oldtype

Grandpa Geremi only on the bench for Cameroon. Fail.

Do you realize that us assuming that these things will happen is actually more cliche than them actually happening at this point?

http://www.camfoot.com/IMG/jpg/eto_o.jpg It's time http://static.soccerway.com/photo_dynamic/orig/250/relative/12426804780.jpg ...fuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Wow. Elia has been amazing.

Van Bommel I wouldn't be surprised if that was his first touch of the game.

Excellent by Elia. Just leave it to Van Persie to fuck it up

Dear Lord, I didn't even know he was on the pitch before you mentioned.

And the Van Persie comedy show continues

That would've been a very good goal by... Who was that actually?

I`ve watched quite a bit of the Bundesliga over the years (on and off) and Cha Du Ri hasn`t really cemented himself a regular place in any of his teams and has always been shuffled around different positions.......well for Frankfurt and FSV Mainz anyway. Haven`t seen much of Freiburg at all though. He is out of contract with Freiburg apparently now....just what our hierarchy wants (FREE).... ...though he is 29. I read anyway that he wants to move to the K-league. If he continues to do well at this world cup he might change his mind. PS: living in Korea, I haven`t seen much of this cult hero status of his that you mentioned! unless it has been very recent Are you sure it's not just that you haven't been looking hard enough? I was at World Cup stadium watching the game with the thousands of others..... and hardly anyone mentioned the lad before the game when I was talking to them about the team/players....well now is different. where did you watch it? Coex? City Hall? I stayed home cooked a nice meal with 5 of my mates and got piss drunk. Didn't feel like braving the crowds this time. I dunno who you've been listening to but I'm surprised there's been no mention of him, I was at World Cup Stadium for our last home friendly against Ecuador and everyone was going bonkers whenever he touched the ball.

Van Persie has really been fabulously terrible today

Shola Van Persi-Obi

I love Simon Poulsen. He scores an own goal at the World Cup, and he can grin

I`ve watched quite a bit of the Bundesliga over the years (on and off) and Cha Du Ri hasn`t really cemented himself a regular place in any of his teams and has always been shuffled around different positions.......well for Frankfurt and FSV Mainz anyway. Haven`t seen much of Freiburg at all though. He is out of contract with Freiburg apparently now....just what our hierarchy wants (FREE).... ...though he is 29. I read anyway that he wants to move to the K-league. If he continues to do well at this world cup he might change his mind. PS: living in Korea, I haven`t seen much of this cult hero status of his that you mentioned! unless it has been very recent http://lh3.ggpht.com/_Zs0kfwV6jXk/TBXmfNohFMI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Ra-YVt8XTV0/s640/00700.jpg http://www.gasengi.com/data/cheditor4/1006/jpIkbxTo.jpg Are you sure it's not just that you haven't been looking hard enough?

Inevitable really, the Dutch have no width without Robben, the Danes are set up to absolutely slaughter anything that comes through the middle.

Denmark defend so well, it's almost entertaining. Almost.

Another potentially brilliant match that turns out to be boring as fuck. I blame it on the Vuvuzelas

You really don't realize how much the Vuvuzela takes away until you go back and watch highlights of a "normal" match. We have some of the best international fans in the world and I love hearing them sing, but I couldn't hear any of that against Greece. Ideally they'd be banned immediately but I doubt FIFA or the organizers would take the risk messing with "cultural" shit like that.

I'd take Deuce for no other reason than Don't Tread, man. I still can't get over it. Dempsey has to shoot a hip hop video with himself throwing 100$ bills to the camera. We need a deuce smiley.

I really can't stand being at work during the WC by the way I should fucking get a month off so I can do nothing but watch, think of, and talk about football all day. ...Although I guess that's pretty much what I'm doing now anyway.

That would never happen though. That's the wierdness. Because of the historic tension between the countries, it can't be anything else since they're happy to farm Brazilians to play for them. It's also simply the case that the Korean-Japanese players so far haven't been that good. The only one there could have been any sort of row over so far has been Chong Tae-se, and he burst on the scene after he had already declared for North Korea so there was very little anybody could do about it. Bloody shame that, what we could have done with him playing up front with Park in our front line It's just wierd, the guy has parents with South Korean passports, lived in Japan all his life, and chooses to play for North Korea.

I've actually been kind of amazed by that. I know, different situation and all, but if an ethnically Korean player ever played for Japan he'd be crucified in public opinion over here. Same time frame as the Poles BTW. Subjegation by the Japanese is over hundreds of years but obviously culmniated during WWII - similar timeline and yet there they are. no no no, subjugation by the Japanese was not over hundreds of years, probably over the course of half a century at most. It was just a case of their leaders being smart and opening doors to the west in the 19th century and our leaders being idiots and closing ourselves off. It kind of all went downhill from there but before that we were arguably in a much stronger position than Japan for most of our history. Sorry, sensetive issue

Podolski and Klose aren't "really" Polish though. Klose moved to Germany when he was six (after also probably spending more than 50% of their time before this in France where his father was playing football.), Podolski moved when he was two. How can you expect someone moving that young to have any real feelings toward a country they've only lived in for a very small amount of their life? Also Podolski's paternal family belonged to the German minority in Upper Silesia before they moved. FIFA can't go around telling people if they have proper citizenship or not. An Algerian moving to France at the age of two, could conceivably grow up identifying himself as an Algerian rather than a Frenchman for a number of racial, religious and social reasons. A Welsh child growing up in England from the same age is probably not going to have that sort of attachment to his place of birth. But who the f*** knows. You'll never be able to draw the line and I'm not sure why you'd want to. I don't want to draw a line. I'm fine with people representing the country they want to on most occasions. (The exception are the Brazilians and so on that change their nationality only to play at a tournament, not because they feel like they are more that nationality than Brazilian.) In general, I'd probably only want to implement a rule of having to declare a nation when you're young, or not allowing the "five year rule" (most countries have five years before you can become a citizen) to apply to International football. I agree, the real problem here is the five year rule, not the fact that players can choose which of their countries they want to play for. Also the grandfather rule. It might be a good idea to change it to being able to choose either your country of birth or your parent's country What if you like Podolski, only lived two years in your birth country and the rest of your life in another? Okay, never mind actually. England wouldn't be able to call upon the services of the mighty Shola either under my rule. It's obviously crap. It could be sorted by declaring your nation of choice by 18, and being able to choose from the country of your parents, your country of birth, or your country of citizenship. Would at least make it so you can't exploit the five year rule, which is the main problem. Grandparent rule need to go as well, as you said. Seems like a sensible idea, although i imagine it would be hell to keep track of all those "declarations of intent" from 18-year-olds across the world. I could imagine a lot of "yes he did/no he didn't" bickering matches between FAs breaking out since FIFA can't possibly keep track of every 18-year-old pro in the World. I can't stop myself from breaking up every time I see your avatar by the way. I just wish more people around me knew who Clint Dempsey was so I could show it to them.

Podolski and Klose aren't "really" Polish though. Klose moved to Germany when he was six (after also probably spending more than 50% of their time before this in France where his father was playing football.), Podolski moved when he was two. How can you expect someone moving that young to have any real feelings toward a country they've only lived in for a very small amount of their life? Also Podolski's paternal family belonged to the German minority in Upper Silesia before they moved. FIFA can't go around telling people if they have proper citizenship or not. An Algerian moving to France at the age of two, could conceivably grow up identifying himself as an Algerian rather than a Frenchman for a number of racial, religious and social reasons. A Welsh child growing up in England from the same age is probably not going to have that sort of attachment to his place of birth. But who the f*** knows. You'll never be able to draw the line and I'm not sure why you'd want to. I don't want to draw a line. I'm fine with people representing the country they want to on most occasions. (The exception are the Brazilians and so on that change their nationality only to play at a tournament, not because they feel like they are more that nationality than Brazilian.) In general, I'd probably only want to implement a rule of having to declare a nation when you're young, or not allowing the "five year rule" (most countries have five years before you can become a citizen) to apply to International football. I agree, the real problem here is the five year rule, not the fact that players can choose which of their countries they want to play for. Also the grandfather rule. It might be a good idea to change it to being able to choose either your country of birth or your parent's country What if you like Podolski, only lived two years in your birth country and the rest of your life in another? Okay, never mind actually. England wouldn't be able to call upon the services of the mighty Shola either under my rule. It's obviously crap.

Podolski and Klose aren't "really" Polish though. Klose moved to Germany when he was six (after also probably spending more than 50% of their time before this in France where his father was playing football.), Podolski moved when he was two. How can you expect someone moving that young to have any real feelings toward a country they've only lived in for a very small amount of their life? Also Podolski's paternal family belonged to the German minority in Upper Silesia before they moved. FIFA can't go around telling people if they have proper citizenship or not. An Algerian moving to France at the age of two, could conceivably grow up identifying himself as an Algerian rather than a Frenchman for a number of racial, religious and social reasons. A Welsh child growing up in England from the same age is probably not going to have that sort of attachment to his place of birth. But who the f*** knows. You'll never be able to draw the line and I'm not sure why you'd want to. I don't want to draw a line. I'm fine with people representing the country they want to on most occasions. (The exception are the Brazilians and so on that change their nationality only to play at a tournament, not because they feel like they are more that nationality than Brazilian.) In general, I'd probably only want to implement a rule of having to declare a nation when you're young, or not allowing the "five year rule" (most countries have five years before you can become a citizen) to apply to International football. I agree, the real problem here is the five year rule, not the fact that players can choose which of their countries they want to play for. Also the grandfather rule. It might be a good idea to change it to being able to choose either your country of birth or your parent's country