I have bad news for English and Paraguayans alike.
Marco "Chiquidrácula" Rodríguez is going to be your referee next Saturday.
Be prepared to a yellow card / red card fest!
(Actually, I think I just gave a very good tip for bettors)
Half time Netherlands 1, Aust 0,
Australia not looking so good against the big kids. Schwarzer doing well under pressure in the goal mouth.
CAHILL SCORES
Waltzing matilda reverbs around the stadium.
NED 1 AUS 1
Not bad for the Aussies. A 1-1 draw against the No.3 ranked team in the world with only 10 men for the last 30 minutes. And the swan dives the Dutch were putting on at the end in order to get free kicks suggests they were trying to win.
I've got a world cup draw on excel that includes a wall chart, all the matches with a drop down menu giving the television schedules in a number of countries, a map with the venues highlighted providing pop-up photos of the stadiums. The guy who did this certainly loves his soccer (I'll never call it football
). Anyone who wants it can email me at
[email protected]
Cheers
Brasil - NZ: 1:0 (halftime)
Brazil 4 : New Zealand 0 FT
There's also a good non-excel program at
http://www.gammamusic.com/
There's a prediction contest (I forgot it's sports name) that just started.
Apparently that Australia - Holland game was a bit bad tempered or at least, highly charged. A sending off as has been mentioned along with 4 injuries in the Dutch ranks is a bit crazy, a week, before the World Cup kicks off. Weird. fbaezer, thanks for the heads-up regards to the referee for the England-Paraguay game, interesting to know.
Peter Crouch scored a hatrick for England at the weekend and looks set to remain in the team through the group stages, at least, while Rooney is out. He has been a bit of a purple patch type scorer in the past at times, meaning he goes on scoring sprees and then goes quiet, well he's scored a fair few in his last couple of games and his confidence is as high as it's ever been so it'll be interesting to see his impact, fantasy football striker choices beware! :wink:
Australia are always hard and the send off was two yellow cards for a very inexperienced defender (Wilkshire). Australia weren't at all impressive but they frustrated the dutch completely and without kewell and cahill in the side a lot of other players were playing 'unnatural' roles a lot of the time.
To Van Basten's credit he said he was well pleased with a tough game, and he expected the Australians to touch up his side - which he thought was good preparation. Interestingly Brazil chose to play New Zealand as their only international in the 3 weeks leading up to the Cup - NZ play a similar sort of hard game to Australia, with even less finesse. So they've got June 18 on their minds.
Hiddink has got them doing lots of physical work so they'll peak in round 1 - but even with heavy legs they hung on for the full 90, with only 10 men for the last 30. Not bad, mentally.
I still don't think we're a class team - but I am no way ashamed of them.
Japan played germany in a nil all draw is that right Walter?
I have heard the comment that japan looked/are better than most people think.
Australia had A LOT less ball than the dutch especially in the first half. the stat comparisons i saw were very enlightening.
dadpad wrote:Japan played germany in a nil all draw is that right Walter?
I have heard the comment that japan looked/are better than most people think.
2:2 - Germany looked rather back then, especially in the defense (better later last week, when playing 3:0 against Columbia).
Japan scraped a win against Malta - hardly a powerhouse footballing nation.
What's happened to Turkey? They've dropped 7 places to 14th in the World since 2003 and didn't make the WC - and they came 3rd in 2002 and if Rivaldo wasn't so pathetic they may have even made the final....
Ukraine (UKR) 3:0 (0:0) Libya (LBY)
GOSSAU SWITZERLAND - 05.06.2006
Netherlands (NED) 1:1 (1:0) Australia (AUS)
ROTTERDAM NETHERLANDS - 04.06.2006
Brazil (BRA) 4:0 (1:0) New Zealand (NZL)
GENEVA SWITZERLAND - 04.06.2006
Japan (JPN) 1:0 (1:0) Malta (MLT)
DUSSELDORF GERMANY - 04.06.2006
Colombia (COL) 2:0 (1:0) Morocco (MAR)
BARCELONA SPAIN - 04.06.2006
Ghana (GHA) 3:1 (1:0) Korea Republic (KOR)
EDINBURGH SCOTLAND - 04.06.2006
Turkey (TUR) 0:1 (0:0) FYR Macedonia (MKD)
KREFELD GERMANY - 04.06.2006
Slovenia (SVN) 0:3 (0:2) Côte d'Ivoire (CIV)
EVRY-BONDOUFLE FRANCE - 04.06.2006
Algeria (ALG) 1:0 (0:0) Sudan (SUD)
ALGIERS ALGERIA - 04.06.2006
And Ballak isn't. (Though his injuries were only minor.)
how long is this world cup meant to run for? I don't even like soccer. It is going to become very tedious with every match being covered on TV & radio. Wall to wall coverage in the newspapers. There will be no escape. My sanity will be stretched beyond recognition.
For the last 24 hours we've had not stop news, updates & speculation on Wayne Roony's foot. He's become headline news on BBC TV 24 hour news channel. People are driving around England with flags flying from radio aerials. People are defacing their houses with red & white stuff.
I've nothing against the world cup other than I don't want it rammed down my throat for the next few weeks.
I wonder if the TV stations will cancel the soap operas. Nah, they'll probably reflect the soccer.
Mexican soap opera.
Goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez's father died today of a sudden heart attack.
There is talk he'll come back to Mexico to his dad's funeral. It's hard to imagine him play at 100% after this terrible news.
And he is Saint Oswaldo to us!
oldandknew wrote:how long is this world cup meant to run for? I don't even like soccer. It is going to become very tedious with every match being covered on TV & radio. Wall to wall coverage in the newspapers. There will be no escape. My sanity will be stretched beyond recognition.
Starts tomorrow (9th) and finishes on July 9th.
For your sanity's sake, you'd better hope that England don't win!
Btw: only 1458 days until the World Cup 2010 starts ...
