Group G (USA, FRA, COL, PRK) [R]

What are you talking about? No seriously, what are you talking about?

You made me belly laugh with all of that, but I genuinely think you have me confused with someone else in BS land .

You missed the obvious OTT nature of my initial reply to your USWNT love letter, and then somehow you woven that along side some fantasy where I'm talking crap about Hope Solo , and conspiring with newsouth to derail the Alex Morgan hype train. SAY WHAT?

Somebody will probably rep you for the Dan Brown levels of randomness going on in that post, but I'm still laughing, so I'll just do it my self.

Thank you. The French kits are shockingly bad. Such a downgrade from their previous kits, which were quite lovely. I honestly can't comprehend why they changed to what look like cheap rec league shirts.

2011 Women's World Cup:



2012 Olympics:

Never though I would say this.

Nike had better designers than Adidas?

To illustrate how transparent you are, I wrote that previous post with the full expectation that you would respond with the claim that "oh, I wasn't even being serious." You did not fail to live up to my very low expectations. I see you have already begun to prepare yourself for the possibility that someone may rep my post for exposing your ridiculousness - a common tactic of those that realize they are in the wrong.

Take my future disregard for your responses as evidence of my not really caring what further excuses you have to trot out. I have no more food with which to feed the trolls. I am now returning to our regularly scheduled discussion of Olympic football.

(And really, your excessive use of emoticons is as disturbing as Colombia's disregard for proper tackling.)

YEAH! come on Greg

If you honestly can't see the ludicrous, purposely bad taste nature, of me juxtaposing mass human loss of life, in relation to seeing the U.S.WNT turn every game they play into a frantic mass of bodies relentlessly hitting the deck, then I'm left . LOL.

Plus your making up some serious sh*t as you continue to go along with the (still funny) troll accusations, as I make no secret of my annoyance at seeing the Wambach alley oop style remaining effective, but trolling about Solo, Morgan, and other related stuff, is definitely not me.

So you can grumble all you want about me being in the wrong, using pathetic tactics, and childish stupid...blah blah blah, but the fact remains I came into the international thread to post, not the U.S.WNT's, so stop trying to being so cute.

The French olympic commitee has an agreement with Adidas to kit every athletes while the FFF has an agreement with Nike. The FFF actually pays a fine ti Nike every time the team takes the pitch.

Lady Andrade got a 2 game ban from FIFA. Announced today.

Glad to see FIFA didn't crumble. The standard FIFA penalty is 3 games for a punch to another player. ( I think it is drawing and quartering if you punch a ref)

I guess this was only 2/3 of a punch.

< edit> nope, just checked the latest disciplinary code and a punch is 2 games.

A brawl is 6 games.

So, it is confirmed as a full sucker punch

If the USWNT win their group tomorrow, what time will they play on Friday in the quarterfinals.

I like Colombia's young girls. They seem to have the same fight in them, as Mexico and Costa Rica. Looks like good play to me. The camera man is just good at catching the retaliation, somehow missed the USA's rugby style of play.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lydj2tAKhw1r1o8ppo1_500.gif

http://i.imgur.com/2Pe71.gif

http://i.imgur.com/sjM9N.gif

You should at least pick isolated examples that help your case.

Video I shows a Mexican player doing the shoving.

Video 2 shows another punch, which should be another 2 game suspension for the Player who punches Abby.

Video 3 shows a Defender stepping into the path of a player with the ball, since she is too slow to challenge for the ball, it is clear obstruction under the rules.

Do you have a point that supports your trolling?

I remember this play. The shove was anger/retaliation for an earlier foul where Carli caught the Mexican player's ankle on a tackle. Not that I'm agreeing w/ newsouth. Because I'm not. The cheap shots against the USWNT players were flying in those games.

One would expect that NewSouth would give us a clip of that, then. What was shown does nothing to support NewSouth's position, whatever that was. At this point I have lost track.

Why are people going crazy over a little black eye, when Wambach's been involved in more broken legs, or serious contact injury, than any other female player around? I mean, even the movie fame Predator would be put to shame with the amount of legs Wambach has hung on her wall like trophies .

Like it or not, on the international stage, the U.S. women still depend on a style of play which forces teams to either adapt to their physical hard running 1v1 attributes, or find new ways of playing around them instead.

This of course becomes a huge culture shock for technical players not used to the physical/mental strain involved in such encounters, and tends to lead to one or two of the same things always occurring.

The U.S. forces a talented but lightweight opposition to gradually wilt, and then die under the result pressure. Or we see players fight back, resorting to increasingly annoying acts of simulation, in hopes of seeking protection from the ref, followed by an eventual decent towards increasingly dangerous acts of physical contact.

We could see the end of all of this by having more cards shown, or by having women play on a smaller field, along with smaller goals, to finally democratise the varying disparity between the technical and athletic nations. But wouldn't that just defeat the purpose of global development?

So for now, we'll only see more of these incidents, as semi pro/amateur programs, look to continue their progression alongside already full time professional athletes, in a sport that remains a few decades away from it's peak competitiveness too.

Just curious...

Who is your super team in this cup?

Aren't you the guy who predicted Germany would rule over everyone in the WWC because that was the only competition that really mattered?

There is no "super team" in the Olympics, because it's a competition that's never been close to the pinnacle of the sport.

Japan are reigning World Champs, and therefore could only be considered a "super team" if they do what's never been done before and win gold after the WC, but they won't even have to be as good as they were in the WWC to accomplish that either, which puts the Olympic tournament into a better context of quality.

And yes, I also believe in 3 more years Germany will be a force at the next WWC, but they have a Euro to compete for first, and a lot of work to put into their football, before they can even dream of being as good as they once were.

First the expected pressure was too big for germany in home World Cup. Then more and more have stopped playing, or have exceeded their zenith. A player like Birgit Prinz is perhaps one every 20 years.
Germany also had no luck. If you unlucky lost in overtime in QF und than you couldnt go to the olympics.
But the difference to France,England and Brasil. Germany was at least 2 times world champion.

Well there is no super team.But the team to beat is still the USA. France could have 20 wins in row against norway,sweden,england,maybe germany. But to play against the usa is another thing.The physis, the athletic, mental strength and sports in USA is different than driving a car in USA. In sports, the accelerator pedal is depressed. V. United States, there is no beauty prize.
2003 germany wins. That was a game of one goal. The USA played,played,played. But germany defence was great. And by luck, good counterattacks germany have won.Or 2011 USA was so superior to japan. They had so many chances to score.But japan fight,they jumped in all balls.
And then you can coming back.

speaking of which,

Inka Grings announced her retirement yesterday.

great career. injury and age did her in.

She hasn't retired completely. She's playing club ball. She just retired from the German national team. But I'm not going to go on about that in this thread since it that'd be completely off topic.

marush, I know it's not really the time or place to discuss this, but I don't think you should use luck on it's own to rationalise failure at the sports highest level, when the WWC is the one tournament every nation has 4 years of work behind them, to peak for a single month long period of elite level football.

It's just too simplistic to use the still unknown factors of fortune, when the same unknown factors you feel helped knock Germany out in 2011, and win in 2003, could also be said were on display in USA's '99 triumph, and then again for 2011's quarter final escape act, and eventual final failure.

It has to be recognised though, just like the U.S., Germany failed in 2011 because their football was no longer good enough to deal with the next wave of progression taking place in the elite levels of the women's game.

Turning to luck, or lack of luck, to rationalise this fact, doesn't do justice to programs like Brazil, Japan etc... that have done all the correct things to elevate the sport, as they work towards elevating themselves in hopes of wining the games biggest prize.

There's no coincidence every team who's won, or shown up well at the WC since '91, has also added a new dimension to the women's scene in the process, and that new dimension is constantly being shaped by the sports most progressive teams, and the world best players who function within them.

So if your football lets you down at the games most elite level, it's because your honestly not quite good enough for the stage you eventually fail to progress from, and only improving on those controllable factors will change that fact in the future.

All of this then takes us to the myth of a "super team" or consistent team to beat, in a WC landscape where the only team to beat, is the nation playing the best football every four years.

The last time the U.S. found themselves in this position was '95, as they sat on high as the games undisputed reining world champs, and it was eventually little old Noway who came through to end that.

Since then, we have then seen China in '99, then Germany in '03, Brazil in '07, and now Japan in '11, all come to the fore as the nations prepared take on the mantle of the best international footballing teams, with only more nations primed with the sports best talent, to try a elevate themselves to that position come 2015 too.

Referee for US/North Korea: Jenny Palmqvist (Sweden)
Referee for France/Colombia: Quetzalli Alvarado (Mexico)

Seems like asking for controversy to assign Palmqvist to a North Korea match...

Why is that?

haha never mind!

She's Swedish, but was born in South Korea, it's likely she still has family there. I'm not saying she won't be impartial, but I assume the North Koreans will use her as a scapegoat.