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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.
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.
They were knocked out by Germany in the quarter-finals if I remember correctly.
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?
That's easy to explain... here in Brazil people are called by their first name, calling somebody by it's last name is unusual (it happens mostly when there are two people with the same first name, so one is "elected" to being called for his last name...). :-)
So all these players are known here by their first name... it would be very confusing for the Brazillian public see in the player's shirts their last names... even for foreigners, since almost nobody knows Ronaldo's last name (I know... but I forgot
> 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
He gives everyone different gifts; theirs happen to be being good at football.
And here I was thinking hard work and practice is what gave them their "gifts", thanks for setting me straight.
Maybe if I pray a whole lot I will suddenly learn Java, it's something I've been meaning to do anyway, why waste times with books when I can beg my magical friend for skills instead!
Thanks, you probably saved me many hours of work and study.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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...
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.
Penalty kicks are taken from 36 feet out. If you don't guess you end up just standing there. You really only have enough time to react and move your hands arms or legs a little bit in the time it takes for a goal to be scored. Basically you pick an area of the goal, try to get there, and hope you get hit. If its nearly at you, maybe you can move your limbs the extra few inches to make the save.
The goalkeeping in this world cup has been superb. Several of the games that have ended up 1-0 or 2-0 have been nothing short of spectacular with plenty of chances. The only thing holding the score down in some cases has been the goalkeeping.
Kahn in particular has had a great tournament, and while some may criticize his bobble that would be a bit harsh after the saves he did make in the final. Rivaldo did take a wicked shot that forced that drop.
Brazil's keeper was also out of his mind to make his save on the free kick in the first half.
t
I can't believe this got modded up to +3. Kahn had a great game, he made only one mistake the whole evening, his first of the tournament. Give the guy a break.
Germans had more shots, were aggressive, had the most posession, and were even better one-on-one. Every champion needs a good portion of luck, and Brazil has had it today. There was none of the Brazillian wizardry in this World cup, they were one of the great disappointments for me as they played unimaginatively and got through most of their games through luck and ref help.
As for Gerald Asamoah, he's a bloody striker, of course he was late marking Ronaldo, he was sent in to score a goal.
> South Korea has to have taken over the title of
> "Whiniest Country in International Sports".
You are joking, right? When South Korea got knocked out, the fans were partying in the streets all night. There was no drunken hooliganism like we've seen in the past (sadly) from England fans after they lose. During every game, the Koreans played sportingly (none of this shocking Rivaldo-type behaviour, or diving, or hassling the referee) and played as a team.
Italy, on the other hand, got eliminated and spent the next two weeks whining about a conspiracy and demanding an investigation. One club sacked the Korean player who scored the Golden Goal against them, although they later realised how childish they'd been, and offered him his job back. Spain weren't much better.
Gerv
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!"
"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.
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.
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.
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.
I hate to enlighten you, but next to cricket, baseball is irrelevant as a world sport.
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.
"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?"
You don't understand modern football do you? Almost all games are close in a World Cup. Brazils 4-0 over China and 5-2 over Costa Rica was exceptions rather than the rule.
The little things settle a modern game of football, like having two totally good goals turned down by the referee (Spain), both which should have settled this game. I never expected Spain to win with more than two goals even if they are a better side than Korea, so having two good goals turned down sure cheats them out of a deserved victory.
The game was then settled on a shootout, which is pretty much a lottery.
Italy also had good goals turned down, in addition to a VERY suspect send off for their star player Totti, into extra time. Even if you look the other way at the badly disallowed goals, they should at LEAST have hold on for a penalty shootout.
The truth is that Korea got helped through two games by bad mistakes from the referee. If it had been only one, then perhaps you could argue that they deserved reaching the semi-finals. But two?
I still don't think there was any corruption involved, just plain old mistakes, but Korea did NOT deserve to be in the semi-finals, and as of that, I'm glad Turkey beat them in the bronze-finals.
I've got nothing against Korea or Koreans, in fact they hosted a great tournament, and was definitely good enough to play with the big boys. I like the fact that there are now "new nations" joining the elite, but they still didn't deserve to reach the semi-finals.
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.