lordstanley Posted June 15 Posted June 15 26 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said: Cape Verde celebrating after a 0-0 draw against Spain is what makes soccer great. Yeah, we didn't win the game but neither did you! 1 Quote
lordstanley Posted June 15 Posted June 15 Egypt 1 Belgium 1 FT. I think there have been enough draws that 4 pt isn’t rock solid as being enough to move on to the knockouts. For 4 pts to be safe, the 3rd place teams in 4 of the 12 groups need to max out at 3 pts. There may be a lot of groups where the 2nd and 3rd place teams tie each other but pound the bottom dweller. Most 4 pt teams will move on, but I can see one or two of them losing out on goal differential. Quote
lordstanley Posted June 15 Posted June 15 Not a great start for South American sides. They may need to step up their diving and high tackles. Quote
buddha Posted June 16 Posted June 16 iran-new zealand is a very exciting game between two terrible teams. Quote
buddha Posted June 16 Posted June 16 2 hours ago, lordstanley said: Not a great start for South American sides. They may need to step up their diving and high tackles. youre in luck, argentina play tomorrow. if youre looking for diving and beating the **** out of your opponent, look no further. Quote
GalagaGuy Posted June 16 Author Posted June 16 59 minutes ago, buddha said: iran-new zealand is a very exciting game between two terrible teams. Iran is actually ranked 20th in the FIFA rankings for World Cup teams. New Zealand is 85th. Quote
buddha Posted June 16 Posted June 16 24 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said: Iran is actually ranked 20th in the FIFA rankings for World Cup teams. New Zealand is 85th. that says more about fifa rankings than it does about iran. Quote
GalagaGuy Posted June 16 Author Posted June 16 (edited) 59 minutes ago, buddha said: that says more about fifa rankings than it does about iran. FIFA revamped the rankings system back in 2019 and they are widely considered to be more accurate than they used to be. The World Football ELO Ratings are supposedly the best and they have Iran 30th in the world. Pretty respectable if you ask me. New Zealand is ranked 72nd, so yeah, they still suck. Edited June 16 by GalagaGuy Quote
lordstanley Posted June 16 Posted June 16 (edited) Watched Iran-New Zealand at a packed viewing party on the waterfront in North Van, where most of our city’s 50,000 Persians live. Many of the Aussies who have hung back before heading to Seattle were cheering against the Kiwis. Halftime entertainment wasn’t as colorful or cheeky as it was for Brazil-Morocco on Saturday though. I must say, the TSN broadcast set from the downtown side of the water has the best backdrop of any of this year’s hosts, IMO. Edited June 16 by lordstanley Quote
buddha Posted June 16 Posted June 16 (edited) 6 hours ago, GalagaGuy said: FIFA revamped the rankings system back in 2019 and they are widely considered to be more accurate than they used to be. The World Football ELO Ratings are supposedly the best and they have Iran 30th in the world. Pretty respectable if you ask me. New Zealand is ranked 72nd, so yeah, they still suck. ymmv, but 30th in the world sucks. and when i look at the fifa rankings iran are 23rd. ahead of the ivory coast. ahead of ecuador. norway. egypt... i dont rate the fifa ratings. Edited June 16 by buddha Quote
GalagaGuy Posted June 16 Author Posted June 16 2 hours ago, buddha said: ymmv, but 30th in the world sucks. and when i look at the fifa rankings iran are 23rd. ahead of the ivory coast. ahead of ecuador. norway. egypt... i dont rate the fifa ratings. The updated ELO has Iran 34, Ivory Coast 37, Egypt 45. You might be overvaluing your internal ratings just a bit. Quote
buddha Posted June 16 Posted June 16 17 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said: The updated ELO has Iran 34, Ivory Coast 37, Egypt 45. You might be overvaluing your internal ratings just a bit. i saw ivory coast look great in beating an ecuador team that finished second in the second toughest region in the world. i saw iran struggle to tie one of the worst teams in the tournament. so far, my internal rankings are more accurate than tour fifa or elo rankings. Quote
buddha Posted June 16 Posted June 16 nate silver's PELE ratings have Iran rated 51st, which seems more approrpriate. ivory coast 31. ecuador 13. Quote
Edman85 Posted June 16 Posted June 16 (edited) 21 hours ago, buddha said: youre in luck, argentina play tomorrow. if youre looking for diving and beating the **** out of your opponent, look no further. I will admit the games have been entertaining if soccer fans admit their verb agreement is horse****. Edited June 16 by Edman85 Quote
lordstanley Posted June 17 Posted June 17 2 hours ago, GalagaGuy said: Old man Messi still got it! Stars came out today. Mbappe and Haaland in addition to Messi. 1 Quote
buddha Posted June 17 Posted June 17 messi shouldnt have even been on the pitch! completely stomped on a guy's leg. doesnt even get a yellow. lol. well, if fifa can rescind ronaldo's suspension so he can play, the refs are probably very aware they are not allowed to give cards to superstars. Quote
GalagaGuy Posted June 17 Author Posted June 17 I missed it last night, but yeah, Messi shouldn't have even been in the game. He even knew he screwed up by the way he reacted. Unreal the refs just ignored that. Quote
buddha Posted June 18 Posted June 18 ronaldo, you can still score and be a diva in the worthless saudi league, but youre nothing but an old, tired man when you have to play in the big leagues. martinez is such an overrated coach. have some balls and sit ronaldo, he's killing your team. you have the best midfield in the world and you're wasting them because you cant have a real talk with ronaldo. even neymar's arrogant ass (who shouldnt be anywhere near a national team) knows he's an "impact sub" now. time to hang em up ronaldo. for the good of the team. Quote
RedTeamGo! Posted June 18 Posted June 18 Is the idea here that every team sucks unless they are loaded with top players from the EPL? Ronaldo is definitely toast. Quote
buddha Posted June 18 Posted June 18 1 hour ago, RedTeamGo! said: Is the idea here that every team sucks unless they are loaded with top players from the EPL? Ronaldo is definitely toast. What team do you think is good that "everyone here" thinks sucks? Quote
RedTeamGo! Posted June 18 Posted June 18 4 minutes ago, buddha said: What team do you think is good that "everyone here" thinks sucks? Oh nah, I didn't mean here as in motown, I just meant the idea everyone sucks except a few teams being presented by you. Also, I am not trying to be hostile If I am coming off that way, just an interesting topic to me. I am not saying everyone is good, I am just saying even the lower "ranked" teams have some talented players and depending on how they play together they can make some noise. For example, Japan is always a tough team to play and they often play above the skill level on their team. As a team they are worth more than the sum of their parts. I think in order to actually win the world cup you have to be loaded with talent, but that doesn't mean everyone else sucks. Over the years I have made a habit of looking up the rosters of teams when games start. Even the smaller countries have some players. Especially nowadays with players being able to play for multiple nations. Take Haiti, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_national_football_team#Players This is a very low ranked team from CONCACAF. However, this is basically a France reserve squad. Most of their players were born and raised in France. A lot of them play in either the French league or random euro leagues. Even have a forward that plays for Sunderland. Now, to be clear, I am not saying Haiti is some great team, but this isn't like a team of carpenters from Haiti, these are professionals. New Zealand, who was referenced before, I have watched them over the years. They are certainly not a "good" team, but I wouldn't say they "suck" either - they have some players, Chris Wood has scored a lot of goals in England, for example. A lot of their players place in Oceania professionally, but I think what they have going for them is they have a small player pool so they have been playing with each other for a very long time. Will they ever compete with the top countries? No, of course not. However, they have enough to give them games in the group stage. Quote
buddha Posted June 18 Posted June 18 I think soccer is a low event sport. it can be even more low event when an inferior team goes up against a more talented team with the sole purpose of not letting the other team score. so teams that suck can look better than the sume of their parts. japan is a good team with lots of players in the big european leagues. haiti is not a good team, but that doesnt mean they cant rise up and stifle a more talented team like the congo just did to portugal and cape verde did to spain. in sum, i think the better teams are made up of better players, while also acknowledging that soccer is a team sport, and a team of lesser talented players playing as a cohesive unit, can often beat a "more talented" team. "lesser talented" teams sometimes get the luck of the draw and make it to the semis (like morocco), or sometimes pay off the refs to cheat for them (like south korea), or sometimes play so well definsively as to stifle much better teams and get lucky on the counter (greece or denmark in the euros). the fun part is finding out. the unfun part is watching ghana and panama bore everyone to tears because theyre genuinely not very good. iran and new zealand arent very good either, but at least they put on a show. Quote
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