World Cuo England vs USA on saturday. Any of you going to be watching?

As a casual soccer fan, probably.

in st. maarten

netherlands on monday(i think) gonna get me an orange jerzey

nope.

Definitely can't wait!

my beef with soccer (similar to basketball) is the over acting. brush up against an opposing player and they act as if they collided with a semi! c'mon suck it up and knock some heads.

Glad to see at least a couple of you are enthusiastic. It's a pretty big event our two countries facing off in the World Cup. My wife and I are going to be on opposing sides on this one. Going to a bar in Brooklyn to watch the game. There's going to be a good split between Americans and Brits. Should make for a fun atmosphere!

watch out for those damn hooligans

Yeah I know. That's a big issue especially with the Italians, Spanish, Argentinians and others all at it. They actually seem to see it as a legitmate tactic. Shouldn't be any of that going on tomorrow though. Neither us English or the US are known for that.

Will watch it, but still find it so amusing that FIFA still thinks its a good idea to have this world tournament every four years and potentially have the winner determined by a shootout. Game 7 NBA finals are tied, ok guys, lets have a free throw contest. Also, whats the mystery with exactly how much time is left. Can we add another ref or two to cut down on the diving?

I always wondered why they just don't stop the clock when there's an injury or when the ball goes out of bounds like they do in other sports. Wouldn't it make things a lot easier on the refs instead of them having to figure out how much stoppage time to add at the end of a half or game?

The problem is that there is just too much going on in the world of soccer at any given period to have it every year or even every other year. Every nation has its own professional league, you have continent-specific tournaments like the CONCACAF Cup, the Euro, the UEFA Cup, the Champions League, etc. They also have to contend with the Olympic soccer tournament in the summer two years removed from the previous World Cup. That's a mini-World Cup in a sense. It doesn't get nearly the same pomp and circumstance and it isn't the only game in town with all of the other Olympic events going on, but it is an international tournament. There just isn't enough preparation time to hold the World Cup more often, I guess.

But yeah, I look forward to the World Cup. It's a fun tournament to watch and hopefully the USA breaks through with a big showing one of these years.

I shouldnt say nope. I wont watch a whole game but im sure if im home ill tune in for some games if the US is playing

almost fell asleep watching it. i still dont get how the net is so big, and there is rarely any scoring

We went to a bar in the city and somehow CBS heard about the rivalry between the wife and I - she being American me being a Brit so they sent someone down to the bar to interview us. It was short but fun. I don't know if anyone saw cbs at 6 and saw something about it? We got home around 6 20 so missed the earlier stuff. We're going to watch the 11 oclock broadcast to see if it's on there. A fair result for both teams.

sorry nybrit I tried to watch but i cant stand the damn horns. It drives me crazy. Next time i tune in ill turn the volume off.

i thought i was the only one who was annoyed. now its all over the sports news. i couldnt stand it, i had to put the volume down. idk if i can watch another game, i dont get how a 0-0 or 1-1 game is exciting. to me it takes them so long to get the ball down the field, just to be kicked back the other way. also annoys me when they have the ball in the opponents box, and they pass it backwards, and more backwards to the goalie

No I agree they're annoying. I think this will go down as one of the most unpopular World Cups because of it. Except for the winners of course. FIFA had hinted they might try to ban them but now said they won't. It would be tough to enforce anyway. Most of the 1st round games have been pretty dull too except the Germany game. They have to be one of the hot favourites after the way they dismantled Australia. Honours even between us. A draw was the best result because neither side really deserved to lose...though we rode our luck in the second half when our keeper pushed a shot onto his crossbar.

I've seen plenty of exciting 0-0 draws. I know in most American sports it's all about the scoring. Basketball for instance can have scores in the 60s and baseball and football are always played until there's a winner. In soccer obviously the score is the most important thing but when you're watching two skilful sides attacking each other it can be fantastic to watch. I guess you have to have a different mentality to appreciate that. Of course if the game is dull and there have been a few dull games so far then it's boring to watch. But is every baseball or football game exciting?

I agree; I can appreciate a low-scoring game if it is exciting and both teams had lots of chances to bury one. Too much scoring can also detract from a game's excitement. If you see baseballs flying out of the park in a 19-18 game and it's almost too easy to score, that's boring too. I don't like when the meaning of a score is watered down to near insignificance. What is appealing to me about soccer is that every goal (and every chance missed) means a lot. You can see the anguish on a player's face when he misses a good scoring chance by kicking the ball over the net or missing wide. He knows that he may have just cost his team a chance at winning the game. Drama like that is hard to beat.

I don't think the problem with soccer is about scoring, rather about the amount and frequency of exciting plays. I have played and coached soccer for years but find it insanely boring to watch.....and that comes from a baseball fan, which might be the slowest sport on earth.

It is so difficult to connect enough quick passes to an open area to generate a quality scoring chance that the game, by design, becomes a long drawn out chess game. I actually prefer to watch lopsided games that wind up 4 or 5 nil because the dominant team is good enough to create many exciting chances and the losing team is not really that far off from stopping them.

Adding a restraining line would make for an intersting experiment for the US fan. Somewhere between the midfield and 18, add a line that creates an offensive mismatch. Say 7 offenders vs 5 defenders between that line and the end line. Once settled in the attack, the offense has 2 open players to work a play. In the midfield, the defending team has a huge advantage in transition. That would quicken the pace without taking away from the necessary skill.

Offsides like hockey would work great in soccer, but they can not get the exact time of match right, still settle a tie in a a championship played every four years with a stupid shootout, there is no hope that offside would be changed.

It's become a world-wide thing now. There's even an iPhone app (which has been dowloaded by millions already) that makes the vuvuzela horn sound.

i LOVE that app

Just saw the magic of the World Cup at its best. Unfancied little Switzerland beat one of the hot favourites to win the cup Spain 1-0. That's why I love this sport!

From my perspective there is nothing wrong with soccer and no changes need to be made to fix it. I know the whole point is scoring goals but I've seen plenty of 0-0 games that were exciting. It's all about your mentality approaching the game. To me it's the greatest sport on earth and the World Cup is the greatest show on earth.

I would hate that. It's like you're trying to make soccer more like football. They're two totally different sports. I prefer it when you have 2 good teams playing each other especially when they're good passing teams. You get to see some good plays in games like that. One sided games are fun when it's your team on top but the best games are always going to be when both teams are fairly equally competitive.

Isn't Spain a notorious underachiever in the World Cup? They're always among the favorites going in, but they never seem to go very far.

They've always had that tag but they won the European Championships 2 years ago (that's a tournament played along the lines of the World Cup but with only European countries taking part) and because of this many people had them as favourites to finally lift the World Cup this year. However, with Chile winning this morning and Switzerland beating them, Spain might struggle to get out of the group stages now. Spain dominated the game with at least 75% possession of the ball throughout the game and 25 shots at goal. Switzerland had only 9 and most of those coming after scoring. It was one of the most one sided games I've ever seen. The only other game that comes close was in Italia 90 when Brazil dominated Argentina from start to finish launching wave after wave of attacks but ending up losing 1-0. Gotta love the World Cup!

If Game 7 between the Lakers and Celtics finish in a tie, they play until someone wins, not have a free throw contest to determine the winner. Maybe they should just flip a coin.

The shootout is the first change that is needed and its not an American thing, but the problem is FIFA is too stubborn. They are hung up on tradition at the expense of improving the game.

Wow. Was the goalie for Chile making really good saves or was Spain missing the net a lot? A lot of times in hockey, you'll see a team dominate the game in terms of shots and possession, only to be stonewalled by a hot goaltender who refuses to get beat.

It was Spain vs Switzerland sorry to confuse you. Chile played earlier and also won.

Spain had 25 shots but only 5 on target so they wasted a lot of chances but were constantly threatening. This was by far the best game in the competition so far even eclipsing Germany's 4-0 win over Australia for excitement. I just hope we get a lot more games as entertaining as this one was.

To me the shootout adds to the drama. It's the most nailbiting thing in any other sport. Five shots each on goal and the team who scores the most wins. Believe me when it's your team or country involved you feel the tension.

The only problem is that the nature of soccer lends itself to a shootout deciding things, unfortunately. Because it's so hard to score, you could go on for several overtimes before someone finally scores a goal. You would see players collapsing on the field out of sheer exhaustion if the game went far past regulation time. Don't forget, you only get three substitutions per game in soccer also. If they relaxed that rule and allowed unlimited, free subbing, maybe that would lend itself to a scenario where they could do away with penalty kicks. I'm not crazy for them either. First, the goalie has no chance in most cases. If they make the save, it's because they got lucky and guessed correctly as to which direction the shooter would kick the ball.

The thing about the penalty shoot out is it's a duel between the keeper and the shooter. Some keepers are good enough and it's all about the keeper trying to read the striker's intention. Is he going to shoot to the keeper's left or right? If he can guess correctly by reading the kicker's body language and maybe the way the kicker is looking and dives the right way then he has a good chance of saving it. Also the kicker may try to deceive the keeper by dummying to kick to the left then actually kicking to the right. Don't forget as well most keeper's are pretty big and tall and if you're the kicker that keeper is going to look a pretty big obstacle to get the ball past. It's a duel of wits, confidence and some luck as well. It's a cruel way to lose a game when you're the player who fails to score but for the keepers they both know one of them is going to be a hero.

I still remember that look of despair on Baggio's face when he shot the ball over the net in the 1994 Final between Italy and Brazil. It's got to be a sickening way to lose a world championship.

I'm sure it is. And believe me I know. England have crashed out a few times during penalty shootouts. We don't do well at them at all.

You want a nailbiter, watch a NHL playoff overtime.
I've heard the tired argument enough.
Play until you drop is better than the shootout.
You need to add an extra sub every 30 minutes, so be it.
The shootout is like flipping a coin.
Exciting, sure, but absurd.

They do not want to change things like offsides to open up scoring,
yet the excuse for having a crazy shoout is there is not enough scoring.
Its the same thing we have to have the mystery of the clock.
Imagine 20 seconds exactly left, send them all up, pull the goalie.
No, we need it a mystery that only the ref knows.

All kidding aside, I watch it, and enjoy it, find it amusing how FIFA and many fans
refuse to make some obvious improvements.

thank you, biggest nail biter of them all is NHL overtime, especially in playoffs. i jus watched the Greece/Nigeria game, i was goin for greece being its my nationality. One guy on Nigeria got a red card, for gettin in a little scuffle, lifting up his leg, and the greece player obviously flopped down pretending to be injured. this has to stop in this sport, its an embarassment and totally unsportsmanlike. Sad how no one gets penalized for diving in soccer. Meanwhile in hockey, u get caught diving, u get called for a penalty, and gets reviewed by the league for possible fines

One of the games a player did get booked for diving. It's supposed to be a rule especially in the big tournaments that if you are judged to have dived then you get a yellow card but often the referees get conned and to be fair it can be hard at times to see if a player really was fouled or if he dived. Especially as they don't have the benefit of video replays. I hate the cheating that goes on too.

In case anyone is interested the US and England both qualified for the knock out stages of the World Cup today. The US won against Algeria with a very very late goal.

Yeah i would say most people i know are following it pretty closely - thanks for the update though!

I hope that I see can see the game on tape delay later. I was trying to follow along on the internet at work, but it's obviously not the same. It sounds like an epic ending, though. The goal was scored in stoppage time from what I heard.

Yeah. You were literally just 2 minutes from going out. Funny thing was you scored at almost the second England's game ended. Slovenia must have thought for a moment they were still going through despite their defeat.

I heard there was another controversial call that went against the US? Didn't get to see it as I was also at work.

Yeah Mike.

There was an offsides call that disallowed a potential goal by Clint Dempsey. I didn't see much to call offsides, but it was called anyway.

Big shock today in the World Cup as Italy crash out finishing at the bottom of the group...that includes Slovakia (who beat them today) and New Zealand. So the two finalists from 4 years ago both out in the group stages.

I think Italy should of won. The refs made a couple of bad calls on them.

Their biggest problem was not beating New Zealand. Italy is ranked 5th in the world and New Zealand is 78th according to FIFA. New Zealand showed a lot of guts in that game and played hard, but Italy had no business losing that match by rights. You can't give away points against teams that you have more talent than in the group stages. They underachieved, bottom line.

There's no doubt Italy have lots of talent. If they'd played in all 3 games the way they did in the last 10 minutes of this one they'd have won all 3 easily. Perhaps they were over confident. On paper that should have been an easy group for them.

I can't even imagine what the headlines in Italy's papers will be tomorrow. As critical as the sports media can be in the United States, it's ten times as bad in other countries, especially when it comes to soccer. They take losses as an insult to their national pride.

The French went home in disgrace! They got a very cold reception and apparently some of them had to meet the president to explain themselves. Mind you they were worse as a player was sent home for having a go at the manager and the team refused to do a training session. It's good to see how they all get on so well lol. It's even being called a state scandal. It's all here...

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/sto...5901&ver=us

I don't think the Italians will be treated quite as bad as this. Almost but not quite.