2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Thread

[madviking]

I can't think who would be a glaringly better choice. He got further with less help (offensive help) than anyone else, and no matter how much they might deserve it we all know a defensive player will never win.

robben, james, neymar, mueller

messi was GLARINGLY awol during the second half of the argentina-netherlands game and much of the game today.

 

[Grendeldef]

^^^Judgement call for sure as they so often are but while Neuer actually cleared the ball which Zuniga had no real chance or intent to do.

 

[azzaman333]

Ah well back to mostly not caring about soccer til the Asia Cup. I just can't get excited for the intrigue of whether the EPL and Liga standings will entirely correlate with payroll or just almost entirely correlate. And Canberra still doesn't have an A League team.

Just support Melbourne Victory. We're better than any hypothetical Canberra side.

 

[W|M]

Italy, Brazil, and Germany have all won their fourth World Cup 24 years after they won their third World Cup

 

[Timsup2nothin]

robben, james, neymar, mueller

messi was GLARINGLY awol during the second half of the argentina-netherlands game and much of the game today.

Robben and James I could argue for, though there is a (admittedly unfortunate) tendency to say the most valuable player should get his team to the final. Neymar clearly gets the 'carrying the most dead weight' award, but since Brazil didn't look particularly good even with Neymar I'd leave him out for sure. Muller suffers from being one of the many on the best team who could be considered. Hard to be the tournament MVP when there are people who would question whether you're even the MVP on your own team.

In Argentina's scheme Messi's primary responsibility is to provide a dangerous outlet, and that's where he was in every game they played. That can look bad, since he isn't in there mixing it up while the other team has the ball, which they do more often than not, but that's the job.

 

[azzaman333]

robben, james, neymar, mueller

messi was GLARINGLY awol during the second half of the argentina-netherlands game and much of the game today.

Would disagree with Neymar being better than Messi, but Robben, James and Mueller were definitely more worthy than Messi. Took me a while to figure out what Messi was doing getting a trophy, at first I thought it was some sort of runners up trophy because it didn't occur to me that he might've won the Golden Ball.

 

[Camikaze]

Just got back from the city centre, where tens of thousands of people are crowding down the main street. Was a bit death-trap-y to stick around in for long. So so many car horns, and they've popped the cork on the flag-waving and mass chanting about Deutschland which has been bottled up for the last 24 years.

 

[ThERat]

Would have given it to James, but that would have never happened with Fifa.

I liked this WC first two rounds of group matches, after that it was not very nice for a neutral except of course the shelling of Brazil and the final.

Ah well, back to club football, since my team got relegated I expect a lot more victories this time round.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

^^^Judgement call for sure as they so often are but while Neuer actually cleared the ball which Zuniga had no real chance or intent to do.

No doubt Zuniga was way late to the challenge and deserved to be booked too...it just wasn't anywhere near as dangerous as it has been made out to be...as Neuer demonstrated. We should all be happy that knee caught a lot of shoulder before it connected to the head. If Zuniga had had his knee up like that Neymar would be in a wheelchair.

I'm still thinking the biggest story going forward out of this is that football organizations world wide really need to take a hard look at medical procedures. There were plenty of times the need was made blatantly obvious, particularly with Neymar, but today was the icing on the cake.

There was absolutely no way Kramer should have been let back on the field, and no way for any responsible person not to know it. The guy was out like a light and had to be led off or he wouldn't have found the sideline...and three minutes later he says he's fine and gets sent back out. That's just indefensible.

 

[ThERat]

I'm still thinking the biggest story going forward out of this is that football organizations world wide really need to take a hard look at medical procedures.

Given what a multi million $ business this is and how fragile player's health can be, I cannot understand the amateurish approach in this regard.

Well, where are the Argentine fans here crying foul over the Neuer flying knee kick? Maybe, they are just more realistic to know that such stuff happens in football. I also thought, it was a bit over the top, but nothing really unusual. Just like the foul on Neymar.

I hope Brazil can wake up and shake up their team, one poster boy doesn't cut it. I want to see a real competition next time with teams from Spain, Italy, England, Brazil on top of their game and not this shoddy stuff. I doubt it however, as club football is all the more important these days. There are too many games and too many competitions all year round and most players are just too tired when it comes to Euro or World Cup. Messi is a good example.

 

[BirraImperial]

We've got a rugby finals series about to start, the AFL and NRL seasons are getting towards the important end with finals in September, then there's a cricket series in the UAE against Pakistan in October and the start of the home cricket summer after that. Asian Cup soccer will be hosted in Australia (including in Canberra) in January, then the Cricket World Cup is hosted in Australia (including here) in March. In this space of time there's also the Australian Open, whatever local A-League soccer I watch, and the various US sports as a sideshow.

I think I'll be okay. What else do you guys follow?

Other than basketball and American football, not much else. I don't follow rugby or cricket either, so I guess I'm stuck with local league matches and I think MLS is still on. Crazy Americans playing in the middle of the WC.

 

[BirraImperial]

Given what a multi million $ business this is and how fragile player's health can be, I cannot understand the amateurish approach in this regard.

Well, where are the Argentine fans here crying foul over the Neuer flying knee kick? Maybe, they are just more realistic to know that such stuff happens in football. I also thought, it was a bit over the top, but nothing really unusual. Just like the foul on Neymar.

I hope Brazil can wake up and shake up their team, one poster boy doesn't cut it. I want to see a real competition next time with teams from Spain, Italy, England, Brazil on top of their game and not this shoddy stuff. I doubt it however, as club football is all the more important these days. There are too many games and too many competitions all year round and most players are just too tired when it comes to Euro or World Cup. Messi is a good example.

I hope, for the sake of football, that FIFA takes a long, hard look at the tournament schedules. I think part of the reason that players like Ronaldo, Messi and the Spanish team failed to perform, is obviously the fact that they were coming off from really long seasons. Something has to be done about it.
I stand by my assesment that Neuer did not commit a foul on Higuaín. If you follow the rules of what constitutes a foul, there was no intent to foul the player and he went for the ball first. Sure, it wasn't pretty, but contact with his knee was accidental. He was also inside his own box, so keepers have a higher degree of freedom there.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Going for the ball first doesn't make reckless and dangerous play any more acceptable, else players would be getting kicked in the head with great regularity because aerial kicks in traffic would be within the rules. I'll go with the degree of freedom for keepers part, but that's about it.

Tired players is an issue, but the injury treatment protocols are frankly prehistoric (at the World Cup, where they should be the best and I'm afraid that they actually are) and I think that's the priority to get fixed.

How to fix it is the question, of course. It takes about ten minutes to properly administer concussion testing, so if someone takes a knock to the head and concussion testing is required before they can return a team would either have to sub them or play a man short for the duration...and what happens if they pass? Say someone like Robben takes a knock ten minutes in and gets subbed, and then we find out that he could have gone back in and missed almost the whole match for nothing? What if a goal is scored against while the team is short and it turns out there was no concussion? The never stopping clock nature of the game makes this a really difficult issue for football.

EDIT: concussion testing taking ten minutes doesn't mean that anyone calling themselves an athletic trainer should have let Kramer back on the field today. It should have taken ten seconds to see he wasn't going to pass.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I stand by my assesment that Neuer did not commit a foul on Higuaín. If you follow the rules of what constitutes a foul, there was no intent to foul the player and he went for the ball first. Sure, it wasn't pretty, but contact with his knee was accidental. He was also inside his own box, so keepers have a higher degree of freedom there.

Deference to the keeper has to end somewhere beyond the six yard box. It's hard to argue that Higuain should have won a PK, which is the result of a foul on Neuer in the box. That said, there's absolutely no way that play should have resulted in a foul on Higuain either. An Argentine throw was the fair call.

That's not the interesting call, though. The ugly Howedes tackle is the one that really deserves attention. I tend to think that it was a yellow; while it was ugly and late, it doesn't fit into FIFA's definitions of 'serious foul play' or 'violent conduct'. In general, it's the force of the tackle that gets you sent off rather than the nature. Howedes came in late and poorly but the challenge was soft. If he'd made more substantive contact, he'd have seen the showers.

The result genuinely boils down to the inability of the Argentines to finish. If Higuain nets once free or times his run a fraction better, if Messi manages to bend his grounder the right way, if Aguero doesn't fall down as Messi pops that dirty through ball, or if Palacio finishes a gilt-edged chance...it only takes one of those to make us consider a different result, and two to guarantee it.

Sabella didn't exactly help things by subbing Lavezzi. When the semis were about to start, it honestly felt like there were three experts and the guy in the dunce cap, and even though Sabella managed to get past van Gaal the result did little to dispel that sense. It was a pity that Sabella picked this venue to prove it.

Anyone that watched the tournament knows that James Rodriguez won the Golden Ball, and never mind the farce that actually happened in the Maracana. It speaks volumes about Messi's character that he knew; can you imagine Ronaldo's preening?

 

[BirraImperial]

Final Positions: (Taken from Wikipedia)

Pos. Team G Pld W D L Pts GF GA GD
1 Germany G 7 6 1 0 19 18 4 +14
2 Argentina F 7 5 1 1 16 8 4 +4
3 Netherlands B 7 5 2 0 17 15 4 +11
4 Brazil A 7 3 2 2 11 11 14 -3
5 Colombia C 5 4 0 1 12 12 4 +8
6 Belgium H 5 4 0 1 12 6 3 +3
7 France E 5 3 1 1 10 10 3 +7
8 Costa Rica D 5 2 3 0 9 5 2 +3
9 Chile B 4 2 1 1 7 6 4 +2
10 Mexico A 4 2 1 1 7 5 3 +2
11 Switzerland E 4 2 0 2 6 7 7 0
12 Uruguay D 4 2 0 2 6 4 6 -2
13 Greece C 4 1 2 1 5 3 5 -2
14 Algeria H 4 1 1 2 4 7 7 0
15 United States G 4 1 1 2 4 5 6 -1
16 Nigeria F 4 1 1 2 4 3 5 -2
17 Ecuador E 3 1 1 1 4 3 3 0
18 Portugal G 3 1 1 1 4 4 7 -3
19 Croatia A 3 1 0 2 3 6 6 0
20 Bosnia and Herzegovina F 3 1 0 2 3 4 4 0
21 Ivory Coast C 3 1 0 2 3 4 5 -1
22 Italy D 3 1 0 2 3 2 3 -1
23 Spain B 3 1 0 2 3 4 7 -3
24 Russia H 3 0 2 1 2 2 3 -1
25 Ghana G 3 0 1 2 1 4 6 -2
26 England D 3 0 1 2 1 2 4 -2
27 South Korea H 3 0 1 2 1 3 6 -3
28 Iran F 3 0 1 2 1 1 4 -3
29 Japan C 3 0 1 2 1 2 6 -4
30 Australia B 3 0 0 3 0 3 9 -6
31 Honduras E 3 0 0 3 0 1 8 -7
32 Cameroon A 3 0 0 3 0 1 9 -8

I find it hilarious that according to FIFA's very own Castrol Index, Toni Kroos should have won the Golden Ball, since he had the best performance in the tournament...

 

[Akbarthegreat]

The Golden Ball was between either Messi or James. Mueller wasn't even the best player on his team, Neymar wasn't that impressive and Robben deserves an Oscar way more. I guess they chose Messi over James because James had already won one award.

Messi's 2014 World Cup:
- 7 matches
- 573 minutes
- 4 goals
- 1 assist
- 23 chances created
- 46 dribbles completed

Messi is first in dribbles and chances created (james has 11 and Robben 17).

 

[cybrxkhan]

So to bring up what Kyriakos said in the voodoo thread, who here, like me, is betting that Germany will be embarrassingly knocked out of the World Cup in the group stage in 2018, continuing a recent but important World Cup tradition?

 

[ThERat]

That hasn't happened for a world cup but the Euros 2000 and 2004...was quite entertaining actually

 

[Grendeldef]

It's been a great cup, at least in my opinion, probably the best I've seen since 1990. Lots of goals, many underdogs rising up to the challenge and surprising the World and the great atmosphere in Brazil. The best team in the competition won. Hope Russia 2018 is as good as this one.

I think it's been the best in footballing terms since '70. '82 & '86 had some epic games and more emotions while '98 was the games of fan mode for me and if Russia '18 will offer anything like this one it'll be a fine tournament.

Now that it's over, what am I going to do??

Well, it's only 3y 11 months until the next one but TdF will provide some softening to the blow of normality. Then there'll be athletics EC though sadly in it's current form it's hardly compareable to the past games. Autumn is for taking a breether while waiting CC skiing WC after which the normal cycle will resume. For a short term plan I think I should get out for starters.

 

[Mise]

James Rodriguez or Robben imo. As much as I hate Robben, he had a great tournament. I'd suggest Ron Vlaar but that would never happen.