Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The 2014-2015 Football Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Blatter quit for because I think more than just the US Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service were going after him. I think legal and tax authorities around the world were preparing cases against FIFA, especially in regards to bribe money being laundered through financial institutions around the world in violation of national and international banking laws. In short, Blatter bailed just when FIFA could soon be hit with perhaps the largest tax fraud case ever known.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
so the SPL promotion thingy is different...

i guess with so few teams they have to go about it differently.

looks like the bottom team automatically goes down while the next to bottom team gets in a play off with the winner in home/away 2nd and 3rd place Championship play off.

SPL
iVgOnH4.png


Championship
xWIZA9f.png


So Motherwell beat Rangers home and away...

After rangers had beaten Hibs to earn the right to play for promotion vs Motherwell.

So Motherwell gets to say up and Rangers have to stay down.

It might all be more complicated/convoluted than that, this is just me observing off the cuff...
 
Last edited:
Cox Orange said:
Do I not get the irony in your post? I find he didn't seem to have really comprehended what people where telling him and that he took insight into himself.

He seemed to more save his own butt. Actually he also wasn't really saying he quits or resigns. He just made that weird rhetoric construct of making path fore someone else, but not actually resigning, only holding new elections and not taking part in these. Furthermore letting someone be elected as the new president, but him being the one that is actually still in power. He does now want to make it look as if he is the prosecutor.

He also acts like (especially rich) people when caught that say "I don't understand what they want from me? I did nothing wrong. I am the victim. OH, sorry, I didn't know this was not allowed." (Like rich people actively doing tax fraud by taking several steps and then say, oh I didn't know that was against the law.

I am not being mean on you takao. :) I am just overreacting because of Blatter himself.
Click to expand...


Indeed, Sepp's not giving up those million dollar lunches just yet!
 
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
Concerns about the artificial pitches in Canada:
I already heard earlier that female footballers are more vulnerable to injuries (especially the knees and joints), due to how female conjunctive tissue and so on.
This has increased with the progress of the sports and training becoming more professional, advanced and demanding.

Today I heard in a news magazine, that some sport reporters are assuming that it might be a danger having to play 7 games (to the 1/2final) on an artificial pitch at the high level that some teams have reached in the meantime. They say we might be seeing a lot more injuries than usual.
The artificial pitches with their higher possibility of causing injuries together with the constitution of female ligaments and joints and the more demanding playing style make a certain potential.

Already before the Cup some of the players (mainly US and French, German and Swedish players and a few higher paid stars that play in European and US college leagues, i.e. Marta from Brazil) were leading a charge against it with the FIFA. Interesting side note, 4 players from South America withdraw from the list after "advice" from their national federation.

In an interview German striker Alex Popp said there are already differences between the artificial pitches themselves. E.g. in the match in Switzerland the ball rolled longer and faster in passes than in the Canadian training camp. Also the ball bounced differently on the two pitches.

MY note: I fear that people will look at it and switch away after 5minutes, when teams are still adjusting to the pitch and will think that female teams are still amateurs that play for a national team. They will probably say "look they can't even do a simple pass". If you switched away from one game, you probably won't tune in another time. I wonder why FIFA overlooked the marketing aspect of that, which comes with it. If they want to make money with the women's cups, they need to make their playing look good, too.

Well on the other side, might be an advantage for teams that are used to playing on artificial pitches (like Sweden at home and in the league).

PS: Dzenifer Maroszan, German midfielder and acclaimed prodigy stretched ligament in one ankle, yesterday. Will miss at least 1st match. OK, better than being missing in the K.O. stages.
 
Last edited:
Heavy word and Newspapers from england are reporting that Falcao is being linked to Chelsea for next season, Cuadrado and Falcao will be a killer duo
 
PS: for those that want to watch a certain match, that is not covered on your local TV:

German TV channels ARD and ZDF will show ALL MATCHES online as well as (some of them) on TV. The livestreams should be accessable from outside Germany/EU, too.

Just find a list of the kick-off times and be sure to go to one of the two sites (they alternate with each other, its one day them and one day the others). You will be able to identify the match by the preview picture:
ARD mediathek / Sportschau.de http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv
ZDF mediathek http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek

If you want to quicker find who shows which game:
look in the upper right corner "Spielplan" (I chose this, because you can identify the countries you are interested in by the flag) http://www.zdfsport.de/fifa-frauen-wm-2015-28312692.html
or here for just a list (if you can interpret that i.e. Norwegen is Norway...) http://fifafrauenwm.sportschau.de/fifafrauenwm/radio_tv/index.html
 
Last edited:
USA beats the Netherlands with the equalizer and the winner both coming after the 89th minute.

That's going to have to prompt some soul searching by the Dutch.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
Blatter will not be at the women's cup. Does he fear to get arrested when he enters the Canadian Border, perhaps?
 
WOW, what a game that was by the US. i saw the game and the us was dominating holland for sure. depay is overrated, during the whole game he looked mad. USA is getting better by leaps and bounds, the Gold cup will be something to look foward to in July. holland has lost quality in their game play, back to the drawing board for holland. and to think that the USA beat them with their "B" team, the US were not even full force with their top tier players...go USA!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
Silencio said:
USA beats the Netherlands with the equalizer and the winner both coming after the 89th minute.

That's going to have to prompt some soul searching by the Dutch.
Click to expand...

I'm was traveling today, and in one airport I saw the score was 3-1 in favor of the Dutch, was stunned, but pleased to see when I got to D.C. my US team pulled it out! Way to go!
 
today is a day full of soccer, Champions at 3pm (real madrid fan but rooting for Juve) then you have my Team Colombia playing a friendly against Costa rica at 5pm.
 

Attachments

  • juve vs barca.jpg
    juve vs barca.jpg
    46.7 KB · Views: 73
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
WC: Kanada vs China was disappointing for an opening game. Sad that Netherlands vs New Zealand was so late, because it was better advertisement for women's football.

The Netherlands had already showed, at the last Euro, that they had improved very much (form a team that would usually loose 0:7 5 years ago). Since the Euro, they had even done one more step on top. No unorganized positioning and no lost passes. A deserved 1:0 win over New Zealand.

Today it's Germany vs Ivory Coast (beside Norway vs Thailand, which is already over and didn't see it).
Funny the African team had been on training strike 4 days ago and travelled late, still they asked if Germany was ready to loose. :) (I am prepared for a turmoil style game with lots of tackling and nasty stuff by the Africans. Hope the injuries will be small to none for Germany...).


Edit: OK, Germany won 10:0 ... and Leupolz got a knee in her... "balls"... Got off the pitch with aching groins, as precaution. - Germany didn't even play good. In the first minutes they didn't pass good, shoot long balls, hit beneath or over the ball... the other teams (from day one and two) looked better re technique.
Oh, and Norway still can't do penalties.
 
Last edited:
Today: D, Goup of Death (called by the media)
with USA vs Australia
and Sweden vs Nigeria

Though I have to say the last I saw USA and Sweden was that they were in a rebuilding phase and still played like the old generation of players. Sweden even lost a lot of their test matches, one against rookie Switzerland (1:3).

It's also group C (Japan - Switzerland, Ecuador - Kamerun) today.
 
IMHO Sweden Nigeria was more entertaining. 3-3 and Sweden needed 2 corners for it. The young Nigerians with their technique (I think it was 7 players from the U20 cup that played the cup's finale against Germany) made it obvious that Sweden has become to old, well at least Sweden didn't rely only on kick and rush, as before and one could get a small glimpse that they are slowly progressing.

The US girls have an average age of 29! They clearly profited from the experience (and their height) that the (small grown) Australian youngsters lacked. I mean, Australia wasn't a "finished/complete" team.
Rapinoe's goal e.g. was luck, that it first hit the back of the Australian defender. I mean they have long been the best, but their playing style is becoming old school and while still top, maybe one would expect to spend some money in youth training.
Well on the other hand, it would be boring if all teams played the same ;)

I heard that the FIFA put Sweden, USA and Nigeria in one group, because they wanted Brazil to be the head of the other pot, to have South American viewers longer follow the tournament. Usually Sweden would have been the head of the other pot, that became Brazil's.


PS: US pals, don't get me wrong, I am not wanting to offend you. ;) Looking at the first minutes of Germany, they were playing under their capabilities, too and even later in the second half they missed some real sitters and placed them just next to the bar or posts. Given that they played against a team much worse than Australia, it might be even worse.
PPS: Update on Leupolz. Turned out she has a bruised pubic bone, after getting the knee in there (not the groin). She will miss the first round.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
PS: I forgot that France - England is on. Am now watching the last 15min. It is so quiet and funnily you can hear one lonely toddler singing "come on England" very loud. So cute. :)

Columbia - Mexico will be worth a look, I guess, as far as the smaller teams go. (everything is legally available online for free).

PPS: I am switching forth and back and seems Spain Costa Rica is th technically nicer match. For those who look via the sportschau-link I posted, you have to click the camera icon in front of the names, not the names itself... Looks from the comments there, I can be glad, I am not the only one who was wondering. :)
 
Last edited:
Cox Orange said:
IMHO Sweden Nigeria was more entertaining. 3-3 and Sweden needed 2 corners for it. The young Nigerians with their technique (I think it was 7 players from the U20 cup that played the cup's finale against Germany) made it obvious that Sweden has become to old, well at least Sweden didn't rely only on kick and rush, as before and one could get a small glimpse that they are slowly progressing.

The US girls have an average age of 29! They clearly profited from the experience (and their height) that the (small grown) Australian youngsters lacked. I mean, Australia wasn't a "finished/complete" team.
Rapinoe's goal e.g. was luck, that it first hit the back of the Australian defender. I mean they have long been the best, but their playing style is becoming old school and while still top, maybe one would expect to spend some money in youth training.
Well on the other hand, it would be boring if all teams played the same ;)

I heard that the FIFA put Sweden, USA and Nigeria in one group, because they wanted Brazil to be the head of the other pot, to have South American viewers longer follow the tournament. Usually Sweden would have been the head of the other pot, that became Brazil's.


PS: US pals, don't get me wrong, I am not wanting to offend you. ;) Looking at the first minutes of Germany, they were playing under their capabilities, too and even later in the second half they missed some real sitters and placed them just next to the bar or posts. Given that they played against a team much worse than Australia, it might be even worse.
PPS: Update on Leupolz. Turned out she has a bruised pubic bone, after getting the knee in there (not the groin). She will miss the first round.
Click to expand...

we kicked their ass anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cox Orange
USA beat Germany, i cant believe it, how awesome is that.

On another note: Jose Mourinho told DirecTV Sports that:
"It really hurts me that people in England believe that Falcao is the guy they saw at Manchester United.
He's a player I know, one that I've followed since Atletico Madrid and if I can help Falcao arrive at his level I will do it"
 
pachyderm said:
i thought/felt that Falcao was underplayed @manu.

Louis van Gaal, probably great, isn't that big a deal to me. I think they could find better.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately Falcao didn't look fully recovered from the knee injury, and/or couldn't quite adjust to the BPL. It was a worthy gamble that didn't pan out. He just wasn't good enough to play more than he did. I'm sure he'll be better next season, though he'll never fully get back to his best.

LVG is no long term solution. Nobody is laboring under the illusion that he is. He was always a transitionary figure who would stick around for maybe 3-4 years. He's still got more than half a rebuild job to complete this summer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pachyderm
Status
Not open for further replies.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back