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Post by Bismarck on Jul 1, 2010 11:19:16 GMT
*France – a complete shambles on and off the pitch. Anelka sent home, players not turning up for training, staff quitting. What more could you expect from a team “managed” by the nutter Raymond Domenech. (To make things worse, when he lost he refused to change other managers hand??). Finished bottom of group.
*Italy – drawing against New Zealand. Terrible defending. Finished bottom of group.
*England – dont need to say more….
*Only 1 African team getting into knockout stages. Disappointment for Africa. Would have been great for World Cup if at least another team other than Ghana got through.
*The vuvuzela going on and on and on – I think we got used to it and TV companies did too managing to filter it out. I think people are starting to actually play it better so its not the constant drone.
*Standard of refereeing.
*Quality of early matches – the first load of matches were generally very dull. Teams were too cautious just making sure they didnt lose. It properly wasnt helped that some of the teams were not that good.
*The jubalani ball - maybe its not Adidas’ fault and they didn’t test at altitude but in the early stages shots were flying all over the place. Without playing with the football myself I can’t say really how different it is but there must be something that in the early games the shooting was terrible and freekicks all seemingly going over.
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Post by Lukiebakercafc on Jul 2, 2010 20:30:12 GMT
I agree with most of these points to be honest Bissy.
France- Yep, as I said before an absolute disgrace, French national team in turmoil. good luck to Laurent Blanc sorting that mess out...
Italy - Clearly underperformed but not as clear cut as France, I'm not sure where it went so badly wrong for them. People thought England's squad was too old, monkey's me check out Italy's... I'm not sure the new manager has got what it takes either, may be a long time before Italy are a world class force again imo...
England - Been covered to death but now Fabio's got the vote of confidence he's got to prove he's the man. Tough decision need to be made and we need to build for World Cup 2014 (may have to write off Euro 2012 as a learning curve) right from our next match.
Africa - I'm devastated by this one, I really hoped the Africans would put up a good showing on their own continent but Ivory Coast got a bitch of a draw, Cameroon, Algeria (despite England making them look decent) and Nigeria weren't good enough, South Africa made a valiant effort but still the first hosts not to get past the group stages and to be fair Ghana could still make the semis here against Uruguay so they've done well. I wanted to see Egypt as African Cup of Nations champs here as I reckon they could've done well. Okocha's right, Africa needs to go back to the drawing board to become a real world force.
Vuvuzela - Annoying but not too bad I don't notice it tbh and it adds to the culture of the tournament.
Quality of early matches - Shocking, woeful, an aberration. And dear God give me the 90 mins of my life I wasted on Algeria-Slovenia back. The first round of group matches were grim, as you say Bissy teams were too cautious and it seemed as if this could be the most mediocre world cup ever. thankfully it's picked up.
The ball - As you say Otto, we're not pro Footballers, we don't know about the subtle nuances of a ball and the way it's made but something certainly seemed up. Misplaced passes, dodgy free kicks, Jason Euell-esque first touches etc but perhaps the teams should have practised with it more as the Germans who played with it for most of the season seemed fine.
Standard of reffing - This is a tough one. Yes there have a been a couple of high profile gaffes but before that I thought the reffing was not only ok but superb. Generally games were being allowed to flow, cards weren't used too unnecessarily and the refs did well. I know a couple of referees were conned by some dreadful play-acting but other than that they were doing a really good job. Having said that I guess you can't overlook the criminal decisions in the England and Argentina matches which the tournament will be remembered for. However, if they bring in technology I would argue they're a fair price to pay...
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Post by Stealth on Jul 5, 2010 11:39:08 GMT
I also agree with most of Bissy's observations apart from the vuvuzela which I thought added a unique atmosphere and I'm more inclined to agree with Luke with regards to the refereeing. Apart from the two obvious blunders that Luke points out, there have been quite a few brilliant, spot on offside decisions &, although as per usual, Howard Webb missed one blatant penalty, even he has been better than usual.
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fatmanstokie
Subs Bench
[M:25]
handle each situation like a dog.... if you can't eat it, or hump it, wee on it and walk away
Posts: 793
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Post by fatmanstokie on Jul 5, 2010 21:01:42 GMT
ghana, cheating allows winning
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