who could have guessed that? the Italians beating the germans.....

The French beating Brazil and Portugal.

 

so who will win it all? I think it is Itally as they have all the scandal problems so this would give them a way to show that they still play the game and that is all that counts. On the other side Zidane and Henry have their last chance...

 

I think the weak French goallie will make the difference if the italians realize how weak he is and test him early and from distance (with strikers going for the rebounds)

 

Italy - France 3-1

even sepp blatter said he should have given himself a yellow card (which is a very rare statemet from a FIFA official).

 

Valentins career is over and he has shamed his family (his dad was a russion internaltional player) and his country.... too bad he had to use this game for it.

after a terrible game in all aspects but  mostly because of an awfull refereree the dutch are out of the world cup.The atmosphere at the end of the game was really depressed at Fado's.

 

unfortunately the refereee had a big role in the game. he failed to give the dutch a penalty kick when a dutchmen got a karate-kick in the chest. he also clearly demonstrated his inability to control a game by handing out record nubers of yellow and red cards.

 

it was crap

yesterday we drew goal-less against Argentina. Both teams played with a bunch of reserves. this was both to rest players as well as to ensure that players with one yellow card would not get a second one. If you have one yellow card after the first round it will be cleared and you will start from scratch.

 

I think Argentina had the better part of the game but we held on well (traditionally not a strong point of the dutch team). So I guess that was a positive

 

Next we play portugal on June 25th 9am EDT. This will be a hard match. Portugal has some good players and historically we havent done well against them.

I will be watching the game from Fado the irish bar together with 100 or so other dutch fans.

just added a new category: WK2006

 

WK means Wereld Kampioenschap and that means World Cup; in the Netherlands people only say WK ("WeeeKaaa"

 

I will re-categorize my related posts with this category

the title says it all......

after a great first half hour we were leading 2-0 but then things went south. fortunately we were able to hold on to the 2-1 victory.

 

I want to remind the reader that in 1988 we lost in the first round to Rusland to beat them in the Final; all of course in Germany?

 

will history repeat? will we lose to Argentina and will we beat them in the final? finally revenge for 1978?

 

according to the draw it could happen.....

Argentina is 3-0 up at half time which means they have qualified. It mgiht also show that Ivory Coast is a tougher opponenent than Serbia Montegrenego.

 

Let's hope we win today so we can have a fun game against the argentines instead of being in a win or go-home situation.

I have mixed feelings about the USA in football (not soccer of course)

 

they are really not very talented and dont have many good players. However as a Dutchmen in the USA the only chance for me to get some good soccer action is if the fans demand it and make the networks broadcast some soccer and overcome their fear for lack of commercial space.

 

The best thing that could happen to soccer is the USA becoming world champions. Both Adidas and Nike would make fortunes. Money would be available for good players to come to the USA and networks would start carrying big games which then means the public starts caring for the sport.

 

The unfortenate reality is that the USA have been artificially pushed to number 5 in the ranking by playing practice games against b-sides of big teams (Brasil) and other unmotivated squads scoring decent results. The fact that they are part of the weak middle/north Amerca region which doesnt provide for strong oposition and makes qualifying easy doesnt help either. Especially the fact that the lack of strong oposition hampers their learning opportunities.

 

Their ranking doesnt really holdup in big tournements when the big teams show up in full force realizing they need every point they can get.

As a result of that the Czechs breezed by the USA today. the US commentators refered to group E as s strong group. hmmm I guess they didnt look at the schedule of other groups and I am sure the other members of Group E dont complain. But that is what happens if you're the weakest by far in a group.

 

you can also gage the strenght of national team by looking how many of their players are starters for big club teams like Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Ajax, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Vasco da Gama, etc etc,

 

the answer is zilch. most other world cup entrants often have many players of this quality. the issue of course is that if you're a good high school atlete you will focus on the NBA or the NFL or MLB. That is where money is made (ready advertising money spend) and that is what the networks show so that is what the fans want.

(footbal is for the same reasons popular in the rest of the world)

 

 

Robben scored  a great goal and it was a great game to watch. We really needed to win this one with two tough cames to come in the group of death.

 

I went with my son Jean-Paul to Fado Irish Pub down town philly. We both wore orange shirts and there where over 100 people there in orange shirts as well. There were a few families with small kids and there was even a argentinean guy. I wonder if he will show when we play them in 10 days.

 

There was a great atmosphere ( I am sure the Heineken and Guiness helped  )

 

up to the next game.