FIFA World Cup 2014

[thrawn]

There recently was a compilation on Dutch tv of all the penalty series of the German team in World Cup history. They took 19 penalties, and missed just one... Taking penalties is a science, stopping them is too (to some extent) but if you take a penalty properly it can't be stopped.

I think statistically, the best thing a keeper can do to save a penalty is stand still and don't jump to either side.

 

[ILovecycling]

I wonder how you can enjoy a match if you think literally everything is fixed. What about the Brazil match? You said they would do anything to let Brazil win but Howard Webb did a good job imo. And if Proenca somehow wanted the Netherlands to win he could have done much worse.

yeah,referees were very good these last few matches.Hopefuly Webb will be a referee in the Final,otoh he could blow more fouls on neymar.

Im not saying not a single match of this Cup is not fixed (maybe one or two) but some talks here are ridiculous imo.

True and with every keeper having a weak side as well so..... ..for me it was the left side in my playing days.

for me too,left side almost on the ground.
Good new signature

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Here we go. I love penalty shootouts.

Grrrrr! Worst idea ever!

Imagine MLB ending tie games with a home run competition, or the NFL ending a game with a FG contest, or the NBA ending a game with free throws, or cycling ending a close race with a sticky bottle competition.

 

[thrawn]

Grrrrr! Worst idea ever!

Imagine MLB ending tie games with a home run competition, or the NFL ending a game with a FG contest, or the NBA ending a game with free throws, or cycling ending a close race with a sticky bottle competition.

What's the alternative though? You can't have guys running around infinitely.

 

[The Hitch]

What's the alternative though? You can't have guys running around infinitely.

IDK.
Maybe in extra time you take a player off each team every 10 minutes and golden goal after the 30 minutes are over.

Penalties really defeat the purpose of the competition - finding out who the best team is.

Grrrrr! Worst idea ever!

Imagine MLB ending tie games with a home run competition, or the NFL ending a game with a FG contest, or the NBA ending a game with free throws, or cycling ending a close race with a sticky bottle competition.

The chances of a tie in NFL though are infinitely smaller.

I would like to see a field goal competition decide it though. That would be hillarious.

Especially since a tie is only worth 1/16th of a win, so they might as well just fight for the win.

 

[hrotha]

I love penalty shootouts, and they are a skill like any other in football.

 

[movingtarget]

What's with the 1.00 PM starting time in the heat. Do FIFA do anything logically or is it simply about TV scheduling ? Sports doctors in Brazil reportedly warned them about this long ago.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

What's with the 1.00 PM starting time in the heat. Do FIFA do anything logically or is it simply about TV scheduling ? Sports doctors in Brazil reportedly warned them about this long ago.

TV scheduling. Euro focused still.

 

[VO2 Max]

Myth.

Besides fixes and whatever goes on behind curtains, there should be at least 1* underdog winning a WC in its long history.
But there isn´t. Why? Because "big" soccer countries get all the small advantages by the refs (less reds, less penalty kicks against compared to chances, less obvious fouls yellow carded, etc.). This small advantages add up step by step, inch by inch... and lead to the same old countries meeting in the finals.

* Let´s say there are at least 5 true underdogs in each WC reaching the knock-out/2nd round stage, with a approx. 30% win chance, this adds up to 0.3x0.3x0.3 = 2.7% chance for each underdog to reach the final. That´s 13.5% for all five countries. That´s a true underdog reaching at least the final every 9 to 10 world cups. Yet it never happend, but should have twice.
Ok, small sample size case. But still, we are overdue for a team like Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Algeria or like that at least reaching the final.

Expand the terms of reference a bit - Greece obv won Euro 2004, and for World Cup semi-finalists:
Sweden (1994 & 1950, and also finalists in 1958)
Bulgaria (1994)
Croatia (1998)
Turkey & South Korea (2002)
Belgium (1986)
Poland (1978 & 1982)
Austria (1954 & 1934)
USA (1930)
Hungary (1938 & 1954, although they were one of the best sides at that time)
Czechoslovakia (1934 & 1962)
England (1990, and also winners in 1966)

which starts to look more like a less fancied team gets pretty close in almost every World Cup. You could say it is your two underdog finalists but in the last 14 World Cups, given both England and Sweden got to the final when they hosted the competition; neither has done better than a single semi-final since.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

KLM airlines went there on Twitter after Netherlands beat Mexico at the World Cup

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ter-netherlands-beat-mexico-at-the-world-cup/

 

[theyoungest]

What's the alternative though? You can't have guys running around infinitely.

In field hockey, there used to be penalties but they've now been replaced by the same kind of shootouts you get in ice hockey: start from a certain distance and then you get 8 seconds to pass the keeper, doesn't matter how. Personally I think those are fun to watch, and it could work in soccer as well.

KLM airlines went there on Twitter after Netherlands beat Mexico at the World Cup

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ter-netherlands-beat-mexico-at-the-world-cup/

To be fair to KLM, it doesn't have the same kind of political implications in Holland as it does in the US... and Mexico, obviously. Still an incredibly stupid tweet, of course.

 

[hrotha]

In field hockey, there used to be penalties but they've now been replaced by the same kind of shootouts you get in ice hockey: start from a certain distance and then you get 8 seconds to pass the keeper, doesn't matter how. Personally I think those are fun to watch, and it could work in soccer as well.

I think they used that at the MLS if memory serves.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Five Reasons Why So Many Brazilian World Cup Spectators Are Rich and White

http://www.riogringa.com/my_weblog/...-world-cup-spectators-are-rich-and-white.html

 

[Merckx index]

What's the alternative though? You can't have guys running around infinitely.

Are you serious? How about the team with majority possession throughout the game, or the team that spends the majority of its time in its opponent's half of the field? Or most shots on goal? There are many indicators that one team is out-playing another, why not decide on one that seems particularly appropriate? Not only would this avoid the shoot out, but it would probably reduce the number of games that end in a tie in the first place. If a game was tied late, the team losing the tiebreaker would have to go on offense. It could not sit back and play for the tie, as underdogs often do.

You could even do something akin to what college American football now does, a continuation of the game but under rules that make scoring much more likely. E.g., have five offensive player from one team vs. two or three defenders of the other team, give them five minutes to score. If one team scores and the other doesn't, it wins. If they both score, the team that does it fastest wins. If neither scores, the most shots on goal wins.

I'll admit I enjoy watching shoot-outs, but they really do seem to be little better than a coin flip.

Also want to complain about the red card, which I think is cruel and unusual punishment. Why not take the offender out just for a few minutes, as in hockey? Or if he's taken out for the entire game, why not allow substitution, as in basketball? Forcing a team to play underhanded for much or most of the game seems especially unfair in light of how subjective the refs' decisions are. Two players may engage in identical forms of behavior, one gets carded, the other doesn't.

 

[The Hitch]

Are you serious? How about the team with majority possession throughout the game, or the team that spends the majority of its time in its opponent's half of the field? Or most shots on goal? There are many indicators that one team is out-playing another, why not decide on one that seems particularly appropriate? Not only would this avoid the shoot out, but it would probably reduce the number of games that end in a tie in the first place. If a game was tied late, the team losing the tiebreaker would have to go on offense. It could not sit back and play for the tie, as underdogs often do.

You could even do something akin to what college American football now does, a continuation of the game but under rules that make scoring much more likely. E.g., have five offensive player from one team vs. two or three defenders of the other team, give them five minutes to score. If one team scores and the other doesn't, it wins. If they both score, the team that does it fastest wins. If neither scores, the most shots on goal wins.

I'll admit I enjoy watching shoot-outs, but they really do seem to be little better than a coin flip.

Also want to complain about the red card, which I think is cruel and unusual punishment. Why not take the offender out just for a few minutes, as in hockey? Or if he's taken out for the entire game, why not allow substitution, as in basketball? Forcing a team to play underhanded for much or most of the game seems especially unfair in light of how subjective the refs' decisions are. Two players may engage in identical forms of behavior, one gets carded, the other doesn't.

This post is going to read so American to many here and might even offend a few.

Using game tiebreaker is a no go since the fundamental of football is that only one stat counts. There's nowhere near this obsession with stats, shots chances possession etc that y'all have in Us sports.

And football is about as hostile a sport to rule changes that one can imagine. It's been about a 2 decade fight to simply get goal line technology in and they won't accept it for anything else.

So they will never accept anything other than penalties.

As for red cards, I agree with you it ruins games but football will never accept anything different.

 

[sniper]

Are you serious? How about the team with majority possession throughout the game, or the team that spends the majority of its time in its opponent's half of the field? Or most shots on goal? There are many indicators that one team is out-playing another, why not decide on one that seems particularly appropriate? Not only would this avoid the shoot out, but it would probably reduce the number of games that end in a tie in the first place. If a game was tied late, the team losing the tiebreaker would have to go on offense. It could not sit back and play for the tie, as underdogs often do.

You could even do something akin to what college American football now does, a continuation of the game but under rules that make scoring much more likely. E.g., have five offensive player from one team vs. two or three defenders of the other team, give them five minutes to score. If one team scores and the other doesn't, it wins. If they both score, the team that does it fastest wins. If neither scores, the most shots on goal wins.

I'll admit I enjoy watching shoot-outs, but they really do seem to be little better than a coin flip.

Also want to complain about the red card, which I think is cruel and unusual punishment. Why not take the offender out just for a few minutes, as in hockey? Or if he's taken out for the entire game, why not allow substitution, as in basketball? Forcing a team to play underhanded for much or most of the game seems especially unfair in light of how subjective the refs' decisions are. Two players may engage in identical forms of behavior, one gets carded, the other doesn't.

good (food for) thoughts here.

as for the red card, punishment should imo co-depend on the damage inflicted on the opponent. if the opponent can't continue play due to injury, the offender should not be allowed to return on the pitch either.

 

[kingjr]

Penalty shootouts is the best part of the whole game tbh. The whole pressure resting on the shoulder of the individual, there is nothing more beautiful and exciting in sports for both the watcher and the player. imho.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

France vs Nigeria

Lets pretend these are the good old days of colonialism and trample all over Nigeria.

3 - 0

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Forget the trample, this is much more like survival.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

LOL @ "our experts" on german TV. Proudly they announced at halftime with super-hi-tech-slow-mo that the linesman did a great job by seeing it "correct" that the goal was offsides. Yet in reality he was just lucky. "Seeing" the scorer in offsides by 4.2 cm (!!!) from 25 meters out. Watta joke.
1.) If that goal was by France, the linesman would have given the benefit of doubt, thus the goal would have counted.
2.) The human eye can´t see offsides (especially not from an angle, even if it´s only a slight one) by watching the ball and players on different spots at the same time. Especially not if somebody is offsides by 4.2 cm or not.

Thus: Wrong descision. Again. The refs should have given the benefit of doubt by rule, that goes to the scorer if "on same level/height". After all; what a fart again...

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Foxxy, how do you know he was uncertain about his decision, you know that things can seem pretty clear when they are in motion.

But of course I am not trying to ruin your standard complaining.

 

[l.Harm]

France getting away with what should have been like their 3rd/4th red card this tournament.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

seem pretty clear when they are in motion.

Nice sarcasm, I didn´t got it instantly.... BTW you are cherry picking. Complaining and approving are at least 50/50 of my posts.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Nice sarcasm, I didn´t got it instantly.... BTW you are cherry picking. Complaining and approving are at least 50/50 of my posts.

Actually it wasn't sarcasm. I really don't believe these "in benefit of the doubt" claims are detectable for the observer. The funniest thing about it is that people almost only bring it up when it actually was offside, not when it wasn't. Close offside decisions are simply close decisions. They are nothing that should be discussed at all.

And I am not cherry picking, I know that you also have comments that approve. It's just that you use any chance you get to either complain on a sensefull basis or simply construct something so you can complain.

 

[Flamin]

France getting away with what should have been like their 3rd/4th red card this tournament.

What are you talking about?