Pagoda SL Group
Off Topic => Way Off Topic => Topic started by: laxman on June 18, 2010, 09:05:29
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Hey!
What's up? you guys about world cup Football (http://www.chacha.com/category/football) 2010 fever is going all over the world.
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I'm not a big soccer fan and with the horns droaning on, don' t find it too appealing to try and watch, so just catch the scores, etc online on in the newspaper.
Rolland
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Not a huge soccer fan, but I love the competition. The ZUZU's don' bother me at all, I think they add to a "local" flavor.
The ref's on the other hand, I have some questions.
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The President of FIFA said something to the effect of [specifically when commenting on the foul call in yesterday's Slovenia/USA tie game]
that the subjectivity and banter after a game, adds to the overall game...
so the use of things like video replay etc, or even explaining things like why there was a foul in that game (nobody seems to know why and the Referee isn't talking) will not happen.
Hey, even I've seen offsides ignored...but it all "adds to the flavor of the game" I guess.
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FIFA is in the dark ages as far as technology and replays is concerned. It really is.
But then, so is baseball I understand
FIFA however is corrupt as all get out
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...The ZUZU's don' bother me at all, I think they add to a "local" flavor...
So local in fact, that even the suburbs are reverberating with the sound of the vuvuzelas.
Not following the games myself, but you get a pretty good idea when a game is on TV when the kids in the neighbourhood start blowing their ZUZU's... :D
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ZUZU local indeed.
It was reported today that over the weekend, Coca-Cola supplied a Japanese football (soccer) match with branded zuzu's...nobody blew them. :D
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...that is probably because Coca-Cola's TV ads here don't have a catchy slogan.
If you look at MTN's (second largest mobile phone operator in SA) "Ayoba" catchphrase, then you can understand why their branded products are everywhere...
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Many years ago I discovered the annoying musical properties of a plastic transmission funnel.
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.....I am allmost ashamed to ask........: can someone please explain the "offside-rule"....... everyone I ask has a different opinion and/ or does not admit to not knowing....
CHEERS !
WITT ! ???
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Easy! ;)
Until you look at the details!! :o ;D
See: http://www.offside-ref.co.uk/laws/11-offside-rule/detailed/
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Alfred,
;) Clearly you left out the real offsides rule and most important. Add the following line as the last line to any explanation or definition:
...and only when called by the referee. ;D
One of the things young soccer players have to learn here is to CONTINUE PLAY until the whistle blows! FORGET when the offsides is so obvious that you stop yourself. It isn't offsides until called. ;)
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Quite correct Michael .. here are the complete rules:
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/lawsofthegame.html
You'll get one day to practice (http://www.fifa.com/flash/lotg/football/en/flash/start.html) and then we'll test you!
The problem with these rules is that not all referees are at a level to apply them correctly and consistently at a world cup match. The top referees from Europe and South America are used to handle such games but someone from Mali or the Seychelles is year in year out involved in 3rd league games and not much better. By letting those fellows blow the whistle it assures the FIFA brass that they get reelected again. Its politics and not policies.
PS Don't forget to vote: http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=12986.0
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Sorry Alfred--I can't study or take the test. It might conflict with my attempting to understand the rules (we don't call them laws!) applying to the local leagues my daughter plays in! ;)
Then there is the fun indoor soccer--where there is no offsides!
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Thank you guys......I had no idea that that rule is so complicated, flexible and controversial.....and a decision is made in a split second by the rev, right or wrong....
CHEERS !
WITT !
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...Saturdays game will be fun to watch . USA vs. Ghana ( my adopted land versus my motherland )hmmmm who do i support ? Love you USA, but my $$ is on Ghana . lets repeat what we did to USA in 2006 again ..
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Hi cynewan.
It was fun to watch! What is your prediction for Ghana's next game? How far will they go?
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...and for anyone confused about the "offsides rule" and my comment about "only when the referee sees it" only needed to watch the Mexico/Argentina game.
And as for abysmally poor refereeing, England/Germany as well.
While experts will tell you "the better team won" in both cases, that isn't the point. There is nothing to take the wind out of your sails than calls like those two. You cannot predict what can happen after a game is tied. Upsets do occur. Underdogs do win sometimes, but not when they are subject to such actions.
When the first-base umpire (that would be baseball) missed the call in Detroit about the perfect game some weeks back, at least everyone apologized. The unabashed arrogance of grossly incompetent refs in the world cup is simply astounding.
Why is it that when ANY contact is made with the Argentinian [football team], they fall down and stay down for some time, writhing in feigned pain? Are they looking for some kind of sympathy? Man up, for goodness sake. I was watching at least part of the game with some 11-year old soccer players, and the comments were "What a bunch of WEENIES!".
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Well done Ghana . Talk about the pressure of being the continent's only hope in the world cup.... You made Africa proud ..... Uruguay, move out the way , Ghana's going to the semi finals .
England ! What kind of game was that ? ......You call that World class soccer ? Please go back to the drawing board . I am beginning to think that its the foreign players that make your league interesting .
Go Ghana ! YAY ! I lost my voice, but it was worth it . Prediction for next game Ghana 1, Uruguay 0 .
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I'm not much of a soccer fan either. But my colleagues (probably 30 or so nationalities among the 120 total staff) are keeping me reasonably updated; it seems like The Netherlands won again today, 2-0 against ??. When Switzerland was doing well (they may be out of the race by now, I'm not sure) you saw lots of Swiss flags popping up on homes, cars and buildings, even treetops! Good for the flag manufacturers.
When living in the US I noticed how much effort was going into making soccer a popular sport. I always figured it had no chance; in Europe, the no 1, 2 and 3 most popular games are soccer, soccer and soccer. In the US, you have baseball, basketball, football and even ice hockey in winter time. No room for a fourth/fifth major sport, right?
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Soccer in the USA:
Cees, it is pretty funny. You are right in all you say. However, the Parks and Recreation Departments of all the local towns around here have very large soccer programs. The park for my city (pop 50,000) in Novi, MI, has dozens of teams; starting at age 3. The girls and boys play together up to 1st grade. Then they separate, and it is a separate league for each age group; generally about 4-6 teams per age group, 12 on a team. My daughter plays in "U12", next year in U13. All day long on Saturday, there are games on the 8 fields (or pitches as you might say) from 8AM until 7PM. Tuesday and Thursday evenings are the other game times. Other days are practice, but not on the same fields. Soccer probably has greater participation across age levels than any other sport here. Costs about $250 per child per season to play here. Not everyone does it forever, but everyone does it at least once. My daughter has simply continued in two seasons a year since age 3.
Those serious about it play club soccer, that's a bit more professional and quite costly; about $2,500 per year NOT including all the travel to tournaments. Coaching is more professional, not just your weekend dad or mom...players end up playing on high school or prep school teams and maybe college. This club stuff has practice/games 5 times per week, 11 months out of the year. Tournaments are up to 700 miles away, generally on holiday weekends. The though of driving to St. Louis for a tournament over 4th of July does not appeal to us; neither does the registration fee! ;D
Interesting note: in every game at the level my daughter plays in, there are 3 referees on the field. One in the action, and two on the lines. They are not perfect but clearly do a better job than the idiots doing the world cup. They don't need instant replay, or anything like that--just a few more people with eyes on the lines! It's the World Cup, for goodness sake! During the baseball World Series, they even throw a few more umpires on the field to try and get it right the first time. Not perfect, but they are trying!
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This may help some domestic conversations..... Vital info for upcoming World Cup. The offside rule explained for girls:
You're in a shoe shop, second in the queue for the till. Behind the shop assistant on the till is a pair of shoes which you have seen and which you must have.
The 'opposing' female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire.
Both of you have forgotten your purses.
It would be totally rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes.
The shop assistant remains at the till waiting.
Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma.
She prepares to throw her purse to you.
If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes.
At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and, *whilst it is in flight* you could nip around the other shopper,
catch the purse and buy the shoes.
Always remembering that until the purse had *actually been thrown* it would be plain wrong to be forward of the other shopper.
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We had a funny piece of advice floating around the office just before the games started, it was about preparing our better-halves for what was about to come. It contained very specific, detailed tips, but they can be exemplified by just one of them: "don't expect me to respond to anything you say while a game is in progress, unless it is to inform me that the house is on fire"
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Love it Tosh...
you should add that if you are Argentinian, you fake injury, call in a stretcher, writhe and moan until they take you out of the store. Then you simply get up and walk away... ;)
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Love it Tosh...
you should add that if you are ArgentinanPortugeseGhanaianSpanishItalianGreek, you fake injury, call in a stretcher, writhe and moan until they take you out of the store. Then you simply get up and walk away... ;)
Tried to fix that for you and gave up, but you get the picture
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A few years ago a saw a montage of TV clips showing all kind of fakes when NFL players (receivers and defenders) tried to get interference calls to go in their favor. Not much different, IMO.
There is one exception, here the resulting delays caused by instant replays are welcome because it provides more advertising minutes and thus more income.
I rather be amused by some bad acting on the pitch than be annoyed by another beer commercial.
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Well at least--finally--the FIFA boss is acknowledging and apologizing for bad refereeing. They had a "Who's who" list of these refs (it is only a few) as well as a description of how to win an Oscar with the fakes in the papers in today...
Blundering refs cut from World Cup list
JOHANNESBURG (AP) Uruguay's Jorge Larrionda and Italy's Roberto Rosetti, whose blunders have prompted FIFA to rethink using video technology, have been left off the list of referees for the rest of the World Cup. Larrionda failed to see an England shot cross the line in a 4-1 loss to Germany and Rosetti wrongly awarded a goal to Argentina's Carlos Tevez against Mexico when he was offside. Without giving reasons, FIFA announced the cut Tuesday. Two more left out were Koman Coulibaly of Mali, who disallowed a third United States goal in a 2-2 draw with Slovenia, and French ref Stephane Lannoy who harshly sent off Brazil's Kaka for a second yellow after Ivory Coast's Kader Keita ran into him while going for the ball.
Well, jeez--it's about time! Ban them from the sport.
A Field Guide to Fakers and Floppers
And now for some breaking news: A lot of players fake injuries during soccer matches. OK, maybe that's not so newsy—flops have been a way of life in the sport for years. But after a handful of seemingly overblown falls toward the end of Saturday's U.S. loss to Ghana, we decided to try to make some sense of them.
And the Oscar Goes to...
Here are the four most common giveaways for exaggerated injuries in soccer games.
FLOP SYMPTOM - HOW TO SPOT IT - % OF ALL FLOPS
Temporal Contiguity -Too much time between contact and reaction -29%
Archer's Bow- Player bends backward and raises arms to get ref's attention -28%
Ballistic Continuity -Too much reaction for limited amount of contact -25%
Contact Consistency- Player gets hit in one area but says another area is hurt -15%
Source: University of Portsmouth
The most common indicator that a fall is a flop is that the player gets hit, pauses briefly and then reacts. This is called a "temporal contiguity" error, according to Paul Morris, a psychology lecturer at England's University of Portsmouth—he says it occurs in about 29% of fake injuries. Meanwhile, players perform the "archer's bow" pose in 28% of flops, which is when they bend backwards and throw their arms in the air when they're hit in order to gain a referee's attention. Dr. Morris worked with two groups of raters to watch about 400 tackles. They classified which ones included injury exaggeration and, among those, what type of exaggeration was employed (his previous injury research was published earlier this year in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior).
One prominent example of likely flopping Saturday came late in extra time when Ghana's Samuel Inkoom fell to the ground after kicking a ball—despite not being touched by another player. He began to get up but then opted to lay on the ground and delay the game for 92 seconds—a tactic that helped preserve Ghana's lead. Mr. Inkoom was carried off on a stretcher—although the moment he reached the sideline, he climbed off under his own power. According to Dr. Morris, this was a "ballistic continuity" issue—a fake-injury variation that occurs in 25% of all flops.
I don't make this stuff up, it is all there to see. Fakes in other sports? Sure. But this stuff going on in the world cup now is out of hand. That's why the WSJ article noted above has a sidebar called "And the Oscar goes to". This cheapens any sport, and certainly this one on the world stage.
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Well you can rant as much as you want and dislike what you see but almost 20 million people watched the USA - Ghana game on ESPN and ABC. In 2006 about 27 billion watched all cup games world wide and the expectations are that this will be exceeded again this year. So lots of people must like what they see otherwise they would not tune in.
I am fortunate to live in San Diego County which has Nielsen ratings that are almost double the national average. Plus the soccer reporter for the local newspaper (SD Union) actually knows the game and its intricacies. By all accounts most people here really enjoy watching the games and yes, they did moan and groan when the US team did not advance but still they accepted that Ghana was the better team and deserved to win.
Now that doesn't mean that I am opposed to having a ball with a chip that tells the referee when it is beyond the goal line. But I would not like the idea of having the inordinate amount of instant replays that are the "highlights" of almost every NFL game. Nor would I want to have 2 minutes of actual playing time be spread out over 10 minutes as it happens in almost every NBA game at the end.
For my taste football is still the "beautiful game" - warts and all. :)
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Alfred,
You are treating this as if I am the [only] one complaining about the shenanigans in the World Cup. It isn't just me, what I observe is written about in the papers the next day without exception. There are a lot of people in England upset with the bad call against them. Who knows what would have happened if they tied the game up if their genuine, bona-fide goal had NOT been disallowed? You? If so, please pick some stocks for me since you must be clairvoyant! ;)
It's not about Nielsen ratings; goodness knows, you've been in America long enough to know that the worse the refereeing gets, the more people would watch! It's about just poor refereeing. I hope you are not trying to justify that as part of the game. The FIFA president tried that briefly and even he gave up. Since you brought up a comparison to American Football or American sports in general, can you tell me when on the national stage (World Series, NBA playoffs, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Final, NCAA) the league President threw out referrees in the middle of the competition? No. Don't bother looking. Does not happen. The fact that the FIFA President threw out 2 refs so far in the middle of the world cup speaks volumes about how bad it is! It isn't about beer commercials, or video replays for goodness sake--stick a few more qualified refs on the field! There are more refs on the field in youth club soccer here in the US, on a pitch half the size, than in the World Cup! It has been proven, not by me, that the refereeing in this world cup isn't working well. And it isn't an American thing. Sure the American team got a couple of these bad calls, but they are only one team.
Fakes? Cheapens the game, no matter how many millions watch it. Again, you compared to "American Sports". All sports have fakes, but there are a lot of NFL players who now have Parkinson's syndrome and other brain injuries from so many hits (the ones they did not fake). Ever see the Joe Thiesmann video where his leg bends backwards? Want to know how many orthopaedic surgeons perform "Tommy John" surgery? Do you know who Tommy John is? He wasn't faking. When the World Cup players try all those fakes it delays the games, cheapens the game and sometimes alters it--particularly when bad refereeing is involved! Don't shoot the messenger, Alfred--there is something wrong--very, very wrong, when one of these feigned "injuries" results in a yellow card against an innocent player. We here call that "cheating".
But your friend Mark Zeigler at your local paper has it all right when he says it all gives us something to talk about! ;D
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As teams get eliminated, so do the refs. There are 8 teams left (from 32), and 8 games left to play:
4 quarter finals
2 semi finals
1 3rd place play off
final
The refs are still "playing" for who will get the final - they have decided the four ref "teams" for the quarter finals already and they normally don't get the semis, with one of the quarter final refs getting the actual final. Obviously, no ref can ref his home country team.
So on that basis, I think elimination is probably normal. FIFA making an announcement to be seen to "punish" anyone but themselves and to lay the blame firmly at the foot of ABF (anybody but Fifa) is also not beyond the realms of possibility
As for technology, I am torn. All the incidents could have been dealt with with replays, the Tevez one a real stuff up as the replay was shown IN the stadium so the ref knew it was a f-up but couldn't change it. Technology is simple for "did the whole of the ball cross the line". More complex, and involving the replay etc for things like offside and off the ball incidents. That said, there is a 4th official on the touchline. Lord alone knows what he does....
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Well now that the dust has sort of settled after the World Cup and the dramatic nailbiting final, it will be interesting to see just how many vuvuzelas will see use at European games...
The world of soccer will probably never be the same again. ;)
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I think I might start supporting Borussia Dortmund
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Supporting whom? ???
Did you mean to type "Borussia" or "Brewery"?
Lets have one at the European event! ;D
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Well now that the dust has sort of settled after the World Cup and the dramatic nailbiting final, it will be interesting to see just how many vuvuzelas will see use at European games...
The world of soccer will probably never be the same again. ;)
Hi Jaco - I'm looking at two of these Vuvuzelas in my living room at the moment, so who knows.
Just returned from my first trip ever to the African continent - 3 days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The taxi drivers all knew all the details about the final match, a confirmation of the title of this thread ...
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...I'm looking at two of these Vuvuzelas in my living room at the moment, so who knows.
That's the spirit Cees... ;D