2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Thread

[Gucumatz]

i enjoy your posts luiz, you have an endearing rage.

I am curious to see whether FIFA take note of the Brazil-Colombia match and instruct the referees to enact a stricter regime. I reckon home advantage and the "runner up" mentality of the German players will see Brazil into the final.

Oddly enough I think this is the only reason Germany might not win it this year. Mentally they haven't looked that different from 2010's team. Sure they may be relatively efficient, but outside of a terrible Portugal they haven't really kicked it into high gear vs. anyone

Still. Germany wins, its been too long

 

[Darkness]

This physical style is the number one enemy of 11 out of 10 football commentators here. But it is hegemonic within coaches, Scolari is not even the worst one (not by a longshot). And this is not a Brazilian phenomena, and not a new one either, which is why articles like that posted by another Dutchman annoy me so much.

Who? Me?

If you are referring to me then I wonder why that ESPN article would annoy you? Because it points out that Brazil plays a physical game these days? You already knew that, so why would it annoy you?
Physical play is a part of high level football these days. The only question is how one deals with the consequences of physical play. You either accept them, or you don't.

I'm perfectly fine with physical style football. It's the diving that annoys me...

 

[Gucumatz]

And I am certainly not in that school, considering I have been cheering on the way Uruguay, Chile, and Ecuador played this tournament

 

[Zelig]

Nevertheless by that rule if some player committed an unspeakably brutal foul with the intent of murdering another player (for the sake of the argument) and the referee gave a simple foul (or just advantage), such player cannot be punished by FIFA in anyway.

I say that's a bad rule, a really really bad rule actually, though I'm not at all interested in debating this. The fact is the brute Zuniga escaped punishment but no judgment was passed on his ugly foul.

I'm sure that FIFA would find a way around it if the foul was bad enough.

Like say hypothetically if a striker walked up to the keeper while the ball was at the opposite end of the pitch and knocked him clean out with an uppercut. There's no way FIFA would let it slide if the ref called the foul but didn't give out a card.

 

[luiz]

Who? Me?

If you are referring to me then I wonder why that ESPN article would annoy you? Because it points out that Brazil plays a physical game these days? You already knew that, so why would it annoy you?
Physical play is a part of high level football these days. The only question is how one deals with the consequences of physical play. You either accept them, or you don't.

I'm perfectly fine with physical style football. It's the diving that annoys me...

I'm not fine with physical football if it involves dirty play, like the Dutch and Brazilian teams abused in 2010.

But even that dirty physical play should not be confused with reckless assaults that can put someone in a wheel chair for life. There's no way to be "fine" with that, not if you're a normal human being anyway.

I'm sure that FIFA would find a way around it if the foul was bad enough.

Like say hypothetically if a striker walked up to the keeper while the ball was at the opposite end of the pitch and knocked him clean out with an uppercut. There's no way FIFA would let it slide if the ref called the foul but didn't give out a card.

That's the problem, according to the rules if the ref called it FIFA can't deliver additional punishment. I think that's BS, because some fouls deserve more than a red card, they deserve a ban.

But as I said earlier I'm not interested in debating FIFA's rules. They are what they are, and they didn't make them up to deal with this event, so we have to accept them. Let the powers that be revise them afterwards.

 

[Takhisis]

Since, during my regrettable absence, this thread has moved on, I will not discuss the topic of Neymar's injury by itself.

I know you're not that old. To remember "pretty football Brazil" you would need to have been born in the 1970's or before. Truth is Brazil abandoned the "pretty" and mostly offensive football after 1982 (not 1986 as some people erroneously believe) because it simply did not win anymore. For all it's merits, the 1982 Seleção had some bizarre defensive blunders that are totally out place in modern football. (…) So I wonder if that is the pretty football you mentioned?

luiz, you're caught in a translation problem. I didn't say 'Jogo bonito'. I did say 'pretty football'. Thankfully, I have no memories of the 1994 World Cup beyond passing references to Maradona's doping. But I do remember itnessing the brilliance of Cafú, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, among others. I haven't seen any of that in either of the last two world cups. There's a difference between dropping Jogo Bonito and… this. In the long term, it will be as we discussed about England's youth teams, who think pretty football, passing, dribbling, nutmegs are for girls and what's really manly is to simply force your way through the defense as if footballers were rugbiers. For the sake of Brazilian football, I hope it doesn't happen.

Really, why has Felipão not called up Ronaldinho or Kaká? Why is Nilmar off the team?

Of course, for all your vitriol about Scolari's teams "kicking teams off the pitch", even at it's worst with Dunga the Brazilian team didn't even approach the heights of dirty football and tactical fouling as mastered by Argentina and Uruguay, who have really made hard fouls committed under the ref's radar into an art form.

This is a tremendous logical fallacy. 'There is someone worse than X, so X is good' can only be arrived at as a 'logical' conclusion through lack of reasoning or intellectual dishonesty. Taking a potshot against hated rivals while you're at it is smply cheap.

I do wonder though how many articles are written in the Dutch press about the abandonment of the Netherlands' "total football" style that enchanted the world and the full-hearted adoption of tactical fouling and brutish defenders so well represented by the 2010 Team, with "nice guys" such as van Bommel and de Jong?

This is a good question. The Netherlands' last three matches, against Brazil, Uruguay and then Spain (2-1, 3-2, 0-1) were vomitive. Each was worse than the last, and it was a miracle that there were nolasting physical injuries to the players who faced them. Their victory against Brazil was questionable at best -the amtch should've gone to a penalty shootout at least-, they kicked the Uruguayans (!) off the pitch and their game against Spain was a massacre. I wonder what happened after that to have them change their minds so completely. Maybe 2010 was simply a spell of madness.

 

[Takhisis]

A Swiss company sells off tickets given to it for free (how? why?) at €1,000 each.

World Cup hospitality packages blocked amid scalping probe
Reuters, Monday July 7 2014
By Brian Homewood

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 7 (Reuters) - Three companies have had their World Cup corporate hospitality packages blocked and another firm has had theirs cancelled as Brazilian police investigate VIP ticket scalping.
Match Hospitality, a Swiss agency which holds exclusive rights to the World Cup hospitality programme, said it cancelled all packages purchased by Atlanta Sportif after their CEO, Lamine Fofana, was among 11 people arrested last week on suspicion of leading a scalping ring.
Packages held by Reliance Industries Ltd, Jet Set Sports and Pamodzi were blocked after tickets with their names were found in Fofana's possession, Match Hospitality said.
"(They) are to cooperate with Match Hospitality by helping the authorities with their enquiries regarding the hospitality packages with their names on them found in Mr. Fofana's possession," said Match.
"Failing that, Match Hospitality will cancel their tickets for the semi-final and the final."
Match added that its terms expressly prohibited the re-sale of tickets.
"Match Hospitality will continue to investigate and cooperate with all tickets seized by police, tracing their path to any illegal resale, and remains committed to preventing the illegal resale of 2014 FIFA World Cup tickets," it said.
Rio de Janeiro police said last week that Fofana, a French-Algerian national, had free access to restricted FIFA areas and received up one million reais ($450,000) per game by re-selling tickets.
The suspects face charges of money-laundering, illegal ticket touting and conspiracy.​

JOSPHVS BLATTERVS, CORRVPTVS IN EXTREMIS, where art thou?

 

[ThERat]

Let's move on:

Germany 3 Brazil 0, so we can hear for fours years: WE WAS ROBBED

However, given the weird referee selection (I remember him giving a red card to an Italian player for a rather ordinary tackle taking the rough play of the whole tournament as a yardstick), I could imagine that a German player gets sent off for a borderline foul. Or a second yellow. I have this hunch, that tonight's game will be a game with a very negative atmosphere and full of poison. Let's see.

 

[Zelig]

Not allowing scalping is dumb.

If you're not going to allow tickets to trade at market value, then it's essentially just a random lottery for who gets in.

 

[ThERat]

@Zelig, remember who is in charge of this. There is no need to ask why, Fifa has dumb rules and you should not wonder.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Not allowing scalping is dumb.

If you're not going to allow tickets to trade at market value, then it's essentially just a random lottery for who gets in.

But how do you determine who gets the tickets to scalp? If you are talking about scalping as in 'I bought a pair of tickets but now I would rather have a big profit than go to the game' that's a much different kind of scalping than 'as a corporate sponsor we have a right to hundreds of tickets at face value which we can then sell for profits'. If sponsors are offsetting cost of sponsorships that way it isn't fair to people who just want to buy a ticket for the game, because it takes big blocks of tickets off the market.

 

[Takhisis]

It is compounded by the Swiss 'hospitality' company having apparently been involved with one of Joseph Blatter's sons… bribery, officer? Nooo, officer.

 

[BirraImperial]

Lots to read today after being absent for a day...I'm all for a re-match of the 1974 final. I'm supporting Germany now that my country is out of the cup, so I hope they win it.

 

[Darkness]

FIFA is being its normal stupid self again. Apparently the Mexican referee that missed the Suarez bite gets to lead the Brazil-Germany semifinal.

Link

I think maybe the referee honestly missed the bite, but why would FIFA expose this particular referee on such a stage now? Now there'll be an even bigger outcry if he misses something again. Why not take a different referee (one who hasn't made any obvious errors in the competition) for such an important game?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

FIFA is being its normal stupid self again. Apparently the Mexican referee that missed the Suarez bite gets to lead the Brazil-Germany semifinal.

Link

I think maybe the referee honestly missed the bite, but why would FIFA expose this particular referee on such a stage now? Now there'll be an even bigger outcry if he misses something again. Why not take a different referee (one who hasn't made any obvious errors in the competition) for such an important game?

The bite was well away from the ball and it's no surprise it was missed, really. As to why not take a referee who hasn't made any obvious errors in the competition...that would involve flying in somebody new.

 

[madviking]

FIFA is being its normal stupid self again. Apparently the Mexican referee that missed the Suarez bite gets to lead the Brazil-Germany semifinal.

Link

I think maybe the referee honestly missed the bite, but why would FIFA expose this particular referee on such a stage now? Now there'll be an even bigger outcry if he misses something again. Why not take a different referee (one who hasn't made any obvious errors in the competition) for such an important game?

i'm surprised he wasn't chosen for the germany-brasil game; fifa clearly wants brasil to win if they're still giving this guy games.

 

[shadowplay]

I'm soooo pumped for the semis.

taking Germany/Netherlands for the final.

 

[Kyriakos]

 

[Camikaze]

Not allowing scalping is dumb.

If you're not going to allow tickets to trade at market value, then it's essentially just a random lottery for who gets in.

I would've thought tickets for the World Cup would be based at least partially on a lottery system, like the Olympics.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, I think a lottery system is the fairest way to distribute tickets to a public event like this. I'd rather the stadium be filled with randos than with a bunch of super rich people.