[Aberlour10]

gwnn, on 2014-July-08, 15:04, said:

It's a factor but 5 vs 4 days is not the end of the world.

So, 120+ mins of running and fighting while the Germans relax at the hotel spa. The impact of this you will see in the 2nd half of the final for sure.. IMO

[gwnn]

Aberlour10, on 2014-July-09, 15:56, said:

So, 120+ mins of running and fighting while the Germans relax at the hotel spa. The impact of this you will see in the 2nd half of the final for sure.. IMO

You're making it sound like the final is tomorrow. It is on Sunday.

[Aberlour10]

gwnn, on 2014-July-09, 16:23, said:

You're making it sound like the final is tomorrow. It is on Sunday.

Dont forget its the end of the very long season, the regeneration time is then longer and longer...

[gwnn]

Aberlour10, on 2014-July-09, 16:28, said:

Dont forget its the end of the very long season, the regeneration time is then longer and longer...

I didn't forget it. Thanks. I hope you're right.

[gwnn]

dup

[Aberlour10]

hrothgar, on 2014-July-08, 16:28, said:

This morning I was feeling pretty good because I was set to win $1,500 if either Brazil or Argentina won the whole shebang.

I am currently kicking myself for not taking insurance.

anyway, still in-money

[gwnn]

I still don't think penalties are a lottery. Romero was clearly better than Cillessen and Vlaar took the worst penalty from all 8 taken. That's not blind luck by any stretch of the imagination.

[jjbrr]

we saved more than $40K with brazil not making the final. good luck with ARG, hrothgar

this is the greatest world cup of all time, right? definitely delivered lots of amazing games and lots of LOLs.

[Trinidad]

gwnn, on 2014-July-09, 17:48, said:

I still don't think penalties are a lottery. Romero was clearly better than Cillessen and Vlaar took the worst penalty from all 8 taken. That's not blind luck by any stretch of the imagination.

I fully agree.

However, I can see that from the point of view of a coach (which is what you may be referring to after yesterday's Van Gaal interview) they are a lottery. During the game, he has an influence on the outcome, he can motivate, change the system, sub players. That is even more true for a tactical coach like Van Gaal.

During the penalty shoot out a coach can only bite his nails.

Rik

[MickyB]

Trinidad, on 2014-July-10, 00:59, said:

I fully agree.

However, I can see that from the point of view of a coach (which is what you may be referring to after yesterday's Van Gaal interview) they are a lottery. During the game, he has an influence on the outcome, he can motivate, change the system, sub players. That is even more true for a tactical coach like Van Gaal.

During the penalty shoot out a coach can only bite his nails.

Rik

Van Gaal made a difference vs Costa Rica, by bringing on Krul. However, I think that decision may have come back to haunt him - it will have reduced the team's confidence for yesterday's shootout, knowing that Cillessen would have been subbed if the Dutch hadn't already made all three of their substitutions.

[MickyB]

Talking of which - why isn't a 4th substitution permitted in games that go into extra time? Seems a no-brainer.

[gwnn]

Trinidad, on 2014-July-10, 00:59, said:

I fully agree.

However, I can see that from the point of view of a coach (which is what you may be referring to after yesterday's Van Gaal interview) they are a lottery. During the game, he has an influence on the outcome, he can motivate, change the system, sub players. That is even more true for a tactical coach like Van Gaal.

During the penalty shoot out a coach can only bite his nails.

Rik

Picking a better player to take the first penalty could have been a start. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I kinda knew he was going to miss the second he stepped up.

[Cyberyeti]

gwnn, on 2014-July-10, 03:39, said:

Picking a better player to take the first penalty could have been a start. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I kinda knew he was going to miss the second he stepped up.

Apparently two other (unnamed) players refused to take the first one.

[Trinidad]

gwnn, on 2014-July-10, 03:39, said:

Picking a better player to take the first penalty could have been a start. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I kinda knew he was going to miss the second he stepped up.

Vlaar would have been penatly kicker number 6 against Costa Rica, and the normal number 1 (Van Persie) wasn't on the field anymore, so Vlaar would have been among the first 5. Apparently Van Gaal had asked two other players before whether they wanted to take the first penalty kick. They declined. Then he asked Vlaar (who -until the penalty kick- had been playing his best game ever) and Vlaar said yes.

Rik

[cherdano]

Looks like Romero should have been reading BBF: http://www.theguardi...lland-argentina

[Aberlour10]

Suarez moves to FCB. There are vicious rumors that the team will be renamed in Barcelona Grizzlies

Anybody knows more unimportant event under the sun than the one will take place tonight?

[gwnn]

Aberlour10, on 2014-July-12, 04:19, said:

Suarez moves to FCB. There are vicious rumors that the team will be renamed in Barcelona Grizzlies

Anybody knows more unimportant event under the sun than the one will take place tonight?

Spain-Australia? 90% of the matches in a football league? I personally like these games, they can serve as a farewell to the teams and can show some spectacular football precisely because the stakes are so low. At the same time I understand the Dutch arguments against playing tonight as well, Van Gaal saying that it's not fair to lose two matches in a row when you played so well to get where you are now. The Brazilians, on the other hand, are very eager to show the world that they can do better than in the semis.. They can get maybe 1% repentance for the drubbing on Tuesday, but that would be repentance all the same.

[gwnn]

But I do kind of agree that these matches are pointless and I have nothing better to do (except work, but who wants to work on a Saturday?), so I spent half an hour examining Cyberyeti's claim that there were 6-7 ridiculous free kicks awarded to Brazil.

Cyberyeti, on 2014-July-09, 06:41, said:

Another example which then settled down, in the first 10 minutes of the Brazil-Mexico game, Brazil got 6 or 7 ludicrous free kicks for good challenges.

I checked 15 minutes just to be sure that it was not a rounding-off error. So I saw the following free kicks awarded:

1': Brazil (no replay)
1': Brazil, clear foul* on Neymar
2': Mexico, should have been a FK for Brazil (the Mexican dude fouled first)
5': Brazil, clear foul on Luis Gustavo (card?)
7': Brazil, clear foul on Neymar
10': Brazil, handball (no replay but no protests either - in all the other cases there were protests)
---
11': Mexico, clear offside
13': Mexico, Dani Alves late tackle, for me a clear card
14': Brazil, clear foul on Oscar

In addition, I see the following two incidents that should have been freekicks:
5': should have been a FK to Mexico
6': maybe a FK to Mexico, but no replay

So the total balance was 6-3 in free kicks for Brazil-Mexico and should have been 7-4, as far as I can tell (anyway your claim was there were 6-7 ridiculous free kicks for Brazil in 10 minutes, well there were only 5 of them and 3 of them were clear and 2 had no replays but looked like a foul/handball to me). For the record, none of these free kicks were from particularly dangerous positions, mostly in the middle third. Brazil should have been booked but Mexico also given half a card for 5' (some other late challenges were also arguably bookable but let's stick to this one). So yes, the evil cheating referees gave Brazil half a yellow card advantage in the first quarter of an hour. I don't care if Glenn Hoddle is a hero in France or England or if he is a Nobel Prize winner. Watch the game yourself and see. He is dead wrong here and so are you CY if you blindly accept what he says.

*-whenever I say clear foul, it means it is a late tackle with no contact whatsoever with the ball and clear contact with the opposing player (of course there are other ways of clearly fouling someone but they didn't occur here).

[Cyberyeti]

Where did you watch this ? And Chris Waddle, not Glenn Hoddle.

[gwnn]

Oops, sorry about that mistake. I watched it on the Dutch TV website www.nos.nl but I think that is unavailable for people outside the NL...