World Cup

[headquarters]

It has been a great world cup in Brazil - but the last match USA - Belgium was awe-inspiring. Belgium won but I have to admit - USA impressed everyone.

What a great match USA played.

Congratulations.

[Cdnwolf]

Says you... I had Belgium and with their win a clean sweep of that round and won $50.00

Brazil is going to lose to Colombia, France will finally beat the Germans at something, Netherlands will take their series and I think the Belgiums will advance.

So it will be Netherlands vs Belgium and France vs Colombia... and a Netherland/France final.

[Benjamin]

Ugh, I hope not.

I root for in this order...USA, Germany (I'm living in Wuerzburg right now), Mexico (many of my very nice Mexican friends told me to) and then England ("Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament and England lost.")

Having the Nederlands win would be tragic.

Benjamin

[headquarters]

A splendid match

I have to say - USA -Belgium was a spectacular match. Even though the goals came late there was a drive and an intensity that was second to none. The Belgians were great of course, with their plethora of international stars and up and coming talent, but the US fielded a brave and tenacious side that had the Belgians up against the ropes many a time. What a drama. I am still not over it. One of the best - if not the best match - of the championship so far.

The US should be proud of the achievement and the pure entertainment the US side delivered.

Cant wait to see what the next games will be like - so far it has been awesome.

Says you... I had Belgium and with their win a clean sweep of that round and won $50.00

Brazil is going to lose to Colombia, France will finally beat the Germans at something, Netherlands will take their series and I think the Belgiums will advance.

So it will be Netherlands vs Belgium and France vs Colombia... and a Netherland/France final.

[Cdnwolf]

Everyone is picking Argentina over Belgium but I look at how well they played in their group. Argentina had an easy group while Belgium had to play against tougher teams and during the playoffs Argentina had three yellow cards which will hurt them.

[Rainbow Six]

This has definitely been one of the best if not the best World Cups I can remember. It appears that the US has finally embraced the beautiful gamewelcome to football chapsprobably the best game in the Worldhaving watched most of the USA games, including the game against Belgium last night, theyve played well, and seem to have had an amazing travelling support behind them.

The odds are against the European teamssince the World Cup began in 1930 every World Cup held in the Americas (North and South) has been won by a South American team (conversely, almost every World Cup held in Europe has been won by a European team sole exception was Brazil, who won the 1958 World Cup in Sweden).

Before it started I tipped Brazil to beat Argentina in the final. Ill stick with that.

[headquarters]

yep

I predict not - but I think I will root for Costa Rica and possibly Germany. I agree on the match analysis - the best championship in decades.

This has definitely been one of the best if not the best World Cups I can remember. It appears that the US has finally embraced the beautiful gamewelcome to football chapsprobably the best game in the Worldhaving watched most of the USA games, including the game against Belgium last night, theyve played well, and seem to have had an amazing travelling support behind them.

The odds are against the European teamssince the World Cup began in 1930 every World Cup held in the Americas (North and South) has been won by a South American team (conversely, almost every World Cup held in Europe has been won by a European team sole exception was Brazil, who won the 1958 World Cup in Sweden).

Before it started I tipped Brazil to beat Argentina in the final. Ill stick with that.

[Raellus]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one here that's into futbol. It even looks like I'm not the only United States of American soccer fan!

My two foreign sojourn teams, Uruguay and Ecuador, are out. My home country is out too. So, I'm going to pull for the int'l team that has the most players from my club team, Arsenal [of London]- that's Germany (Per Mertesaker, Lukas Podolski, and Mesut Ozil). That said, France has two current Gunners (Olivier Giroud and Laurent Kocielny) and Belgium has one (Thomas Vermaelen). I've always been a fan of the way Brazil plays, so I wouldn't be upset to see them win it all, and Messi is just brilliant to watch, so the same holds true for Argentina. It's a veritable feast of football.

[CDAT]

It has been a great world cup in Brazil - but the last match USA - Belgium was awe-inspiring. Belgium won but I have to admit - USA impressed everyone.

What a great match USA played.

Congratulations.

I have to say as an American I do not get soccer, we watched the game at work a couple of my coworkers are into it and they told me that it is not uncommon to not have any goals tell the very end when they will change up tactics, I do not undersand if the tactics work to get goals why not use them from the start

[kato13]

I have to say as an American I do not get soccer, we watched the game at work a couple of my coworkers are into it and they told me that it is not uncommon to not have any goals tell the very end when they will change up tactics, I do not undersand if the tactics work to get goals why not use them from the start

I don't get that if a match ends the overtime session they go to penalty kicks. To me that would be like if a tied baseball game was decided by a homerun contest or a tied basketball game being decided by everyone taking a free throw. It is a totally different execution when compared to a majority of scores within a game.

Personally I would like to see fewer players on the field in the overtime sessions. This would open up the field and allow more scoring.

I have been saying this for decades, but I see now someone at Forbes agrees me. (In addition to being mentioned in 2006 by FIFA's president apparently.)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimpagels/2014/06/30/a-simple-alternative-to-soccers-atrocious-penalty-kick-shootout/

I realize that the NHL uses penalty shots during the regular season, so perhaps such a system would be reserved only for the playoffs (as the NHL goes to unlimited OT during those) or high profile games like the world cup.

[Raellus]

Penalty kick shoot outs only happen in tournaments after a 30-minute extra time period has expired. In the "regular season", they're never used being as ties are allowed. But, when a clear-cut winner must be named, PKs are utilized. After both sides are exhausted by 120+ minutes of running, PKs kind of make sense. They used to have a "golden goal" option (basically sudden death OT) but that was done away with some time ago (not sure why, though).

I think that a similar system would prove really popular in baseball. After an extra inning or two is played without either side defending a lead, go to a mini- homerun derby. Many fans dig the long ball, and I reckon most would prefer a HRD decider to a five-hour game where both teams run out of pitchers.

[Rainbow Six]

I think the problem with the golden goal was that knowing that one mistake could potentially put your team out of the tournament often led to situations where neither team wanted to take risks by going forward and attacking which could leave them potentially exposed at the back in the event of a counter attack. So it led to both teams adopting a very defensive approach, which kind of defeated the purpose.

[Rainbow Six]

So, I'm going to pull for the int'l team that has the most players from my club team, Arsenal [of London]- that's Germany (Per Mertesaker, Lukas Podolski, and Mesut Ozil). That said, France has two current Gunners (Olivier Giroud and Laurent Kocielny) and Belgium has one (Thomas Vermaelen).

Don't forget the Costa Rican Gunner!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Campbell

(Yeah, I know, technically he's out on loan but he's had a good World Cup)

[simonmark6]

I always thought you should count back the number of red and yellow cards. That way the cleaner team wins. Might not go down well with the South Americans though.

[Raellus]

Ah, yes... Joel Campbell. He hasn't played a single game for Arsenal's senior squad yet so I forgot about him. His World Cup performance might help him break into the team.

Another "tie-breaker" option that I've heard discussed is that the team that has the most corner kicks is declared the winner, the idea being that they must have played more offensively to have won more corners than their opponent. It's supposed to reward attacking play.