JB5
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Post by JB5 on Jun 15, 2010 15:27:47 GMT -5
Watching the game here in Brazil, there was a huge national sigh of relief after the first goal. There was also a huge wave of cursing when North Korea scored. The Brazilians will be in despair at only winning 2-1. I've already heard whining that they probably won't beat Ivory Coast.
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on Jun 15, 2010 15:31:04 GMT -5
I'll say this for the North Koreans. They don't seem to have any nerves or fear early on playing Brazil. They're taking to the attack as best I think they can. And defending fairly well too. I imagine that'll only hold up for so long, but still. A soccer-fan friend from the UK tells me Brazil's team is not up to their usual standards this time. Any knowledgeable Board members have a take on that? If so, too bad as they are always one of the more interesting teams heck - the MOST interesting team -- to watch.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jun 15, 2010 16:38:26 GMT -5
At your service.
Brazil's coach this time around is Dunga, a former captain of the world champion U-20 Brazil team, the full team ('94 & '98) and a World Cup winner ('94). He played as a defensive midfielder and preferred the slow, deliberate, defensive style instead of the usual flashy (jogo bonito) style Brazil's known for around the world (yet, the '94 team was a scoring machine).
He has taken his preferred style and applied it as coach, even picking the 23 players that fit/get his philosophy and are willing to help on defense. As you might guess, the Brazilian media and most Brazilians dislike and critize his defensive approach, but the results speak for themselves. It may seem as if they are having trouble scoring or don't look as fluid, but do not be deceived. They're playing like Dunga wants them to play. I'm sure he's more Editeded with the NK goal than having scored two. What is interesting is that presently there really is no national team-caliber Brazilian player that plays like Dunga did and the team may be exposed in the back if the Brazil defenders get caught wanting to score.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jun 15, 2010 16:59:12 GMT -5
Watching the game here in Brazil, there was a huge national sigh of relief after the first goal. There was also a huge wave of cursing when North Korea scored. The Brazilians will be in despair at only winning 2-1. I've already heard whining that they probably won't beat Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast will not clamp down on defense like NK. Portugal lost Man. U's Nani before the tournament and looked like it's the Ronaldo show and not much more. Yet, IC could not score on them (although captain and world-star Drogba only played the last quarter of the match). The Brazil-IC game should be more open and back-and-forth. Looking forward to it...
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jacko
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Post by jacko on Jun 15, 2010 18:00:58 GMT -5
Brazil looked frustrated until that first goal and might lament giving one up at the end, but I really think this team is better than they're built up to be. They know they're better than they played in the first half. They aren't like the former juggernauts because they don't have 3 of the 6 best players in the world on their team like they normally do, but on those two goals they scored they were working with about a foot of space on each touch. They were really two pretty, high-difficulty goals given the angles involved, IMO.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 15, 2010 18:14:26 GMT -5
Brazil looked frustrated until that first goal and might lament giving one up at the end, but I really think this team is better than they're built up to be. They know they're better than they played in the first half. They aren't like the former juggernauts because they don't have 3 of the 6 best players in the world on their team like they normally do, but on those two goals they scored they were working with about a foot of space on each touch. They were really two pretty, high-difficulty goals given the angles involved, IMO. I think anyone who sells Brazil short is crazy. I am not rooting for them to win, just because I have other favorites, but they're still an amazing team. That first goal was sick, sick, sick. As was the lead up and eventual through ball that led to the second. Granted I think the PRK keeper definitely could, maybe should have had that first goal, but seriously, still an unbelievable shot. I don't think anyone, the keeper included, thought he could've squeezed that in there. Everyone had to be anticipating a cross attempt, hence the keeper cheating out a few feet.
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Post by HoyaSinceBirth on Jun 15, 2010 20:55:38 GMT -5
The first goal was great and definitely intentional don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 99/100 times that's a cross. The goalie cheated a little because that's the standard play there and that's what the player was signaling he was going to do but he turned his foot at the last second and hit it with the outside of his foot. And that second goal was just a sweet. What a perfect ball hit him right in stride then one time. Thing of beauty. Brazil is very good. They weren't trying as hard as they could've in the first and I think they took the korean's lightly who were bunkering down.
what is wrong with people using the terms that are used in the game? Seems like just american arrogance. Those are the propper terms. Sure i can understand not liking uninformed throwing the phrases around who don't know what they mean and using them improperly or people who look down on people who don't use them. But there's nothing wrong with people using those terms.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 15, 2010 21:10:20 GMT -5
Oh, I have no doubt Maicon hit that ball exactly where he wanted to. Absolutely.
I was just saying, as you pointed out, everyone was cheating for the cross because I don't think there was a person in the world who though he could pull off squeezing it in there. (Except Maicon himself of course.) And that's why the keeper was off his line. Totally understandable anticipatory action. That he paid for it speaks to the amazing skill of the shooter.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jun 16, 2010 7:49:01 GMT -5
"what is wrong with people using the terms that are used in the game? Seems like just american arrogance. Those are the propper terms. Sure i can understand not liking uninformed throwing the phrases around who don't know what they mean and using them improperly or people who look down on people who don't use them. But there's nothing wrong with people using those terms. "
I guess my problem with it is my suspicion (confirmed above) that a certain class of people in this country would say "boots" rather than "cleats" for exactly that reason- to distance themselves from "arrogant" Americans, presumably the norm who would you know, use common nouns they know instead of foreign ones. I feel like often these words are used to show how worldly they are in a rather silly way by using words they almost hope confuse casual American sports fans. The effete European soccer snob who says pitch and boots is partially responsible for what I admit is a somewhat xenophobic mainstream ignorance about soccer.
There needs to be a middle way. I love soccer, but I detest spineless American soccer snobs who put the word "soccer" in quotation marks as a way of apologizing for the fact that America has it's own sporting priorities. Americans don't need to apologize for not loving soccer above all else anymore than the billion people in China or billion more in India need to. But hey, they never get called to task for it do they? Only the "arrogant Americans." That annoys me. Let's love soccer, but make no apology for calling it by it's BRITISH word to distinguish it from the sport we know as football. And why is it the Canadians and Australians never get stick for calling it soccer? Let's not make a$$es of ourselves by using words like pitch when everyone knows damn well you mean field, it's just intentionally confusing in an elitist way, is it not? Pitch and boots are common nouns, not soccer-specific terms without American English equivilents. Let's face it, soccer's history is about as long in this country as it is anywhere in the world, even if it didn't take off like elsewhere. In point of fact, "soccer field" is a very old English language expression that is in no way wrong, and certainly not arrogant. I'm not suggesting we make up American names for terms where we don't already have them. But come on....boots for cleats? It's like you are just trying to push middle america away from soccer so you can show how educated you are. That's the real arrogance to me.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 16, 2010 8:13:39 GMT -5
I have no problem being a proud American, believing that our sports are awesome (well, except baseball), our people are awesome, and our culture and idiomatic language are awesome.
I also have no problem loving international soccer competitions and, when discussing such, using the standard, accepted terms that are used worldwide for the sport.
For instance, I don't think it's pretentious to call the goalie the "keeper," simply because that is how nearly everyone refers to that position in this sport. Yes, goalie is certainly acceptable, but it's not the standard. Similarly, the standard in soccer, as I understand it anyway -- and as I know from New Order's 'World in Motion'* -- is to call the field a "pitch," not a field.
I find this whole line of discussion silly (and am tempted to call it "daft," just to see who gets miffed).
*Since, as everyone knows, everything you need to know in life you can learn from New Order.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Jun 16, 2010 8:26:42 GMT -5
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 16, 2010 8:45:44 GMT -5
I don't think "keeper" is distinctly European/British as a soccer term. American goalies use it to call defenders off the ball, or, at least, that's how I was taught. One other contributor here is that we have to listen to non-American announcers on television. It may give people the impression that some terms are what these things should be called or are called. I can understand a pitch/field transformation for an American who is only a casual fan - consider terms like diamond, field, etc. just to describe one thing in baseball, or ring/squared circle in the WWF.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jun 16, 2010 8:55:15 GMT -5
Pitch is a British English word for SPORTS FIELD, not "soccer field." That's an important distinction for this semantic argument. (If you don't care to argue semantics, stay away from the discussion but spare me the "acceptable debate topic"-policing because that's exactly what this is.) Pitch is NOT one of several "standard, accepted terms that are used worldwide for the sport." They talk about rugby pitches in England too. But they do not use this standard accepted term in any Spanish speaking country for example- where they use their language's version (how arrogant of them) or "campo." Since there are probably 5 Spanish-speaking players for every 1 English-speaking player in the world, shouldn't you call it a "campo" then if you want to be democratic?
I say "keeper" too. I don't think that's nearly the same as pitch or boots or stripe. It's not confusing or particularly unusual for an American to refer to a goalkeeper, whether for soccer or hockey. Even so, it seems to me a goalkeeper in soccer is a rather unique term- they are not exactly like a hockey goalie, with the use of hands, etc unique to the sport. But a friggen field is a field. Boots is not the British noun meaning "soccer cleats" to say nothing of a word used everywhere in the world. They are just a slang term used for athletic shoes in about 2% of the world. In point of fact technically they are "football boots" when they are talking about cleats for soccer. So "boots" is in no way a common worldwide term. In fact, "cleats" is a more precise and thus accurate term to use.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 16, 2010 9:15:56 GMT -5
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jun 16, 2010 9:22:30 GMT -5
I believe you mean Espana and Helvetia are the two sides on the pitch. No need to use arrogant American terms that everyone knows.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 16, 2010 9:28:45 GMT -5
Your barbs would be more effective if English was not the official language of the World Cup.
But it is.
People who speak other languages are losers.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jun 16, 2010 9:31:03 GMT -5
Your barbs would be more effective if English was not the official language of the World Cup. But it is. People who speak other languages are losers. But it is not. Otherwise it would be called IFAF, not FIFA for Fédération Internationale de Football Association. There are four official languages according to Wikipedia anyway.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Jun 16, 2010 9:35:27 GMT -5
People who speak other languages are losers. Quoted for truth. ;D
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 16, 2010 9:39:16 GMT -5
Referees are required to be proficient in English. They are not required to be proficient in any other language. That's official enough for me.
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rosslynhoya
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Post by rosslynhoya on Jun 16, 2010 10:05:19 GMT -5
I guess my problem with it is my suspicion (confirmed above) that a certain class of people in this country would say "boots" rather than "cleats" for exactly that reason- to distance themselves from "arrogant" Americans, presumably the norm who would you know, use common nouns they know instead of foreign ones. I feel like often these words are used to show how worldly they are in a rather silly way by using words they almost hope confuse casual American sports fans. The effete European soccer snob who says pitch and boots is partially responsible for what I admit is a somewhat xenophobic mainstream ignorance about soccer. I don't mean to hijack a perfectly good rant, but you really hit upon what should be a major concern for the powers-that-be in U.S. Soccer.... why is there this pervasive insistence that to be a real soccer fan you have to be a Apple-worshipping, Prius-driving, Obama-loving post-modern urban metrosexual? I swear soccer is intentionally trying to minimize its marketability. In many ways, soccer seems like an indie band that its current fans will only like as long as it's safely outside of the mainstream: once ordinary Bud-swilling pickup-driving patriotic Amercans with real jobs start actively enjoying the sport, it'll lose its current cachet and all the hipsters will scramble toward cricket or rugby so they can maintain their own poseur cred.
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