World Cup Fans?

faust

faust

New Member
Anyone here a World Cup fan? I know I will be watching a lot of the games (DVRs ftw!), and I am really looking forward to watching things kick off this Friday!

Looks like a lot of the more traditional power houses will be back in fine form this time around: Brazil, Germany, Italy, England, Argentina, and France (well as of late they have been good). This time around though I expect we are going to see a new crop of Cinderella teams (like Japan and Korea last time around, and France two cups ago): Australia (ok a long shot, but ya never know), Ukraine, Sweden. Who knows maybe the Swiss will shock the world. :) Waaaaay too early to tell, but any which way it should be a lot of fun!

While I am pulling for the US, I think we have one of the toughest groups for the first round: Italy (ouch), Czech (loads of experience), Ghana (very dangerous). I think we are a lot stronger team that last go around, but with that group it's very possible that we may not even make it past the first round. :(

On a side note, I was hoping to travel to Germany for the World Cup four years ago, but two more kids and a move across the US later that's just wasn't going to happen. :p
 
Well, I am not a soccer/football fan but I do watch the World Cup. I watched the US and Ireland matches last year and a few England matches. This year will be US and some England matches.

Unfortuneately I will be doing the samething as last year with a slight twist. I will be painting my own living room and DVR some matches instead of getting up before I go to bed to watch them.
 
I was stationed in England during the 2002 World Cup...no better place to enjoy a match than your local British Pub...
 
Although I played a ton of soccer as a kid, I got hooked 3 World Cups ago when the US hosted. One of the stadiums used was in my home town of Palo Alto, CA (Stanford University's stadium). So I answered a call in the paper to take tickets (I was on summer break back home from college). The payback was great, not only did you get a chance to meet tons of excited (and often times very interesting) football fans from around the world (which was a lot of fun really), but I also was allowed to watch the second half of all the matches for free! So I saw a lot of great games, most notably for me was the US-Brazil match which was a close one. :)

That's a summer I will never forget.
 
I saw all the matches over the weekend (hooray for DVRs).

I have to say so far, the Netherlands really really stood out. They look very good. They have the best ball control of any team I have seen so far in the cup (though Brazil also tends to excel in that department as well). The Netherland team really looked like it has a good offense as well (I know they only scored once, but they had a number of other quality near scores).

England was a bit disappointing, especially considering the hype. They have a good defense, and a solid ball control and passing. Their long ball (though I am not a huge fan of the long ball in most situations) was surprisingly accurate at times.

Sweden looked very soft as well, after all the hype they received they completely unimpressed me.

Portugal looks like it has a lot of team speed and good ball control, and they will very likely make it to the next round, and could make some noise.

Mexico looked good overall, though they gave up a lot of penalties, which wasn't a problem vs. Iran, but could be down he line. Though that might have been a reaction to the rough style of play that the Iranians brought to the match.

Argentina might have a solid team this time, I think they also have a chance to make an impact at the next round (but I am not completely convinced, after all they only played CIV).

Germany looks like it will have a heck of an offense (not a total surprise especially since their head coach is Klinsmann), but that defensive back field needs to work on their coordination. They looked soft on defense in general, if they don't clean that up during the first round (they will make it through considering how weak their group looks, especially so now that Poland looks soft) they won't last long.

I am looking forward to seeing how not only US does today, but how the remaining teams do in their first matches.

So far I would say it looks like it will be a good World Cup.
 
GO USA! Took one in the nose from Czechoslovakia today, but we'll bounce back against Italy and Ghana, I'm sure.

Yes, Mexico is good, but I have a dislike for that team. In the 2002 WC, I saw some really dirty and malicious play by their sweepers. If they look different this year, I'll give them a clean slate again.
 
As both of my parents were born in the Netherlands I have to admit to cheering for them. Orange shall Overcome...go Netherlands.
 
The US match was dissapointing on just about every front. I really hope they can turn things around, because I know they can play better than that. The US needs to get two wins now to have a shot at qualifying for the next round. We shall see.

On another note, how about those Aussies! :) After that questionable early goal from Japan, they really shocked everyone. Three goals in the last 10-20 minutes is awesome! I had fun watching their rough and tumble style too. They deserved to win, imo. They were the better team. Japan played far too conservatively.
 
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