Official World Cup 2010 Thread

[fastbilly1]

That is a good song, but nothing tops the Haka:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkxaBKd8SwA&

[ZeroAX]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmy6OaZEAhE enough said

[fastbilly1]

One of the many reasons I love that my family is Scottish (specifically Scotch Irish). I wore a kilt in my friends wedding last weekend actually.

I did forget to say one thing earlier (though I know I said it in the Olympic topic. Even if you find the sport boring, you have to respect what it commands on the world stage. It is the only sport I know of that has stopped wars, caused a country to stop producing their national product, and really just unite the world. The Olympics comes close, but the World Cup is just epic.

The war was the Ivory Coast's Civil War. Several countries, Congo specifically, have stopped mining for precious stones so they had enough power in the country to power the tvs so they could watch the games - this was in the 80s.

[ZeroAX]

I believe, the reason football is the most popular sport in the world, is because you only need a ball to play it. Think about it.

To play basketball someone has to make a basket. To play baseball you need god knows how much gear. To play football you only need a round ball, made from anything.

3rd world countries make goalposts out of rocks and trees, make a ball from animal skin and play.

I challenge you to find a sport that can be spread so easily around the world.

[fastbilly1]

3rd world countries make goalposts out of rocks and trees

I know of three football fields near my church that are made the same way. You cannot find a place to park there on a Sunday afternoon if it isnt storming to bad.

[ZeroAX]

3rd world countries make goalposts out of rocks and trees

I know of three football fields near my church that are made the same way. You cannot find a place to park there on a Sunday afternoon if it isnt storming to bad.

heck when I was a kid that was the only way we played. We had a football field close by, but we had to walk 10 minutes to get to it, so we prefered rocks as posts. Though it was funny cause anything the goalie couldn't reach was considered as going over the goal

EDIT 4 pages in and the world cup hasn't even started

[fastbilly1]

The schedule is beside my computer monitor - covered up one of my phone lists...tomorrow morning 1600 GMT - 0930 EST - South Africa v Mexico!

[Pulsar_t]

In all my years playing soccer at school I scored only one goal. That was one intense match, I always was the goalie (because of my stocky build, probably wasn't very wise to put me on the field at all ) but I stormed the pitch that afternoon and scored a one-in-a-thousand goal. You don't forget moments like those

Oh and I want to mention Sensible Soccer



Best soccer game of all time!

[DaGamingMonkey]

Does anyone want to join a brackets group on Espn? Our own Racketboy setup?

http://games.espn.go.com/bpredictor/en/group?groupID=47205 There's the group
Password is "retro"

Anyone from here is welcome to join!
Less then a day away

[Ivo]

Fastbilly,
There are so many sports that don't even require a ball (running comes to mind...)... And several others that you can do only with a ball (Handball?). Has to be something else. Maybe kicking stuff around is embedded in the our species' genes for some reason

Now as for football's "accomplishments", I find it a bit sad (certainly not glorious) the extent it is almost "worshipped". I mean, when wars are stopped over something like this and a country's economy is a second choice to watching some games... It gives the sport more importance than it should have, and gives other important things less importance by association. But enough of me ruining the mood, perhaps...

BTW you can add to your list that during Portugal's civil war (in the then colonies in Africa etc.), the guerrillas stopped harassing bases during games of Portuguese teams (mostly or even only Benfica, perhaps). The "joke" is that even the guerillas were fans of Benfica and they stopped fighting to hear the broadcast - the bases apparently put loudspeakers turned to the woods on purpose to temporarily pacify them.

SENSIBLE SOCCER

Best soccer game of all time!

I so totally agree, the football game I had most fun with. I never really played many others, and none after that really.


Ivo.