World Cup 2018

[Bouncer]

USA definitely gonna win this shit. Weird thing though, I haven't seen any US games. They probably just advanced to the finals. :hibb:

Seriously though.. Brazil or France got this. Fuck Germany.

[boricuarage79]

Brazil ain't got shit... game was tied 1-1 against Switzerland... they had many chance to score

Germany was suppose to "blow out" mexico and they went sicario on there ass's..

Love watching the disappointment of these germans faces around here. With there stupid make ups and jerseys. Sore losers.. hope my kids don't get to upset haha.

Will be an interesting season..

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[Bouncer]

Mexican People Cause Earthquake After Victory Against Germany

MEXICO CITY — Late Sunday morning, seismic sensors in Mexico City detected what was reported to be a small earthquake. But it was triggered in an “artificial manner,” according to the group monitoring the gauges.

“Possibly because of mass jumping,” said the group, the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations in Mexico, which said that at least two of its sensors picked up the activity.

The cause of that mass jumping? Moments before, the Mexican men’s national soccer team had scored a goal against powerhouse Germany in their group-stage match in the World Cup in Moscow.

The Mexicans would hold on to win the match, 1-0, defeating Germany — the defending World Cup champions — and recording one of the biggest upsets in Mexico’s World Cup history.

One need only look at the seismic graphs in Mexico City to get a sense of the importance of the victory to Mexicans. But there was plenty of other evidence, too.

After the final whistle, households around the country erupted in joy. People poured into the streets to celebrate. Strangers embraced one another.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/w...world-cup.html

[boricuarage79]

Lol wtf

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[Bouncer]

wimps.. :D

Germany cancel World Cup media activity after Mexico loss as papers slam 'wimps'

[boricuarage79]

....

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[Bouncer]

Sounds pretty cool, I'd like to go to Russia and see St Petersburg and Moscow.

St. Petersburg’s white nights light up fans’ World Cup

https://apnews.com/41b16b94c16c4a508...#39;-World-Cup

[Bouncer]

World Cup match was the most-watched Spanish livestream ever

https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/22/...vestream-ever/

Good to see streaming taking off and traditional TV packages dieing off. The times of making people pay for 300 channels when they only watch like 5 of those channels are quickly dieing off.

[Bouncer]

Germany‘s last minute goal against Sweden

https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comm...gainst_sweden/

[boricuarage79]

Fucking phaggots!turnt it off when it was 1-1 @90 mins. I hate that extra time shit..
They suck this year tho

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[boricuarage79]

Alot of thier key players are not playin

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[boricuarage79]

[emoji1]

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[Bouncer]

this is why I don't really start paying attention to the world cup until the last 10 days or so.
________________

Coming Soon to the World Cup: More Beatdowns

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia — After a week and a half of World Cup play one thing has become abundantly clear: the drop-off in quality is readily apparent once you move past the world’s 15 or so best teams.

Through Sunday, seven teams had managed a single goal in two games. Four had yet to score, although both Morocco and Saudi Arabia finally did in their third, and final, games of this tournament on Monday.

But the Saudis also gave up six goals in their first two games, including five in the World Cup opener. Tunisia, meanwhile, has surrendered seven goals in its two games but sits third in its group, instead of fourth, because Panama has managed to allow nine.

Raw statistics like these — but also more nuanced metrics like possession time — have emboldened those opposed to expanding this tournament to 48 teams, which is set to happen for the 2026 World Cup in North America, and maybe even sooner. Those critics of competitive imbalance got all the evidence they needed Sunday afternoon in Nizhny-Novgorod where, over the course of 37 first-half minutes, England scored five goals in a demolition of Panama, which is playing in its first World Cup.

The game finished, 6-1. It probably was not that close — a reality that had Panama Coach Hernan Gomez grasping for moral victories when it was mercifully over.

“I’m proud it wasn’t worse,” Gomez said of the shellacking. “After it was 5-0 at halftime it could have been a catastrophe.” (Gomez’s definition of catastrophe remained unclear.)

“We qualified,” he added, trying to take the long view. “We have to celebrate that.”

That, in fact, is the strongest argument for expanding the World Cup: inviting more teams gives those countries perpetually shut out at least a chance of one day joining soccer’s biggest party. Try telling a Panamanian that Felipe Baloy’s late consolation goal — the country’s first in the World Cup — was meaningless.

Still, the Panama massacre was one of a slew of games at this World Cup that involved teams that were completely overmatched, all of which makes the idea that this tournament is about to get 50 percent larger — and go far deeper into the world rankings every four years — a troubling thought.

Costa Rica Coach Oscar Ramirez’s team caught Brazil on an off-day last week. He kept 10 men behind the ball and prayed for most of the game but lost in stoppage time, anyway, when Brazil finally broke through for two goals. Afterward, Ramirez begged for forgiveness, acknowledging how outclassed his team had been.

“I think we have done our best considering our skills,” Ramirez said.

Four years ago, at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Concacaf, the confederation that includes North and Central America, seemed ascendant. Costa Rica came within a penalty-kick shootout of reaching the semifinals. Mexico and the United States both qualified for the round of 16, and each came oh-so-close to victories that would have put them in the quarterfinals.

In Russia, Mexico is on the verge of going through to the round of 16 for a seventh consecutive World Cup. But everyone knows what happened to the United States in qualifying, and Costa Rica brought the same core of players — now four years older — that had that success in Brazil. Panama showed up with one of the oldest teams in the field, rewarding a generation of players that spent their careers trying to get to this stage. But its fate was so clear that some of its federation officials didn’t stay in Russia beyond the team’s first game.

Under FIFA’s formula for a 48-team tournament, even more teams with little hope of success will be invited. Asia will get 8 spots instead of 4.5; Africa 9 spots instead of 5; and Concacaf 6 spots instead of 3.5. South America, one of soccer’s strongest confederations, will get 6 spots instead of 4.5, and Europe will go to 16 from 13. Oceania, whose teams currently must survive an intercontinental playoff to get in the field, and which has qualified a team only twice since 1982, will now be guaranteed a place every four years.

Expanding the World Cup field had been a priority, morally but also politically, for FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who wants to build excitement for the world’s most-watched sporting event in more countries and grow revenues. Infantino has defended the expansion by pointing at how the sport has reached fever pitch in countries that traditionally did not make it to major tournaments; he specifically noted the recent emergence of Iceland, a nation that has developed a cult following since upsetting England at the European Championship in 2016. Iceland, too, is playing in its first World Cup this summer.

“We are in the 21st century, and we have to shape the football World Cup of the 21st century,” Infantino said in January 2017, after the expansion to 48 teams was approved. “Football is more than just Europe and South America. Football is global.”

FIFA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on World Cup expansion in recent days. But Reinhard Grindel, the leader of Germany’s soccer federation, said in a recent interview that he understood the desire to increase the size of the field, but added: “On the other hand, we can have the sorrow that this is not good for the quality of matches during the group stage.’’

To be fair, Concacaf’s teams have done better at the World Cup than their counterparts in Asia and Africa since the tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1998. From 1998-2014, 9 of 17 Concacaf teams have qualified for knockout play compared with 5 of 20 for Asia, and 6 of 26 for Africa. As of Monday night, no team from either Concacaf, Asia or Africa had qualified for the round of 16 in Russia.

Both Asia and Africa each have two teams with a chance to move on here this year, but two other entrants from those confederations, namely Saudi Arabia and Egypt, were destroyed by the home team, Russia, which was ranked 70th in the world coming into the tournament. Tunisia struggled to hold the ball for 30 percent of its match against England, and during the game’s final 15 minutes, England had 85 percent possession.

“The bigger powers have players at the top,” said Tab Ramos, an analyst for Telemundo and the youth technical director for U.S. Soccer. “When it counts, they make a play.”

Ramos’s prescription for improvement is as simple as it is complicated: to challenge the elite at the World Cup, the less established powers need nothing more and nothing less than more world-class players who compete regularly in top competitions like the Champions League. But those roster places are hard to find, especially if a player is from Tunisia, or Saudi Arabia, or Panama.

Those who support a 48-team field say the matter is more complicated than seeing a lopsided Panama-England score and concluding that more lopsided losses are on the way. Alexi Lalas, the former American international and Fox Sports commentator, said he did not see how having, say, the United States, Chile, the Netherlands, Ghana and Italy — five teams that failed to qualify — in Russia would be detrimental to the tournament’s quality.

“Look at the scenes after Panama scored against England,” Lalas wrote in an email of the beer-spilling celebration in the stands when Panama got its first World Cup goal. “A World Cup shouldn’t be a charity, but it is also more than a score line. I also think that, faced with the possibility of a World Cup appearance, teams will actually be motivated to improve in an effort to put their best foot forward in front of the world.”

Still, newcomers like Panama — and others — have a long way to go. After Sunday’s drubbing, Gomez described the England and Belgium squads that had thumped his team as “frightening.”

“This kind of game,” he said, “will tell you where you stand.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/s...drubbings.html

[Bouncer]

Russia World Cup most expensive ever with total spend of £10.6bn

The 2018 World Cup could be the most expensive in history, with Russian business news outlet RBK putting the total spend on the tournament at close to $14 billion (£10.6bn).

Russia has increased its government subsidies for the World Cup by $13 million amid concerns over the legacy of the tournament.

Two government orders allocate an extra $7.6m for temporary World Cup infrastructure and $5.3m to the state company responsible for maintaining the stadiums.

That takes total spending on the World Cup to around $10.7bn, although that figure does not include some key spending on infrastructure.

Several Russian regional officials have asked for more federal spending after the World Cup to stop the stadiums losing millions of dollars a year.

The venues are expensive to maintain and often several times larger than the average crowd for Russian league games.

Russia World Cup most expensive ever - report

[boricuarage79]

Germany is out!!

S.Korea scored two goals last 2 minutes of overtime

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