Slashdot Mirror
World Cup Final
The World Cup final is over; some ludicrous number of people watched some team beat the other team. The next tournament will be held in Germany in 2006. If you haven't watched the game for whatever reason, obviously you might want to avoid clicking through (or reading any other news site, or talking to anyone...). Neither of those two links should be a spoiler, though.
And for those that did click through, the final standings are up, as are lots and lots of reports about the game.
that game rocked
Brazil won 2-0
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
A bunch of grown ups hugging and kissing every time someone kicks the leather into the goal? Id rather have hot grits in my pants than too se that. Besides, until theres an engine in the ball its no real sport. Real sports says wrooom!
HTTP/1.1 400
Some amazing saves by the Brazillian keeper.
But what was up with those announcers???
Their analogies made absolutely no sense. I think that I would have understood more if I had watched the game on Univision (and I don't speak Spanish)
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Did they take part in the cup ? Haven't heard about them at all
The Germans played pretty well too...
So much to do, so little bandwidth.
--
Try Mozilla
Great game! Ronaldo's double gave him 8 for this world cup, securing the golden boot, and 12 lifetime, tying Pele for most goals by a Brazilian in the final. Amazing to see Brasil win it after all the trouble they had in qualifying, using 4 coaches and 70+ players!
Interestingly enough, Brasil will have to re-qualify for the next world cup since from now on the champion doesn't automatically get in. Germany does not have to qualify because they're hosting it.
Whoo!@
-hero.
As a Brazilian geek, I had to check Slashdot after the game.
Penta!
t'nera semordnilap
were sleeping until those in cars decided to "celebrate" by honking their horns at 6:30 friggin AM on a Sunday morning! What the hell is wrong with people. I don't want to be reading Slashdot this early!
If you get your Fish & Chips wrapped in newspaper, be careful there too.
So much to do, so little bandwidth.
--
Try Mozilla
and things can get back to normal. For someone who's not interested in football - the last few weeks of having it right, left & centre (especially here in England) has been annoying to say the least.
Video Game cheats, hints a
Shame to see the Krauts go 2-0 down, but the Brazilians were just brilliant . time for lunch
Many Germany player were wearing a t-shirt, after the game, saying:
"See you in Germany 2006". It was kind of cool.
Brazil plays a great football, good game!
Will be have live broadcast in 2006? The time sounds right, after all, the bandwidth is getting
cheaper and cheaper.
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
Brazil by far the best team in the world at the moment will have to qualify for the next world cup in Germany 2006 where as runners-up Germany get a free ticket as hosts, oh the irony!
;)
The world cup was a fantastic success, it's great to see a competition where the world champions actually have to play teams outside of their own country unlike the superbowl or so called 'world series'
Ronadlo erased the memories of the last world cup where he was unable to play thanks to an unwelcome fit. Teamwork won them their cup though.
About the champion being needing to qualify, i think thats good, since you see what happened to France..coming to the world cup having qualified and played as a team helps them in their campaign rather than come in from a dozen different clubs and expect to bulldoze the opposition.
.sig
Teamwork rules
I would like to thank all the teams that played in the world cup for all the joy and happiness they created in the whole world. Sports maybe can't make a better world but it can bring happiness to people all around the globe.
For me personally the joy I shared with my friends when Anders Svensson scored that amazing goal against Argentina will be with me for the rest of my life.
Now we just have to wait four years until the next world cup, it will be a long wait!
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
It was a great game. Brazil won it for a record 5th time, and to think they actually had problems qualifying for it. This World Cup also saw a couple of countries not known for their football catching up with the other traditional football countries, like Senegal, Turkey, Korea, and USA. All in all, this World Cup will be best remembered as a World Cup of upsets. Who would have thought that the defending champion, France, got kicked out during the first round, without having a single point, without scoring a single goal? It will also be remembered as a World Cup of controversies. Korea's path to the semi finals were filled with dubious referee decisions, so much so that one of the referee who was officiating the match between Italy and Korea, which the Koreans won eventually, was rumoured to be a target of the Italian mafia. Looking forward to World Cup 2006 in Germany!
In talking with friends around the country, it sounds like I'm not the only one who got up at 6:30 AM to find out that the local ABC station was not covering the World Cup final.
Why the fuck would a station rather schedule informercials instead of the World Cup final?? The most watched event on TV in the world and Americans are shown an easier way to roast chickens.
Luckily I'm in Michigan and have CBC available, or else I would have been watching it en espanol on Univision.
Was there anyone else here who didn't have ABC/ESPN coverage?
ÕÕ
The CBC carried the semi-finals and finals live, and aired a number of games on tape delay. They also used the BBC audio feed, which provided probably the best English language commentary.
However, I'm told that FIFA was asking for an enormous amount of money for the rights to broadcast games ... CBC nearly didn't carry it, but they worked out some sort of deal. Maybe ABC thought it was too much to pay for a 6 AM broadcast ...
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
This is not a sports-oriented news site. (Arguably, this may not even be considered a news site...) This is supposed to be about science and computers and geeky stuff like that there.
Now if somehow the players were wearing some cool electronic gear like World-ID-ear-tags-traceable-via-satelite then yeah, that's news for nerds. But c'mon!!!
And the distasteful way michael commented on world-cup in general? VERY U.S.American. I'm in Texas but even I tend to realize that the U.S. isn't the center of the world... (though I still believe everyone wants to be in or like the U.S. hehe) I'm not so arrogant as all that though.
I hope we don't have superbowl announcements, or before long we'll have periodic postings about the WWE... then what? Comments on the latest Jerry Springer show? (For those outside of the U.S., I have no idea if you know what that show is about, but I can recommend it as a model for U.S. Culture.)
They changed the rules.
tlhf
xxx
Accidentally seeing some match with brasilians, I saw, that they apparently don't have last names. Every team from other countries have players with First Name and Last Name, but not Brasil. Why?
:wq
Did you see the t-shirts? :-)
:-)
Great to see several Brazilian players (and the entire team, if that enormous circle was a prayer circle, which it seemed to be) giving credit where it's due for their talents and gifts
Gerv
How about the other part of the site's title? "Stuff That Matters", just because it's not geeky doesn't mean there's no interest on this site, and therefore matters to readers.
Good grief, it's the single biggest sports event in the world.
News alert: Some geeks like sport.
That doesn't mean I'm any good at sport though...
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
.. spoiled by very bad referee decisions in the quarter final and semi final leading to the expulsion of Italy and Spain for a worse side (South Korea).
Nice to see new nations doing great in the World Cup final. Traditionally, it has been a contest between Europe, Argentina and Brazil, while this World Cup has seen Asia and even the US do well, while Africa dissappointed a little, except for Senegal.
This is NOT the best World Cup quality wise though. The standards were imho way better in France 1998 and possibly even USA 1994. The reason might be that the big european stars, or other stars playing in big european clubs looked pretty jaded in this World Cup, possible due to ever increasing amount of highly competitive games in Europe for the best teams, pretty close to the world cup (for instance Champions League).
If you go further back you may need to take into account that the tempo has increased considerably and defensive organization become way better, giving less goals. This is actually a sign of quality, the best leagues almost always have less goals than the poorer ones. This would mean that people might remember more chances and more exciting games, even though the teams would most probably loose against modern teams. Confusing eh?
I can't believe the Germans beat us. The US had a much better game than the team
I have seen malperforming today. I can't believe I woke up for this pitiful game. Ireland,
Korea, Turkey and Croatia had a better game than Germany.
The Germans were playing with high balls, the guy with jersey number 7 was their best, as
he had the best control over air balls (have you seen how he played, IIRC Roberto Carlos?)
That was the only guy who new how to control Germany's playing style of choice, "Volley ball".
Ronaldo had two goals cooked for him. Two goalie spit the ball, after Rivaldo tried to force
feed him, and our favorite "celeb" was there to finish it. He put more effort into the second
goal, but still it was too easy for him.
There was a surprise kid on the Brazillian side (the guys with the braces, who hit the pole) he
is a rookie but had the balls to go for a long shot. I guess he had coach's OK. Watch out for this
guy, he is the next Romaria, and Ronaldo.
What else? yeah, Juninho came in late, but sparked a fucking quick attack. The fastest I have seen
in a long time.
The Germans were keen on long shots and high balls, I guess this is an "strategy" against the
famous Brazillian 1-2 and groand balls, but to be honest, it was quite a bad strategy.
Last but not least, the german Coach (who was a great player btw, along side Mueller and Klinsman)
had the nerve to bring an obesse man to the field. Yes, the black player was a FAT ASS, he couldn't
run. He was supposed to mark Ronaldo, but he let him score the second goal.
It was a Brazillian game in every way, they beat the Germans so easily that the crowd started
celebrating 15 minutes before the end of the game. Kahn was great against the little boys, but
litterally fell on his face when challenged by the world's well deserved soccer giants. I would
hate to be the man to face an attack backed by Cafu and Roberto Carlos, and carried out by Rivaldo,
Ronaldinho and Ronaldo.
Their names are quite long like: Ronaldo Luiz Nazario da Lima. Thus players choose something shorter like Ronaldo.
would it be ok if the germans gathered in a circle cursing god and jesus for their loss? i mean heck if you credit god for brasil's win, do you also give the big G credit for germany's loss? does it work out more like this:
good event = praise god.
bad event = the lord works in mysterious ways.
to me it's an all or nothing thing.
-- john
Haa .. As a soccer geek I already checked it and then came here.
because everybodys name ends in "aldo".
> And stop calling soccer "football." There already is a football.
:-)
Stop calling football "soccer", and start calling the sport that you guys play but no-one else does "American football", which is a far more accurate term for it.
You have to face it on this one - both history and worldwide usage are not on your side.
Gerv
Mr. Smarty-man football genius..
What's he SUPPOSED to do, read the other player's mind a split second before he himself decides where he's kicking hte ball?
The reason they guess is because YOU CAN'T TELL WHERE THEY GOING TO KICK IT.
Worst played.. I think YOU better get in goal for a while and then judge.
"from the we-call-it-soccer dept"
Wow, Slashdot wrong again. Who would have guessed?
Footbal World Cup... open to the whole world... as opposed to World Series?
1.5 billion expected viewers and the story has to be submitted by the one slashdot editor who sounds like he could care less? Come on, you can't *all* have slept through this...
1- the money: the amount of money that is poured into the WC is ridiculous. Just consider the ad campaigns Adidas and Nike launched for the WC, and try to visualise this on a global scale. That money alone could rebuild a third-world country. Keep other stuff in mind: stadiums had to be built, little leaflets had to be printed (millions and millions of them), the teams had to be flewn over (they were luxurously accomodated), the refferees had to be payed, etc. etc.
I don't know about the rest of the teams but all the Korean players got 40 million euros _each_ (not from FIFA) for reaching the 4th place.
In short, we are talking about massive sums of money, billions of euros/dollars... that's decadent. This money could be used for somthing far more better to the benefit of mankind.
2- Bread and games: if you keep the mass satisfied with useless stuff such as this, they turn into plants and stop thinking. "Couch-soccering" is mindnumbing and should be made illegal.
Can someone please explain to me why there are people who know everything about soccer (I mean EVERYTHING, they'll tell you who scored a goal in what game and what year, and give background info on the player) and yet they fail to read a decent book?
Again... decadent.
3- "fair play" and "sportsmanship": I have one thing to say on that: "HAHA!". There is no such thing as fairplay in the WC, everybody can clearly see that players just pretend to be hurt and throw themselves on the grass. And I'm not talking about the shirt-pulling and the nasty blows in the backs.
On this subject: let's not forget about the Hooligans.
International soccer and WC is all about winning and money (or fame or women or drugs... whatever...)
in short: BAN the FIFA WC!
jedie's list of other stuff to ban:
Flame on!
"The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
http://slashdot.jp
The ABC announcers kept harping about an 11 pound solid gold trophy, IIRC.... Umm, wouldn't that puppy be pretty durned malleable, and lose shape after it got paraded around the field and such?
... I have to sing the Brazilian National Anthem, in Portuguese no less. I lost the bet.
Miko O'Sullivan
An educated person has to be at least agnostic, if not atheistic.
It's an insult to Enlightenment if you refer to god if you win or not.
Well. Okay. It's America.
Who cares about a stupid soccer game? Real Americans don't. And stop calling soccer "football." There already is a football.
Errm, the thing that you call "soccer" has been called "football" for longer than you've had a country, let alone a national sport.
Bart: "Errr... Mom, why don't you let me call the game?"
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I watched a few games, and some players seem out of this world. They don't seem to get tired, they keep running as if the game has just started. So, my question is; is there any drug tests that are performed on the players?
We all remember Maradona, don't we?
ok god didnt give germany the talents, skill, whatever. i'm sure you believe it is within god's power to do so right? god in his omnipotence decided not to give them to germany. i would find it just as logical for germany were to blame god for not giving them the required skills as brasils crediting god for the _skills_ that enambled them to win.
-- john
I have been a brazil fan all my life, but I was extremely disappointed in seeing all those fantastic bazilian players with "Jeesus loves you T-shirts" and praying. I mean, they took their national team t-shirts off and put the gold medal on their back just show the jeesus crap more.
;))
Mixing politics and sports is worse enough, but mixing religious yada yada with anything is far worse...
(Slayer released 11/9 an album which said it well enough : "God hates us all"
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
of what the human body is capable of.
It is incredible how he performed this world cup, after all those injuries.
I mean, four years of injuries, including a rebuilt knee, and 8 goals in the world cup??!!!
That's just amazing.
Listening to the guy on Radio 5 earlier, he was saying that this was not a great Brazil team. Of course it is. They've beat every team put in their way, they are playing the best attacking football in the tournament, and they have some of the greatest players of this generation in their positions playing in their team - Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Cafu and Roberto Carlos. Add the support cast of top class players like Ronaldinho, Juninho, Lucio, Gilberto Silva and you have an outstanding team. People will remember them as a great team, unfortunately it takes time for a team to be remembered as one of the great teams. Perhaps even, this is the greatest era of Brazilian football ever. The onlyblip was the way they qualified for this WC, which led people to think they weren't so good.
Funnily enough, the rather defensive (by their standards) Brazil team of 94 was being talked about as great. To be honest, who was the last great team (at the time) to win the World Cup? France? Not at the time. Ditto for West Germany and Brazil. Argentina perhaps, but then people say they were average but had Maradona to lift them to new heights.
while (1)
puts("He turns left.");
Thanks for that pointer! That should save me some trouble. I have a native Brazilian coaching me (the person I lost to, in fact). I'm typing out each word phonetically.
Miko O'Sullivan
Which says nothing about the fact that soccer still sucks.
1) The clock counts 'UP', what the hell with that? Wouldn't you rather know how much time is LEFT instead of how much time you've played?
2) Penalty time...nuff said.
3) Offsides...soo, you're not allowed to have a breakaway at all? I think if you get one you earned it, why should you have to WAIT for a defender to show up so you can continue? Screw that.
4) Crowds literally KILLING each other by stampeding, throwing DARTS (for the love of God what would posses you to THROW FUCKING DARTS at people over a gay ass game?), and severe beatings? Go back to the stone age...oh wait Europe never left it!
...explaining the game of soccer (football) to the unenlightened: Its a game were two teams kick a ball around, and after 90 minutes, the German team wins...:-)
Now we'll have to come up with an analogy that uses the Brasilian team (ie: they've won 5 world cups now, I think...)
Why did I post this? Ask me now!
Pretty dodgy, I'd say.
no, you forget, we shoved all the stone age apes into ships and sent the to the colonies, remember ?
In truth, those retards are born again christians. You're not the only one that hates that kind of stuff. We're a catholic nation but those f*ck*n' extremist christians ruin everything for everyone else.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
who then evolved faster than the people who kicked them out. So sorry, when you invent something other than baguettes or Fiat cars, come back and try again,
would pick up more viewers than the World Cup Finals.
Yes. You are overestimating American taste, class and intelligence for some obscure reason.
I had to work this morning, so I taped the game and figured I'd watch it later, without checking any news sites in the meantime. Woke up early and decided to watch. Headed into work at 10 and caught in a traffic jam of Brazilians waving flags and #9 jerseys out their car windows, honking horns and screaming.
Yeah, that might have been a spoiler.
Disappointing game, though. Very little Brazilian magic and Germany making the play as slow and ugly as possible. Both the US and Korea would have whupped the German team that showed up today. Still I'm glad to see Brazil win, and it seemed like most of the Americans stuck in traffic find it a particularly likable coutry, as well. (Tried to link to that picture of the Brazilian fan pulling off her bikini top next to the Turkish fans in robes and face scarves but it seems to have disappeared.
Anyway, the important thing is that the French were humiliated! And that Korea got knocked out eventually, although it took longer than I would have liked. (Stupid refs...) South Korea has to have taken over the title of "Whiniest Country in International Sports".
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
> I have been a brazil fan all my life
:-)
;))
Really? Funny you didn't know half of them are Christians, then.
> I mean, they took their national team t-shirts off
> and put the gold medal on their back just show
> the jeesus crap more.
What a paragon of tolerance you are, sir
> (Slayer released 11/9 an album which said it well enough : "God hates us all"
So you believe in God, but not Jesus?
Gerv
The thing you call football is played with the hand.
heh, you forgot the french fries, also I prefer baguettes to the sugared sawdust you call bread.
how can you live in such a crappy country amazes me, but might explain why millions of US tourists run to France every year to get OUT...
No, going to France is like going to the Zoo, you go there to watch silly people do silly things. Don't get me started or I'll sick our dumbest citizen on you...oh I mean our president..oh wait, same person.
Never mind, we are retarded, we elected that hillbilly to run our country. I'm moving to France, you want to go out for a baguette and cappuccino?
no problem, let's go watch the girls from a sidewalk café, its a sunny day !
The world champion team is always automatically qualified for the next championship.
Not that I know anything about american football... Same prob in australia between rugby (ARL, AFL, Union) and "soccer".
It wasn't so much the matches & the endless replays and highlights that were so bad - it was the fact that every single programme, paper, (and a lot of websites) & companies that have nothing to do with sport decided to link themselves to the World Cup in sometimes very tenuous ways. As to watching it - I was asleep during the final which shows you how much I was interested in it. I thought most true geeks were against sport anyway as it was the one thing in school that the other kids would get to laugh at them and crow about how much better they are - maybe that was just my experience.
Video Game cheats, hints a
NT
where is katz when u need him! Write some stuff on football ! anybody second this suggestn pl shoot.
Brazil Suxxx,, and Ronaldo looks lame with his try-hard haircut and extended jaw.
Nice to see that my favourite Newssite finally covers my favourite sport. The USA played some great football this time and I hope to see them in Germany next time. Brasil has really incredible players and its sad to see Oliver Kahn make his first mistake in the final game. But hey, thats football. ;-)
And we (Germany) will win 2006!
cu,
Lispy
When sports people (or actors/musicians/anybody accepting awards) start thanking god...they're really trying to say that they won not just because of skill/luck/hard work but because God chose them over the opposition (They're god's chosen people). And we all know that kind of thinking leads to religious strife...
Great game!
You were watching the same game as I, right?
Putting aside that your side won, this game was tedious and boring.
Yesterday's South Korea vs. Turkey game (for third/fourth place) was far more entertaining.
Brazil's gameplay throughout the tournament was disappointing and it's a good thing they have to qualify for the next.
After watching the game, ;)
reading the media reports of the Telegraph, Sport1.de, espn etc. it seems pretty obvious that Germany actually outplayed Brazil over quite a stretch of the game. (At least the news sources would agree with me)...
Kahn made a mistake, he is afterall Human and that was the difference in the game, the second goal was caused by Jeremies being subbed for an attacker that did a rather poor job on defense to create the 2nd goal...and there it was... thats why people started celebrating 11 minutes early...
Both teams played excellet, it wasn't as dirty as I thought it would be...nobody collapsed holding their head after a ball touched their hand
Good game...
contratulations to both...I think Brazil did very well and Germany definitely went beyond what was expected before the tournament started...
Peter
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
You think slashdot takes down servers? Advertise any type of soccer website to 1.5 billion people at the same time, and see the effect that has!
dmarien
>>So you believe in God, but not Jesus? Have you ever heard of Judaism?
Millions of people (Jews + Muslims)do... Anyway, most christians I meet are pretty ignorant of the real history of Christ...and the fact that he was actually a guerilla (one would nowadays say terrorist) leader in an intensely militant, warlike time/place.
History didn't write such a religious propaganda at a world cup.
It was extreme, I know players are religious (or believes in religion) but it was damn extreme. I mean,really surprised me.
Yeah, you're right. That religion thing - it's great for Sundays and all, but you can't let it affect your life. I mean, those people who act like their eternal destiny is the most important thing are total nutters. Far better to turn up on Sundays, sit quietly and listen, take part in the rituals (it's really important to do all these things exactly the right way) then go home and watch the football...
Gerv
IMO, family names, in Brazil, are used to show off noble origin and/or family bindings. You see them often in papers' social columns.
There is a general widespread aversion to these uses. Most Brazilians are of humble origin and we strongly value self-made men (not just rich self-made men, but also artists, sportsmen, engineers etc.) Saying you come from a famous family is not flattering over here, and implies someone is try to pull some advantage from his heritage (which is considered lame).
Also, we tend to be individualists and personal. Calling a person by family name is a way of implying the message: "You're just another one for me, I don't care about you". Definitely, a very bad marketing practice.
So you're saying they should adapt your brand of politics instead? Rather hypocritical.
/., and that is to look for ellipses, for it demonstrates that a poster can't finish their argument. Second, "far worse"? How does it matter a fuck to begin with?
/.) who has skills of argument and analysis
>Mixing politics and sports is worse enough
Like it happens much...
>but mixing religious yada yada with anything is far worse...
I've learned a good way to spot morons on
Face it. The religiously indifferent generation of our parents spawned a
religiously hostile progeny. You're not a free-thinker, or trendy, or a
rebel, you're merely another moron (already adequately demonstrated by
your taking out an account on
are on a par with those of the average person, nothing more.
Free clue (if you missed it): You're not special.
foad kthx.
It isn't all over. There's another week of grown-ups chasing balls about to endure (called "Wimbledon").
Let's turn this around, to let it make sense: Stop calling 'football' 'soccer'. 'Soccer' is word only used by people who really, completely and absolutely don't know what the f*ck they're talking about...
And look what a bunch of fucks they are.
Ok I'm all for that! :)
Don't know who is moderating, but this pass dialog deserves a collective 5.
Thanks for a nice brotherly laugh folks,
George the Norge - American Expat living in Norway.
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
Hope this helps those of you who don't understand what the World Cup is all about
"Soccer" comes from asSOCiation Football. IIRC, when the rules were originally standardised for this kind of game (at Canmbridge Uni), the majority agreed with the rules of modern football. This game was called Football. A few (from Rugby scholl and elsewhere) prefered a more physical game where you were allowed to hack (kick the legs of another player) and handle the ball. To diferentiate this kind of game from Football this was called Rugby Football, and later Association Football was retrofitted to normal Football to help people distinguish between the two.
At the time many public school types added "er" to the names of things. Rugby became rugger and association football, soccer.
For some reason, the Rugby version of football became more popular in the USA and the rules remained similar until, in the first few decades of the last century, large amounts of fatalities caused the US president to ask the American Rugby football players to change the rules (ball can be passed forwards etc).
I think theis sums it up but I may have some minor facts wrong.
Nick
Last year Brasil perform very badly in their qualifying matches, and Ronaldo is injured. At that time, everyone is talking about Francais or Argentina as the champions. Nobody believe in Brasil, and nobody remembered Ronaldo. But I have high hopes on the Brasilian team, and I have high hopes on Ronaldo. (check out my google post: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author:kingarago rn2001%40yahoo.com&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe= UTF8&selm=22401dcf.0111190414.1e166f2d%40posting.g oogle.com&rnum=19)
Now Brasil is the champion, and Ronaldo is the top scorer. Congrats to Brasil. And congrats to Ronaldo. And an entertaining world cup, need to wait 4 years for the next world cup.
Its called soccer, do you see any women in the world cup??
Let me say one thing troll...
Sports=Sports
Sports+Politics AND religion doesn't match. Its the idea behind world cup and olympics etc. Whoever beats eachother on sports (via fairplay) wins. Nationality/Religion/Ethnics doesn't matter and its a shame that brasilian great players (tricked?) gone into such a lame show.
Wtf was that? Church? or a football stadium?
"some ludicrous number of people watched some team beat the other team."
What an attitude!
And how many billions of people from all nations are involved in that other sporting event called "The World Series"....
Justin
set troll = 1
And BTW, its called football, because its game involving feet and balls.
set troll = 0
Arsenal Forever
"My cat's breath smells like cat food." - The Tao of Ralph Wiggum.
I agree. American football, where only one player's feet ever gets in contact with the ball, is a misnomer.
I say you should call it... Tossball, or passball, or simply Pickupandcarryball. "Yeah, the Chicago Bears are the gretest team in the history of american pickupandcarryball."
Besides, american football is a wussy game compared to Australian rugby. There you play the game and take the hurting like a MAN, not run around lugging 30 pounds of armor.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
>History didn't write such a religious propaganda at a world cup.
Thankyou for your pseudo-sophist, trying-to-sound-intellectual drivel.
(the brazilians didn't do anything in the way of religious propaganda
btw, unless you think that prayer == religious propaganda)
>It was extreme
/me rolls eyes
there's nothing extreme about it, unless i've missed something?
>I know players are religious
who says that players in general are religious?
>I mean,really surprised me
i'm not surprised-you sound pretty thick.
This is exactly what i'm talking about! The only reason I'm bothering to reply is that I believe fighting ignorance is important and worthwhile (although it does often seem a waste of time). Israel was being occupied, militarily, by the Roman Empire. The situation was remarkably similar to the situation in the west bank today, except today the Jews are the opressors, not the opressed as they were 2000 years ago. Explain this quote from the "prince of peace:" Luke 22:36 He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Yes, Jesus was probably a terrorist.
I agree that the team which wins should not claim God chose them over the opposition. But there's nothing wrong in players giving credit where it's due for their abilities. If that's wrong, then so is "I'd like to thank Mum and Dad for supporting me all the way".
Gerv
thats why they get fined for the behaviour
"1.5 billion is the expectation for the final match -- accumulated for the 64 matches we expect more than 40 billion spectators," said Home Broadcast Services' (HBS) chief executive Francis Tellier on Saturday.
:-/
40 Billion. Is that just in the Milky way, or are we including the poor things in the other parts of the universe which we are filling with such transmissions?
I've always said that corpys had deals with aliens! See! See! See!
that he had a woman's pubic mound shaved onto the top of his head! ;-)
As the arguements rage back and forth on this story, I still can't grasp the rabid dissention against the World Cup and "soccer". There is constant comparison to American Football, yet to me the two are about as comparable as relativity and cheese!
When 1.5 billion people watch the World Cup with agonized anticipation people say "who cares" and "nobody's interested in that". Yet these same people think it is a great big deal that a paltry, in comparison, 131 million watched the Super Bowl and for months afterwards discuss the game and the commercials!?!?!?
People argue about the name of the sport. Despite the fact that most of the world refers to a game that is played almost entirely with the feet as Football(makes sense to me), the dissenters call it soccer and argue that it should never have been called football. These same people call a much younger game in which a ball may be kicked only twice over the course of a four hour period and is played almost exclusively with the hands, Football. Huh????
To be honest I enjoy both sports. But, I just don't understand how a small group of people can be so rabid in their dismissal of a sport that is, obviously, of tremendous significance to the entire world. Nobody said that you have to like it but, how can you not see it for what it truely is.
Only sad miserable bastard geeks like you. Most of us with a normal outlook on life can enjoy stuff outside a computer such as football, women and alcohol.
For christ's sakes don't be such boring idiots.
(Disclaimer - Christian)
Sir, why? Would you be personally offended if one took off his shirt and revealed a Tux vest?
Fact is, they think Jesus is important. They chose to reveal that, and in a world where the assumption seems to be that most people are agnostic and afraid to be different, I admire them for that. I wouldn't admire them any less if they were wearing a star of david, a crescent, a picture of Buddha, anything like that. They've got fame thanks to their talents and they're now using that to give them a small mouthpiece. Not unusual, just that when it's religious people tend to get shirty.
Really, I'm not one of these 'the whole world is in a conspiracy to bury the Bible!' Christians. That's patently untrue. It's rather irritating, though, to see this sort of senseless bashing.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Am I being moded down for accurately reporting my experiences? Was I supposed to write a free,
euphemistic reply to pat both teams on the back?
I will say this again. The Germans sucked raw ass, Ronaldo did not deserve credit for the first
goal, and the German coach sucked even more by bringing a FAT man to the field (he could have
easily prevented the second goal, but then, who would bake his Aunt Jemima?)
Brazil totally owned the field, they were the only ones visible. The Germans were eager to score,
and took wide shots at the goal. The Germans appeared timid from the get go, and they were
blaming themselves whenever they missed their ill-thoughout attacks. Finally, the stupid paparazzi
singles out Ronaldo from the rest of the palyers and he posed for them for good 10 minutes, until
Rivaldo came and decided to share the spot light.
If you think what I wrote is troll, then you have more things to worry about in life that just
falling for a troll bait. Ride hard on my dick.
let's continue the attack on pseudo-intellectual drivel, shall we.
>Sports+Politics AND religion doesn't match. Its the idea behind world cup and olympics etc
no, retard, the idea behind the world cup and the olympics, winter and summer, is to compete in sports, not to preclude people from exercising their democratic right to worship whoever the hell they want, wherever the hell they want.
>Whoever beats eachother (via fairplay) wins.
and the brazilians beat the germans fairly, and the germans deserved it, such a boring team deserves not to reach the final. what i can't see, is why you keep pissing and whining about religion as if it has anything to do with affecting the fairness of th
eir play.
>Wtf was that?
What the fuck business is it of yours who they worship or where they worship it?
1) The clock counts 'UP', what the hell with that? Wouldn't you rather know how much time is LEFT instead of how much time you've played?
You are probably one of my fellow Americans who always embarass our country by going to Britain and whining about people driving on the "wrong" side of the road. You are pathetic. God forbid you have to get used to accepting a different arbitrary standard then what you are used to. Do the words "grow up" convey anything to you?
2) Penalty time...nuff said.
Heaven forbid you actually learn to appreciate the sport for what it is, rather than damning it for what it is not.
3) Offsides...soo, you're not allowed to have a breakaway at all? I think if you get one you earned it, why should you have to WAIT for a defender to show up so you can continue? Screw that.
You are a fool. Soccer has breakaways all the time; you just can't camp out at the opponent's goalmouth and wait for the inevitable long pass (which is what happens when there is no offside rule - note that is offside, not offsides, you ignoramous). Offside rule forces teams to use a little creativity and imagination in their dribbling and passing. Your problem is that you are applying basketball standards to a very, very different sport.
4) Crowds literally KILLING each other by stampeding, throwing DARTS (for the love of God what would posses you to THROW FUCKING DARTS at people over a gay ass game?), and severe beatings? Go back to the stone age...oh wait Europe never left it!
If you think there are no riots or crowd violence associated with sporting events in the USA, you are a fool. Yes, some countries in Europe have problems with hooliganism. But these people would be violent whereever they are; soccer is just a convenient venue for their hooliganism.
a person who prays is not necessarily an extremist christian.
>ruin everything for everyone else
(everything? like what?)
so, precisely what impact did it have on you, or are you just using religion as a pad for some lame posing of how much a "free-thinker"* you are?
(* == current left-of-centre cliche of choice, at least where i come from)
Dunno where the fuck you got an "s" from in Brazil. Moron, have some respect for them at least.
>When sports people ... start thanking god...they're really trying to say that they won not just because of skill/luck/hard work but because God chose them over the opposition (They're god's chosen people).
You think you can speak for all religious adherents? No, you can't.
Sure, but it probably annoys all the people who paid $$$ for the replica shirts to see these "heroes" then taking them off as soon as the press attention hits. :)
deus does not exist but if he does
Am I being moded down for accurately reporting my experiences?
Well, your experiences are different from those of most other people. Salon has a more accurate review of the game.
Nobody would deny that Brasil deserved to win, in the end they got more chances and made more of them. But "the Germans sucked raw ass"? For anyone who actually watched the game and knows the rules, your original posting is a troll if I've ever seen one.
You know, there's a language called English, used by some folks in a distant island and they call "football" a game in which you're not allowed to touch the ball with your hands.
:-)
Start calling your silly game with an oval (or eliptic) "ball" by another name -- "carryball" could be an alternative. Nobrainsball or Braindamagedball is also a good idea.
Also, you are not America, ok? Canada is America, Mexico, Panamá, Colômbia, Bolívia, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, etc. etc. are all America. Stop doing that. Come up with a name to your country? Can't you organize some national poll and create a better designation?
And stop that inch, foot and other body part unit naming. How technical a spec can sound with inches and feet? That's anti-marketing! Good thing that there's no porn unit naming.
To me the world cup lost all it's value this year the second Spain was unfairly kicked out of it. I've seen many games stolen by referees, but what happened in Spain-Korea was unheard of. I guess bringing soccer (and all its business) to the asian market is pretty important for FIFA
Same thing happened to Italy and Portugal, pretty much every decent team that played Korea. Whether you think it's a big plan to let Korea reach semifinals or just a logical consecuence of letting refs from countries like Uganda or Trinidad and Tobago reach this phase of the WC, there's something wrong here and it has screwed this year's world cup
BTW, people in Spain took it very seriously. There's this site that's holding a contest of fake pictures of the ref. The prize is suposed to be a trip to Uganda, the home country of one of the linemen.
What Can i say, Im sad its over .. this past month have been my lowest slashdot reading time in years .. Football is the sport of the world, the sport of crowds, a BEAUTIFUL sport..
Congratulations Brasil!!
The world cup is once again South American!
[alk]
Er, hello? You just commented to my post, in "argumentative" style, but making the same points I did. What's with that? :-)
Gerv
Not sure. They saw their heroes win the trophy in those shirts, there'll still be a lot of photos of the team in them in tomorrow's papers. Not because there's a conspiracy against the Christian shirts but that they simply require too much explanation if they're what's in the sports pages.
Thinking back to the England-Denmark game, a lot of players swopped shirts afterwards, so half the England team left the pitch in Danish colours. Didn't see any complaint against that and I've seen them do TV interviews still wearing opposition shirts. Or, going back a few years, when Ian Wright broke Arsenal's club goalscoring record, he instantly ripped off his shirt and ran around parading a shirt with a Nike logo and his new record total. That's really blatant placement by Nike, but it was also the image all over the press. Ian was a hero to Arsenal fans, though, so no-one really cared as I recall.
Some might be annoyed but I can't see many being too sad.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
I hate to say this, but German coach Rudi Voeller has some major expectations to live up to come World Cup 2006.
And he better win or the German press (starting with Bild) will rip him to pieces.
I grew up in an ex-British colony which shall remain nameless, and although there was no American football, so no potential for confusion, we still called football "soccer", mostly. We had a "soccer team" and "soccer players".
This Short History of Soccer has a description of the origin of the term at Oxford in the 1880's. Although the term derives from a contraction of "association football", it is in widespread colloquial use, and appears in modern dictionaries. I don't see what purpose is being served by correcting people about it. Or is that just a pathetic attempt to tweak Americans?
The clock counts 'UP', what the hell with that? Wouldn't you rather know how much time is LEFT instead of how much time you've played?
It's common in sports that measure time backwards (as you suggest) to still report goals the 'normal' (ie, soccer) way. eg. "The goal was scored by the Red Wings 4 minutes into the first period." Besides, soccer fans and players can both get far more drunk than their equivalents in USian football and STILL do the basic math to determine that 39:00 elapsed means 6:00 left. You're either converting one way or the other, so soccer decides to let the clock run the normal way.
Brasilians call their country Brasil. Only Americans with no respect for them call their country Brazil. I won't go into who's the moron here.
spoiled by very bad referee decisions in the quarter final and semi final leading to the expulsion of Italy and Spain for a worse side (South Korea).
Utter bollocks. If those two teams were so good, then they would have won. In a close game, referees decisions make a difference: don't have a close game in the first place. Italy good? Pah, they got played off the pitch by Mexico, and were lucky to qualify. Spain? Come on, Spain always drop the ball (ha!) in the later stages of the world cup. Spain were taken to penalties by Ireland, hardly an all-conquering performance. Here's a crazy idea; maybe South Korea were better than Italy and Spain? Maybe all those highly paid players aren't quite so good?
This is NOT the best World Cup quality wise though. The standards were imho way better in France 1998
Rubbish. France 98 was a goal-fest, with very poor defending all round. Quality? If you like highly favoured European teams, maybe, but then European teams rarely do well out of Europe. Brazil, on the other hand, have won the world cup in North America twice, Europe and now Asia. European teams don't play well in the heat.
The reason might be that the big european stars, or other stars playing in big european clubs looked pretty jaded in this World Cup
Think about this for five seconds. All the top players - from Argentina, Brazil, the African countries, hell, even Japan - all play in Europe, and so therefore will suffer to the same extent.
If you go further back you may need to take into account that the tempo has increased considerably and defensive organization become way better, giving less goals.
Not true - look at the average goals per game in France 98. The heat in SK and Japan meant that teams weren't able to play at a high tempo, which explains the fading performance of some sides late in the game. England against Brazil, practically gave up for the last half and hour.
CNN.de or N-TV.de
Yes, I'm an American. Yes, I hate soccer. But I like other sports. The problem with Europeans talking about the "Beautiful Game" is that they have so little exposure to other sports. In the US, we are literally saturated with sports.
Here is the fundamental problem with soccer: the offense/defense balance is completely out of whack. In any good sport, you have a balance between the offense and defense. Soccer is HUGELY biased towards the defense. It's not that "defensive battles" are always bad. In baseball, you can have pitcher duels that are extremely compelling. But in soccer, having an "offensive duel" is a huge joke. A good goalie will beat a good offensive player EVERY TIME. The goalie has way too much of an advantage.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of soccer. But it desperately needs to be fixed. Widening the goal posts would be a great start.
Now, I understand the world's "passion" for the sport. If that's the only sport you have and it's all you grew up with, then it's not surprising that you would be into the game. But there's a reason that kids in the US all grow up playing soccer, and then abandon it as soon as they are physically able to play other sports.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The reason maybe the Korea-Japan World Cup wasn't popular in the U.S. was presented hosted by an "Axis of Evil country". You know, theses evil people are playing around the Word "Football", it's one way to confused the U.S. in order to prepare an Terrorist plot. "Footballis a *MAN's GAME*, as we all know revolves around throwing a ball around and pinning the guy down, all while wearing tights." (I do hope this *IS* viewed as Sarcasm...)
I Swear, God as my witness, I thought Turkeys could fly!!
To see this great final I went with my friends to Munich ( Siegestor / Leopoldsstrasse ) to celebrate with some other 40.000 guys on this place. There was a great atmosphere and I think football is something an US American will never understand.
Ein Rudi Völler,
es gibt nur ein Rudi Völler,
ein Rudi Vööööööller...
Man you made me spit coke all over my monitor. :)
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Wondering what the world cup has to do with "news with nerds". Well the world cup requires "The largest converged voice and data network ever". Avaya, one of the partners, also has some more details on it's site. If you could find a decent article written by a 3rd party, post it. Until then you have to make do with this.
too much beer.
The reason why this happened is because MLS bought the rights to broadcast the World Cup for $40 million. Then they turned around and paid ABC for the air time.
;)
ABC did not have a huge interest in showing the world cup, as their broadcasts tended to be minimal, and sometimes games were displaced by infomercials, etc. Not to mention the tape delay games were shown a day or so later in the case of USA vs Korea.
Anyways, I can finally get back to a semi-reasonable sleep schedule.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
I'm not sure why it's not more popular here. Many children play (what we call) soccer in the US, so I don't think it's lack of exposure. More likely, lack of big-league heroes. Very few men follow the professional teams in the US, so the boys see a lot more of baseball and (Amer.)football, and the cycle repeats itself.
I notice that the really popular sports in the U.S. have a lot of rules, that frequently get tinkered with (eg. NFL football, NASCAR racing). I don't know what this means, but there it is.
Baseball !!! Come on dude, I haven't seen any game more boring than that. Even though Cricket (not exactly similar to this) runs for the whole day, you have lot more variety in shots, spins, bowling (equivalent to pitches) and lot more runs (equivalent to home runs, neah not exactly). Grow up America, or just watch barbarian sports like boxing etc.
Yeah, Brasil os written with S, and we are chanpion for the fifth time!
Brasil, nós somos penta! Jogaço!
Um abraço!
Se ya!
I'm here for the last 48 hours trying to finish my thesis, sometimes eating sometimes reading slashdot. And there it is. A slashdot post about something alien. Strange. Never heard of... A sport??? What is the taste of it? Can I order 2 for the way? They come with collectibles? Toys?
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
We weren't the ones to call it soccer. You can blame that on the Brits. Football actually diverged into 2 different games - Rugby rules football and Association rules football. Association was slanged into soccer while rugby stayed rugby. When Rugby rules football was being played over in the US, it changed and morphed into what Americans call football. Have you ever wondered why Britain's oldest football magazine is called "Soccer World"?
You mean the gameplay that made them the tournament winners, the tournament's highest scorers, saw their DEFENDERS running at goal, taking free kicks, scoring with spectacular overhead kicks, and with more fans amongst the "neutral" supporters than any other country by virtue of the way they play......
Yeah, the final wasn't great, but that was because Germany was trying to tie Brazil down, and not give them the time, space or possession they wanted - nothing wrong with that by Germany, it just doesn't make for a very entertaining games sometimes.
Actually, under the new rules the hosting country, in this case Germany, has to qualify too, along with everybody else.
Stop calling football "soccer", and start calling the sport that you guys play but no-one else does "American football", which is a far more accurate term for it.
:-)
You have to face it on this one - both history and worldwide usage are not on your side.
Perhaps.. but your missing one key important detail about America here.... We ARE NUMBER 1!!! WE ARE NUMBER 1!!! WE ARE NUMBER 1!!!
I agree with you in spirit, but I would like to correct you on history. The first formal Football rules were written down in 1863, FIFA was founded in 1904 and the first WC was held in 1930 so even though it may seem it has existed for ages it is at least younger than the USA (1776 was it? ;-)
Probably the most artistic and graceful team sport there is, that actually is closer to war without weapons.
Perhaps.. but your missing one key important detail about America here.... We ARE NUMBER 1!!! WE ARE NUMBER 1!!! WE ARE NUMBER 1!!!
You obviously didn't see the match. Brazil won. They're number 1.
(Ofcourse Brazil is in America too, but I don't think that is what you meant.)
My argentinians pals should be desperate. As if their situation wasnt enough desperating (starving and stuff) now they have to deal with the fact that Brazil has the greatest performence in the football history. FUCK YOU DAMN ARGENTINA!!! Maradona sucks big time, and also is a coke sniffer and a loser. vão para mierda, por supuesto!!!!!!!!!
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
Hum Gerv... I kinda remembered you... My replies made you k-line me from irc.mozilla.org which I have many friends to talk with? Since you are a mozilla developer,tsk... That fascist attitude... Geezus
I know this is off topic but can easily show how a person saying he is religious can abuse his powers (irc.mozilla.org) to make a guy banned from a IRC network with false reasons (flood or something,geez) and you, all OS guys, use people like him's work to battle against MS reign.
Off topic but for the record, I was k-lined from irc.mozilla.org which BELONGS to Mozilla.org (with a fake reason) community because I spoke his stupid religious stuff not needed for a DAMN sports match!
Now purge this post or something, I am not feeling good because of those happenings already.
A soccer and religion thread can make a one k-lined from irc.mozilla.org with false reasons. I can't comment anymore...
Now, some crap to avoid lameness filter:
X-Fry: That's it! You can only take my money for so long before you take it all and I say enough!
MLS paid $40 million for the broadcast rights to the games, and also had to pay ABC and ESPN to carry them. Pathetic. They basically had to pay the networks as much as they would normally get in adverstising revenue for the time the games aired, and hope to recoup some of it from the ads that aired at halftime.
...but I like their attitude.
Of course god nor any other magical entity from humans imagination had anything to do with their win.
They won because of their hard work, training, discipline, scientific nutrition, etc...
Simply take their prayers as a humility sign. Humility is a good quality.
The first written rules for football were drawn up
by Eton college in 1815 but it was played in England for many hundreds of years before that. King Edward III banned football in England in 1365 for instance. A similar game was played by the Japanese 3000 years ago and the Romans also played football. See:
http://www.didyouknow.cd/sport/football.htm
Football considerably predates Columbus discovering the new world.
1.5 billion bleedin viewers and they couldn't even provide a 16:9 Widecreen feed... there were 16:9 HD cameras in the stadiums but the footage wasn't shown outsied Korea and Japan because HBS screwed up, the majority of sets sold in the UK are now widescreen and broadcasters have been getting complaints for only showing 4:3.
Maybe all soccer games are like this but I thought it was cool that the world cup games were televised without commercial interruption. Commercials would not have worked well with the continuous game play.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
It's actually her first name.
football is a far more accurate name for "soccer" anyways, since you are kicking it with your foot. i read this hiliarous editorial in TIME. says that Americans dont seem to care about football due to the lack of education in international geography. "the only countries Americans know are they ones that attack them." this is stereotypical... but still funny "you live in canada?, what state is that?"
Great Atrocit
A team of cheating, diving drones who had one heck of luck of the draw in this WC.
The final score could easily have been 6 - 0.
How predictable this tournament was. Soccer is a joke internationally. Almost as bad as the Rugby League World Cup.
At least Rugby is a truly international sport, unlike soccer which is played in a couple of European and Sth American countries, and a few suburbs elsewhere, and Rugby League which is played in Australia, a couple of very small pacific countries, and a few suburbs in the Nth of England.
Watch the Rugby World Cup of Football next year and see a true international sport. And please don't get it confused with that mind numbingly boring sport which stole our name, Rugby League.
We are not the same sport.
i sayed -nt- ? But i am wrong there is some. you FOOL!
Sports=Sports
Sports+Politics AND religion doesn't match. Its the idea behind world cup... that Nationality... doesn't matter.
How can you say that when a South Korean, who played professionally for a team in Italy, was fired after scoring a goal on the Italian World Cup team?
There is probably nothing more intensly nationalistic on this planet than World Cup Soccer, other than war and hatred.
Only 1.5 billion out of 40 billion spectators could watch the final, to put it in perspective.
"1.5 billion is the expectation for the final match -- accumulated for the 64 matches we expect more than 40 billion spectators," said Home Broadcast Services' (HBS) chief executive Francis Tellier on Saturday.
Could you imagine the pressure these guys are under and the relief they feel after the game is over? There were close to 1.5 BILLION people watching their every move! If they want to run around praying with slogans on their backs, so what? As anyone from a South American culture will tell you, religion plays a very pivotal role in many of their lives. I say let them have their moment. Why should they listen to Atheist Americans who barely give a damn about a game that many of them base their lives around?
The stupid game Gringos call "football" is actually "handellipsoid".
You mean, when people throw beer pitchers at each other in bar fights? Yes, those can be compelling. However, if you mean that "talk, talk, scratch your balls, spit, talk, talk, throw a ball, miss" thing that goes on in baseball games, I must disagree with you. I once saw a Dodgers vs. Giants game in LA, in 1991, when I got free tickets. Nothing will compel me to watch such a boring game again.
> Perhaps.. but your missing one key important detail about America here.... We ARE NUMBER 1!!!
Indeed, you certainly *do* have the most corrupt political and economic system this side of Moscow. Well done! Your founding fathers must be *so pleased*!
Excellent match.
Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect
I noticed that, too, and started thinking what if he was hit in the head hard enough to bleed: he would be menstruating...
Europe refers to it as Football, it isn't universally referred to as Football. It is universally known as Soccer, even in countries where it is primarily known as Football.
YES infact they are quite pleased.. hows your founding fathers? oh you don't have any? your country has been taken over so many times in the past how many years?
Why wait for four years?
The qualifying for the Euro cup 2004 (in Portugal) starts this september. All these (european) national teams will be back on the pitch then. (of course, European is a loose term since Israel and Azerbadjian are part of it...I think there is about 50-60 countgries in this "Europe")
Im not sure when the other continents start their own continental competitions but its gotta be around the same time.
Thats the beauty of international sports as practiced in almost every country (we canucks are also disconnected from the meaning of international competition because of our isolated status although when I was in Oztralia their location didnt seem to matter.)
Whether its football, basketball, volleyball, handball, waterpolo, etc...the principle ideas are the same:
For 2 years the national teams in each sport tries to qualify for the world championship and if they make it through, play in the big tournament.
Then when that is finished, they play another 2 years of qualifications to qualify for the European championship (or african, or asian or south american) and if they make it through, gain they go to the final tournament.
So you see, international competition is an ongoing process. Passion is built up continuosusly
adn isnt turned on and off like a faucet.
You dont fake it like during the winter olympics where the announcers were trying to create some BS rivalry between Canada and the US in hockey.
(and you woudlnt have had the Patrick Roy fiasco since national team members arent chosen right before a competition but are part of an ongoing process.)
And international competition is the ultimate, no league trophy is considered more prestigious.
The pride of playing for your country trumps all.
But I agree the rule as it is should be abolished or completely changed, since it's too hard to tell for the referee in many circumstances.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
The words "grow up" will convey something to me as soon as you grow yourself a dick and eat it.
When was the last time you heard of a crowd in the USA _stampeding_? Oh right it doesn't happen.
;)
There is always violence associated with sports especially when alcohol is present. I'll definitely give you that. The observation is just that hooliganism in "football" is quite a bit worse than in other sports, and that is especially so in the United States.
People in the United States don't hate all you people from elsewhere, at least not in general. However, people in the US do (in general) dislike "football", why that is I can't guess, although I played it for quite some time when I was younger I can't seem to stomach it now.
Oh well, no sense in beating on you people who do enjoy it. Just like there is no sense in beating on someone who criticizes the game. Just leave it at that, a game, and move on
...but what is this doing on slashdot !? :(
isn't this news that _doesn't_ matter to nerds ?!
You don't understand. Here in Brazil people born and raise with a much different culture than other people's. We don't care of being considered "nerds" (or what?) by other people, we have our ideas and beliefs.
They wear those t-shirts because they really believe in Jesus and are not trying to make other people's mind. Brazilian people are always open to discuss religion and even policits (There's no stupid moral that says "discussing religion is unpolite). At least, we don't have to regret we live in a intolerand and hipocrit society.
Just to mention, I can't be considered a christian as I never go to church and pray, but I respect those who are even fanatic. At least they have a mean to living.
they tend to declare their world domination without even giving a chance for other countries.
The world series is not a world series. Not every team in the world had a chance to play.
And the superbowl champions are not the best in the world, because not every american footbal team had a chance to play. Sure they are probably the best in the world, but you still cant declare that, until the world has had a chance.
You're living in denial if you think most of the world population is agnostic.
Very few folks in the U.S. do. Soccer is sooo trying to be forced onto us, and the funny thing is, we still don't care. We *already* *have* our own sports, thank you very much. Title IX nonsense is bad enough without fake hype being drummed up about a sport no one really gives a hoot about.
The World Cup can go pound salt, for all we care. I'm tired of the U.S. media pretending we care, and I *really* don't get why this is on Slashdot. How, exactly, does this relate to nerds and general nerd-dom? Pretty sad state of affairs that Slashdot is buying into the media hype about soccer. Bottom line: Americans don't care, and I'm sure American nerds care even less.
And no, I'm not calling it "football".
I dunno why this is on slashdot, but *I* care about the world cup. So do a lot of americans. Believe it or not, you don't set the standard.
The MLS has grown in popularity so much recently (and not since the USA did well in the cup).
In fact soccer is the #2 played team sport behind basketball in the US. Why don't you go and do some research to see how things really are before you go and embarrass yourself.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
There's an awful lot of nominal believers in those categories. People who are brought up in a religion and stay in out of intertia rather than personal conviction.
I would suggest that most of the world has a general concept of spirituality as long as it doesn't impact too much on their day-to-day life. For example, look at the percentage of the UK population who consider themselves Christian against church attendance figures - they're nowhere near matching.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Oh really. How much revenue does the fandom of this "#2 played team sport" generate? If it really generated any money here, then our best players wouldn't be lured to other countries, now would they?
If you care, fine. Go read ESPN.com or the like. BTW, I don't personally know *one* native-born American who actually watches soccer on a regular basis. They'll watch golf or bowling before they watch soccer.
I played soccer in intramural teams, and in junior high, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just don't have any lofty notions of it becoming popular in America.
Can't recall it happening since 1066...
That did not make any sense! ... it is universally known as Soccer, even in countries where it is primarily known as Football...
Care to elaborate on the difference between universal knowledge and primary knowledge?
You need to install an RTFM interface.
Because
1- They loose the game to us
2- They invented beer for us to celebrate
;-)
Our church was mostly empty. And in the UK, the service finished 30 mins before the match started.
Why did slashdot not have a single poll on the world cup. The comments on the top of the page just add to my hypothesis that the /. people don't even pretend to care for their international readers.
There is a very good reasons why the clock counts up. A half is never a full 45 minutes. First you play 45 minutes and then the game is extended, at the officials' discretion, to make up for any stoppages during the game. Hence there is no definite number to count down from as there is no definite half length.
I suppose you could count down from 45, but you'd end up with -3 minutes or something.
The best thing I found about this version of the WC, were the announcers and the coloquial style they apply to their job. I was overtaken by the Korean broadcast (in California, there was a local channel serving the Korean community in California - US). Instead of calling the goal (as it is done by pretty much every broadcast I've heard in english and spanish), the announcers place emphasis on the actual shooting of the ball, towards the goal. Thus, there is no: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!! But it is: SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!! and only then, the goal is called. Different but, very entertaining. And no, I do not speak or understand any more of the Korean language than I did know before the WC (which is still nothing).
my friend from Brazil calls it "carry ball"
Brazies, if your are going to translate our anthem for the gringos, try at least to translate it to contemporary portuguese, first. Here we go:
;)
"At the placid shores of the Ipiranga (river),
It was heard the trumbling yell of a brave people,
And the Sun of freedom, with is bright rays,
Shone in the sky of the motherland in this very moment.
If we can afford the guarantees of this equalty
with our strong arms, in your breast, O liberty,
Defy our own chest to death."
Enough for now. The other parts are limited to native Brazilians, only.
- Please, ignore everything written above.
Will you be able to return to the 2.4 kernel?
Hiding money (great high scoring game - game scores in the billions) ... but you don't appear to be very good at the moment because somebody keeps finding the cash
Somebody is mad because they go the shit kick out of them. I'm not talking about sports or am I???. Brazil is number 1 north america sucks my DICK!!
Italy, on the other hand, got eliminated and spent the next two weeks whining about a conspiracy and demanding an investigation.
Alas, that's real typical of the Italian reaction whenever a soccer match doesn't go their way. The result is conspiracy theories from the Italian press that makes X-Files seem like a minor incident. (shrug)
Indeed, Peri Luigi Collina (the referee for today's final game) is MUCH disliked in Milan for the way he ruled against powerhouse teams in the Italian Serie A series such as Inter Milan and Juventus a couple of years ago.
1668, William of Orange ?
I disagree. The first half sucked because *both* teams stunk up the place. Ronaldo and Ronaldinho couldn't keep their feet on the ball. I've never seen a Brazilian World Cup team play so sloppily. It wasn't until the first Brazilian goal that Brazil started playing well.
Germany did a decent job in the second half. Unfortunately, nobody told them that the goal is the big white thing with three poles and a net. As a result, the Germans kept kicking the ball over the endline anywhere *but* the goal. How did Germany manage to accrue something like 13 corner kicks and not score a single goal?
My conclusion is the both teams were to blame for the lackluster first half, and not Germany's style.
-Paul
Oh ok. so a sport has to generate money to be popular. I see. Yay capitalism.
Your arguments are flawed. Rollarblading is popular, swimming is popular, downloading mp3's are popular, how much money do these wonderful activities generate again?
BTW, I don't personally know *one* native-born American who actually watches soccer on a regular basis
Now you do. You can include some of my friends too if it would make you feel better. Then you would know 7.
I better get back to watching and playing baseball (the most boring game in the world) because its on TV, and anything on TV must generate money and therefore be popular.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Sorry, didn't mean to cause confusion. Actually, I agreed with you.
/. this is not easy at all: your reply appeared alone to me.
My flames were directed to the jerk you were replying to, not to you.
I guess I was lazy for not looking for the original posting, but then again at
Also my point was not just the "soccer" question you dealt with, but I considered the frequent mistake (which happens everywhere, not just in the US) of misnoming things.
So many problems arise when people get "creative" instead of following common universal standards. Sorry if this was not obvious from my posting.
And thanks for replying in such a polite way. Very kind of yours.
First of all, several languages are spoken in Europe, and many of them are official languages in other parts of the world. For example, it's called "le football" in French, which is the official language in 28 countries and five continents. It's called "futebol" in Portuguese, which is the official language Portugal, Brazil and seven other countries in the world. It's called "fútbol" in Spanish, which is the official language in 21 countries -- including Diego Maradona's Argentina.
The only places in the world where it's predominantly referred to as "soccer" is in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where it's also known as "football". ("Soccer" is an abbreviation of "association *football*".) And when people all over the world learn English as a second language they are usually taught British English, where -- as we all know -- the game is usually called "Football" (the term "soccer" is also used, but less often). Also, FIFA (the international governing body of football) consistently refers to it as "football".
Look at France, previous world champsions who didn't have to qualify and bowed out without even scoring one goal!
France hadn't played a game "in anger" in the two years before the championship and were not battle hardened. Both Germany and Brasil had to struggle through to the finals, and I think this experience showed come the finals.
In Football (soccer) there is a big difference between a "star team" and a "team of stars". This World Cup really showed this. To make it to through you have to work as a tight unit. France, Argentina, Italy, and Portugal all possess top players, but they did not work well as a unit. S.Korea, Turkey, Ireland and even the USA don't possess top players, but they were cohesive teams.
As for the refereeing. It was apalling. Italy and Spain seem to have a pretty good case for bias. The probablity of so many match winning shonky decisions going in S.Korea's favour is pretty small. Makes you wonder if there wasn't some kind of directive from FIFA to help the co-hosts along. I hope not, but it makes you wonder. But having said that I thought the S. Korean team played brilliantly, and you can't take anything away from their effort, even if they were helped along by an invisible hand (linesman flag).
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
How extreme would it have been if they had worn "Pepsi" shirts instead? You would probably just look the other way.
Get over it...they were expressing their beliefs. At least this one was genuine, unlike some paid-for endorsement.
± 29 dB
Bra[s|z]il booing kahn was pretty weak.
Korea booing all the teams they played, except perhaps Germany...
that was kinda annoying too. I guess its better than getting shit thrown at you by the crowd like some of the qualifying matches.
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
The Lone Gunmen died in tonight's X-Files.
Saying "football" in Australia doesn't really narrow it down much. It means Aussie rules in the southern and western states, rugby league or rugby union in Queensland and New South Wales and soccer to people of European or South American parentage. In the last couple of years or so both Aussie rules and rugby have move out of their traditonal homelands so that really doesn't work anymore. So there's a practical element to giving it a name other than football.
Also nobody here refers to American Football as just football.
To be honest I enjoy both sports. But, I just don't understand how a small group of people can be so rabid in their dismissal of a sport that is, obviously, of tremendous significance to the entire world.
To anyone who's not an American this comes as no surprise.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
It's very straightforward.
'Primarily' does not exclude other possible names.
When you say 'soccer', people from every country know which sport you mean. When you say football, people from ~two countries get confused.
So, the game is universally known as soccer (ie: even in England, where it is primarily known as football).
Happy to have aided in your basic comprehension.
I don't have a problem with that at all -- I'm not religious, but I'm happy for people to do anything as long as they don't try and hurt others.
:/
The people pulling the financial strings of the game, though -- Nike, for example, and the Brazilian FA, which I have read is quite corrupt -- may not be pleased by the players' behaviour, and their disapproval has a lot more power than anything positive I could bring to the situation.
deus does not exist but if he does
I guess my fellow Brazilian, with whom I'm in same category of non-practicing Christian wanted to say "at least, they found meaning to their lives", which is more than most can say.
Actually I'm also confused about such religious display: it's a good thing they thank God, also mixing that with sports is no problem to me.
Also, God of course likes everyone, Germans included, and not just we, Brazilians. In true Christian spirit, we should find a means to share with Germans the victory (which indeed is the case, because a greater opponent makes victory more valued).
And now for Fidel. If you feel he is a kind of admired and close friend, well, you call him Fidel. If you feel the opposite, then it's CASTRO.
There are other variants: F.Castro (russian) Fidel Castro (very much slanted to CASTRO) Fidel Castro Ruz (accepted as polite and non-committal).
For God's sake its only a game! The players may well show sportsmenship (maybe not Italy), but the supporters do not.
From my personal experience soccer is almost as god damn boring as cricket. There aren't enough goals/points in the game to keep things moving. More frustrating, there is no fair way to settle a draw, besides lame penality kicks! Which I don't think is a credible way to settle things..
We should have indefinite over time (like basketball), so what if you get exhausted?? May the stronger and disciplined side win...
I just think a sport where you can't use your hands is lame..
My $0.02
P.S. Ronaldo wats up the botched up haircut?? U look like an immature thug.
Well, they were saying it will be the German robots versus the beautiful Brazilians, but that was all wrong! Germany came out with guns blazing and dare I say, in the first half they even dominated the Brazilians. :(
Unfortunately though, they were unable so score any goals (something which tends to be vital in football) whereas Ronaldo showed once again he is the world's best striker. That was the difference between the two teams tonight! Hats off to Germany, congratulations Brazil. And see you in 2006... will I really have to wait another 4 years?!
All praises won't be enough for Ronaldo. He isn't supposed to play this Cup. Two years ago everybody doubt he would ever play again. But his faith and his extremely hard work made him play this Cup and scored and became the championship game MVP. And world champion again.
:-)
Great, Ronaldo! But please, not the haircut
Cesar Cardoso can be found at cesar at zyakannazio dot eti dot br (or at least I believe so)
YYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! The World Cup is ours! As a brazilian, I simply can't describe my joy in seeing my country world champion for the fifth time! The one and only! Some insteresting facts about this victory:
Ronaldo, maker of both goals that gave the cup to Brazil, lost the 1998 world cup, injured himself badly and most people thought he would never be able to play soccer again. What this man did was incredible! He recovered himself, restarted playing soccer, Felipe Scollari (our coach) believed in him, and he finished the championship as the number one atacker! He diserves it!
Cafu, excellent player, is the first and only player in the history of the World Cups to play three consecutive World Cup Finals!
Rivaldo will be considered the number one soccer player in the world, for sure! He was also very criticized before the World Cup.
Brazil is going crazy! Everybody here is in the streets partying! Simply amaaaazing!
A message to all brazilians reading this:
Parabéns seleção, parabéns Felipão! O pentacampeonato é nosso, e vocês merecem! O hexa já pode ficar esperando!
Newsflash! jesus isn't a politician! he's your lord and savior.
Your text contains another incongruency when you write Americans are _not_ necessarily claiming that America == The World. :-). Well I'm glad that some reasonable people now know that America != The World but perhaps you should also realize that America is not the Americas. Are Brazilians americans? No, yes?
When I was an innocent youngster and knew little about soccer, I'd hear all sorts of strange things. Just for an example, "germany plays boring soccer".
I kept watching soccer and kept liking it and kept wondering just what the hell these other guys knew that I didn't, because whenever a World Cup rolled around I found pretty well all teams packed full of incredibly skilled players, and try as I might I never found significant differences in their play: as far as I could tell, it always boiled down to three things:
In short, when you hear or read somebody say that "Germans suck raw ass", that's a solid indication that the speaker knows next to nothing about soccer.
It's been said earlier.
American TV is all based around commercials. To take a single example, in the UK, the BBC is commercial free. How is it paid for? TV licensing. TV license?!?! Yup. You're supposed to pay a yearly fee to fund the BBC. The other UK channels (ITV, Channels 4 and 5) have commercials but not as much as the US or else the people wouldn't watch (their competition is commercial free BBC w/ two channels of programming).
I really like this world cup because I think that it showed the gap between the favorites and the not favorites is closing.
France, Argentina, Portugal all went out in the group stage. Italy was very close to going out. That was cool. South Korea played really well. The US made the Quarters and played a great game against Germany. Senegal made it to the Quarters when one English bookmaker gave them the worst odds in the entire tournament.
Besides, Spain as historically been an underperforming team in World Cup play based on the quality players that they have.
It has very little to do with the refs.
Both of you, which game did you watch? Germany SUCKED in the second half. The first half was their great one, the ball spending most of the time in the Brazilian half, often on its way towards goal. They played absolutely great attacking football in the first half. If they could have maintained the energy in the second half, the end could have been very different.
Football basically represents a war in game form. What determines the final outcome is a lot more than just who is attacking more often and faster. Part of the beauty is the strategy, not unlike a game of chess. If you want to see fancy shots and passes, maybe you should buy some Globetrotters tapes. Many people find it much more fascinating when a less favored team makes the most of its assets, finds some extra reserves and drive, and wins against the odds. Then again, there are also many that cheer on the playground bully as the beats up the smaller kids. Whatever rocks your boat. But cheering on Brazil in today's game pretty much falls in the latter category.
I'm disappointed that S. Korea didn't beat them but I'm sure glad Brazil did. Germany doesn't deserve to be in the world cup and they certainly should not have the right to host the 2006 one.
My nation didn't field a team in the World Cup. Nor were they bested by brazil in war, politics, or any other games.
Why should we call it "American football" when we're already IN America? Do Irish people say "Gaelic football," or Australian people say "Australian football"? Not in my experience.
Besides, soccer is an international term as well. I know it's what the Japanese use, and I'm pretty sure it's what the Koreans use as well, and since they hosted the damn cup this year...
(Canadians play our version of football, too.)
please... informative, if you will!
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
In Australia, if you live in Sydney and Brisbane, "football" means Rugby League. If you live in Melbourne or Adelaide, it means Australian Rules - quite a different code of football. Moral: no single game can claim a monopoly on the name "football".
The game Americans play (which is of little interest to most Australians) is usually referred to here as "gridiron". PS: We tend to be amazed (and amused) at the large amount of armour worn by US footballers - our footballers don't wear armour.
Soccer is played throughout Australia, often by members of migrant communities (our largest ethnic minority is Italian). The World Cup is very popular here - even among people who don't follow the local soccer competition.
I am anarch of all I survey.
> How much revenue does the fandom of this "#2 played team sport" generate?
Oh, about $4 billion worth of Enron playmoney. Or WorldCom. Or Xerox. How much would YOU like it to generate?
I really think ESPN are pinheads for the way they bungled their coverage of the worlds greatest sporting event. I understand that Major League Soccer (MLS) actually bought the US English rights and gave them to ESPN in return for some ad time. Basically they got it for free. But instead of spending a bit of money and then reaping the rewards, they did as little as possible.
1) ESPN are morons. They only had 2 people in Korea/Japan. The announcers were pathetic in large part because they were watching the same broadcast in a studio in New Jersey. By the way, most people agree that the announcers were pretty much worthless.
2) Commentators on other ESPN TV and Radio shows actually talked the game down, saying things like "I hate soccer, cant wait til its over" and "this is such a stupid sport". On one call in show the announcer refused to talk about the sport at all and insulted anyone that called in. They did NOTHING to promote the show on their own network. No tie ins, no promotions. Until the US got to the 2nd round you heard nothing but negative comments. You could not even get the scores of many of the first round games on the "ESPN sports center update". Hell, they had filmed highlights of every mid season baseball game but did not even mention that Italy got beat by Croatia.
3) True, you cant advertise during the game but they did a horrible job of advertising outside the games. The one pathetic 20 second ad they ran on other sports shows as late as last week said "broadcasts start May 30". They missed out big by not making a few cheap shows (crammed with commercials) that featured the history, commentary or rundown of the teams involved. (on the Spanish channels every program for the last month has had some soccer tie in). They left a ton of money on the table by not doing any kind of extra programming. Astounding broadcasting incompetence.
4) They had one very sad little 30 minute show called "World cup 2 night" at 10:30 pm. During the first round they had a hell of a time just showing the highlights of all the games, not to mention any analysis or preview of the next nights games. Then they became totally focused on the USA team and even replayed the same interviews they showed during the half time shows. Then they skipped a few nights after the USA was gone.
5) During the half time of the Korea game they had a 5 minute bit where some dumb announcer lady took a ride in a Jet at the Korean US Air base. What a pathetic waste of air time.
6) During the game they will throw up a graphic for baseball or other sporting event that will cover about 1/3 of the screen for about 10 seconds and the commentators will talk about that event for a while. Every once in a while this will cause you to miss something important... like a goal or some other event that the commentators have to explain to us...
Most of the English ex patriots that watch the games in the pub I frequent here in Austin, TX use this as an opportunity to scream "get that crap off the screen you Poofters!" as loud as they can.
7) The most annoying thing was that ESPN did not show all the games live. The England:Sweden game and the 3rd place game, among others was only shown on tape delay. They moved the games from ESPN1 to ESPN2 to ABC pretty much randomly making it really difficult to tape the games. A number of times the tv listings in TV guide and my local paper were wrong about the channel the games were on. When the games are in the dead of night, this becomes a real issue for those of us that work.
8) For the final they left the game about 3 minutes after the final whistle. We switched to Spanish language Univision to see the trophy ceremony and about an hours recap of the top goals, all star team and interviews with each team.
The good news is that the Spanish language channels showed all the games live and had a clearer signal and even if I did not understand what they were saying, their commentators had more passion... Lots of people I know prefer the Univision Broadcasts.
Some day Soccer is going to be much more popular than it is today in the USA. Some day we may well win the dang thing... I hope that before that happens the morons at ESPN get this wonderful gift taken away from them and that we all watch the final on some other channel that gives the sport its rightful due.
Other than that it was a lot of fun! Enjoyed France and Argentina going out... I found the elimination of Italy and Spain entertaining (they wouldn't complain if the calls had gone the other way!) and watching Turkey, Senegal, Japan, Ireland and the USA play way over their heads was a HOOT! I wish England had done better against Brazil, I would have loved to see Michael Owen play as brilliantly as he did against Germany a year ago. I really wanted to see a England:USA or Ireland or South Korea final, but thats a bit much to ask, eh? Brazil deserved to win it all today....
SoccerTV.com
It has a mailing list that shoots out an e-mail with televsion times for games shown throughout North America - including flash updates when warranted...like when ABC lets it be known its affiliates are not all carrying the World Cup Final.
Beyond this, just wanted to add my $.02 to some of the other posters here:
1. The ABC family (ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNClassic/ABC) coverage seemed okay, from what little I saw because...
2. The Univision coverage (in Spanish) was ridiculously fun to watch (though I can hablo espanol pretty well added to it, I'm sure). And Telefutura carried practically all the games on tape delay the following day, which makes me think...
3. There was no reason the ABC family shouldn't have shown replays of the games at decent hours on its lesser channels, unless its contract were such could only show the games one time, even in which case...
4. It's ridiculous that the Final wasn't on SOME US network, guaranteed. If ABC affiliates weren't all going to take it, it's better off on one of the ESPNs. With any luck though, I predict...
5. This will be the last World Cup to get such shoddy treatment. Boosted by the strong performance of US national team, the television ratings here were high enough that something more solid should be in place come Germany 2006.
Fingers crossed,
Danny
Edwards explained that originally, players from the lower classes of people were not allowed to play for the organized clubs in Brazil - a fact that seems to be accurate based on a web site I hit searching for more information: this page left over from a site dedicated to the 98 Cup. It provided the following:
"The first club formed was Sporting Club Rio Grande, on July 14, 1900, and for 20 decades (sic) football was the exclusive reserve of the white elite -- the poor, be they white, half-caste or black, were excluded."
Edwards went on to explain that the lower classes, denied access to the club teams, played pick-up games constantly - games that the elites were hesitant to play in due to the public embarassment that could result from associating with the lower class.
Shame, however, proved to be a lousy deterrent: the games proved too tempting for the elites to pass up for long. But reputation and family name were still important to a degree that they may not be today, apparently, from what I've read from other posters on the topic, and so in an effort to retain some level of anonymity when the matches were talked about (and written about in local papers, which happened as interest grew), the elites adopted the habit of using only one name - and often a nickname at that - to identify themselves for the games to protect their identity.
When the need for such secrecy ended (see below), the players and their names were still around and playing - and so the practice stuck.
I'm confident the basics above match Edward's narration on the subject.
Additional info: Assuming the story is accurate, Brazil can be proud of the way in which the sport that was to become its national pasttime helped open the society. The passion for the game, for the fun of it, broke down walls. I'm sure another important reason the gentry longed to mix into the lower class games was the quality of the competition, as can be evidenced by what happened when the lower classes were allowed to play for the clubs:
"The Rio de Janiero club Vasco de Gama, backed by Portuguese Country colonizers, was the first to break this taboo, forming a multi-racial team that won the Rio championship in 1923. Arthur Friendenreich, a half-caste nicknamed "The Tiger," was Brazil's first national football hero. Born of a German father and a black Brazilian mother, Friendenreich amassed 1,329 goals in a 26-year career. Football rapidly became the national sport..." (Also from this page.)
So soccer was a unifying force for the people of Brazil almost from its inception, it seems, and oh, what a power that force has helped wrought.
Congratulations on the Penta - so happy for Ronaldo - and here's to another great Cup going into the books.
Danny
Here are my favourite stories from this world CUP:
... then he replies back: "Neither. I'm jew"
1) While broadcasting Saudi Arabia vs. Germany, the reporter goes to someone and asks: "Are you on which side: Arabia or Germany?"
2) The first Turkey vs. Brazil referee was the best player on this game, and is responsible for the victory. So, when the Brazilian Team starts to tour brazil with the trophy, they must bring him on the party, too.
3) A Brazilian Radio, Joven Pan 2, called people on Argentina following it's elimination from the cup doing pranks. BTW, they recorded on wma. It follows this line:
(caller): "-Are you sad about Argentina's soccer team elimination?"
(argentino): "-Sure i am!"
(caller): "-But here, in brazil, we're so happy!"
(you hear a real party, with people shouting: "Brazil! Brazil! Argentina's on shit!")
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it sounds awfully like the "Not A True Scotsman" fallacy. I'm not going to dispute what somebody labels themself: if they say they are Christian then I'm not going to label them agnostic simply because they don't attend church.
my friend from Brazil calls it "carry ball"
I prefer the term "hugball"
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
The triple alliance that defeated Louis XIV? Hardly relevant.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Oh right it doesn't happen.
That'll be becuase you hardly have any "soccer" games there.
And I've seen plenty of reports concerning sports riots in North America on TV, both while I was there, and on TV specials here in Europe - so please don't tell me that there are no problems at North American sports events.
I can't be bothered to get URLs, but if you're too lazy to look, I'll oblige.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
When their religion suggests:
* Certain lifestyle choices
* Regular fellowship with other believers
and they don't really do either, then I'm inclined to regard them as nominal christians at best and, realistically, agnostics.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Don't make us come bomb you.
>> I have been a brazil fan all my life
:-)
>
>Really? Funny you didn't know half of them are Christians, then.
Ofcourse I knew they're mostly catholic and all that. I dont care wether they were sceptics or even satan worshippers, you brat. The point was that it was a world cup final not some hallelujah convention.
>> I mean, they took their national team t-shirts off and put the gold medal on their back just show the jeesus crap more.
> What a paragon of tolerance you are, sir
Lol, are you serious ? Do you not understand the issue involved ?
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
No, the 1668 conquest of England by William of Orange.
the media (what a great surprise) make a big fuss about this after watching 30 replays from 50 different angles for hours and hours.
Most of the "mistakes" where borderline situations in which the referess (or mostly their assistants) did not have a celar view of what was going on.
The "disallowed" goal of Spain against Korea for example (it is not really disallowed, it was never scored and given for good), the ball is crossed when it is exactly in the line. Check a replay, the linesman has at least two players obstructing his view of a very borderline situation.
We the public saw the best angle and the media cried murder. Sorry, but it seems like the media and the public are living parallel realities to what really happens in a pitch where difficult decissions have to be taken in a matter of instants.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When it comes to BMI we lose. Guess I might as well admit it.
Oh... that's not what you meant?
Go work out chubby!
The first "disalllowed" goal of Spain only the ref knows, becuase thankfully, there is no good camera shoot of what happened. But of course if it was agains a big European team, it must be a conspiracy.
The second "disallowed" goal is not such: the referees made a detition (that the ball was out, maybe it was not, but that is said with a camera view that was very clear). This second was a mistake, but nothing out of the ordinary. Simply the technology that allows to see this so clearly makes us believe that is absolutely clear, which in the pitch it is not.
About Italy, Totti was diving all around the place, the referee got fedup. It reminds wolf-cry-lying I don't know why.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The name is actually "association football" in the United States.
Yes-- well, the name's "association football" everywhere, because it's the form of football that's standardised by the Football Association. And the name of the international football association, FIFA, is "Federation International de Football Association", i.e. "International Federation of Association Football". It's just that in some places it's also the default kind of football, so you don't need to add the "association" qualifier.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Actually, it's often refered to as Soccer in Ireland as well, to avoid confusion with Gaelic Football. Although the Irish governing body is the FAI, rather than SAI.
We're just outside of Philadelphia. We were planning on watching the 12:30 replay which was listed on the schedule (even on the local tv station web site). But the news continued, and then some move started at 1:00. Couldn't figure out what was going on -- finally went on their website and found a short note saying "we apologize for the inconvenience". Oh yes -- and a headline announcing THE BL**DY SCORE!!! Thanks a lot, ABC.
Sounds like you need to join the Church of England. They move their services if they clash with a World Cup game.
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E_NOSIG
It's simple really - football is a game played with feet, whereas American football is a game played with Americans.
Quick differences between Canadian football (as played in the CFL and univ leagues) and American football (as played in the NFL and all kinds of college leagues):
- 3 tries instead of 4, so it's more difficult to get your 1st try
- the field is bigger: 110 yards instead of 100, the endzones are 25 yards instead of 10, and I believe the width is different as well
- the posts are at the zero line rather than at the back of the endzone
- I believe the ball is a bit different, a little bigger (rounder) I think
- because of the size of the field and the 3 tries, the attack is much more pass oriented than in American football
- at the end of the season, it's like every games are at Green Bay.
I won't try to compare with the AFL (Arena football league) or the XFL (Extreme? football league) because I don't know well those two. I think the latter won't be back, but I could be mistaken.We also call "soccer" what is known in the rest of the world "football", but I guess that's because of your (USA) influence.
Among the youngsters, soccer is more popular up here than hockey, and that's quite a feat for soccer. I hope we can qualify for and actually play honorably at Germany 2006.
Dammit. The US team kicked ass. Certainly a goalkeeper poll would have been good.
sulli
RTFJ.
I watched on TiVo in the AM Pacific time and thought it kicked ass. Loved Ronaldo's goals. I was pulling for Germany (really like Kahn) but it was clear that this was Brazil's tournament.
sulli
RTFJ.
You have absolutely no experience then. Here in Australia we call it Australian Rules Football or Aussie Rules for short. And in my experience most Irish do say "Gaelic Football" so as to differentiate from football (a.k.a soccer).
Oh, so if the Japanese and *probably* the Koreans, both dripping in football history, use the term soccer then it has to be an international term. I mean, that's like 1% of the total number of nations who attempted to qualify for the World Cup.
So Canadians play a version of your football, American football would still apply since they are an American nation.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
::sigh:: Call it whatever you want to call it. We'll still call it soccer.
No, the 1668 conquest of England by William of Orange.
... that all the people of our dominions were members of the Catholic Church; yet ... conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of mere religion ...' which added to the many other actions that caused riots from 1686 onwards. Parliament had to act, and so invited William (and others) to put pressure on the King.
Perhaps you mean 1688 - and Parliament sent an invitation to William, in an attempt to avoid a Catholic takeover, and keep the nation Protestant.
By no stretch of the imagination can the landing in Devon be called an invasion of England. Public opinion was so against James - he proclaimed 'We cannot but heartily wish
Didn't work out exactly - James abdicated.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
No, the reason that should have been called is because until this Cup, the world had some relief on knowing that there was still a sport where steroid-pumping-high-tech-training gringo athletes couldnt win.
Unfortunately for the world, now the USA are 13th in the official FIFA ranking, when 4 years ago in France they were the 32nd (last place).
Scream at top of your lungs:
...for about 35-50 seconds, or until your lungs collapse.
Goooo(insert another 30 times string 'o') oool!!!!
Thats the way a goal is called, at least South of Texas and North of Tierra del Fuego ; )
Damn lameness filter!
No sig for the moment.