2014 FIFA World Cup™ Round of 16: Netherlands vs Mexico | Sun, Jun 29, 12:00 PM

"The truth of the matter is that we from other places in the world constantly hear lame excuses about how conditions just aren't to the liking of this or that European team, how it is responsible for whatever current under-performing Euro squad (maybe its not an under-performance), and what an unmitigated travesty that it is. Well...welcome to the rest of the world."

Actually, the rest of the world doesn't really play like that. The Brazilian guy posting on here earlier said that league matches in Fortaleza are never held in the noonday heat and humidity. Only in the World Cup, apparently.

 

Jesus Christ you too?, even after watching this World Cup people still get it wrong.

 

Thanks for the compliments on the post.

The US team has had a decent tournament. They do what needs to be done. It's classic American pragmatism. We are a nation who prides ourselves on getting the most out of ourselves. Against Ghana it was scoring a fantastic early goal, riding out the Ghanaian attack as long as possible, and then exacting a result with one of our strengths to secure the win. Against Portugal it was commanding control for most of the game. The US team looked very good against Portugal. Against Germany, it was trying to keep the score close. It worked. Now the tournament is open for us. We may not see another game after this one, but we made it out of the hardest group of the tourney riding the confidence that that engenders.

We don't accept excuses when our players are getting vomit and urine hurled onto them from crazy fans in CONCACAF stadiums. We certainly aren't going to accept excuses like "it's hot outside" or "I'm tired."

 

I imagine that has something to do with keeping the matches available to as many TV viewers as possible.

Brazil does have to play games all over South America in different climates to qualify for the World Cup. They also play friendlies in places like the United States where temperatures are pretty stout during the summer months.

 

According to this news piece the official temperature reported by Fifa was 32 C (but that must be real temperature not the thermal feeling), Uruguay x Italy had a higher recorded temperature of 33 C

http://copadomundo.uol.com.br/notic...za-foi-o-segundo-jogo-mais-quente-da-copa.htm

 

I´ve played in much worse conditions and you could fit 2 Robbens in my beer belly. These are pro athletes for god´s sake. Can´t understand all the weather arguments.

 

Argentina and all CONMEBOL have to go to play in La Paz (at 11,800 feet) in where players CANT BREATHE. Last time arg played there, players where about to faint all the time and they needed artificial respirtation equipment (or however thats called in english) every 5 minutes and they looked like they were gonna die (they managed to tie under sabella coaching in those extreme conditions -1 a 1- but lost under maradona -6 a 0-) they also have to play in Quito another place with high altitude, and they have to deal with extremely passionate and violent hinchadas from all over southamerica.

 

Mexico makes us play in the Azteca (at altitude, smog-filled, overflowing with fans who throw batteries, quarters, bags of vomit, and bags of urine on the players). That's just one of many difficult environments.

Qualifying in other places around the world presents problems that are unusual to the Football Imperialists of Europe. Heat and humidity is just one problem of many. You all in Argentina know about this.

 

So true. Heck, even the early Messi haters we had in argentina (all the BS about messi "not performing for the NT like he did for Barcelona" that thankfully no one says anymore), blame his supposedly "poor performance" (to me he was always great, but its true he didnt score as many goals for us before 2012) to the fact that he was pampered and used to the friendly crowds in europe, and got all scary when he came back to play in the crazy conditions and in front of insane fans of argentina and southamerica.
Thankfully, after like 100 mathces for the NT, and scoring 40 goals, it seems he got used to the crazyness , so the press no longer held that against him.

 

The reason the games are being held at this time is so that they're shown in primetime in Europe. Unfortunately there's no way around the time zones, so either European players have to adapt to the climate or European fans have to adapt to staying up all night to watch the games. Apparently, FIFA thought that players adapting to the weather was easier.

 

Not for it being "easier" but for the $$$$. More audience, more money. That simple. Greedy bastards who don't give a crap about a player's health.

 

Great Game. MExico played better in the first half but they did not put the ball in the back of the net.
The Second Half Mexico went ahead, but after scoring, they went back. They started playing defensively and Holland got back in to the game. I think the pk was not a pk, but there was one before that was not called.

 

There was no particular reason why Holland-Mexico had to be played at mid-day in Fortaleza. If the match had started at 5pm it would have been 9pm in most of Europe. That's not late. Or, the morning match today could have been in Rio, and last night's Colombia-Uruguay match in Rio could have been played in Fortaleza or some other venue.

It really makes no sense to schedule a mid-day match in just about the hottest place in Brazil. No sense at all.

 

The craziness is real. Look at Boca v. River. It's an experience that people in Europe can only view from afar.

The US/Mexico game in D.F. is always insane. There's nothing like it in Europe.

 

You can't be serious.

 

Wait...you think FIFA actually has sense??? The same organization that scheduled games in Manaus at midday? That organizes the group stage schedule to make things as difficult as possible for travelling fans? That is fundamentally corrupt?

 

They didn't actually do that in Manaus. But they did schedule an R16 match at mid-day in Fortaleza, and why they would do that is a mystery to me.

 

Hard luck for Mexico to lose the game in the last minutes of the game. The penalty became the nightmare for the Mexican.

 

You use the same old flawed logic of every three-year-old in a sandbox, i.e. Trying to excuse bad behaviour by pointing to others who are bad too.
Sorry that US players get vomit and urine thrown at them. But that's not an excuse for playing the World Cup, the world's single biggest sport event, in less than perfect conditions. This isn't about being 'pampered' or other juvenile rants but about perfect playing conditions for an event all these teams trained for for so many years. European teams sometimes have to play qualifiers in snow on potato fields in one of the former Soviet states. That doesn't mean it would be ok to host WC matches there. European teams sometimes have to play on the Faroe Islands, a place so windy that it's the only place on Earth where FIFA allow a second team player to hold the ball to the ground during freekicks or penalty kicks as otherwise the ball would be blown into the ocean. That doesn't mean it would be ok to host WC matches there. It's not about being pampered, it's about the best quality conditions for the sport's showcase event. And playing in Fortaleeza at lunchtime creates conditions that don't favour good football play.

 

It's interesting that you use "flawed","three-year old" logic to develop your opinion. There's some strange kind of self-loathing going on there.

The perceptions of Europeans as pampered exists and is very real. The Football Imperialist perception exists and is very real. Choosing not to acknowledge it is nothing more than denial.

So then you use the Football Imperialist mentality to explain that the best football is played only in the conditions of Europe's football elite. You can't even see your bias.

 

Euro this Euro that
some kind of inferiority complex?

 

wow you and your united states are so cool

 

1. I'd gladly trade qualifying from CONCACAF over Holland's UEFA route. There are a lot of very good European teams sitting this tournament out, as there are every 4 years.
2. Please, never again cite the Faroe Islands has an example of how difficult European qualifying can be.

 

That's an old old video buddy... Those kind of things still happen at the stadiums of South America. Problem is unlike in Europe where UEFA did everything to stop it and bring football to what it is now, a money machine, in South America the FAs do not want to get heavily involved, while our firms pretty much run teams. They get free tickets, they win elections for club presidents, they get travel paid for by the clubs, they are even allowed to go inside the training facilities to bully players and choke them out a little bit.

I don't like it, it's one of the reasons our stadiums are not packed, you can't take a family to the stadium. Another reason is our TV station (Rede Globo) starts games at 10pm in order for them not to lose their regular TV programming and gain more audience at the end of the night.

imagine leaving the stadium at 12am in Brazil..

 

come on now, you really expect anybody to agree that Andorra, Estonia, Hungary, Turkey and Romania are better quality than USA, Mexico, Costa Rica or Honduras?