world cup draw

[drzachary]

Anyone out there into World Cup soccer?

The USA's group looks fairly easy: Italy, Ghana, Czech Republic.

I had to laugh when Poland was drawn to play in Germany's group. There are so many completely inappropriate jokes you can make there.

[BigDirty]

Germany has a quite easy group.

My prediction:

Group A:

1.Germany

2.Poland

3.Ecuador

4.Costa Rica

Group B:

1.England

2.Sweden

3.Paraguay

4.Trinidad & Tobago

Group C:

1.Argentina

2.Holland

3.Serbia-Montenegro

4.Ivory Coast

Group D:

1.Mexico

2.Portugal

3.Iran

4.Angola

Group E:

1.Italy

2.Czech Republic

3.USA

4.Ghana

Group F:

1.Brasil

2.Croatia

3.Australia

4.Japan

Group G:

1.France

2.Hanguk

3.Swiss

4.Togo

Group H:

1.Spain

2.Ukraine

3.Tunesia

4.Saudi-Arabia

My tickets turned out to be for:

Sweden - Paraguay (good game + a player from my favourite team Werder Bremen, Nelson Haedo-Valdez, plays for Paraguay)

Ukraine - Tunesia (Tunesia is the absolutely last team I wanted a ticket for, well at least I get to see Sheva)

[Lascar78]

USA's group is hardly easy. Italy and Czech republic are both better teams than the US. I doubt the US makes it out but you never know. That's the beauty of the world cup

Group C looks the toughest, followed by group B.

Looks like France got pretty lucky on this one. If they don't pull a choke job like the last world cup, they should make it out of that group.

Germany should do fine in their group too.

Very weird to see a world cup without cameroon, they're always the underdog that I root for.

[rascurrein]

Even weird is to see a world cup without URUGUAY. We won 2 world cups and 2 gold medals in olympics, and lately we are being used to not be at world cups. Even when we have the top scorer of Europe and about 14 players playing in the top teams around the world.

[Lascar78]

that's true also

[BigDirty]

Well Forlan isn't playing as good as last season and before that he sucked 3 years for ManU, so he isn't really that good anyway.

And some of your players like Rodriguez and Varela are only reserve players for their teams.

You guys seemed to stop being good when Francescoli got old and retired. He always was one of my favourite players.

[rascurrein]

You are a little missinformed. Forlan didn't suck at ManU, you could see his stats considering the minutes he played on. Then this season you could say that he is not playing as well as last season, but you must know that he spent over a month injured. Varela is a substitute in Schalke but i have seen playing Darío Rodriguez in the first team, even in the champions league as left back defender, then you have Pablo Garcia, Recoba, Diogo, Zalayeta (who is a substitute of DEL PIERO, IBRAHIMOVIC and TREZEGUET), Montero, Viera, Chevanton. So we have a lot of good players, not mention Dario Silva, Pandiani, Ruben Olivera, S. Taborda, Regueiro, V. Sanchez, Richard Morales, Sosa, Carini and many others. I will agreed with you in two things: Since Francescoli, Ruben Sosa (champion with Borussia Dortumnd), Aguilera and other players of this generation, Uruguay is going down; and 2nd, we stink as a team

[BigDirty]

No you're misinformed :P , Forlan DID suck at ManU, they show the Premier League here and whenever I saw him he wasn't very good and missed a lot of easy chances (although when I saw him playing for Uruguay he always played much better) and on other message boards all the ManU we're always crying about how bad Forlan is and the Arsenal fans would make fun of him.

Rodriguez is a Reserve for Schalke, I should know, I watch all the Bundesliga games. He only played in 8 of 15 Bundesliga games this year (well technically 9 but one time he came in in the 90th minute so that shouldn't count ) and only because the real starter Christian Pander is injured for a long time period and Schalke has no other players for the left defense side (and they spent all their money on other players like Kuranyi, Ernst and Rafinha, so they can't really afford another signing). Plus he's not playing very good, I liked him before he came to Schalke, but since he played for them he wasn't very good.

You do have some good players, but somehow that one special superstar player is missing. I once thought Recoba could be that guy, but he isn't there yet. What's with those two PSG guys Bueno and Rodriguez are they good?

[rascurrein]

The sports are all about the opinion of those that watch the games and all of us allways think that we know better than the coach, no matter what sport are we talking about. And maybe you think that Forlan was awfull in ManU, but i see about 4 matches a week of premier league (when i have the time) and don't think that. Like i said everything is about the opinion of the fans, i will never put in my team for example Camoranesi, but he plays for Juve and for Italy.

About Bueno he is a very good center forward but mentally unballanced. About Cristian Rodriguez, he is only 19 years old, he is a very strong player (phisycally), but no one knows what could happen with a player so young when he get older ( i mean 24 years old, when the players are reaching their peak), i saw a lot of young players that seems to be great, and ended playing like me.

Like i said, you won't find anyone who has the same opinion aobut a team, or a player.

And talking about the world cup, and preciselly about Germany, you have a very easy group, so i think you will go pass to the other fase, but you have some troubles with your team, as i see, like we have troubles. Since Bremme, Klinsman and Mattews you didn't produce players with the qualitie of them.

Sorry about the spelling of the names (i know that is not correct) but i have a modem conection and if spend to many time finding the correct spelling for the names, i will have to need a loan to pay the telephone bill

[mdawg]

I'll assume you're being sarcastic. The USA got a horrible draw, and it's even worse when you consider we were only 1 point away from being one of the top 8 seeds. I will say that I think Italy is a bit overrated. They never seem to play well on the big stage, and I think the US could get a draw. The big game is the 1st against the Czech Rep. If they can win that, the Italy game isn't as important. But, maybe this a good draw for the long run of US Soccer. If we are embarrassed, maybe US Soccer will play some top competition in friendlies and in top flight tournaments like Copa America or the Confederations Cup. I think Brazil has got to be the favorites, but I think Holland will make a deep run. They've got as much talent as anybody, and Van Basten has done a great job as manager.

Forlan was not good at MU, but I think the Spanish league is a better fit for his game. That's happened to other players though. It's no disgrace.

It's good to talk a little soccer.

Walk On LFC.

[Safetyboi]

The USA team has only a small chance to get out off the group stage. The Czech Republic is the best team in the group cause they play well together and they have Pavel Nedved. The biggest question out of this group is, will Italy underachieve like they always do in major tournaments.

Diego Forlan was terrible at Man Utd(Scum) for Sir Alex never played him for any consistent minutes in back to back games.

P.S. Go Liverpool

[drzachary]

yeah, I was being sarcastic

By the way, this is a very international thread for a Hawks message board! I'm impressed!

I have a brother who lives in Munich and is very excited about the games there.

[Lascar78]

Agreed on Holland. They are stacked.

Also, I do believe that this is the first time ever that I didn't catch dr zach's sarcasm. You never know how much people know about soccer

[drzachary]

Quote:

---

Agreed on Holland. They are stacked.

Also, I do believe that this is the first time ever that I didn't catch dr zach's sarcasm. You never know how much people know about soccer

---

Looking back, I wasn't very clear about my zarcasm. (that's zack/sarcasm, a special blend!)

I only get interested in soccer in the ramp up to the World Cup each year. The draw is an excellent opportunity to belittle other cultures! ("We get to play those spaghetti-benders? They'll be too busy trying to pick their own pockets (and sometimes succeeding!) to score against Keller.")

[AHF]

If the US can survive Group play it would be a major accomplishment. Even Ghana isn't that bad a team. I wish we had a draw like groups B, C or H. Talk about a bunch of cakewalks for the top two seeds.

[mdawg]

Have you guys heard the conspiracy theories about the USA's draw? The Italian media claims there is video evidence that the draw was fixed. Apparently, the guy drawing the ping pong balls picked up a ball and dropped it because it was cold. He then picked up a hot ping pong ball, which represented the USA. The press claim they have it on video? It may be possible. Europe doesn't really like us right now, and they may have tried to screw us in "their" game.

[Lascar78]

hahaha. please

this goes to show, even if stern had the lottery televised, people would still come up with crazy conspiracies

[rascurrein]

The first man to talk about cold ping pong balls was Maradona, so nothing is new.

What i saw, was when Pele took the ball for Argentina's draw, he said "it's Holland" and the man who opens the balls said "yes it is".

I wanna make two points clear, everything about fifa is money and there's a lot of interests about putting USA into the world of soccer as a market. You could say that about 2 billion dollars at least are the amount of money of transfers fees every june and january (its a lot more). For that reason i think nobody wants to do anything that can go against a growin market like USA. It's different for Argentina who has no money and no market, only has players. And other thing is that Argentina is supporting right now a soccer team from my country (C.A. PEÑAROL), because in Europe has started the piracy and PARIS SAINT GERMAIN took two players from PEÑAROL, whitout paying the transfer fee. And since the best players of the world are coming from SOUTHAMERICA and AFRICA, there's a very big risk for those 2 continents.

Finally i think theres no conspiracy against USA, FIFA must do anything to make USA market grow.

[Lascar78]

haha, that's funny, paris saint-germain was my team when I lived in france because that's where I lived. I hadn't heard about this though, I only follow international competitions now.

I agree that FIFA would love nothing more than for the US to win the whole thing. The US is the only big market that is uninterested in soccer to this point