The New Football Forum (?)
 

This summer Germany will host an extraordinary event, that happens only once every four years.
I'm not talking about the Olympics, but about the FIFA World Cup Football.
Passion, technique, beauty.
Starring such FIFA top ranking teams like: 1. Brazil (830 points), 2. Czech Republic (779), 3. Netherlands (774).
The General Topics Forum might be overwhelmed by bets, comments and discussions, so passionate and so fierce, that it will make the debates between Skybird and me last year, or the discussions between Mike "Red October" Hense and The Avon Lady look like a friendly get together of old friends over a good glass of wine...

My educated guess is that in the Final Holland will (be) beat(en) (by) Brazil.
Amoungst the other teams there will be a fierce competition for the third place. Likely candidates: Czech Republic, Italy, England, Argentina.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to start up a temporary Footbal Forum (or a definite Sports Forum - including chess matches!) to prevent undue irritation of those who think that football should be played with helmets and that the ball should be thrown instead of kicked...
:D

Yes ,keep football in its own corner for those of us who have better things to do in June such as watching formula 1 or cricket!

It will come all by itself once the tournament has started. But I think no separate forum is needed. We could have a sticky thread, like the chess matches.

Oh darn. I thought we were going to talk NFL. :lol: :-j

Let's talk NFL after the World Cup. Looking forward to both :)

Or keeping up with whats going on at NFL training camp...

Just imagine Germany will be out after the first round (which is a realistic chance). Any soccer forum would be flooded with congratulations! :lol:

Where as a German worl champion probably will lead to some sharp comments and after that: icy silence :rotfl:

I think there are too many forums on subsim now.

Getting very cluttered. Maybe it is just me but I think we need a clean up.

I dunno, I think the Germans are fielding a very powerful team this year. :up:

So how does a team get into the world cup? Is it a regular team that first wins a national championship, thereby winning the right to compete in the cup, or are the teams made up of players picked from several teams like the US olympic basketball "dream team"?

:lol: That's the spirit!

There are a series of (complicated!) qualification rounds played in the couple of years run up to the actual cup, check here: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature?id=275159&cc=5739 for more info.

Lol.

Yea, why not. Let's talk about footy :)

My vote: a sticky thread.

Proposed work-title: "The thrills of tribalism"-
"Hard-core supporters of the competing teams occupy opposite ends of the stadium generating a wild energy of chants and offensive gestures that electrifies the atmosphere."
(Tim Parks, Soccer: a matter of love and hate, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15614).

****

"FOOTBALL" ,Neil Innes & Eric Idle ("Monty Pythons"):

"I throw house bricks for The Arsenal
I chuck lead pipe for West Ham
I kick and maim for Chelsea
I kill for Tottenham
I drop bottles for United on the crowd from up above
Yes football is the game that we all love
I razor slash for Sheffield
I cut 'em up for Q.P.R.
I stick nails in 'em for Norwich
For Leeds I slash and scar
For Celtic I throw petrol bombs whenever our teams score
Yes football is the game that we adore
We all love football
Kill rape slash
AHH
We all love football
Shoot stab boot
AHH
Football is the game that we adore
I hack limbs off for Newcastle
I rape for Luton Town
For the Rangers I kill strangers
And kick police horses down
I set fire to referees who let opponents score
Yes football is the game that we adore
We all love football Bomb hurt kill
AHH
We all love football Slash Kick maim
AHH
Football is the game that we adore
The End! "

Thanks for the link. It seems it's different from country/region to country/region.

A couple years? That seems like a long time for a team to maintain its supremacy in any sport.

National teams are made up by the players of that country that the national trainer considers to be the best. the are usually the top players in the club teams that are forming the international elite of club teams.

National teams need to qualify for the world championship by local tournaments, usually focussing on a continental basis. Each global zone is allowed to send so much national teams, and not more. the number of teams is based on FIFA's evaluation of how important and representative for international soccer action that zone is. That's why you see relatively many teams fromeurope and south America, since these two continents are the major hotspots of international soccer.

FIFA's homepage probably has more precsie information on the qualification and tournament mode. The world championship actually is only the final round of a global tournament that already has started with the qualification matches for the final round. Seen that way the world championship in soccer does not last four weeks, but four years.

That's why those teams that are able to do that are real champions indeed. Brazil, for example, or the French team some years ago.

The New Football Forum (?)
 

@ August:
The teams are national teams, players of different league teams, even from different countries - nationality counts. The teams have to fight for a place with the last 32 through regional competitions. After a preliminary round 16 countries will make the final round.

For instance, your country, the USA, is doing extremely well and is fourth on the FIFA ranking. It qualified and will have to play on June 12th against the Czechs, one of the strongest teams in the world. On June the 12th it meets Italy, a team that according Johan Cruijff cannot win from others, but others can lose from them. Finally they encounter Ghana on June 21st.
For more info: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com

Winning the World Cup, even reaching the final round, creates a lot of prestige for a country, improvs its standing in the world and has an demonstratable and substantial positive effect on the economy of the participating countries and the psychological well being of the population.

I personally will be thoroughly sick and depressed if Holland will be kicked out in the primaries and extremely irritant and haunty if Holland will win the World Cup.
Almost as important as winning the World Cup is for us to beat Germany; we see that as a revanche for the German assault on Holland in the Second World War and the loss of the World Cup Final in 1972 against that same country...
:D

Wild stuff, thanks for the info guys.

Re: The New Football Forum (?)
 

It'S a tribal thing, yes, but two days ago there was a nice docu on TV about the effects on the economy, and the strange sharing of costs between FIFA and the hosting nation. The economical effects are very short-living, and their intensity is exaggerated. For the hosting nation it is more costs than benefits, economically and financially. The finacial benefit is with FIFA, almost exclusively. The finacial burden is the bigger for the hosting nation the earlier it'S team is being kicked out.

It is a common habit to implore the economical long-lasting effects for the better, but if one is looking at the real monetarian numbers of past championships, there is little truth in it, the authors concluded. the real big business is done by FIFA only. And as we see in the selling mode for tickets this time in Germany, the greed and ambition of FIFA's staff members in high ranking positions does not seem to know any limits. :down: Many Germans feel disgust for the way the business side is handled while we are the hosts. There also have been several scandals already that before not many would have expected from a Grman host. But what is that old saying again: money does not stink...

BTW, we did not assault the Netherlands in WWII. On our way to France they happened to lay in our way and so we just rolled over them relatively desinterested and there was not much the Dutch could do about that :D That's where the feelings of revenge are coming from, admit it! :-j the same motto was revived in that soccer slogan some years ago: "Wir fahren zur WM - ohne Holland!" :lol:

If England should win it, it'll top off a nice coup de grace after getting the rugby and then the ashes... :up:

Oh look...
http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/flyingpig.jpg