World Cup 2014 Super Thread copyright warning #1645

IanOBo

anyone watching Argentina? Strong team (in other words, Messi is playing)

greendom

Witch Doctor spells trouble for Ronaldo...

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/04/cristiano-ronaldo-portugal-ghana-witch-doctor

klose

IanOBo wrote: »

anyone watching Argentina? Strong team (in other words, Messi is playing)

Bar garay it looks like their best xi to me, think they will do well myself in brazil.

Gringo180

Buffon is 8/1 to win the golden glove. I know the Italians form isnt great coming into the tournament but they very rarely have a bad World Cup and are known for there mean defence.

KombuchaMshroom

Is the Argentina match on any channell?

IanOBo

Not on telly, AFAIK.

eagle eye

klose wrote: »

Bar garay it looks like their best xi to me, think they will do well myself in brazil.

No Zabaleta, Biglia, Aguero or Higuain either. Hardly even close to their best eleven.

klose

eagle eye wrote: »

No Zabaleta, Biglia, Aguero or Higuain either. Hardly even close to their best eleven.

Are they not.? I just glanced at the live score app to see who was playing and they were all listed as starters so maybe its wrong.
Is gago not more likely to start over benega no?

eagle eye

klose wrote: »

Are they not.? I just glanced at the live score app to see who was playing and they were all listed as starters so maybe its wrong.
Is gago not more likely to start over benega no?

Banega did not make the cut for the World Cup.

klose

eagle eye wrote: »

Banega did not make the cut for the World Cup.

Christ, meant to say biglia

eagle eye

Great tackle from Campagnaro but maybe Jones should have done better. Argentina in control here but not looking that great. Messi never looks the same player with Argentina.

Edit: Was funny seeing Messi getting the ball taken off him by a player that is probably not probably not even earning 1/20th of his wages.

Corholio

eagle eye wrote: »

Great tackle from Campagnaro but maybe Jones should have done better. Argentina in control here but not looking that great. Messi never looks the same player with Argentina.

You can't say that here! How dare you :pac:

dreamers75

Antonio Valencia ‏@7AntoV 30m
I apologize to the country, my teammates, the coaching staff for the expulsion of today. But most importantly, I'm fine.

:pac:

eagle eye

Kenwyne Jones nearly in again only for a last ditch tackle. Thats twice now in a short space of time, the Argies don't look good against the counter.

eagle eye

Corholio wrote: »

You can't say that here! How dare you :pac:

Haha, but seriously, the problem is he has to come too deep too often to gain possession and then he is not going to be where you need him to be to the get the best out of him. When you have two defensive mids who look to pass the ball backwards every time there is a sign of pressure its never going to go well for you. It just rips to shreds the formation a coach is trying to get his team to play. Its the reason I don't fancy them at all.

Hulk Hands

Maybe a poor result will stem this sustained mug punt on Argies the for the WC. Doubt it though.

Italy drawing with Luxembourg cant be encouraging? Expecting them to have quite a poor tournament, mostly due to the climate and timing of their matches

Skylinehead

They really don't want to score.


EDIT: Oh :pac:

eagle eye

Lol, certain goal with nobody to stop it missed by Messi from 3 yards.

But they just got one now. Palacio got it after terrible goalkeeping.

Skylinehead

eagle eye wrote: »

Lol, certain goal with nobody to stop it missed by Messi from 3 yards.

But they just got one now. Palacio got it after terrible goalkeeping.

Messi? He didn't even get the ball, that was Di Maria's fault.

Corholio

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Maybe a poor result will stem this sustained mug punt on Argies the for the WC. Doubt it though.

Italy drawing with Luxembourg cant be encouraging? Expecting them to have quite a poor tournament, mostly due to the climate and timing of their matches

As someone on here a few days ago brilliantly put...

"Oh look, Italy in the final"

Witcher

Imagine being put out of the WC after a collision like Ox's:pac: Probably the most stupid injury I've ever seen, I'd cry my eyes out if that ruled me out.

vidor

A great Euros, a good showing at the Confederations Cup, unbeaten in the qualifying campaign and yet they're not being mentioned at all. Poor run of results coming in but you'd be crazy to write them off.

Smithwicks Man

Watched the Italy game earlier on instead of England, they dominated throughout but were caught on the counter a few times after making mistakes. Pirlo had a poor game giving the ball away several times which is uncharacteristic. De Rossi, Pirlo and Verratti is a lethal midfield and Chiellini really solidifies the defence. Abate is suspect at RB however.

In the end they just looked like they didn't care, can't blame them really. The players looked like they had taken what happened Montolivo on board and none of them were going to risk injury for a 50/50 tackle against Luxembourg.

Expecting them to do well enough tbh and they'll handle the climate better than England and Germany I'd imagine.

Anybody Have much of an idea the crowd sizes traveling from each country? I know USA have a big following and of course Brazil and the other South American teams.

LightningBlue

Italy usually don't perform in friendlies in the week before a major tournament.

Friendly results:
Before World Cup 2014: Drew 0-0 with Ireland, Drew 1-1 with Luxembourg
Before Euro 2012: Lost 3-0 to Russia; Game with Luxembourg Postponed
Before World Cup 2010: Lost 2-1 to Mexico, Drew 1-1 with Switzerland
Before Euro 2008: Beat Belgium 3-1
Before World Cup 2006: Drew 1-1 with Switzerland, Drew 0-0 with Ukraine

The one major question is why they chose to base themselves in Rio when all their games are miles away in completely different conditions. (Manaus, Recife and Natal).
The amount of air travel over the group stage could also take a toll.

Pro. F

LightningBlue wrote: »

The one major question is why they chose to base themselves in Rio when all their games are miles away in completely different conditions. (Manaus, Recife and Natal).
The amount of air travel over the group stage could also take a toll.

They probably want to train and rest in easier conditions.

Hulk Hands

2 midday matches in the heat of Recife and Natal, and the game in the Jungle to kick them off. They really are the big losers of the scheduling, along with Germany maybe

Liamalone

Hope the young Ox isn't out, love watching him play and he's had rotten luck, he seems like a normal lad too and hasn't any personal issues following him. Poor lad is probably out though

Corholio

Just watched 'England's Worst Ever Football Team' on BBC Three and they included Vinny Jones in the team.

Am I missing something?

batistuta9

Smithwicks Man wrote: »

Anybody Have much of an idea the crowd sizes traveling from each country? I know USA have a big following and of course Brazil and the other South American teams.

heard somewhere japan should have a decent following there

kronsington

Corholio wrote: »

Just watched 'England's Worst Ever Football Team' on BBC Three and they included Vinny Jones in the team.

Am I missing something?

Didn't he play a couple of games for Wales?

Oat23

batistuta9 wrote: »

heard somewhere japan should have a decent following there

There are around 2 million Japanese-Brazilians. The stadium in Sao Paulo would be packed if they have any games there in the KO rounds. I believe around 60% of them live in the state.

batistuta9

Oat23 wrote: »

There are around 2 million Japanese-Brazilians. The stadium in Sao Paulo would be packed if they have any games there in the KO rounds. I believe around 60% of them live in the state.

yeah i think that was mentioned too now you said it, i'm not sure now where i heard it some podcast or maybe some guy on talksport

i wonder will some of the european teams pick up secondary support, in sao paulo, palmeiras were originally associated with Italians & in porto alegre, gremio with germans, not sure if it's just the cities/states they favoured or if they're nation wide communities of them + the portugese

GLaDOS

Japan have a relatively close relationship with South America don't they? I know they participated in the Copa America before.

Dickerty

My best WC team of all time, from the BBC - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-27699398

---

Dino Zoff

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Carlos Alberto-Fabio Cannavaro-Franz Beckenbauer-Andreas Brehme

---

Socrates

---

Lothar Matthaus

---

Michel Platini

---

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Zinadine Zidane

---

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Pele

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Maradona

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Dickerty

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Japan have a relatively close relationship with South America don't they? I know they participated in the Copa America before.

Not widely known, but Brazil has one of the largest Japanese settlements anywhere in the world - about 1.5M of Japanese descent, due to migration in the early part of the last century. Not surprisingly, they were not very welcome in Europe or North America, so they went to Brazil to start a new life, largely on coffee plantations.

Geography&HistoryNerd

NIMAN

kronsington wrote: »

Didn't he play a couple of games for Wales?

Think he played 8 games for Wales, but he was born in Watford and was basically English, so I think they just wanted to have him in the programme!

Beefy78

pavb2 wrote: »

Very entertaining game I think Roy has some individual talent at his disposal but and it was mentioned the last twenty minutes of their matches will be their undoing especially with fatigue and Sitting back allowing teams to come at them.

I think it could be the opposite. If the weather is hot and humid then teams are not going to want to defend against the likes of Barkley, Sterling and Oxlade-Chamberlain if England can throw a couple of those on with 20 mintues to go.

Clearly this defence won't stand up to much sustained pressure so I'm not expecting England to be as negative as recent tournaments.

kfallon

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Japan have a relatively close relationship with South America don't they? I know they participated in the Copa America before.

Isn't there one or two 'guests' in the Copa America? I think USA, Japan, Honduras, Mexico and maybe Costa Rica have all participated in the tournament from around the mid 90's onwards

Pinturicchio

LightningBlue wrote: »

Italy usually don't perform in friendlies in the week before a major tournament.

Friendly results:
Before World Cup 2014: Drew 0-0 with Ireland, Drew 1-1 with Luxembourg
Before Euro 2012: Lost 3-0 to Russia; Game with Luxembourg Postponed
Before World Cup 2010: Lost 2-1 to Mexico, Drew 1-1 with Switzerland
Before Euro 2008: Beat Belgium 3-1
Before World Cup 2006: Drew 1-1 with Switzerland, Drew 0-0 with Ukraine

The one major question is why they chose to base themselves in Rio when all their games are miles away in completely different conditions. (Manaus, Recife and Natal).
The amount of air travel over the group stage could also take a toll.

Italy haven't won in their last 7 games (so they'll probably win the World Cup).

Iused2likebusts

Reading the natal newspapers ( translated ) they are expecting 8,000 japanese fans for the game between greece and japan in natal. The Usa ghana game there will be more or less like a home game for usa with up to 25,000 of there fans expected. There are also really strong links between natal and usa due to the US having a military base there during WW2. As others mentioned there are a lot of italian immigrants in southern brazil ( rio/ sao paulo) how italian these class themselves though as the majority would have moved there over 100 yrs ago. On the climate recife/natal/fortelaza are close enough to the equator and it basicallly has 12 hours of daylight/night all year round. It gets dark in this area at 5 so its only really the 1pm kick offs that the heat will be an issue. Italy have two 1 pm kick offs which will be tough however Ive been in that region twice in june and your looking at atleast 2 days a week it raining quite heavily so the weather may not be a factor. Evening games in that region will not much of an issue. The 2 natal games im going to are 7 pm kick offs it will be dark and approx 20 degrees.

Meglamonia

Up until what point can you change your 23 man squad?Is it only through injury?

Lucas Hood

Meglamonia wrote: »

Up until what point can you change your 23 man squad?Is it only through injury?

Taken from this article.

"FIFA rules allow for an injured player to be replaced after their 2 June squad deadline up to 24 hours before a team's first World Cup game."

mike65

Ox-Cham out for up to three weeks, but could be only 10 days. Go figure!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/05/alex-oxlade-chamberlain-injury-england-world-cup

Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley are on the stand-by list while Nathan Redmond, who has been in good form for the under-21s, may also come into consideration as a more like-for-like player should it be neccesary to replace Oxlade-Chamberlain. Yet Hodgson may prefer to keep Stones on board considering his involvement with the squad during England’s training camp.

greendom

mike65 wrote: »

Ox-Cham out for up to three weeks, but could be only 10 days. Go figure!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/05/alex-oxlade-chamberlain-injury-england-world-cup

Those replacements highlight what little quality Hodgson has to choose from.

mike65

It highlights that he left out some names that he might have taken a punt on - Tom Ince, Conor Wickham for example

greendom

mike65 wrote: »

It highlights that he left out some names that he might have taken a punt on - Tom Ince, Conor Wickham for example

Think I'd rather take a punt on either of those 2 than Cleverly or Carrick.

Meglamonia

Anyone watch Argentina last night?

Heard messi was poor first half I don't think they'll win it,they'll need messi on top form and it doesn't happen often with Argentina.

Pro. F

greendom wrote: »

Those replacements highlight what little quality Hodgson has to choose from.

Hodgeson has a huge amount of quality to choose from. He just makes a balls of it, manages the team poorly and then everybody assumes that England don't have good players.

Two wingers who would be in the squad or starting - Ox, Walcott - are injured. Sterling, Milner and Lallana are still in the squad. So for sixth and seventh choice wingers they could have Aaron Lennon and Adam Johnson. That is a very good pool of wingers.

Beefy78

Lennon hasn't been great this year (he's still surprisingly young). Johnson has been up and down and Hodgson doesn't seem to rate him. I find it hard to argue.

If Ox is out then hopefully he brings in a defender.

I am pie

Meglamonia wrote: »

Anyone watch Argentina last night?

Heard messi was poor first half I don't think they'll win it,they'll need messi on top form and it doesn't happen often with Argentina.

He got the joint highest mark from the local press, 7 out of 10 (they generally never give much higher than a 6, most players last night got 5 or 6) and was generally well received. This coming from a local press who give him a pretty hard time usually! If your spanish is up to it you can check canchallena.com.ar

Of course, we're talking about a meaningless friendly with Trinidad & Tobago, you'd be a fool to try and read much into these pre-tournament warm ups.