World Cup Soccer; England v. USA

Threedee said:
There's the hackneyed Ay-mari-cuns!! So, the Aussies are out, then? :(
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Yea, they have one more game in group play but they won't advance. Ireland should have been in the tournament instead of France but they got shafted by FIFA.

The US gets a break being a group winner, though there are no "gimmes" at this level, they match up well against Ghana and will probably be the favored team to win that match.

The odds of the USA making it to the semi-finals are really quite good. Ghanna is rated #32 to the USA #14. Assuming the US wins that match they would play the winner of Uruguay (#16) and S. Korea (#47).

Assuming Brazil (#1) reaches the semi's the US could possibly play them and that would be sweet! The two largest nations in the Americas playing to represent the western Hemisphere in the finals. I could dig that. Though it would probably be the biggest upset in WC history if the US were to go the finals and beat Brazil. Ahhhh wishful thinking.

The Limey's (#8)on the other hand will play Germany (#6) and then would have to play the winner of Argentina (#7) and Mexico (#17).

Assuming they could make it through that brutal set of matches they would probably play Portugal (#3) in the Semi's.

My guess for the finals is that we will see the FIFA equivalent of OSU/Michgan.

Brazil vs Argentina.
 
Here's an interesting factoid. It looks like groups C & D, based on average team ranking, were to two toughest groups in this tournament. Group C's avg ranking was 19 and Group D was 18. So the US won the second toughest group of the tournament.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Here's an interesting factoid. It looks like groups C & D, based on average team ranking, were to two toughest groups in this tournament. Group C's avg ranking was 19 and Group D was 18. So the US won the second toughest group of the tournament.
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And if they were judged fairly by the refs would have won it handily.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Yes indeed. We would have been 2-0-1 and would have scored 6 Goals giving us a total of 7 pts. That would have made us one of the top 4 teams coming out of group play.
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Are you suggesting that non-English speaking refs have conspired to call plays against English-speaking teams? You are obviously a fucking racist.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Here's an interesting factoid. It looks like groups C & D, based on average team ranking, were to two toughest groups in this tournament. Group C's avg ranking was 19 and Group D was 18. So the US won the second toughest group of the tournament.
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Although most people regard the FIFA rankings as a load of old bollocks.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I have no idea what they are based on. Which probably no one else does either.
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It's some weird coefficient stuff where competitive games rank higher than friendly games divided by some other stuff and that.

However, teams are either 'any good' or 'not any good'. For example, France have been shite for the last 2 years, mainly due to their manager being a complete mentalist, and yet they went into this tournament ranked 9th in the world. The US are a better team than Greece but you're ranked lower than them. I don't know anybody who takes them seriously.
 
Threedee said:
Soccer is extremely popular out here (relative to the USA as a whole)...
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Americans hate soccer because there aren't enough goals, so I've come up with a solution.

The current goal is rectangular, low and wide. A goal keeper standing in the center can barely reach the top or bottom corners in a free kick situation. He can easily reach the upper goal post. I suggest keeping the current width and corner height, but turning the top bar into a slight arch to make the area above the center as difficult to defend as the corners.
 
Southern Man said:
Americans hate soccer because there aren't enough goals, so I've come up with a solution.

The current goal is rectangular, low and wide. A goal keeper standing in the center can barely reach the top or bottom corners in a free kick situation. He can easily reach the upper goal post. I suggest keeping the current width and corner height, but turning the top bar into a slight arch to make the area above the center as difficult to defend as the corners.
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Its not the volume of goals. Most Americans just don't like the pacing of the game itself. Otherwise, we wouldn't get excited over a football game with no touchdowns and a few field goals, or a perfect game or no-hitter in baseball. We also don't enjoy basketball for the high volume of scoring (which gets really redundant, minus 3 pointers), but because we enjoy the pacing of the game very much...
 
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