World cup!!

[RDZCRanch]

The world cup is finally here!!! I'm so happy and I've only missed a couple games so far! The early hours are killing me but for soccer...I'll wake my butt up. My sister and I have been calling each other around 4:30am to make sure we're up and watching the game, then we get online and talk about it while watching it, lol.

My siblings and I all grew up watching, playing and loving soccer. We still play together with our friends occasionally though sometimes I'm not allowe dbecause I slide tackle too much. :neener: So the World Cup is a huge deal to us and we even have nerdy friends that make us color coded schedules of the game times and teams.

The team I'm going for is Ghana and they just won their first game!! It's being hosted in South Africa this time around and Ghana is the first African team to win a game on South African soil!!

Anyone else watching? Do you have a favorite team?

 

[Brightstarchins]

Hi Tabitha, I am watching and I am rooting for Germany. They are playing against Ghana on the 23rd, so we will see, may the best team win!

Claudia

 

[3CsMommy]

I'd love to see the US take at least a tie in another match, not gonna lie, but my favorite is usually Germany. They're consistent, and I haven't seen any bad sportsmanship from them or their fans (at least none making international news). I'd love to see South Africa do well too; that's a country that needs some serious help socially, and the boost a win in the World Cup could give would do a lot.

 

[RDZCRanch]

Group F just had some absolutely shocking games! Wow!

Italy was heavily favored to win over Paraguay. Italy ranks 5th in the world and Paraguay is ranked 31st. Paraguay came away with the first goal and ended up tying Italy 1-1 which was a major upset for Italy fans. Then the second pair for the group was New Zealand and Slovakia this morning. Slovakia got a goal early on and held the lead until the last THIRTY seconds when NZ made an amazing score! This group is absolutely shocking and very fun to watch.

Côte d'Ivoire Vs Portugal is next! Côte d'Ivoire is ranked 27th and Portugal is ranked 3rd. I can't wait to see what happens! This has been an amazing world cup so far!

 

[RDZCRanch]

The USA game just ended AMAZINGLY!!!!

So far the teams advancing to the round of 16 single elimination are:

Uruguay
Mexico
Argentina
South Korea
USA
England

 

[aznmexaggie]

I'm not even a big soccer fan but what an amazing win by the US against Algeria!

 

[cindyv3737]

I almost hit the car in front of me this morning. The game was on the radio for my morning commute. GOAL!

 

[ruoc]

We are cheering for Italia. They need to smarten up though, my poor daughter was very upset during the last game. She just re-injured her knee ( playing soccer) So she was looking forward to at least watching some great soccer by her favorite team. Hopefully they can turn things around on Thursday. So far this world cup has had some amazing games though. Goalies have been the stars of the games from what I've seen.

 

[RDZCRanch]

Yes!!!! Slovakia moves on and Italy is out!! Italy played very well in the last world cup, obviously because they won. A lot changes in four years though and they played as if they expected the entire tournament to be handed to them on a silver platter. They were diving and screaming foul so often that I couldn't even be bothered to watch their games, even my boyfriend who doesn't understand football that well was yelling at Italy for being drama queens. They did not deserve to move on in this world cup at all.

The new teams moving on:

Germany
Ghana
Slovakia
Paraguay

 

[Laurie]

I just want to say how much I love Tab! I think it's great she is crazy for the World Cup! She reminds me of the days I followed Agassi in tennis. I would be up very early to watch the Australian Open--she reminds me of that getting up at the crack of dawn!

 

[AZChins]

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Good for you. Yeah... I don't understand sports really. Now, if they had championship cage scrubbing, I might watch that if somehow it were a sport.

Go (whatever team everyone likes or whatever)!

 

[RDZCRanch]

Ghana plays the USA in only a couple hours!! I'm so torn! I usually dislike USA because of the attitudes the players usually have, but this year we seem to have some really great guys and Donovan has matured considerably. They're also playing ten times better than I've seen them play previously. Ghana is my favorite team...I just like them and how they play. I'm not entirely sure who I should root for, I think USA has a better chance of winning, but Ghana are my boys!!! I'm having Ty take me to the BBQ place in town to watch this game as I hate being alone at home watching "major" games. Tyson said "but I'm here...you won't be alone" and I rolled my eyes...the boy does NOT know Futbol!!!

 

[RDZCRanch]

GHANA!!!!!!! :hearts:

My team won!!! I honestly would not have been upset to see USA go through...it's tough watching a game and rooting for both sides. Too many emotions! Crushing disappointment coupled with elation...does not do good things to the tummy, let me tell you. The USA was outplayed by Ghana. There are US fans throwing a fit because they think Ghana was given their first games in the preliminaries because their two goals were off of penalty kicks. Those same people are completely ignoring that the USA's only goal against Ghana...was off of a penalty kick. Hypocritical much? :neener: Really though, USA's defense was almost non-existent, Tom Howard couldn't save a shot inside the post for anything, and the strikers couldn't finish even with multiple golden opportunities. There were almost no tactics on the US side, they played poorly all around. If you play like that in single elimination round of 16, you do not deserve to move on to the quarter finals, end of story.

 

[ruoc]

Oh don't even get me started about Italia!!! What? They have so much talent and experience on that team and no one can hit the net? Where was the defense? When no one defends the net.....the other team tends to make a play...hello? Talk about a frustrating let down! Holy man! They didn't even look like they wanted to be there. The team I saw did not deserve to go into the next round. End rant. haha.

 

[3CsMommy]

Agree completely about the USAs lack of D today. Wth did they think they were playing, an exhibition game? However, Ghana also played a very physical game; lots of hip checks and tackles that the USA just didn't do. Since most were declared legal (as in not carded) I think the US team just wasn't in the game today. I think cards went where they were deserved, but it was very all-round aggressive play from Ghana, which makes for good futbol as long as it doesn't go overboard.

But hey, Final 16 world wide is nothing to sneeze at from a country with only 11 teams. In terms of numbers, the heavy hitters (Brazil with multiple hundreds, Britain with 72, etc.) have a much larger talent pool.

 

[RDZCRanch]

The one card I completely disagreed with was the one on A. Ayew. He did not touch the US player AT ALL, Dempsey tripped over his own boot and Ayew will miss the next Ghana match because of it. US was physical as well...they just didn't show as much of it in the slow mo replays.