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Borgholio wrote:Go USA! *waves a tiny flag then scurries under a rock*
People here are mostly aphathetic, to be honest. My city is not hosting any games, however.ray245 wrote:Seeing that the world cup is kicking off in a few hours time, I think I ought to start a world cup thread. With Brazil in a terrible mess organising this world cup, I can't imagine how Brazilians would respond if their team got kicked out of the cup early.
I think we have a solid chance.So which team do you think will win the cup this year? Spain? Germany?
Expectations are high that England limp and bumble through the group stages, display a brief ray of hope by scraping past Greece in the round of 16, and then lose fifteen nil to Brazil in the quarter final.Crazedwraith wrote: But more to the point, I don't know and I don't care. I fully expect England to do its usual trick of scraping through group stage, thereby getting everyone's hopes unrealistically high and then crash out ignominiously.
I watched that game and those allegations are bullshit. The only questionable call was the penalty shot awarded to Brazil due to an obvious dive, but the Croatian player did have both hands on the diving player's shoulders. Didn't matter in the end, because Brazil scored two other goals without that. All four goals of the 3-1 match were scored by Brazilian players, by the way. The first one, for Croatia, was an own goal due to an unfortunate bounce.Soontir C'boath wrote:Reading rumblings about the Brazil-Croatia game having a shit ref, game being fixed with the Croatian GK could've saved the goals, etc etc. Not a great start with that vantage point.
Anyway, go Korea!
The original article and image are here.Crazedwraith wrote:This,Exactly
Why So Many World Cup Fans Dislike Argentina
RIO DE JANEIRO — Argentina has one of the most successful national soccer teams in the world, and the country has won the World Cup twice, in 1978 and 1986. In this year’s tournament, the team ranks among the most formidable competitors, with Brazil’s coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, even predicting a final showdown with Argentina.
But if the Argentine team is feared by many fans, it certainly is not loved. To put it bluntly, many people can’t stand the thought of an Argentine World Cup title.
A plurality of people in several countries named Argentina when asked in an Upshot/YouGov study which country they were rooting against this year: Brazil, where 34 percent named Argentina; Chile (20 percent); and Colombia (14 percent).
Continue reading the main story
Which Country Is Your Least Favorite in the World Cup?
Across Latin America, Argentina has the most people rooting against it.
| Said Argentina was the least-favorite team | Said Brazil was the least-favorite team
Chileans say… | 20% | 3%
Colombians say … | 14% | 1%
Costa Ricans say… | 7% | 2%
Mexicans say… | 6% | 1%
Source: YouGov/Upshot study of 19 countries
The dislike seems to stem from Argentina’s soccer history and the way in which neighbors in Latin America have reacted to how some Argentines projected their perceptions of economic and cultural superiority in the region. “It’s no secret that a lot of people despise Argentina in the world of football,” said Christopher Gaffney, a scholar at the Fluminense Federal University here, who studies large sporting events.
“This has a lot to do with stereotypes on and off the field,” Mr. Gaffney added, emphasizing that national soccer identities were formed in the 1970s and 1980s, when Argentina was a powerhouse of the sport. A highlight of that era was Diego Maradona’s Hand of God goal — in which he illegally punched the ball into the net — against England in 1986, when Argentina won the Cup.
Despite recent economic troubles, the country also has a legacy of ranking among the richest in the region. In the 1990s, when the currency was stronger than those in neighboring countries, some Argentine tourists were notorious for their braggadocio.
And about a century ago, the expression “rich as an Argentine” was commonly used in Europe, a reflection of the relative prosperity of the commodities-exporting economy. (The gradual decline since then of Argentina’s economy remains a topic of somewhat morbid fascination among economists.)
“For many years, Argentina’s economy was the strongest in the region, and there was a strong European influence; that built an image of superiority,” said Leandro Morgenfeld, a historian at the University of Buenos Aires. “The sectors of society that regional neighbors most came into contact with were those projecting that arrogance.”
Historians of soccer and politics in Latin America attribute some of the animosity to the ways in which some Argentines have traditionally viewed their nation, which received millions of European immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries: as a dominion of racial pre-eminence in the region.
In the realm of sports, before Brazil surged to the elite ranks of global soccer in the second half of the 20th century, dark-skinned Brazilian players faced racial abuse in Argentina. In the 1920s, the Brazilian writer Lima Barreto described how Brazilian players were called “macaquitos” (little monkeys) in Buenos Aires.
On the streets of Argentina’s capital, views differ as to why the national team isn’t popular with other Latin Americans. Daniel González, 29, a television producer who moved to Buenos Aires 10 years ago from Colombia, said the stereotypes of Argentines in his home nation were misguided.
“They have a reputation for arrogance,” Mr. González said. “But when you arrive here, you see it’s not that bad.”
Still, many Argentina do exude brazen pride. “They’re jealous of us,” Eduardo Gangi, 60, who runs a corner store in Buenos Aires, said of Argentina’s neighbors. “We’re slowly taking over the world. We sent a queen to Holland and a pope to the Vatican,” he said, referring to Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, the Argentine-born wife of King Willem-Alexander, and Pope Francis.
Despite such views, Argentina’s political ties with its neighbors, especially Brazil, are much warmer than in previous decades, marked by the endurance of Mercosur, the South American trading bloc. Mr. Morgenfeld, the Argentine historian, warned against using opinions voiced ahead of the World Cup to interpret the wider cultural context.
“Soccer and culture are two different tracks,” he said. “I think Latin American unity is strong, but soccer creates divisions.”
That tension emerges in different ways, with many people in Latin America rooting against Argentina, and many Argentines expressing ire against their neighbors.
For instance, at a warm-up match for the World Cup in Buenos Aires last week, a group of Argentine fans outside the stadium sang about its hatred of Chile. They singled out Chilean support of Britain during the Falklands War of 1982, when Argentina unsuccessfully sought to establish sovereignty over a group of islands in the South Atlantic called the Falklands by the British and the Malvinas by Argentines.
“All I ask from God is for all Chileans to die,” the Argentines chanted. “The betrayal of the Malvinas will never be forgotten.”
He also disallowed a perfectly good goal for Croatia when it was 2-1* just because apparently.Edi wrote:I watched that game and those allegations are bullshit. The only questionable call was the penalty shot awarded to Brazil due to an obvious dive, but the Croatian player did have both hands on the diving player's shoulders. Didn't matter in the end, because Brazil scored two other goals without that. All four goals of the 3-1 match were scored by Brazilian players, by the way. The first one, for Croatia, was an own goal due to an unfortunate bounce.Soontir C'boath wrote:Reading rumblings about the Brazil-Croatia game having a shit ref, game being fixed with the Croatian GK could've saved the goals, etc etc. Not a great start with that vantage point.
Anyway, go Korea!
That one was due to running over the goalie. Can be questioned, but the call was legit. However, what is more difficult to understand is why the Italian ref in the just finished Spain-Netherlands game allowed one goal in a similar situation. Not that disallowing it would have done Spain any good, since then they would only have been trounced 4-1 instead of 5-1.Crown wrote:He also disallowed a perfectly good goal for Croatia when it was 2-1* just because apparently.Edi wrote:I watched that game and those allegations are bullshit. The only questionable call was the penalty shot awarded to Brazil due to an obvious dive, but the Croatian player did have both hands on the diving player's shoulders. Didn't matter in the end, because Brazil scored two other goals without that. All four goals of the 3-1 match were scored by Brazilian players, by the way. The first one, for Croatia, was an own goal due to an unfortunate bounce.
There is no way that goal should have been disallowed; you're allowed to challenge for the ball, the goalie isn't a sacrosanct bovine, the Croat player won a header and didn't foul him in doing so. It was a scandalous decision!Edi wrote:That one was due to running over the goalie. Can be questioned, but the call was legit. However, what is more difficult to understand is why the Italian ref in the just finished Spain-Netherlands game allowed one goal in a similar situation. Not that disallowing it would have done Spain any good, since then they would only have been trounced 4-1 instead of 5-1.Crown wrote:He also disallowed a perfectly good goal for Croatia when it was 2-1* just because apparently.
That result certainly was not expected.
Yeah that's really my point; they need to take the ref out of the public eye (and thus pressure) for calls like penalties and offsides. It should be a video review system where the person making the review doesn't get death threats for making a decision.Edi wrote:They should probably have two refs and a video review, like they have in ice hockey these days. Maybe some day.
He stuck mostly with the team that got through the qualifying tournament, which in fairness is what most of the coaches have done. But what did happen between qualification and the actual tournament was Atletico Madrid's title victory, and the Spanish press were apparently giving Del Bosque flack for largely passing over their squad and picking the usual batch of Real Madrid and Barcelona players.Crown wrote:By the way, keeping in mind that one swallow does not a summer make, does anyone think that Del Bosque might have chosen his team due to nostalgia rather than merit this time round?
I hope my team plays good, too, because I want to be insufferable, too. That's the spirit of football!Siege wrote:Whelp. So we beat Spain 1-5. That was unexpected. In fact no-one really seemed to expect much of anything from the Dutch team this go around. Now all the fans will be insufferable for as long as success lasts.
I agree with that. Not that I dislike Spain, but I like to see big teams fail (if it's not my own).Siege wrote:It does feel nice seeing the team beat the proverbial snot out of Spain without having to resort to kicking their players through the heart though.