Neowin's Official World Cup 2006 Thread

[nwBen]

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! :woot:

[L3thal Veteran]

It could've been Juan, I am not too sure. I was tuned in to Croatia's game.

[alpha_omega]

i swear Croatia played dirty, no offence to Croatians on Neowin...

None taken.

[tiagosilva29]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[nwBen]

It could've been Juan, I am not too sure. I was tuned in to Croatia's game.

*Australia's game :D

[User6060]

So its Italy vs Australia. I'm sorry socceroos but its the end of the line. AZZURRI

[Orange]

That Brazil game was excellent. Sleeping giant! Good to see them back in playing some real football! :D

[Romario Brazil]

From BBC.co.uk http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/w...006/4853416.stm

Brazil striker Ronaldo became the joint highest scorer in World Cup history as he scored twice against Japan.

The 29-year-old headed in an equaliser before half-time to go past Pele and then curled in his 14th finals goal at the end to go level with Gerd Muller.

Japan went ahead through Keiji Tamada's left-foot drive but Brazil took control through Ronaldo, Juninho Pernambucano's 30-yarder and Gilberto's sweet strike. Ronaldo wrapped it up and the Group F winners now play Ghana in the last 16.

In the process Brazil made it 10 consecutive wins at World Cup finals and they finally produced the sort of free-flowing football their fans have been waiting for. They went into the game under a different sort of pressure - they had already qualified, but had come under heavy criticism for a lack of flair in their performances. No-one had suffered more than Ronaldo. Branded overweight and unfit, the top scorer at the 2002 World Cup was perhaps just one game away from being dropped. He needed a goal and nearly got it straight away, producing a trademark shimmy to create space only to see Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi make a fine save.

Kawaguchi was in for a busy night. Twice Robinho tested him, once with a left-foot snap-shot, then with a curler after a majestically mazy run. He pulled off a blinder to deny Ronaldo and then made the save of the tournament to almost unbelievably tip over a thunderous Juninho drive from 20 yards. Just when it seemed a matter of time until Brazil scored, they were hit by a brilliant Japan counter-attack. Alex found some space on the left and slipped in a lovely ball to Tamada, who took a touch and hammered a stunning left-footer into the top corner of Dida's net.

But with almost the last touch of the half Ronaldo buried his demons, heading in from close-range after Cicinho nodded Ronaldinho's centre back across goal. He should have scored again just after the break after an exquisite one-two with Ronaldinho on the edge of the area, but could only guide a right-foot shot inches wide from 16 yards. It did not take Brazil much longer to go ahead and it was a horror moment for the previously outstanding Kawaguchi. Juninho hit a hopeful shot from 30 yards that swung and dipped and deceived Kawaguchi as it went through the stopper's attempted save.

It was party time for the Brazilians and they wrapped up the points when Ronaldinho fed Gilberto and the 30-year-old skilfully drilled home a left-foot shot from a tight angle. Ronaldo was not finished yet though and he saved the best until last in Dortmund.

Taking a pass from Robinho, he superbly manouvered some space before side-footing brilliantly into the far corner from outside the area. Brazil, and their star striker, have finally arrived at the 2006 World Cup.

Fat Pig making World Cup Story :devil:

Edited June 22, 2006 by Romario Brazil

[Orange]

From BBC.co.uk http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/w...006/4853416.stm

Fat Pig making World Cup Story :devil:

Lol :rofl:

Well i think we were all thinking.. when will Ronaldo score.. he proved it tonight :cool:

[L3thal Veteran]

Lol :rofl:

Well i think we were all thinking.. when will Ronaldo score.. he proved it tonight :cool:

:yes:

[P.M.K]

Australia are through!!!

What a game!!!

[fascist]

Im still crying because of that us lossssssss no, how could it happen. :cry:

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

lmao, three yellows before the red? :rofl:

Wtf Poll, you can do better!

[Romario Brazil]

Im still crying because of that us lossssssss no, how could it happen. :cry:

Is not team fail is the american society fail.. until americans continue ignoring soccer (sponsors, tv, stadiums) the U.S. Soccer will not advance. BTW we can't force the culture of a nation but I think put USA in a World Cup is a bit of injustice.. Uruguay, Nigeria, Cameroon.. lot of teams can bright the good soccer unlike USA.

[I am Reid]

Is not team fail is the american society fail.. until americans continue ignoring soccer (sponsors, tv, stadiums) the U.S. Soccer will not advance. BTW we can't force the culture of a nation but I think put USA in a World Cup is a bit of injustice.. Uruguay, Nigeria, Cameroon.. lot of teams can bright the good soccer unlike USA.

I hope you arnt American, because everyone here DOES know about it. It is on tv every weeked and their a channels dedicated to it, they have sponsors, and yes they have stadiums. Albeit they arnt as big as football stadiums(100,000+), but neither are any of the world cup stadiums(40,000-70,000). Its the simple fact that no one gives a ****, no one ever will. Their is still a select few that care, but just because the overwhelming majority dosnt care about it, dosnt mean the few that do care should be left out. Anyways that small percentage of people that like it, is actually quite big compared to the total of other populations.

[emel]

football will get popularity in US when there is good quality state vs. state games. MLS hasnt reached it maturity yet.. Here people care more about their state clubs than anything else.. US basketball and baseball team getting whiped in internatonal game matter less than a game between miami vs. dallas.

[Krpano]

Oh men, just returned home.

I was in a bar watching the game with some hot chicks (and my wife, lol).....:D

C'mon ppl, leave Ronaldo alone.

Everybody knows the end of his career will be soon. What Brazil is doing is trying to help him to break the goal's record, and hands down to the brazilian team during this game because they played for Ronaldo.

We could clearly see that they were opening the spaces in the middle to make Ronaldo's life easier, i think this is the minimum we could do for a player that did so much for us in the past.

Ronaldo this and Ronaldo that, its easier for us to complain but none here(including me) will ever achieve a half of what he did.

What you dont realise that he even overweight and with near 30 y/o still score in a world cup. Does anyone here know how hard is to an athlete at his 30's to play in a professional level ?

Ronaldo at his 16 y/o was already playing in the professional 1st league in Brazil.

Anyway, i think Brazil did a good game (not wonderful) and got a good score.

As Parreira said we will increase our gameplay as the championship advance.

And as he said too: " In a world cup, the "show" is to win".

Congrats to the Australians for the qualification. :D

Cant wait till the next round start up.

[I am Reid]

football will get popularity in US when there is good quality state vs. state games. MLS hasnt reached it maturity yet.. Here people care more about their state clubs than anything else.. US basketball and baseball team getting whiped in internatonal game matter less than a game between miami vs. dallas.

Ok now the thing you just said about the US basketball team getting "whipped", was just dumb. Yeah they didnt win gold in the last olympics, because that was a horrible team, and everyone knew it. I dont think you realize how many players turned it down, because they were afraid of getting hurt. If anything that was not their A team, or B team, it was their C team. So what if they only won bronze. Do you know often that has happened. Only once, they lost ONCE to the USSR in 88, that was it until 04, they had never lost ever at basketball in the history of the Olympics, they dominated that sport like no other country has dominated any sport ever.

[a1kashur]

^ Before you get too hyped up about it, that was because not many countries played basketball. These countries just started playing bball. US players plays 84+ games a year and have been playing longer than any team in the world. So losing to newbies is kind of embarrising. The real test starts now when there are teams who can compete. US owned bbal when there was no other team. Let's see how good they are against other countries. Call yourself WORLD CHAMPS when you win against other countries not other states.

Anyway, the real matches start now.

[BroChaos Veteran]

bah, tough loss for the US. i really think they need to change the way soccer is played, there is just too much acting. as a serious sports fan, but only a casual fan of soccer, i have to say i've been really turned off by all the acting and faking. if you need to be carried off in a stretcher, you shouldn't be walking for at least 3 months. but to see reyna fall down, cry like a baby, realize they didn't call anything, look up to see the guy on the break away, and then put his head back down and start crying again, get carried away on a stretcher, and then 2 minutes later back in the game is just a joke.

[L3thal Veteran]

but to see reyna fall down, cry like a baby, realize they didn't call anything, look up to see the guy on the break away, and then put his head back down and start crying again, get carried away on a stretcher, and then 2 minutes later back in the game is just a joke.

I don't know how much of the game you saw, but he was substituted 10 minutes later and an MRI showed that he strained his medial collateral ligament (MCL). In my opinion, him coming back and trying to help out even when he knew his knee was in trouble shows a lot about the courage and heart soccer/football players have. We are quick to bash players for their theatrics but we aren't in there to know what they feel. Being a casual soccer player that I am, some of those tackles really hurt when contact is made but then the pain disappears a minute or two later.

[Cube]

these refs are BS. That was not a penalty and I would have liked US tried to go up 2-1 rather than think about scoring 3-2..

[nwBen]

lmao, three yellows before the red? :rofl:

Indeed. This is all that needs to be said:

[macstorm]

'We wuz robbed', all right, just not by the ref.

Instead, blame a smart coach who turned timid at the wrong time and a team that never developed a real sense of urgency.

Then throw in the bosses at U.S. Soccer who, despite pockets stuffed with cash from Nike and other top-drawer sponsors, failed to find or forge even one difference-making player from a nation of 299 million people.

Finally, take a turn in front of the mirror.

The reason the United States is officially "Going, Going, Ghana!" from the World Cup, as one headline put it memorably Thursday, is simple. It still hasn't bothered to learn how to play the world's game.

Americans don't like their ballplayers taking dives, let alone embellishing them. But that's exactly what Ghana's Razak Pimpong did to buy his team's second goal -- the one that beat the Americans -- at the end of the first half. It happens a half-dozen times in every soccer game ever played.

This time, nudged from behind by U.S. defender Oguchi Onyewu in the penalty area, Pimpong went down like he'd been shot. And German referee Markus Merk, one of the best in the world, uncharacteristically bought in. Then Ghana's captain, Stephen Appiah, buried the ensuing penalty kick (for comparison purposes think: free throw) with ruthless glee.

That happens more than it should in soccer, too. But in a game where scoring chances are few, and breaking up a play is much easier than building one, the goal has always been to get them by any means necessary.

Cynical? Certainly. Should it offend our sense of justice? Absolutely. The reward, especially when a player dives, is all out of proportion to the foul.

That's why FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, won't touch instant replay. Americans take for granted the idea that a wrong can be redressed at any time. For proof, check out your overburdened local court system. But endless appeals still a luxury in much of the rest of the world.

Over there, the score on the field stands. Calls may be argued about for generations -- 20 years ago, it was Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal; 20 years before that, Geoff Hurst's "Wembley goal" -- but they're never reviewed or overturned.

Besides, the penalty kick that Ghana converted en route to a 2-1 win, no matter how much Coach Bruce Arena and his squad obsess over it, was only one setback in a tournament chockfull with U.S. mistakes.

Like the infamous "Bartman" meltdown by the Cubs, or the way the 1986 Red Sox fell apart after a ground ball squeezed between Bill Buckner's wickets, it was a symptom of systemwide failure -- not the cause. The real problem were all those plays made -- or not -- on either side of the penalty kick.

The U.S. team managed three shots in its final outing, after just one in two previous games. In hindsight, knowing that four years of work was being shrunk to a final 45 minutes against Ghana, it's fair to ask Arena, his staff and his players what they were waiting for.

And if he were being candid, the coach would reply that he's been waiting for at least one striker as lethal as any of the four Argentina brought; a midfielder who could crack the starting lineup for Holland or England; or any player skilled enough to set foot on the field anywhere for Brazil. Ronaldo may look fat compared to the fit players we put on the pitch, but at least he knows how to finish.

Arena took over the U.S. program in the wake of its disastrous 1998 showing -- three losses, zero wins; one goal for, five against; last in the 32-nation tournament -- and made it respectable. He steered the 2002 edition to the quarterfinals by playing to his only real strength, great goalkeeping, and teaching a corps of fast, young players to be just opportunistic enough to punish teams that attacked them without taking the proper precautions first.

Like every other team game, soccer is about numbers. The more men committed to each attack, the better the scoring chances. The flip side is that more men forward means more open space behind them. Once the rest of the world respected the Americans enough to play them straight up, the jig was up, too. Nothing short of a supreme effort in every game could have papered over the talent gap that still exists, and the only time the U.S. players managed that was against Italy.

Why Arena didn't coax it from them sooner, or take more risks by adjusting his roster formations and tactics accordingly, are the questions he should have to answer if he wants to stay on.

And to be sure, there will be stories calling for his job, plus the usual smart-aleck commentaries about how the U.S. team being sent home is actually a good thing, because the rest of the world is mad enough at Americans as it is and now we can get back to focusing on sports we really care about.

Which is fine. Just remember it's no coincidence that the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and even the NHL are filled to overflowing with difference-making athletes carrying valid U.S. passports. And until soccer manages to siphon off a few for the cause, it will always be a lost one.

Yahoo! News

[Martyn]

football will get popularity in US when there is good quality state vs. state games. MLS hasnt reached it maturity yet.. Here people care more about their state clubs than anything else.. US basketball and baseball team getting whiped in internatonal game matter less than a game between miami vs. dallas.

I believe the whole MLS league system to be flawed. It is so unlike how football should be player. American's just tried to be different rather than going with natural and more sensible soccer leagues. The MLS draft system is pathetic, and who the hell made it up? Until you sort out your league you will never be able to adapt to the World Cup.

I think credit should be given to David Beckham who has actually tried to boost football in America, with various acadamy's and coaching.

C'mon ppl, leave Ronaldo alone.

Everybody knows the end of his career will be soon. What Brazil is doing is trying to help him to break the goal's record, and hands down to the brazilian team during this game because they played for Ronaldo.

We could clearly see that they were opening the spaces in the middle to make Ronaldo's life easier, i think this is the minimum we could do for a player that did so much for us in the past.

Ronaldo this and Ronaldo that, its easier for us to complain but none here(including me) will ever achieve a half of what he did.

What you dont realise that he even overweight and with near 30 y/o still score in a world cup. Does anyone here know how hard is to an athlete at his 30's to play in a professional level ?

Ronaldo at his 16 y/o was already playing in the professional 1st league in Brazil.

I agree with what your saying. Ronaldo has a goal scoring record nearly averaging one goal a game, which is just incredible, and not many players have done that in there time. Everyone is moaning about Ronaldo showing little movement and sharpness, although I admit he is unlikely to get anywhere without that, he is a still an effective player with a lot of technique, he knows where the back of the net is. Lot's of people are forgetting that Ronaldo has suffered a few career threatening injuries, and he has done superbly well to come back from that.

205 goals in 262 league games for his various clubs.

61 goals in 91 games for his country.

Legend :yes:.