oldtype

His country is in a penalty shoot out to get into a world cup semi final. He is absolutely right to be making it as hard for them as possible Krul's macho mind games probably won it for them for all we know.

TIMMMMYYYYYYYYYYY!

Probably exactly why he's been brought on. Balls of steel.

Krul guessed the right way 4/4 times so far

I do fancy Costa Rica here. So much more pressure on the Dutch. Costa Ricans have nothing to lose.

Almost!

Unbelievable must be at the end of his rope

TIMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

Some goalkeepers just don't fancy penalty shootouts. I assume Cillessen is one of those.

HOLY FUCK

Costa Rica picking up a massive second wind from somewhere

Please go to pens

Smells like pelanties this. Unbelievable is going to have a seizure

I do agree that we wouldn't let Ben Arfa get away with a lot of the things he does if we had an actual good side that wasn't managed by Alan Pardew.

I mean yeah, those are out-and-out striker stats. Not even center forward stats.

So based on these stats, De Jong rarely dribbles and probably shouldn't be allowed to, rarely passes and almost never makes creative passes, doesn't defend, but shoots and scores alot. All of that from central midfield. Again, odd.

Three successful dribbles and one unsuccessful one.

Dribbles/Take-ons This is an attempt by a player to beat an opponent in possession of the ball. A successful dribble means the player beats the defender while retaining possession, unsuccessful ones are where the dribbler is tackled, Opta also log attempted dribbles where the player overruns the ball.

I'm sorry but this is a bunch of nonsense. Do Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have healthy domestic leagues? Why do the Belgians and Dutch bother with their domestic leagues when a clearly superior product is just across the border? Its not about just about money. Its about having a football culture. We're getting there-- that takes time. My ten year old son plays football every day. When he's not playing football, he's playing futsal. He's all football crazy. And that's true of most of the young athletes in his school. (That was to the case when I was his age--we were all playing baseball and basketball all summer.) The World Cup is a big deal. Every four years it generates new fanatics. I saw something about that fool running around dressed as Teddy Roosevelt. Turns out he wasn't a fan until the 2006 World Cup -- had disdain for the game and US fans before then. I think there are a whole bunch of young athletes who are right now deciding to dedicate themselves to playing football/soccer instead of basketball, American football, baseball or whatever. We've missed a big opportunity by passing on playing in the Copa America in the past few decades. 2016 is going to be huge. And like this World Cup, it's going to create new fans and produce a larger pool of players. Those leagues are still healthy because they were built up ages ago when football was less international in countries which have long, rich footballing histories. You're trying to build something from the bottom up with the MLS in a world where every Premier League game is live on TV. The two cases are not even remotely comparable. Trust me, I've seen this movie before in Korea after 2002. Of course MLS has a much better shot given that they can throw around much more money, but if you think America's rise to a footballing superpower is some sort of manifest destiny you're liable to be grossly disappointed come 2018. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. But it will be hard. The Premier League is the least of our worries. More people watch the Mexican League than English football in these parts. Obviously, I neglected to mention the changing demographics of this country. That's another factor-- its not quite manifest destiny In any case, I know people who watch the Premier League, and the Mexican League, and MLS and anything else they can manage to stream online. It's not one or the other. I'd say it's at least something of a concern given that the last day of the Premier League drew over twice the amount of viewers of the MLS Cup last year. Obviously there are junkies out there who will watch everything, but that's not what keeps a business afloat. Casual fans are, and they have limited mindshare to go around.

Odd stats for a midfielder, to say the least.

I'm sorry but this is a bunch of nonsense. Do Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have healthy domestic leagues? Why do the Belgians and Dutch bother with their domestic leagues when a clearly superior product is just across the border? Its not about just about money. Its about having a football culture. We're getting there-- that takes time. My ten year old son plays football every day. When he's not playing football, he's playing futsal. He's all football crazy. And that's true of most of the young athletes in his school. (That was to the case when I was his age--we were all playing baseball and basketball all summer.) The World Cup is a big deal. Every four years it generates new fanatics. I saw something about that fool running around dressed as Teddy Roosevelt. Turns out he wasn't a fan until the 2006 World Cup -- had disdain for the game and US fans before then. I think there are a whole bunch of young athletes who are right now deciding to dedicate themselves to playing football/soccer instead of basketball, American football, baseball or whatever. We've missed a big opportunity by passing on playing in the Copa America in the past few decades. 2016 is going to be huge. And like this World Cup, it's going to create new fans and produce a larger pool of players. Those leagues are still healthy because they were built up ages ago when football was less international in countries which have long, rich footballing histories. You're trying to build something from the bottom up with the MLS in a world where every Premier League game is live on TV. The two cases are not even remotely comparable. Trust me, I've seen this movie before in Korea after 2002. Of course MLS has a much better shot given that they can throw around much more money, but if you think America's rise to a footballing superpower is some sort of manifest destiny you're liable to be grossly disappointed come 2018. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. But it will be hard.

It's dangerous to assume that football will become mainstream just because the World Cup was incredibly popular this time around. The WC is more about nationalism than it is about football. For football to really take off you need a healthy domestic league, but it's difficult to sell the MLS when anyone who's into the game knows that a vastly superior product exists in Europe. Massive amounts of money helps, so I'm not saying it's impossible, but there are limits.

No split loyalties. The US ref should have dashed France at least one red card, so in my bitterness I withdrew all support from that country. Respect. I swear Baba has been markedly less friendly towards me since that day in 2010 and Yakubu WC is serious business, man. I still want the Swiss to lose every time because of a dodgy goal from eight years ago. Might be less bitter if senderos didn't look so punchable

No split loyalties. The US ref should have dashed France at least one red card, so in my bitterness I withdrew all support from that country. Respect. I swear Baba has been markedly less friendly towards me since that day in 2010 and Yakubu

oldtype, you live here. you know the country that affords you the opportunity that will make your life pretty fucking brilliant from now till you die? show some respect I'm going to quote this when I have to leave because they won't reissue my work visa in seven years time.