The Glade 4.0

I saw no threads on it, so I'm creating it.

Go Team USA! Nice showing against England. While it wasn't perfect, it was a respectable showing against a tough English group. They did get lucky on that one goal, but the English goalie made a great stop later that could have won it for the US. So I'd say it evened out. I definitely think this US team should make it out of pool play, but we'll see. And I'd love them to play some good competition, like Germany, on the way to the title. I don't want the world to say the US got lucky and they faced easier opponents. Let's win it the right way!

Shut Up ;(

They had Victory on TV last night. I love that movie.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Sorry our friend across the Atlantic, but at least we're both probably making it out of the pool play. I can't see Slovenia or Algeria beating us out. Perhaps we'll get to meet in the finals again for the rematch.

Australia 0: germany 4...

I was sad and sleepy panda =(

That was a soft goal man...in some countries people are killed for things like that.

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Raell Kromwell

I've tried to figure out why nobody really cares about soccer in the USA. The main thing I can come up with is the other four major sports (baseball, football, basketball, and hockey) all tend to have more frequent gratifying moments. I'm curious to get all'y'all's thoughts on it.

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The Dude abides.

That's exactly it, IMO. It's too slow and not enough action for American audiences. Hence, why baseball viewership is down. It also ends in ties far too often, which is another thing that I think bugs us as Americans. Look at this World Cup, for example. Half the games have been ties thus far, including 0-0 ties. That means there was little action, maybe a few scoring opportunities here and there. I think we like instant gratification a bit too much to be involved in such a slow-developing game.

On the other hand, I like watching it. It's a departure from what we normally see, but I'm a sports junkie and will watch just about sport on this planet. Yes, I will even watch figure skating, golf, and curling.

It isn't made for TV, as football is, and as such football draws more attention from younger athletes, and for those younger athletes the two seasons run concurent, effectively elimination participation in one. Those younger athletes grow up to be older fans, and carry their love of the sport with them.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Hey now ... be thankful the Brazilian ref didn't hand out that Red Card. And you know what I mean ... I'm looking at you, Jamie Carragher.

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The game is too long and there are too many men on the field which leads to the low scores. I've tried to give the game a chance but I just can't follow. It is fun to watch sometimes, I respect the players as well. I mean, the shape you have to be in to run for that long. They also take some serious abuse.

Oh and the whole end in a draw thing? American's want a winner to lift up and a loser to make fun of.

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Raell Kromwell

It doesn't satisfy our need for instant gratification. 90 solid minutes of running back and forth, only to frequently end up in a tie. It's not terribly exciting, and often results in a rather unsatisfactory result (a tie game).

Random thoughts:
- I was really, really surprised to see how consistently Cherundolo was beating Milner. I'm not used to thinking of 'Dolo as fast... was Milner hurt?
- Demerit had a surprisingly good game in the center of defense
- A nation of 300+ million still has a hard time producing a natural left back.
- Bob Bradley was I think guilty of watching the game instead of managing it in the 65-75 minute neighborhood; his substitutions, or utter lack of them really when they began being called for, could have easily cost us the game.
- John Terry and Frank Lampard have my undying contempt (see: drunken derision of Americans whose flights were delayed at at Heathrow post-9/11). They don't even have to play for Chelsea for me to dislike them.
- Watch how the game changed when Shaun Wright-Phillips came on: we had issues with his speed. Why Capello brought on Crouch and not Dafoe is beyond me, although I'm grateful.

Oh, and Buntar would have been all over this thread.

Fairly certain the U.S. should have won that game.

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For those that missed the UK v. US game, you can find a video of the goals here.

These shots add a completely new dimension to the game.

Its boring as hell. Watching a bunch of guys kick a ball back and forth, and then fall on the ground writhing in pain when one so much as gets tickled by the breeze from another player.

I tried watching some yesterday. Was Uruguay and Italy. BOOOORING. after like 60 minutes or something, the score was 1-0.

Saw one guy get a shoe tapping the back of his head and he fell down like he got Bruce Lee'd right in the Jibblies. Saw another dude blatantly hack another guy's shin... nothing happened to him.

Its boring and incomprehensible

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Holy shitsnacks!

I'm an admitted fan of the game, but if I was going to single something out as being hard to get used to, it'd be timekeeping. Two 45 minute halves, plus an indeterminate amount of stoppage time based on injuries, substitutions, etc. The amount of stoppage time is shown at the end of the half, but the CR will pretty much always let play continue until a buildup in play is interrupted (turnover/clearance). If there are 4 minutes of stoppage, they're gonna let it go 4:30 if the guys a goal down have the ball in their opponents' penalty area. It's definitely different in a "we're playing until we decide the game's over" sense. And sometimes, you'll get some out-of-nowhere, six minutes, what the hell? amount of stoppage added.

Why don't we like it? A number of reasons. The indeterminate stoppage time is weird - at the end of Italy-Paraguay, they had "3:00 minutes" up on the TV, and no one seemed to play with any urgency. Get the ball back in play, don't writhe, or sit there and make sure the ball is just right before you do. Of course, it went on beyond 3 minutes, too. No one knows, except the ref (and even then, I wonder).

But, that's just a blip ... On Friday, watching France v. whoever in the office, someone (foreign-born, actually) asked if there had been any goals. I jokingly said, "There are goals in this sport?!" I later looked it up, and no, there were no goals in that game. So funny. So, yeah, ties are an issue - play until those **** drop, ya know?!

Not that there aren't scoring opportunities, or excitement, in a 0-0 tie, but, something just seems to be missing from the sport if it's that hard to score a goal.

But, the big epiphany I had was that at a very high level (like the World Cup), it's actually fairly interesting and rewarding to watch. But ... lower quality soccer is just not that interesting. I can watch bad baseball all day, however, because it's still intrinsically interesting somehow.

I also used to think that sports like soccer and cycling (which I do enjoy) aren't interesting unless you actually participate in them, so that you have some inkling of what the athletes are going through, and how difficult it is to be good. On the other hand, you can still enjoy baseball or football without ever having set foot on a diamond or a gridiron.

Oh, and, incomprehensible? That would be the "offsides" penalty. Best explanation I ever saw was probably the beer bottles in Bend It Like Beckham, and I still don't quite get it. Well, maybe I do, but I don't get the rationale behind why it's wrong. Would probably make the game more interesting if it wasn't a penalty.

All that being said, I'll watch it when I can.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Sign at the N. Korea game yesterday.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

That so rocks.

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The Dude abides.

6 out of 16 games so far have ended in a 0-0 or 1-1 tie.

****, play till someone actually wins FFS.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I tried to watch the USA Vs. England game. I gave up about half way in.

Those horns are annoying and deserve to be shoved up the asses of whoever thought using them during a televised event was a good idea.

They're apparently not so annoying at field level, from what I heard on NPR yesterday.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

South Korea Vs Argintina tonight... such excitement regardless of my realistic logic... /shakes fist at logic.

Here's the group make up for this year...

Group A
South Africa
Uruguay
France
Mexico

Group B
Argentina
South Korea
Greece
Nigeria

Group C
England
USA
Slovenia
Algeria

Group D
Germany
Serbia
Australia
Ghana

Group E
Netherland
Japan
Cameroon
Denmark

Group F
Italy
New Zealand
Slovakia
Paraguay

Group G
Cote D’Ivoire
Brazil
Portugal
North Korea

Group H
Honduras
Spain
Chile
Switzerland

apart from the usual suspects, my wild card this year is actually North Korea... After watching them play against Brazil, I'm not sure how to place them on my chart.

My top 16...

Uruguay
France
Argentina
South Korea
England
USA
Germany
Australia (I don’t care if this is wishful thinking damnit >.<)
Netherland
Japan
Italy
Paraguay
Brazil
North Korea
Spain
Switzerland