spose, but it would prevent a lot of match-changing decisions being given the wrong way. And with the amount of diving that's going on sometimes it's impossible to tell if he was brought down or not.

On the subject of goals - Viera's header (was it him?) against South Korea was over the line, what it given? No, ie the reason why video replay is a good idea. And imagine if that was England against Brazil in the semi final - we always seem to have legit goals being disallowed for a nonexistant push or imaginary offside

if there is an Germany v. England game, England will stand absolutely no chance. ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE.

hmm if you read what i pout i say we go straight out we need to beat sweeden tonight if we have any chance

9 points for germany 8O neither sewden nor england stand a chance against this team go germany go

Im going to be in Germany for hte final matches. Im not going to the matches themselves, cant get the money to buy a ticket this late...

But im going to be going to some crazy parties, and if Germany is in the final match, they're really going to be crazy.

i'm going to germany at the end of the world cup - arriving the day after the final lol. If England are in it i think the hotel'll be a bit noisy

hotel will be noisy no matter what

what city you going to?

2-2 sweden were great, that header was awesome, that throw was funny.... nuff said

what the hell we had the match and i know some1 got a little touch but he basicly throw it in lol that was shocking our defence is rubbish we be lucky if we last to be honest might lose to ecrodor at this rate

Germany is great?? have these people been watchin the same team as me? frankly the only team so far to have played consistantly well and up to stratch is Argentina! Germany is not great and very very beatable, when they face real opposition in the next round that will become obvious.

The sweden i saw tonight CAN beat Germany. We will see

COME ON SWEEDEN

i rely hope they do one less thing for us to worry about if we make it though

i really don't think Germany can win the Worldcup. Ofcourse they are playing home which makes the team twice as good. But teams like Argentinia en Holland should be able to defeat Germany. I think that those two have the best chance to actually win this tournament. So i hope it's going to be a good match tonight. Although Holland is playing with a totally different team, and argentinia might do the same.

To bad for Owen. He wasn;t in form or anything, but i know he can be a great asset to the England squad.

its not our offence that needs working on yea owen was a bad thing but its our defence we need to work on after loseing ferdinand we have sol cambel who ant played for a long time

I think that everytime we score its coz we play 5 in the middle so offence is very good but for us to play like that with gerared and lampard knocking them in we need a good defence and thats why we only go 5 in the middle when we need a goal and then look what happend on sat they come and score a goal that was pafethic defending

BUT

What a goal by Joe Coal goal of the torniment at mo lkol

Yep as soon as England fix one problem another appears. Our defence which on paper is very strong (some say only second to Brazil - same with the midfield on paper) is now letting in sloppy goals. Yes fine i think Sweden played well in the second half and deserved their goal but after going ahead again we really shouldn't have let it slip especially to a goal like that. Thankfully Neville and Ferdinand (who played well when he was on the pitch) have been passed fit.

G_N: Well it's more like a town as such. Called Limburg - it's twinned to the place where i live in the UK so our school bands are playing there. It's east of Koblenz.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en ... =UTF8&om=1

EDIT: 1440 Posts

No offense, but who says Brazil have th best defense in the WC? they must be on crack lol

Emerson. Lucio, Carlos and Cafu are to old, though carlos and cafu can run all day and maybe fast they just aren't very good at defending. They get away with it because they are technically very god and don't panic with the ball at there feet.

But against a team even like Japan and positionally they fall apart, What is Lucio a center back even thinking about hanging up at front, they try offside traps which fail with such a fluid defense and cincnho who likes to run up and stay there wasn't helping the defense today. Japan could have scored more but didn't take there chances. And Brazil paperd over the cracks of the defense by being able to recover fast enough due to speed. This won't work against a team like Argentina or Spain.

We shall see however, and England really need to improve.

well...i can't stay out of this thread. as some of you may have guessed (probably because of reading a little below my nick) i'm from argentina.
let's get straight to the point, shall we? do not place any money on Argentina winning the world cup. take my word on that. Something that i have learned with years of watching soccer games (here in arg soccer is the first sport) and more exactly, watching Argentina's games, i have come to think that our team will not get to the finals. It's just a tradition by now. We get big, make some noise, and then fall heavily.
I would like to actually see argentina winning the cup, since i was born two months after the last one we won, but if i compare with previous years, i'd say we will not win.

so, end of the story, my "money" is on the Netherlands (my second favourite) or Brazil.

I think that we shouldn't be suprised if the final would be Argentinia vs Holland.

But anything can happen...

Be a good rematch from 1978 if i remember correctly? 3-1 Argentina?

Damned Portugese B*stards and stupid Russian referee! Those guys were way worse than we were yet we still lost due to their whining and play-acting. Bunch of cheaters!

Well, at least we hold the record of most fauls commited and cards received. (total 4 red cards and 14 yellow ones )

u remember 1978 treakboychris?? prenatal stuff there

Well England you will be playing against a very weak portugal next time. What a bunch of whiners. Holland was very unlucky to get such a referee. They had the bad luck of getting a goal against them, but overal they were the far better team on the field.

My bet is now on Argentinia to win, but you saw them against Mexico. Now Mexico isnt a bad team, but you wouldn't expect them to stand ground as they did against the Argies.

But as i said anything can happen.. 8O How did others experience the hol-por game?

man, the last match of holland looked more like a battlefield in the second half of the match they played good but they didn't have much luck Next match for portugal will be a hard one for them. All I can say is: Owned!!

lol no i checked it up. But i remember most from Euro 2000 onwards. What do we think on France vs Spain - Spain should win but you can never right off the french

germany won against argentinia after penalty so an old truth come true no one can win against germany when it comes to penalty i do not know about you guys but i know who will become world cup champion

ps: don`t take offense I´m just a german who is so happy about the worldcup in his own country and a very good playing german team

if i have to give my objective opinion, i must say that argentina played better than germany. but then again, as usual, they could not hold the score, and well...you all know...congratz to the german soccer comunity.

Crap. All over for England. The best thing to come out it? - the end at last of Ericsson as a manager. But why did we lose to an almost as bad Portugal? All the great and talented players we have did not perform, due partially to Ericsson's horrendous tactics and a self-defeating formation of 5-4-1. How many goals did English strikers score in the whole World Cup? 1.

1.

Enough said.

We probably deserved to win the game, particularly with the grit and defiance after Rooney's dismissal, but when it comes to penalties, just forget it with England. Lampard and Gerrard were poor fare in front of goal all tournament - couldn't hit a cows arse with a shovel. And Beckham, sorry mate, your time is up in an England shirt, you have expired. Thanks for the memories, but it's time to move along and let someone else take up the right-sided berth. Same for Neville.

Under-performance in critical areas proved the catalyst in this latest failure, Where was Gerrand's runs and creative passing in midfield? Where was Lampard's domination in making the middle of the park his own, and darting forward with a stinging shot? Where was Beckham's accuracy with passing and set-pieces (apart from the one in off the post against Ecuador)? Where was Rooney - with no support up front and poor service from the wing, no-where, that's where. And Joe Cole - a prancing prima donna I'm afraid. Nice guile and creativity at times, but he needs to play for the team a bit more and forget about performing little tricks for the camera.

The best players? Terry and Rio at the back, Ashley Cole and Robinson in goal. Dauntless, indefatigable, unbeatable. Also a big pat on the back for a job well done to Hargreaves and Carrick (when he got the chance), and Carragher (woefully underused), and Lennon coming off the bench (he should've been given at least one start), so this at least bodes well for the future.

Goodbye Ericsson, thanks but no thanks - and goodbye England. 6/10 for the effort, but a 6 won't win you the world cup. Such a terrible waste of talent and potential, sent sighing away with the north wind, across the channel and back home.

...again.

There's always next time, I guess.

i find it kinda funny that erickson said they could not win without rooney, seems to me they could`nt win because of him

And to be fair to england the best football they played was when they were down to 10 men. Defended brilliantly. And daf i agree with you mate practiclly all of the England team underperformed but atleast we went down fighting. Shame about the penalties though - Gerrand and Lampard usually score but that was woeful.

Drop the whole midfield and bring in young players like Lennon, Carrick, Hargreaves. Stick Rooney jusr behind Defoe and Walcott upfront - what the f*** is Sven doing bringling him for Work Experience? Defoe would have been a better choice, sorry Crouchy!

A time has come for England to rebuild, the crop of talent that should on paper have contested a final have come short again.

Hargraves was mint i thought. Did alot in th end match well go right up on to the goal a few times.

I think its hargraves, the semi long black hair one that had alot of pace and stamina for the running he did.

We are officially **** at penalties. I knew we would lose there. I thought WTF to those who were commentating saying be good to go to penalties or somit.


I dont usually like football but the two matches i saw eng vs sweden and eng vs portigual were entertaining to me. The last eng game was bloody tense, it was very touch and go and we held the game well with 10 men but lol portigual was having lots of on pitch problems and some were down for awhile.

I loved the whole runney situation. I felt sry for him cos he looks so flustered all the time and on edge. Obviously got a temper but i think we all knew that. I cant believe ref sent him off on red for that push. I think the port player said somit to rooney that pissed him off and thats where push came from. We all knew it was a accident the stamping on the port players balls LOL as it was a very rush and hectic play for the ball and rooney wanted to keep it so bad.