I was reading that Ireland has protested the match and demanded a replay of OT... the article said something about a precedent that happenedi n 2005, where FIFA forced a replay. What happened in that match?
That was so lame. Blatant offsides and a very clear intentional handball.
In 2005, FIFA invalidated the result of a World Cup qualifier between Uzbekistan and Bahrain following a referee’s critical error. Trapattoni appeared to immediately undercut that appeal by offering his own assessment of FIFA politics.
If that happened, there's few things that get more critical than that goal.
No, England has never had as good players as the top nations. They have never been ''up there with the best''. English players are, and has always been, criminally overrated. If one were to make a Best XI of all time, would there be a single englishman that would be even considered? Maaaaaybe Bobby Charlton or Gordon Banks, but excluding them there isn't a single player worthy of being even mentioned by an objective person.
from my viewpoint, when we think about tough matchs for Brazil I think of teams like Italy, Germany, France, England and Spain, even if they are not doing great lately.
but if it were to make a power rank about the opponents, rightnow, it would be like:
1. Italy/Spain/Germany/France 2. England
The first teams are just impossible to determine who is better who is worse, but I can certainly say that they are harder to face than England (I am not saying that England is easy to beat!).
About the penalty issue, I would like to NOT see players doing it the World Cup:
Edit: tried to copy embedded youtube video but failed, so linked it
sadir I did do factchecks but mostly just to make sure I didn't write anything wrong. also didn't know exactly what stage the penalty shootouts happened in hehe
and holgerius I specified that I did not mean that england has been as great as italy. I do think spain has been though, and I think luck is the main thing separating spain and italy resultwise, with a little touch of italian dirtyness added to it.
I think england is more on the same level as germany historically.. so basically like, in terms of how good footballing nations have been for the last 50 years, my list would be something akin to 1: brazil 2/3 spain/italy 4/5/6/7 : germany england netherlands france
not sure whether argentina belongs in 2/3/4 or 4/5/6/7/8 so im just disregarding them
judging by results, this list would leave italy overperforming, spain underperforming, germany overperforming, englands and netherlands underperforming, and france being able to be either brilliant or horrible leaving them with both the appropriate amount of trophies and the appropriate amount of shitty performances.
pretty certain those fake kicks are not actually allowed. foot has to be in a constant forward motion after the kick is started. you can slow down but never bring it back.
what is overperforming and underperforming? If england has lost sort of the same stage then surely that is their 'real level'. Similarly, I can say that Germany is one of the top dogs because they are always there in major tournaments. We cannot just look at individual players, or their overall record because 1. It is a team game 2. You are representing your country (some just play better with a flag on their chest) 3. Tournament football =/= league football.
Its very simple guys. You look at a squad and each individual gamer. You can certainly see e.g. that right now Spain is the strongest team on the planet in terms of individual skill.
Things such as team spirit, will, ect.. are much harder to ''rate''..
If Spain cant win anything important with such an amazing squad then there are obviously reasons for it. Luck is the last one. Before it comes how well they play as a team, how much they fight it, ect..
But whatever..
I'm 99% sure all of those penalties should have been repeated. U are not allowed to shoot the penalty in such a manner...
team-wise england have never really had a "team" as good as its individual players. germany has always been very good though, definitely exciting and fun to watch every time they play.
i don't think anyone's really saying that any of england's players belong in a "best xi of all time," but they are certainly very good and, given individual skill, have been performing very poorly in their tournaments. seems like capello has finally whipped 'em into shape though, so we will see how they do this next year ;o
look, im not just talking about level of players here. it's just that 5-7 games in 2 weeks or whatever is not nearly enough to accurately rank a football team. 30-40 games over one year, kind of, which is why leagues are the best indicator of skill we have. champions league is also incredibly luck based.. this is why you see greece winning EC, porto winning CL, but there are only two contenders for the league title in spain, only 2-3 in england and only 2ish in italy.
anything can happen in one game, and in the past 20 years italy has played what, 30 world cup games? is it seriously unfathomable that they have been more lucky than unlucky over a stretch of 30 world cup games? or that spain has similarly been unlucky? I mean you can just disregard england from my entire arguement and swap them with spain, see if you still disagree, and then we can decide whether you're principally opposed to luck being a factor in football or if you're just looking through anglophobic glasses. ;p
On November 20 2009 05:36 Liquid`Drone wrote: pretty certain those fake kicks are not actually allowed. foot has to be in a constant forward motion after the kick is started. you can slow down but never bring it back.
is it a FIFA rule? So far, the trick is allowed in the brazilian championship. What i think you cant do is to step back after you have stopped.
well, players break rules allll the time without being punished for it technically probably 70% of all goalkeeper saves from penalties should be taken again because the goalie stepped out from the line.
but im pretty certain the reason we never see players do this in europe is that it is illegal, I mean it's clearly a huge advantage.
On November 20 2009 05:56 Liquid`Drone wrote: look, im not just talking about level of players here. it's just that 5-7 games in 2 weeks or whatever is not nearly enough to accurately rank a football team. 30-40 games over one year, kind of, which is why leagues are the best indicator of skill we have. champions league is also incredibly luck based.. this is why you see greece winning EC, porto winning CL, but there are only two contenders for the league title in spain, only 2-3 in england and only 2ish in italy.
anything can happen in one game, and in the past 20 years italy has played what, 30 world cup games? is it seriously unfathomable that they have been more lucky than unlucky over a stretch of 30 world cup games? or that spain has similarly been unlucky? I mean you can just disregard england from my entire arguement and swap them with spain, see if you still disagree, and then we can decide whether you're principally opposed to luck being a factor in football or if you're just looking through anglophobic glasses. ;p
Yes, even if you insert Spain instead of England the same thing applies. I really fail to see how anyone can say Spain and Germany are equally good football nations overall historically. 13 finals (16 medals) vs 2 (3 medals). That simply cannot possibly be blamed on just one country being lucky and one country being unlucky. Anything can happen, yes, but almost always it doesn't. The best teams almost always end up in finals or semi-finals (as I said earlier; 16/18 finals in the WC has had at least one of the big three in them). Neither Spain nor England are on the same level as the best.
I honestly think a better indicator of how good a team is is the amount of points gotten from ec groups +wc groups +qualification groups than how teams fare in best of 1 playoffs. and if you go by this indicator, then well, spain beats italy, at least if you look at the past 30 years (where spain has 1 trophy and italy has 3). more amount of games = less luck.
granted germany ends up raping this way, and I prolly shouldve grouped them in the 2/3/4 group rather than the one below. honestly, they prolly shouldve swapped with italy. and england ends up being below both spain and italy, but not by very much.
and netherlands ends up very high too, which is also correct. I think on a national team level they have consistently been better than italy for the last 20 years.
On November 20 2009 08:02 Liquid`Drone wrote: I honestly think a better indicator of how good a team is is the amount of points gotten from ec groups +wc groups +qualification groups than how teams fare in best of 1 playoffs. and if you go by this indicator, then well, spain beats italy, at least if you look at the past 30 years (where spain has 1 trophy and italy has 3). more amount of games = less luck.
granted germany ends up raping this way, and I prolly shouldve grouped them in the 2/3/4 group rather than the one below. honestly, they prolly shouldve swapped with italy. and england ends up being below both spain and italy, but not by very much.
and netherlands ends up very high too, which is also correct. I think on a national team level they have consistently been better than italy for the last 20 years.
yeah, Italy winning 2006 was a joke. The only good game they played was against Germany.
so the Ireland FA is asking for a replay of the 2nd leg, I don't know if I agree or not but it would certainly be a historical step by FIFA if they are to allow it.
I read the only way it would even be theoretically possible was if france indicated that they also wanted the 2nd leg replayed, but that's not going to happen.
that however happened in the league cup some seasons ago, where arsenal beat sheffield united or whatever team it was, but france scored a goal through a throwin after sheffield had played the ball out of bounds because a player was injured. then arsene wenger stated that he would like the game replayed because he was not comfortable winning the game like that, and they ended up replaying the game.
but domenech or whomever is in charge making this decision when a WC ticket is at stage? I dont believe it. ;p