Football World Cup 2014

Struggling to think of a better header than that.

'Twas a cracking goal

This is thoroughly enjoyable.

So far there has been some pretty open footie between the petulant shit.

Scarcely believable but the score flatters Spain.

Torres   .

He's barely a Championship player these days. How did he get a place in the squad? Like his Liverpool predecessors Owen and Fowler, he had seen his best days by 25.

beamer wrote:He's barely a Championship player these days. How did he get a place in the squad? Like his Liverpool predecessors Owen and Fowler, he had seen his best days by 25.

And like them, he was a first team regular at 17. Look at the lack of physical shape Rooney (first teamer at 16) is in at 28. Fabregas' peak seems a thing of the past at 27 too - when selling him to Chelsea the Barcelona official website made a point of mentioning that he'd faded away badly in the second half of every season for them.

Everyone loves a prodigy coming in at a young age and making an impact, but they definitely pay for it down the line.

taipan wrote:Scarcely believable but the score flatters Spain.

Casillas is finished. He looks like a poor outfield player just taking the gloves because the proper goalie's got caught up in traffic. What's happened to him?

Interesting to see Van Gaal adopt the same tactics that Saints' new manager-elect, Sir Ronald of Koeman successfully introduced at Feyenoord.

Maybe the days of tiki taka are winding down and Dutch total football's about to come back into fashion.

Dello wrote:

taipan wrote:Scarcely believable but the score flatters Spain.

Casillas is finished. He looks like a poor outfield player just taking the gloves because the proper goalie's got caught up in traffic. What's happened to him?

Not playing at club level. More often than not, at any level of the game, a reserve keeper comes in and looks like he's never played in goal before - it's the same at international level where someone out of favour with his club is expected to step in and perform at his peak. Brazil will probably pay for sticking with QPR's reserve keeper who went to Toronto on loan, as well...

Indecision in defence by Australia let Chile in for their first goal. First of many i fear.

Yep...2-0

Australia are 2 down after 13 minutes.

Chile look superb. Spain nay not make it out of the group.

Tiiiiiimmmmmmmyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!

Quality header by Tim, but Chile look a different level of class to Aus.

[snigger]@Spain.

Bugger -Chile scored late to win 3-1. Score doesn't reflect how well Aust played.

it's not a gutsy loss if your team is shit.

no point getting emotionally invested in the Socceroos, b/c they will break your heart every time.

lol @ Spain. Surely Diego Lopez should be starting...

I saw a bit of the Aus v Chile game; we lost as expected, but at least it wasn't total shit.

Yeah, we looked quite good in the 2nd half. Surprised me a bit.

We are actually ahead of Spain on the table.   

How was the reffing in the Aus game. It has been crap in the 3 games I have seen

taipan wrote:How was the reffing in the Aus game. It has been crap in the 3 games I have seen

 
Was'nt too bad. We were unlucky not to get a penalty. We had a goal disallowed but Cahill was clearly offside.A few yellows handed out to both sides but overall it was ok.

Aust clearly got the worst of it though. The Chileans have clearly been to diving finishing school in preparation for the WC.

JGK wrote:Aust clearly got the worst of it though.   The Chileans have clearly been to diving finishing school in preparation for the WC.

We have always been a sucker for the dive. It comes from our instinct to play hard but fair. The rest of the soccer world has no qualms about this form of cheating.