The World Cup Thread *******

[jenks]

I don't really agree with that, I thought it was our best performance yet although they still aren't firing on all cylinders. You can't really say England were lucky to get through, apart from one bad scare in the first half England completely snuffed out the Ecuador threat, they just didn't have the talent to threaten England's goal once they had gone behind. The match finished with a whimper rather than a big charge by the South Americans which was a result of the defensive superiority of England.
On the other hand they still weren't really linking going forward until the last twenty minutes or so when Gerrard started to look like himself and they might have grabbed a couple more goals, Joe Cole didn't play too well and Rooney was isolated in the first half. He looks like he means business though and an amazing piece of skill by the touchline was a signal of intent.

i agree with you - can't work out why there has been so much negative press.

let them all underestimate us - Lampard must score soon, Rooney will only get better, thought Hargreaves had a decent game, there was only going to be one winner of that game.

It'll all come good

 

[Rambler]

Fair enough for the Rooney cut-back, but Lampard is playing like someone who has just won a Kit Kat competition to take part in a World Cup match. I didn't see any other real chances, but then again I was lapsing in and out of a coma.

As for your privileging of victory over performance, maybe I could just text you the results of the QF and you could spend 90 minutes doing something else you enjoy more than watching football, whilst still getting the patriotic buzz of knowing England are showing the rest of the world what for.

Winning in style is the only way it's worth winning. And I would have said the same vis-a-vis France in 1998 (taking out the beauty of Zidane's play), so it's not an anti-England backlash.

Presumably by that logic, the Czechs, Dutch, Ivorians and Mexicans are delighted with how their World Cup turned out, having played some of the best football of the first round...

 

[baboon2004]

Presumably by that logic, the Czechs, Dutch, Ivorians and Mexicans are delighted with how their World Cup turned out, having played some of the best football of the first round...

To take those one by one:
Czechs - thoroughly outplayed by Ghana, so they underperformed;
Dutch - went out with a bit of a whimper y'day;
Ivorians - I'd be pretty proud of having pushed Argentina so far;
Mexicans - as above, except even more so.

To those who believe winning is everything - can't you just fuck off out of football and watch a different game?!?

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah, good argument Baboon, first you say

"Um, were you watching a version of the match taking place in your head?"

I point out specifically what I was talking about and you admit you weren't watching the match properly because you were "slipping in and out of a coma". Better think things through before come out with that sort of nonsense in future.

"As for your privileging of victory over performance, maybe I could just text you the results of the QF and you could spend 90 minutes doing something else you enjoy more than watching football, whilst still getting the patriotic buzz of knowing England are showing the rest of the world what for."

I always enjoy having some kind of emotional investment in a football match because it makes it more exciting. For better or worse I was born in England and although in general I don't have any patriotic or jingoistic feelings I have chosen to support the England football team. Some of the most terrible performances can be nailbiting if you are supporting one of the teams and it's fair to say that you can feel drained after watching your side play badly but hold on, what I'm trying to say is that supporting a team makes it more fun and I think that you know as well as I do that texting me the result of the quarter final would not adequately replace watching the match. It seems strange to suggest that I should go and do something I would enjoy more for ninety minutes when I seem to have enjoyed the last ninety more than you - mainly because I wanted England to win.
Obviously I would prefer to win in a total football style and I would prefer to see good games and I would completely understand if neutrals were wishing England a speedy exit (for football reasons). On the other hand, one thing I particularly like about football is the paper-scissors-stone element where you can win in so many different ways and over the years I have developed a grudging respect for teams who have won by organisation despite their limitations.

 

[baboon2004]

And (okay, this is an historic point, but....) I have NEVER, in any game, seen so pathetic and cowardly a capitulation as occurred in the second half of the England-Brazil QF in 2002. That was shameful, and even more so since it happened again (tho less dramatically) to France and Portugal in the Euros.

 

[baboon2004]

Yeah, good argument Baboon, first you say

I point out specifically what I was talking about and you admit you weren't watching the match properly because you were "slipping in and out of a coma". Better think things through before come out with that sort of nonsense in future.

Are you familiar with the linguistic device of overstatement for effect? Just to make it clear for you: I was watching the match all the way through, but was merely making the point that it was very, very boring.

OK? Got it yet? Good.

 

[IdleRich]

"Are you familiar with the linguistic device of overstatement for effect?"

Saying something didn't happen when it did is overstatement for effect now is it? I would simply call it being wrong.

 

[baboon2004]

Yeah, good argument Baboon, first you say

I always enjoy having some kind of emotional investment in a football match because it makes it more exciting. For better or worse I was born in England and although in general I don't have any patriotic or jingoistic feelings I have chosen to support the England football team. Some of the most terrible performances can be nailbiting if you are supporting one of the teams and it's fair to say that you can feel drained after watching your side play badly but hold on, what I'm trying to say is that supporting a team makes it more fun and I think that you know as well as I do that texting me the result of the quarter final would not adequately replace watching the match. It seems strange to suggest that I should go and do something I would enjoy more for ninety minutes when I seem to have enjoyed the last ninety more than you - mainly because I wanted England to win.
Obviously I would prefer to win in a total football style and I would prefer to see good games and I would completely understand if neutrals were wishing England a speedy exit (for football reasons). On the other hand, one thing I particularly like about football is the paper-scissors-stone element where you can win in so many different ways and over the years I have developed a grudging respect for teams who have won by organisation despite their limitations.

Okay, fair points there. BUT that's the kind of attitude I hate, precisely because it supposes that you should support your team even when they are playing like absolute c*nts. What could be more mindlessly loyal than that? I've always supported England when they've played well, or at least tried to (as when Rooney destroyed Turkey in the Euro (?) qualifiers a while back, or when they played brilliantly but lost in the '98 World Cup.

All I'm suggesting is that you like football by default, because it is the national game. I happen to like it because I think it produces more moments of raw beauty than almost any other game.

As for your last comment, replace 'grudging respect' with 'deep-seated hatred', and you have my attitude towards such teams.

 

[baboon2004]

Saying something didn't happen when it did is overstatement for effect now is it? I would simply call it being wrong.

No, saying I was "slipping in and out of a coma" was overstatement for effect. Sorry this is proving complicated for you.

God I'm in an argumentative mood today, but the "England at all costs" attitude really gets my shackles up.

 

[IdleRich]

"All I'm suggesting is that you like football by default, because it is the national game. I happen to like it because I think it produces more moments of raw beauty than almost any other game."

I think that's a bit unfair. I like football because when I was little and started playing sports, football stuck out as being the best. Since then I've had the chance to see and (to a lesser extent) play many other sports and I still think the same. In terms of fun to play, beauty to watch etc football is untouchable. If I liked football simply by default would I really be giving up every Monday and Wednesday evening to play in two seven-a-side teams?

 

[foret]

one thing I particularly like about football is the paper-scissors-stone element where you can win in so many different ways and over the years I have developed a grudging respect for teams who have won by organisation despite their limitations

this is the ultimate disgrace with england - they have loads of excellent players and they play the antifootball beloved of technically inept sides who have no alternative

 

[baboon2004]

I think that's a bit unfair. I like football because when I was little and started playing sports, football stuck out as being the best. Since then I've had the chance to see and (to a lesser extent) play many other sports and I still think the same. In terms of fun to play, beauty to watch etc football is untouchable. If I liked football simply by default would I really be giving up every Monday and Wednesday evening to play in two seven-a-side teams?

Yeah, didn't mean to be personally rude...apologies!

 

[IdleRich]

"Yeah, didn't mean to be personally rude...apologies!"

Well, maybe I started it so no worries. I think you're right about the manager as well, there has to be some reason why they're not gelling at the moment and he seems to be it. Luckily (from my point of view, not yours), although we are not more than the sum of our parts, the parts are pretty good. That bit when Rooney did that guy on the wing was genius, he's an absolute monster, how can he be doing that six weeks after breaking his foot?

 

[Rambler]

To those who believe winning is everything - can't you just fuck off out of football and watch a different game?!?

I was thinking about this point all the way through the Italy-Australia, and the ones made above (just text in the score, that sort of thing), and while they make a kind of sense, aren't you just damning all competitive sport here? If winning isn't ultimately the point then aren't we just watching ballet?

 

[baboon2004]

I was thinking about this point all the way through the Italy-Australia, and the ones made above (just text in the score, that sort of thing), and while they make a kind of sense, aren't you just damning all competitive sport here? If winning isn't ultimately the point then aren't we just watching ballet?

Fair point in its way, but if all football were like England-Ecuador or Switzerland-Ukraine, who would care for much longer?

 

[baboon2004]

I was thinking about this point all the way through the Italy-Australia, and the ones made above (just text in the score, that sort of thing), and while they make a kind of sense, aren't you just damning all competitive sport here? If winning isn't ultimately the point then aren't we just watching ballet?

Fair point in its way, but if all football were like England-Ecuador or Switzerland-Ukraine, who would care for much longer?

thankfully, sometimes beauty will prevail, as with the Dutch team of the '70s. Winners of nothing, except sporting immortality.

 

[alo]

thankfully, sometimes beauty will prevail, as with the Dutch team of the '70s. Winners of nothing, except sporting immortality.

Ditto the Hungary of the 50's, also.
I definitely see what you're saying Baboon. Football' greatest moments are not necessarily those snapshots of people lifting trophies, save for the fans of that nation and the FIFA scrapbook.
The reason football is the greatest game is because it is generally simple to play, so it leaves room for a lot to happen. Its greatest assets are imagination, romance and creativity, closely followed by farce, tragedy and controversy. That's why Englands performances are so upsettingly souless, and why i think they are an extension of the kind of player Beckham is, and an extension of the kind of mediated style-over-substance product football embraces.

On a not dissimilar note: What is the worst World Cup themed advert running at the moment? Mine goes to Pepsi--Bavarians love it, its an integral part of their culture--wtf!!!????
Best: ASDA curry, hilarious in its desperate connection to football, and because Michael Owen is in it!

 

[baboon2004]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Excellent example with Hungary too - the mighty Magyars live on in the popular imagination, whilst the Germany team of 1954 (even if heroic) are pretty much consigned to the dustbin of history beyond Teutonic borders.

Loved the comment on the Switz-Ukraine game last night that it was "like watching England play England"...

 

[baboon2004]

The same applies in rugby to the French team. Okay, they have never won the World Cup, but that semi-final victory over NZ in 1999 will (as one of the most sublime matches of anything, ever) live in the memory after people have forgotten just who won that World Cup.

 

[IdleRich]

"The same applies in rugby to the French team. Okay, they have never won the World Cup, but that semi-final victory over NZ in 1999 will (as one of the most sublime matches of anything, ever) live in the memory after people have forgotten just who won that World Cup."

Ah, you're a rugby fan, that explains the lack of insight into football.
Seriously though, last night (what I saw of it) was a terrible game for the neutral but if you had been following it as a fan the last bits would have been absolutely harrowing - I was getting nervous when the penalties started. I think that's a pretty good example of what I mean about following a team making the games more fun.