World Cup 2006
 

Is anybody here planning on going? Or at least planning on trying? I really want to go, and I believe tickets go on sale in February, but is anybody else planning on looking into it? I'm sure its hella expensive tho.

I want to go, since it's only over in Germany. I'd love to see Ireland play at a World Cup, but I'd go even if they don't make it.

Well if a miricle happens and Scotland make it then hell yeah I'll go.

I will be watching from my house.

BTW: This is a good site for finding standings and schedules pretty quick.

http://www.eifl.org.uk/wc2006/

I would want to go if I Sven Goran Erikson could promise me a few things:

Lampard will start in midfield
Terry will start at Centre Back
David James is at home in England
David Beckham will only start if Wright-Phillips is injured, and if he does play he cannot take any free kick's or penalties.

Otherwise it's not worth the journey and I'll just watch it from home, I like England but Chelsea is where it's at. I would much rather get a ticket to next months match Vs Barca at the Camp Nou then go to watch England play.

If Ireland make it me and a few lads are definitly going if they don't a few are but I'm not sure if I will

I'd go for the football. I'd love to see Ireland, but I love football and the World Cup would be the ultimate in football experience.

I talked to yianni about this briefly, not even gonna think about going to Germany until after the Qualifiers, and only if Australia qualifies.

Fucking trip of a lifetime though

Australia won't qualify. You're shit. I'd love if the European teams could play Australia in a play-off. If Ireland drew you lot, I'd ejaculate with joy.

I remember Iran knocked you lot out.

Don't australia lose to shit like Urugauy and Paragauy in every world cup play off. What a joke they are.

I wouldn't underestimate Australia though, they did beat England in a VERY meaningful friendly match where England played their strongest team for 90 minutes :roll:

Australia has had immense problems getting players back for friendlies, lack of practice together as a team, basically all these problems in the past. This was due to the pathetic administrations of the past. Now the current administration is FINALLY organising more games and things are looking the goods. This is the best opportunity we have to qualify for the World Cup. If we don't do it this time around then I will conceed we're crap, cos we HAVE to do it this time.

And that Iran game was bullshit, we drew 1-1 away to them, then drew 2-2 at home where one of their goals was ridiculously offside. But that's football. I'd also love it if we could play European teams instead of the South Americans, remember it was a full strength England team for the first half of that friendly and last I remember the scoreline at halftime was 0-2. ;)

No, but they get dicked around by FIFA with this ridiculous Oceania playoff with another region. As far back as I can remember, it was Europe in 1989, South America in 1993, Asia in 1997, South America in 2001 and now South America again. Tell me if you played only 2 meaningful games over 4 years you'd be adequately prepared? If Australia had the same preperation as other countries in world football AND THEN had the two play-off games more often than not we'd do much better than we have done. Although we haven't qualified we've still done ok

- 1993 the playoff was with Argentina, 1-1 draw in Sydney and 1-0 loss in Argentina
- 1997 against Iran, 1-1 draw in Iran then 2-2 in Melbourne (offside goal though :mad: )
- 2001 against Uruguay, 1-0 win in Melbourne, 3-0 loss in Montevideo

Even Argentina fucken lost in Uruguay in the qualifiers, it's a tough joint to go to especially when you've played fuck all games in preperation. Having said that, like I said to ECG in my previous post, this time around there are no excuses whatsoever. The preperation is 50 times better than usual, we've had experience now playing in South America, the team gets together more regularly, if they don't do it this time around then they'll never bloody do it.

PS if they make it then I'll go for sure. Hope Greece makes it too.

Sorry it took me three posts to get to my fucking point. :D

But one half solves nothing, we were never going to do anything in the second half with a bunch of ammatuers, not that I am going to get into the debate again as it's allmost of your Convicts (mainly Wee Gooner) mention.

I hope Greece make it too, after being in Greece for the final and semi-final, I like them. They will be my second team.

Yeah, England are shite. Their tactic is to start a riot when you go 1-0 up against them.

At least that is their tactic against Ireland. Ten years ago that was, now. I remember being all excited about it as a young nipper, then all those English fuckers ruined everything.

Fear not ECG, the days of the English hooligans is almost over, the Chelsea headhunters area dying breed, I will do my best to revive them and stir up trouble, but we are a dying breed. West Aam and Millwall have our only naughty boys now.

I remember just over a decade ago Ireland were good and had an impressive World Cup Finals, too bad you were a wee nipper at the time and didn't appreciate it as much as you would today. Still a pretty shit hot match Vs the Germans (I think?) when Robbie Keane scored a good un in '02.

I remember 1994 all right. I wasn't that much of a nipper really, I was 11. I loved that World Cup, had all of my all time favourite players at it: Roberto Baggio, Georghe Hagi, Romario, Hristo Stoichkov, Paul McGrath, Roy Keane, Jurgen Klinsmann, Ruud Gullit, Henrik Larsson, Martin Dahlin, Gianfrano Zola, Diego Maradona etc.

All apart from Marco Van Basten. They even had a buck-toothed young Ronaldo on the Brazilian bench.

Look I know it's a nothing game, but the fact is that we both had decent first teams in the first half and we did well. And I'm telling you now, if Australia makes the world cup they will do well in it. The problem is getting there. We've got decent players but they can never play together until now we're getting our act together organising friendlies and shit.

:love:

I'd fancy Australia to do well if their two best players weren't such lazy pieces of shit. Viduka and Kewell are a waste of God-given talent. Two fantastic players, but gigantic wasters.

Gianfranco*

Yeah I didn't know till '98 that Ronaldo was on the bench, all I remember about the world cup was Brazil's cool 'rocking a baby' celebration, me thinking Dunga was the man, Baggio missing the penalty and that beautiful Stoichkov free kick, my dad gave me a great poster of it, the look on the faces on the German wall was terrific.

Paul McGrath, loyal? didn't he run away before a game or something equally as odd.

Paul McGrath is a raging alcoholic and a manic depressive. He's fucked up, basically.

OHHHHH, he sounds like Shane McGowan.

Also, I remember the 94 World Cup for Romario, Stoichkov, Klinsmann, Hagi and Baggio basically showing they were untouchable as world class players.

Klinsmann's flick with the left, spin, and volley it in with the right was a great goal. Hagi's long range chip into the top corner, that he definitely meant. Stoichkov and Romario banging in the goals, both my favourite players at my favourite club, Barcelona.

Oleg Salenko getting 5 goals in a game stands out, too. Daniel Amokachi and Nigeria tearing Argentina apart had me and my mates running out to my back garden to have a frantic kick-around.

Saeed-al-Owairan scored one of the best goals ever at a WC, too. Never gets the credit like Maradona's goal against England does, even though it was just as good.

The German side then was still great, too, with Sammer, Lothar Mattheus, Kohler, Andy Moeller, Tomas Hassler etc. all in their prime.

Shane MacGowan isn't a manic depressive. He just loves being drunk. Paul McGrath is bankrupt and all that shit. He is in bad shapes.

Unless you have a video or DVD of the finals, your memory is pretty superb.

When you say Barca are your favourite club, does that still apply or was it just because of the players they had at the time, because I thought you don't support anyone.

That was the WC that got me into football. I'll always remember the miss by Baggio and some dude killing that Columbian player, who scored his own goal, when he got home :nono:

Well Baggio was untouchable until he played us McGrath had him in his pocket along with most of Italy for that game. Still one of my fondest memories as a child is that game I was about 8 or 9 only but I still remember it. And are you sure about McGrath ECG? I thought he'd kicked the drink hope thats not true the blokes my hero basically.

Baggio balooning that peno was a big memory of that too.

Yeah Baggio and the Columbian guy are the big stories I remember :nono:

That and the United States did somewhat decent :o And didn't Bulgaria or something make it really far?

:drool:

Seriously.

Your Scottish?

World Cup is the only time I can stand watching football. And only if Ireland is playing.

It's pretty much all from memory. My mate has the round-up on video, but we haven't watched it since that Le Tournai thing was on years ago.

It still applies, but it was because of the players back then that I started loving them. I was a big fan of AC Milan's team, mainly because of Van Basten.

Also, I just remembered that Gullit wasn't at the 94 World Cup. He pulled a Roy Keane, had a dispute with the coach and walked out just before it started. Disappointing.

I'm not really sure how he is, actually. I remember hearing his mates had to get together some money and help him out.

Didn't know that. Shit thats fairly disapointing the blokes responsible for my love of football and Aston Villa really.

I have. One of the worst experiences (if not the worst) of my life.

Yeah. You just noticed?

FREE World Cup Sweepstake Kit !
 

Hi All,

Just searching for fixtures and found a cool free download that people might find interesting...

Free World Cup 2006 Sweepstake Kit

Gonna get my office involved - see if I can bump up the ticket price to £5 a pop!

Roll on the World Cup!

Thorpey.

:( @ Greece not even making the World Cup. Meh, Go USA. But it's gonna be tough, pretty tough draw. Italy and Czechs will most probably advance.

Silly.

Rooney's fit! We're gonna win!

ENGERLAND ENGERLAND ENGERLAND

[/conforming to type]

For some reason I see the Italians choking, similar to Portugal in 2002. It's kind of funny because people always forget the fact that the US wouldn't have even made the second round last time without Poland messing up and it wouldn't have reached the quarterfinals without a draw against Mexico. I don't know how legit USA is, but I'm really not counting on a lot.

I will be rooting for Brazil, Netherlands (do they call themselves Holland) and USA

Meh, Italy had their slip up in Euro 2004, I think they'll do pretty well.

When does this start

I will be rooting for USA, Australia and Poland

June 9th. Every game on ESPN, which is sweet, but I have a 9-5 job now :(

I'll have to record all the games during that time.

Can't wait. I'm off work for the first england game, so i'll book the other days off.
Oh and my dad got me an Iran top from Iran. Good times.

wait, are the games gunna be on at like 4AM like last time? What country is it in?

hmmm, dunno. It's in Germany, but I don't know the times

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/worldcu...xtures&cc=5901


decent times

I remember France 98 the games were in the morning, but not too early. Like maybe 8 a.m. would be the earliest. A primetime game over there will be at like 2 p.m. Eastern.

final is 2 AM eastern :o

That can't be right. 2 pm maybe.

Assman, 14:00 hours is 2PM :o

Germany are 6 hours ahead of EST.

Nicked from the Football365 forums, who in turn nicked it from the This Is Anfield site, but amusing

A commentator will say "Oh, how England missed Rooney's finishing skills there..."

They will mention how 'cool' Sven is. And how passion-less he is when we inevitably go out to someone better than us

Captain Beckham will inspire no one

When England score, Beckham will be the first to arrive, jumping on the goalscorers back while ensuring the his hand is on the goalscorers face ensuring the camera is on him. All the time.

Metatarsals will break by the dozen. Most of them will be English

Commentator: "This is Beckham territory" when England get a free-kick 30 yards out.

England will get knocked out - losing on penalties. And this will be said "To be fair we lost to a great team"

3 England fans get into a minor scuffle with a Policeman in a town square. Sky News will show the 10 second footage on a non-stop loop for the rest of the day in an attempt to make it look like a mass riot has taken place.

Theo Walcott will be overwhelemed by the pressure and faint during the national anthem in england's biggest game in 40 years, against Trinidad and Tobago.

Any touch of the ball Walcott has that isn't spectacularly incompetent is overhyped, overstated and overscreened.

Theo Walcott's missus will be in all the tabloids. Topless. Hopefully.

Vegetable-related headline when England face Sweden

Hargreaves nonsensically substituted on despite a clear need for an offensive change

Ian Wright will do his usual impression of a gurning penis.

Everytime Wayne Rooney gets the ball in the opposition half the commentator will scream ROOOOOOOOONEY and ejaculate.

Someone will say Crouch has good feet for a big man

John Terry will handle in the box.

Lampard will score off a shot that will take a deflection off a defender's arse

Rio will have rubbish hair. He'll also be England's chief skinner-upperer.

John Motson will go on and on about how we need Emile Heskey

Beckham will do something to make us all hate him again.

Men around Britain will laugh at the Iranian national anthem

The United States will last longer than England.

An England centre back will have a goal disallowed

England will be drawing 1-1 with 15 to go, on comes, not Lennon, not walcott but yes, Jenas and Hargreaves.

David Beckham will miss his penatly

England will suffer at the hands of a referee

England fans will behave themselves, and the Sun will pay some locals to dress up in England attire and smash a café up, and go on about it for weeks.

Spain will be referred to as perennial underachievers and will do their inevitable balls-up in the second round.

The broadsheets will watch England's games with the Paraguyan community, the Trinidad and Tobago community and the Swedish community in London.

The Sun or The Mirror will have a headline with a Second World War gag in it. The most likely is "For you Fritz, the Cup is Over" if the Germans get knocked out in the group stages.



The camera will find and focus on a fit brazilian bird with big tits dancing in the crowd. The picture will next day appear in the Sun with the heading 'We put the bra in brazil'

A commentator will spaff his pants over Ronaldinho's skill

A small African team will be labelled as "naive" mere seconds before going one up against Brazil.

After said African team has scored, commentator will describe them as the brightest prospect in world football and hark back to Pele's words saying an African team will win the world cup. Eventually.

At least 3 Brazilian players will get together and do a little dance after scoring a goal. And the commentator will talk about samba magic

The commentator will mention Brazil playing to the 'Samba beat'

Commentator: 'Ronaldinho always plays the game with a smile on his face''

Fat Ronaldo will be top scorer, and look surprisingly thin and mobile after being away from madrid for a month. He will then go back to being fat.



The Germans will get to the final by playing sh*t football

Henry, for no apparent reason, will stop performing like a world class player.

Christiano Ronaldo will cry when Portugal get knocked out

An Argentinian will have awful hair

Saudi Arabia will get thrashed, while letting in 5 in one game.

Trinidad & Tobago will get complemented for the 'atmosphere' their fans bring to the competition

Holland's fans will blind the players with a sea of orange

George Boatang will be repeatedly called George Bo-e-tang

Stern John will be named player of the tournament in the disabled tournament

Arctic monkeys will be played atleast once in a stadium

Ruud Van Nistelroy will get into a punch up with CRonaldo, resulting in handbags and a portuagese throw-in.

USA will defy the laws of the game and will do well

Drogba will play better than he does for Chelski

A referee from a developing nation will make a big mistake during a vital game and the English pundits will say that they shouldn't have been allowed to referee such a high profile match.

Some muppets will riot. They won't be Japanese though, they'll clean all the stadia, in another bid to gain FIFA brownie points.

Aussie fans will get very very drunk and say they are just happy to be there no matter the results .

The Australian media to forget about the cup as soon as Australia is knocked, and shove it 15 pages back in the sport section with a 20 word column in the middle of the racing section

Each and every counrties national anthem will be absolutely butchered by the 'house band'.

Someones national anthem will appear to be played on the kazoo.

Brazil will win it

South Korea will do better than expected

Iran and the USA will not meet however much you want it to happen.

A German whore will get murdered.

At least 3-4 relatively unknown players from random countries will have unfeasibly good tournaments, resulting in a decent run for their countries. These players will then move to the Premiership in big-money deals and within a month everyone will realise they're actually gash.

Someone will get another yellow/red card and miss the next and most important of all games, thus letting down their side and nation.

A player will take his shirt off and be booked the second time and sent off

A big team will draw with a very little team

There will be numerous astonishing refereeing decisions involving diving and offsides.

A match will finish 4-3. Meanwhile you will have been watching the game that finished 0-0 on the other channel.

At least one player will call his coach a tosser in the media, get sent home, apologise and be allowed back in time for his team to get knocked out. He'll then blame the coach.

I will be late / fall asleep several times during the tournament and will be a pale, gaunt, unemployed man by the end of it.

Oh and Jose will still be moaning about the goal in last season's CL semi-final.

True dat :D woooo!

Aussie fans will get very very drunk and say they are just happy to be there no matter the results .

The Australian media to forget about the cup as soon as Australia is knocked, and shove it 15 pages back in the sport section with a 20 word column in the middle of the racing section


so true :love:

AHAHAHHA gold

That won't happen.
















It will be more like "ROONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY"

:lol:

what

Apparently Ballack might be injured? Anybody...

Germany will disappoint, either way.

Yes Ballack is out of the first game, at least that's what Klinsmann said yesterday.

Doesn't matter, its fucking Costa Rica.

Paulo Wanchope baby

They can defend and the Germans can't score without Ballack (who might now be playing)

Germans to sneak a crafty goal in the last 10 minutes and win 1-0.

Wanchope is awesome. Love watching him.

Well it starts over here at 12 pm. I'll be able to catch some of it as I'll go home during lunch break.

World Cup 2006. wooooo

well well well

We qualified - and played the European Champions - and beat them 1-0.

NEXT!

Brazil will NOT win this world cup

England argentina or italy will.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah

Wanchope is the fucking man! Who does he play for? This is not the score I would have expected 20 minutes into this game, pretty good so far.

I wish ESPN would invest in a couple good commentators. Marcelo Balboa has gotten better, but come on, why in the hell did they hire Julie Foudy for World Cup Tonight again? She was awful in 98 and still awful now. I'd prefer somebody with actual knowledge of world soccer.

Hey where is the game at time wise BCWWF?

and what's the score

Halftime is almost over, 2-1 Germany.

Do you go to Elon?

what's Elon?

A college, or are you at Iona I assume?

Klose just scored on a rebound, if I had to guess 3-1 wouldn't be a bad prediction for this game.

no, graduated from UNC Charlotte last December. I'm at work.

I went to Iona Freshman/Soph then transferred

Wanchope is an elastic legend.

Costa Rica look like shit no chance they'll progress. Germans look ok against poor opposition which just so happens is what the rest of their group is.

The US media kind of pisses me off. Through the No. 5 FIFA ranking and the 2002 quarterfinals, they talk about the US as if it is their right to get back that far. The 2002 World Cup was crazy, and the US barely got out of the group and only made the quarterfinals because Mexico was a beatable squad.

There was an article in the Star Tribune the other day about how Germany has an inferiority complex against the US because we are ranked higher and all this shit. Come on, the US soccer is developing, but we're not a world power. Our best players are journeymen in the premiership.

Marcelo Balboa is so good at misreading situations.

That was a sick shot, I love the long ones like that

Thanks to that new seemless ball.... we're going to see a ton of those long shots this year.

don't even bother watching. My mighty Frenchmen are taking back what's ours!

Yeah I don't really understand the world rankings, I saw that the US was ranked pretty high yet they really aren't that good? That makes no sense to me

lol gotta love the ESPN 2 in studio guys

"there's controversy with every single team in this Wolrd Cup.....except for the U.S. though."

It's probably just done by comparing each country to the rest of the countries in their qualifying region, which is dumb really. Not sure though, but if it is like that, then it's pretty obvious USA would be high.

USA win a ton of wins in the CONCAAF. Wins = points = rankings. They are currently ranked 5th yet probably aren't in the top 15 in reality.

Anyone with any sense doesn't care what the rankings are these days.

I agree. Also Lahm was unbelievable today. Nice goal, then he set up both of Klose's goals.

Guess I was just a little bit wrong about that game

Worst. match. ever.