World Cup 2006 - (Part 2)

[johnny]

A statement from Blatter...

Blatter praises German World Cup as best ever

28/06/2006 15:43


BERLIN (Reuters) - FIFA president Sepp Blatter praised Germany’s World Cup as the best ever in a newspaper interview to appear on Thursday.

"This is the best World Cup of all time," Blatter told Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel newspaper, according to an advance released on Wednesday.

"Never before has an event been presented in such an emotional and global manner," he added. "And from a sporting point of view we’re also getting the highest quality."


Blatter said the enthusiasm for the Germany team was giving coach Juergen Klinsmann’s players a major lift.

"The Germany team is being carried by the enthusiasm in the country," he said. "I’m beginning to ask myself: ’Who can stop these Germans?’

"Today, all the critics have to say ’Chapeau Herr Klinsmann’. I say that too."

This guy must have completely lost his marbles. With the exception of Germany, Argentina, and Australia, i haven't seen a single team that lived up to their expectations. Holland, France, England, Brazil, Spain, Italy, and a few other so called big players have been downright dissapointing and at times boring to watch. Add the failing referees to all that, and i come to the conclusion that i'm whitnessing one of the poorest Worldcups ever. I can understand why neutral viewers would turn away from the game of football, the level of play has been THAT dissapointing to me.

I think there is a solution for this. Instead of starting a tournament right after the end of a regular season, why not shift it to right before the start of a new season ? Players will all be in tiptop shape, everyone is well rested, and it's an excellent warmup for the season to come. Right now all we see is exhausted players who are in desperate need of a few weeks of vacation. The overall quality of a tournament would be so much better if all teams start with fresh, well rested players.

[johnny]

Dear god, tell me this isn't happening.

[Kakero]

Italy win 3 - 0. Who would ever thought they would win this big?

[johnny]

Originally posted by Kakero: Italy win 3 - 0. Who would ever thought they would win this big?

Well, Ukraine is a decent team, but definitely no match for the best defensive team in the world. I'm looking forward to the Germany-Italy matchup. A few weeks before the WC started, they also played against eachother on German soil, and Italy won very convincing, 1-4. I have a gut feeling though, that it's going to be completely different this time.

[Memnoch]

I can see Italy going all the way now. I'm cheering for the Krauts now that the OZ (national ties), Spain (blood ties), and Ukraine (underdog ties) have all been dumped from the WC, but I reckon they'll do it tough. Italy are peaking at the right time.

I reckon it'll be a repeat of the 1994 final - Brazil v Italy.

[Davros]

Originally posted by Memnoch: I can see Italy going all the way now. I reckon it'll be a repeat of the 1994 final - Brazil v Italy.

Ugh - no - I hope the Germans kick the living daylights out of the Italian 3 m springboard team. I couldn't stomach their patented brand of rubbish winning.

[johnny]

Originally posted by Davros: quote: Originally posted by Memnoch: I can see Italy going all the way now. I reckon it'll be a repeat of the 1994 final - Brazil v Italy.

Ugh - no - I hope the Germans kick the living daylights out of the Italian 3 m springboard team. I couldn't stomach their patented brand of rubbish winning. [/QUOTE]That's easy for you to say, you're not living in a country next to Germany, you don't have to listen to their boasting for 4 years straight. The last thing you want next door to you, is a happy German.

[NagaSaki]

Finally England are out, average performances every game, huge names doing nothing etc. Now all reporters have branded it as Sven's fault (hahahahaha), sure make him the scape goat as hes leaving anyway. About time they got beat and stopped scraping their way through every match, hopfully all false hype will fall away from this mediorce team.

[Aragorn1]

Fair play to the ten men though, great effort, and looked more like getting a goal than Portugal's eleven. Rooney's conduct, however, was inexcusable, a shame because it looked like he had matured this tournament.

[johnny]

If he doesn't get a grip, he'll go down in history as just another Gascoigne, and we all know what a big poofter he turned out to be.

Planting your foot in someone's crotch right under the ref's nose isn't a very smart thing to do.

England did deserve the win more than Portugal though, all they seem to be interested in is taking the pace out of the game by all means necessary, including taking dives, rolling through the gras and act like roadkill. I already was pretty disgusted with Portugal and everything that goes with it, and this didn't help to improve the feeling. Portugal didn't create anything, not even with 11 against 10. It's a shame that tactics like this get awarded so often.