Official FIFA South Africa World Cup Thread

[Flystripper]

Considering that two of those games were in the midst of the work week, I would say it is really damn impressive.

very impressive. The World Cup is a special event and ESPN is doing it right this time, but you can't deny the impressive numbers. It has been a fun ride so far. I hope they keep it up.

[statman]

Your circular reasoning doesn't help your cause...

Circular?

Here are my two points:

#1 they like the game the way it is. Otherwise, they'd change it. And, BTW, the DO change the rules occassionally. The offsides rule changed in 1990 because the convention at the time was that it was too restrictive on goal scoring. The 1990 change allowed a player to legally move into an offsides position once the ball had been played to him. Prior to that he had to wait until the ball had actually reached him in order to go past a defender.

In 2003 the offsides rule was changed again, because the 'offsides trap' was resulting in what FIFA decided was too many offsides calls. Post 2003, it's up to a ref's discretion to rule that a "trapped" player as not participating in 'active play' (ie, the actual 'active play' during an offsides trap is on the part of the defense, not the offense). If the ball is played to a trapped player, the ref now can rule that the offensive player didn't cause himself to be offsides, and the offense has a straight run to the goal behind the defense. As a result, sometimes they call trapped players offsides, but sometimes they don't. More breakaways after offsides traps and more goals scored are the benefit. Also, fewer attempted offsides traps...

#2 the rest of the world chooses to live with the rules like: allowing ties, blown offsides calls, missed fouls and handballs, bad calls as a result of flopping, games decided by PKs, red cards forcing teams to play short, etc,
because
a) they are, and always have been, part of the game
b) they can't easily be done away with, even with modern technology. Inserting starts and stops to check replay would destroy the game.
c) it gives them something to talk about and allows highly invested fans to blame something when their team loses.

These are all reasons why occassional unjust outcomes are tolerated, not reasons for the rules themselves. They didn't go out and say "lets allow for ties, so neither team has to lose and we can all feel good about ourselves," or , "I want to make sure there's a way I blame the loss on the refs. Lets not allow for any video review?" Based on how the game is played and officiated, errors are simply going to happen. And there's the added benefit of giving highly invested fans something to bitch about...

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Circular?

Here are my two points:

#1 they like the game the way it is. Otherwise, they'd change it. And, BTW, the DO change the rules occassionally. The offsides rule changed in 1990 because the convention at the time was that it was too restrictive on goal scoring. The 1990 change allowed a player to legally move into an offsides position once the ball had been played to him. Prior to that he had to wait until the ball had actually reached him in order to go past a defender.

In 2003 the offsides rule was changed again, because the 'offsides trap' was resulting in what FIFA decided was too many offsides calls. Post 2003, it's up to a ref's discretion to rule that a "trapped" player as not participating in 'active play' (ie, the actual 'active play' during an offsides trap is on the part of the defense, not the offense). If the ball is played to a trapped player, the ref now can rule that the offensive player didn't cause himself to be offsides, and the offense has a straight run to the goal behind the defense. As a result, sometimes they call trapped players offsides, but sometimes they don't. More breakaways after offsides traps and more goals scored are the benefit. Also, fewer attempted offsides traps...

#2 the rest of the world chooses to live with the rules like: allowing ties, blown offsides calls, missed fouls and handballs, bad calls as a result of flopping, games decided by PKs, red cards forcing teams to play short, etc,
because
a) they are, and always have been, part of the game
b) they can't easily be done away with, even with modern technology. Inserting starts and stops to check replay would destroy the game.
c) it gives them something to talk about and allows highly invested fans to blame something when their team loses.

These are all reasons why occassional unjust outcomes are tolerated, not reasons for the rules themselves. They didn't go out and say "lets allow for ties, so neither team has to lose and we can all feel good about ourselves," or , "I want to make sure there's a way I blame the loss on the refs. Lets not allow for any video review?" Based on how the game is played and officiated, errors are simply going to happen. And there's the added benefit of giving highly invested fans something to bitch about...

I watched a replay of the France v. Ireland game and it looks like it was from Ireland's version of ESPN. The commentators all mentioned that replay needs to come into the mix. Of course they tolerated it, what else are the going to do, show up uninvited at the World Cup and refuse to leave until someone allows them to play?

If you read my earlier post, I suggested that replay should be used in the following three situations: 1) A goal is scored but an offsides is called immediately afterward (e.g. the Clint Dempsey goal from yesterday); 2) A hand ball occurs immediately before a team scores a goal (Henry and Maradona); 3) A ball goes off one team past the end line and the ref blows the call (admittedly, start with 1 and 2 first, this is of secondary importance).

For some reason a replay that would take, at most, a minute to review is not tolerated in very limited circumstances. But a player can roll around on the ground and then get carried off on a stretcher and then magically reappear in the game shortly after (thanks to the healing powers of the magic water in the spray bottle)? Which takes a longer period of time? Sorry, don't buy that one.

Good info on the offsides rules changes, btw, I didn't know that.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Don't you have cable? You probably already get Fox Soccer Channel, which will have all of the best leagues.

With DirecTV you have to get the Sports Pack which cost $13 a month. There's nothing else in the Sports Pack that would be worth watching. I'm not spending $13 to watch soccer. I don't think I'd pay $13 to watch the regular season of the NBA.

[jay santos]

Sometimes I wish I were still on CB so I could fight with people. It's just not the much fun over here.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=5640030

I'm not in the soccer noob category. And I'm definitely not in the Eurowannabe soccer pussy category, even though I think I follow the international game more and understand it better than half of them. Of the two, Eurowannabe soccer pussy is infinitely more annoying and creates a backlash effect you see on CB.

Following the comparison to hockey

1. Hockey fans don't give live updates to random games. And I'm not talking World Cup. I'm talking random, inconsequential games. LAME.

2. If someone were to point out weaknesses of hockey or any other sport, I doubt they'd be met with "you know nothing about hockey, 6 billion people can't be wrong, you're a dumb, arrogant redneck American." Eurowannabe soccer guys are overly defensive.

3. Soccer is the only sport we dump American vocabulary and grammar for. LAME.

[jay santos]

Circular?

Here are my two points:

#1 they like the game the way it is. Otherwise, they'd change it. And, BTW, the DO change the rules occassionally. The offsides rule changed in 1990 because the convention at the time was that it was too restrictive on goal scoring. The 1990 change allowed a player to legally move into an offsides position once the ball had been played to him. Prior to that he had to wait until the ball had actually reached him in order to go past a defender.

In 2003 the offsides rule was changed again, because the 'offsides trap' was resulting in what FIFA decided was too many offsides calls. Post 2003, it's up to a ref's discretion to rule that a "trapped" player as not participating in 'active play' (ie, the actual 'active play' during an offsides trap is on the part of the defense, not the offense). If the ball is played to a trapped player, the ref now can rule that the offensive player didn't cause himself to be offsides, and the offense has a straight run to the goal behind the defense. As a result, sometimes they call trapped players offsides, but sometimes they don't. More breakaways after offsides traps and more goals scored are the benefit. Also, fewer attempted offsides traps...

#2 the rest of the world chooses to live with the rules like: allowing ties, blown offsides calls, missed fouls and handballs, bad calls as a result of flopping, games decided by PKs, red cards forcing teams to play short, etc,
because
a) they are, and always have been, part of the game
b) they can't easily be done away with, even with modern technology. Inserting starts and stops to check replay would destroy the game.
c) it gives them something to talk about and allows highly invested fans to blame something when their team loses.

These are all reasons why occassional unjust outcomes are tolerated, not reasons for the rules themselves. They didn't go out and say "lets allow for ties, so neither team has to lose and we can all feel good about ourselves," or , "I want to make sure there's a way I blame the loss on the refs. Lets not allow for any video review?" Based on how the game is played and officiated, errors are simply going to happen. And there's the added benefit of giving highly invested fans something to bitch about...

Thanks for the history. I didn't know the history of the changes. I wouldn't say that they haven't made changes because everyone in every country besides America thinks the game is perfect. Maybe we're just progressive. Hopefully they'll keep tweaking it to get it closer to what I have in my mind would be a great game.

[Pheidippides]

Hopefully they'll keep tweaking it to get it closer to what I have in my mind would be a great game.

This is pretty much how I feel about all sports. Get rid of the DH in baseball (or have it in both leagues, so long as both are doing it), have a playoff in college football, start calling traveling in the NBA, etc.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Sometimes I wish I were still on CB so I could fight with people. It's just not the much fun over here.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=5640030

I'm not in the soccer noob category. And I'm definitely not in the Eurowannabe soccer pussy category, even though I think I follow the international game more and understand it better than half of them. Of the two, Eurowannabe soccer pussy is infinitely more annoying and creates a backlash effect you see on CB.

Following the comparison to hockey

1. Hockey fans don't give live updates to random games. And I'm not talking World Cup. I'm talking random, inconsequential games. LAME.

2. If someone were to point out weaknesses of hockey or any other sport, I doubt they'd be met with "you know nothing about hockey, 6 billion people can't be wrong, you're a dumb, arrogant redneck American." Eurowannabe soccer guys are overly defensive.

3. Soccer is the only sport we dump American vocabulary and grammar for. LAME.

Eurowannabe soccer pussy is a good term. When they showed replays of those clowns doing their best Euro Soccer Fan (wigs, scarves, etc) imitation at that bar in Seattle (what the hell? A bar at 7:00 in the morning), it made me wonder whether watching this was a good idea, I didn't really want to associate myself with these people.

It was kind of like the Bush protesters I saw in NYC during the GOP convention back in 2004. The media whitewashed that whole event and for good reason. I think Bush would have won in a landslide if all of the networks showed those freak jobs, no one would have wanted to associate with them (I'm only partially kidding, but after this experience I knew right then that I would never turn into a lib).

I get a little bit of Dungeons and Dragons role-playing vibe out of Eurowannabe soccer pussy. Nevertheless, it was the freaking World Cup, of course I could get past American Soccer Fan.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

This is pretty much how I feel about all sports. Get rid of the DH in baseball (or have it in both leagues, so long as both are doing it), have a playoff in college football, start calling traveling in the NBA, etc.

College football: Get an eight team playoff started. But I like college football rules better than NFL rules with the exception that you're down regardless of whether an opposing player touches you.

NBA: Adjust the foul system, it's clearly broken. I can write paragraphs on the NBA.

NFL: Pass interference shouldn't be a spot foul. One foot in bounds is all that's needed. Time stops on first downs. Coin flip to decide who gets the ball in overtime? Use the college rules.

College basketball: Probably the most difficult sport to critique. The NCAA tournament is the best sporting event on the planet. It does diminish the regular season however. The players aren't too big, fast and strong for the size of the court like they are in NBA.

[jay santos]

This is pretty much how I feel about all sports. Get rid of the DH in baseball (or have it in both leagues, so long as both are doing it), have a playoff in college football, start calling traveling in the NBA, etc.

Agree. Free throws are killing the NBA about as much as these issues hurt soccer.

[Tim]

Thump that chest, hater! In fact, you remind of me the most prolific chest-thumper ever on CB/UF/CUF/etc.: Y'zguy.

[Tim]

Baseball is king in Japan, but Soccer is queen.

Half the people in my office were going home right at 6 PM yesterday so they could get up at 3 AM this morning to watch the match. Soccer is DEFINITELY big in Japan.

[myboynoah]

Excellent. Japan won again. I'm going to stick with my strategy of pulling for the English and Japanese language countries.

[BigFatMeanie]

Circular?

#2 the rest of the world chooses to live with the rules like: allowing ties, blown offsides calls, missed fouls and handballs, bad calls as a result of flopping, games decided by PKs, red cards forcing teams to play short, etc,
because
a) they are, and always have been, part of the game
b) they can't easily be done away with, even with modern technology. Inserting starts and stops to check replay would destroy the game.
c) it gives them something to talk about and allows highly invested fans to blame something when their team loses.

#2a - I agree with your reasoning here. I don't like the "it's just part of the game" mentality (let's just call it "tradition" for brevity's sake) in the face of what could be some really great improvements; however, I agree with you that tradition is why soccer is slow to change its rules. The tradition argument is very effective because it really can't be countered. Tradition is valued for its own sake.

#2b - "Inserting starts and stops to check replay would destroy the game." This argument is simply without basis in fact or reasoning. It is old and tired and has been floated out in every single sport (football, basketball, baseball, etc.) again and again. In nearly every sport that has tried replay it has stayed and, in my opinion, improved the game. In fact, I can't think of a single sport where replay has been tried for a season and then completely rejected. There may be such a sport but it would certainly be the exception and not the rule.

The whole "flow of the game" thing is completely bogus as I've previously pointed out in this thread. The fake flopping, the intentional kicking the ball out of bounds on injuries, the intentional stalling when you're in the lead - all of those do more to interrupt the flow of the game than having a limited replay on goal situations would. "Flow of the game" is such an effective argument because, like tradition, it can't be empirically proven or disproven. In fact, "flow of the game" arguments are really just a special case of the "tradition" argument. I would rather people just come out and argue for tradition rather than trying to bolster weak arguments by playing the "flow of the game" card.

#2c - While this probably has some impact, instinct tells me that it isn't that significant.

Obviously guys like Tick are Traditionalists and guys like me and Santos are Suggestionists. I don't have a problem with Traditionalists per se, I just don't like it when they reject strong Suggestionist arguments by claiming that Suggestionists don't understand "the beauty of the game".

One thing the Suggestionists have on our side is time. Progress is inexorable and the Traditionalists will eventually lose. Of course, I don't blame Traditionalists for trying to slow down the pace of change. It's what Traditionalists do. Traditionalists are the equivalent of the Prop 8 supporters in the face of gay marriage. They may be winning the battle now but eventually they will lose the war.

[Pheidippides]

Excellent. Japan won again. I'm going to stick with my strategy of pulling for the English and Japanese language countries.

Japan is always my backup squad. And did you see the first free kick from Honda? The goalie screwed it up, of course, but he scored that kick from somewhere in the middle east!