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"Official" 2014 World Cup thread and poll, now with 100% more vuvuzelas

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Which group will the World Cup winner come from?

  • A

  • B

  • C

  • D

  • E

  • F

  • G

  • H


Results are only viewable after voting.
yeah bull shit indeed.. i mean the guy actually admitted to it! He does it so much there's plenty to go around! Btw I can't believe Robben and Van Persie are both 30..

He admitted to the one dive in the Mexico game, that was in the first half and outside the box, no penalty was given....he ABSOLUTELY embellishes but he is fouled a shit tonne, perhaps if defenders didn't hack at his feet when he beats them 1 or 2 vs 1 he wouldn't embellish as much

/3 of the 4 yellow cards he drew were clear fouls, 4th was iffy
//William Gaatjes are you still alive? 🙂
 
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yeah bull shit indeed.. i mean the guy actually admitted to it! He does it so much there's plenty to go around! Btw I can't believe Robben and Van Persie are both 30..

He admitted to one where he didn't even get the call. The one at the end of the game against Mexico was an obvious foul, the yellow cards from today were obvious fouls. He makes it look worse than it is, but he learned his lesson in 2010 about what happens when you are fouled and try to play the advantage - you don't get the call.
 
Yeah ill give him credit for the last game but against Argentina...might be a different story.. (It's going to be comically entertaining)
 
People rag on him for diving, but IMO he doesn't dive much if at all. He embellishes, but he only seems to embellish actual fouls.

His reputation is well deserved, although it is true that he is relatively well behaved in this World Cup by his own standards.
 
Goals are less than half of what they were in the group stage. I can only think teams are getting very conservative and playing for OT. Also they may be saving subs knowing OT is coming up and they can't go all out. Whatever the reason, it is not only due to higher competition.

I think it's also fatigue - it's been a long season and the World Cup schedule itself is fairly punishing. The conditions that some of the teams had to play in aren't helping things either.
 
I will agree yesterday was generally ok for him (sorry, was just very annoyed after the game since I had been surrounded by obnoxious drunk Dutch people all day 😀 ) but i have unfortunately watched him a lot and his reputation is indeed very well deserved, so it would take a lot more than one game to turn my opinion around.

Let's go Argentina.

KT
 
Well I didn't particularly like him going up to the Costa Rican players before they kicked.. akin to NBA players going up to someone before they shoot a FT.. gamesmanship I suppose... or bush-league

Agree with this. Dick move.

KT
 
Couldn't take it any more, had to go outside for the penalty kicks..... i've seen them lose way to many penalty kicks. Every Dutch game has started the same, 45 minutes of crap then they start playing.

I seriously considered this as well.
I was fully expecting them to hit the bar and to miss.
And changing the goalie didn't put me exactly at rest either.
 
Robben is far better than he first appears. He is entirely left footed and even though everyone knows he is going to cut to the left, he is very hard to defend. As a result, he draws a ton of fouls as the defenders often get him as he goes by.

His MO is to then soar through the air like someone shot him, so his diving reputation comes from that...
 
Robben is good at selling fouls. He could play through some of those, but he doesn't. He sells it.


These next games are going to be really good, IMO. I think Germany - Brazil might be much better than expected, considering Brazil's missing pieces. They certainly won't give up and roll over. Looking forward to these next matches.
 
Robben is far better than he first appears. He is entirely left footed and even though everyone knows he is going to cut to the left, he is very hard to defend. As a result, he draws a ton of fouls as the defenders often get him as he goes by.

His MO is to then soar through the air like someone shot him, so his diving reputation comes from that...

Yeah he definitely sells the trip by jumping as high as he can instead of rolling over 50 times like so many other players do
 
Looking forward to the next games but I am very sad Neymar will not be playing. Was hoping to have everyone at full strength going in.

KT
 
I think weather conditions starting to get to them. Pace has generally slowed since the last of the group stage games.

Didn't realize the back injury till reading through some stories yesterday. Watched the game and the contact didn't look nearly that bad. Even if he wasn't hurt, didn't thin brazil was going to win it all, felt like the home field was doing all it could for the team to advance as far as it had.
 
I think weather conditions starting to get to them. Pace has generally slowed since the last of the group stage games.

Didn't realize the back injury till reading through some stories yesterday. Watched the game and the contact didn't look nearly that bad. Even if he wasn't hurt, didn't thin brazil was going to win it all, felt like the home field was doing all it could for the team to advance as far as it had.

It is not just the weather conditions. The fact that so many games are going to extra time and they don't get a ton of rest between them is taking it's toll. The weather should give Argentina the edge, as they are used to the tropical climate more so than the European teams, but the long games and schedule is still wearing them down as well.

Argentina is favored to win. Ima say it all comes down to which star striker has the better game. Messe or Van Persie. Robben will be solid again.

I really think it is going to come down to how well they defend against Messi. If he is able to draw in 3 defenders, Argentina will win, as Messi will find the guy left alone. If they are able to stop Messi with 1 or 2 guys, they have a much better chance at winning.
 
It's really been an amazing world cup, surprising that in such a high-scoring and free flowing world cup, it comes down to pretty much the pre-cup 3 odds favorites again: Germany, Brazil and Argentina. Netherlands is kind of crashing the party, they aren't exactly an elite team like those three, but they are consistently good.
 
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