Mike Tyson would have been proud of, for a week.
Another time - it was November, not a bad day, past the low-lying fog, but bitterly, bitterly cold.... and we were all standing on the field, waiting for our PE Mistress to join us, shivering like crazy, in our stupid, short-skirt PE kits, with our stupid nylon socks pulled up as far as they would go, and our stupid shin-pads cutting into our stupid pink-and-blue legs, and our stupid hockey sticks held by completely stupid numb-frozen hands....
and still we waited... and waited... and eventually, 20 minutes into the lesson (it was a DOUBLE lesson (2 x 40 minutes) I traipsed all the way back into the school, (The field was in the school's own grounds, which were vast, and thus, about a good 5-minute walk from the field periphery to the outer path of the extension/ assembly hall...) and I made my way to the staff room to see whether the PE Mistress was there.
She was.
Sitting in one chair, with her feet up on another, clutching a cup of coffee, and chatting away merrily to another member of staff.
"Yes?"
"Just wondered where you were, madam....." (Yes, had to call them 'madam' and 'Sir' then....)
"Well I'm here...!"
"Well....The other girls sent me to find you...."
"Well, now you've found me, go back outside and wait!"
I went back outside, reported what had happened - and every single girl began walking off the pitch. We met her half-way back to the school building.
Detention meant a lot back then, in boarding school.
Whole class.
One hour.
Needless to say, we didn't get her a Christmas card let alone a present that year....
Footballers are sissies and real men play rugby.
It was once said that:
Rugby is a sport played by thugs, and appreciated by gentlemen,
while football was a sport played by gentlemen, and appreciated by thugs.
I think the defining line is much thinner, if not more vague, now...
Rugby is just sumo wrestling with a ball chucked in......yawn.
I played Rugby at at school..we were a Rugby school. ( but not The Rugby School
I enjoyed playing it..but I do not enjoy watching it...
Give me " The Beautiful Game " every time.
We lost our friendly to the Netherlands the other day AND got an injury. Oh well..