Speaker: KICK IT! Goodbye England's Rose (Lion, whatever)
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All this talk of incorrect calls is distracting us from the real problem -- Soccer is taking us down the path to Socialism.
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The best thing about football is the flow of the game. Slow it down and you may as well pick the ball up and run with it.
Brazil vs Chile. It was more like tennis at times, they moved up and down the field so fast.
I know the final I'd like to see, from a spectacle point of view. The goal scoring machines vs the world's wildest cheerleader.
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The goal scoring machines vs the world's wildest cheerleader.
Roddy Doyle agrees with you:
By the time I got to the bookies, a five-minute walk, I’d changed my mind and I put my euros on Argentina. It was a wise, mercenary decision, I thought. The odds, 9 to 1, were daft. Argentina were being written off because their coach is probably mad. But look at all the other coaches, look at the world’s leaders, look at the world’s greatest authors—they’re all mad. Maradona just accepts his insanity; he loves it. He hugs his players; he loves them. And they love him. Some of them are brilliant, and one of them, Lionel Messi, is an even better footballer than Maradona was.
So, my money’s on Argentina.
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Speaking of which... now that NZers have a new-found appreciation for technically inferior teams sticking to a limited game plan and playing out of their skins to achieve an unexpected result, will we see a bit of love for the French effort in the last RWC quarter-final?
Thought not.C'mon who doesn't love french rugby, I think it was the fact that the bloke with the whistle forgot the rules for large parts of the game that makes for the bitter feeling.;
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I can hardly tolerate that age group 'seagulling'. The prospect of adults doing it is chilling.
I just naively ran a straight Google search for the term "seagulling". Wow.
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I'm glad Germany are doing well. There is an ugly rumour that if you get more than 4 west germanics together on a sporting feild they all go a bit crazy and can't think straight.
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Roddy Doyle agrees with you:
Heh, brilliant!
I completely agree, Maradona is fast becoming a world football treasure. I realised the other day he's been involved in World Cups for pretty much my entire adult life. He was a 17yr old on the bench in 1978, a genius in '82 & '86, on the decline in '90 & '94. He had a couple of lost tournaments in 1998 and 2002 before popping up again as a fan in the stands (looking like a drunken hobo and having the time of his life) in 2006, and now he's running the team with a chance of emulating Beckenbauer as a player and manager winner. I would love it to happen, and I'll be extremely sad when the World Cup finally loses him. Damn, there was a blogpost in there somehwere!
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So, my walk to the bookies wasn’t my post-post-colonial moment. It wasn’t even post-colonial. I’m still not-English. I’m the mild colonial boy, in a ditch, fighting for Ireland; I’m starving to death because the spud crop has failed—the grass juice is on my chin. Granted, the grass is drenched in extra-virgin olive oil and not many starving peasants drive Volvo estates, but it’s the state of mind that counts.
Read more:Shit he's good at that writing stuff!
I just naively ran a straight Google search for the term "seagulling". Wow.
I'm truly thinking (hoping) he was thinking of something more innocent.
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I could've added to that. The post above had a section about Maradona in it when it was first drafted.
At some point in my childhood my father (or possibly an uncle) told me that Maradona was the greatest player of all time, and being young I believed it, unquestioning. Something I miss, as an adult I often argue too much about stupid things like that.
The Hand of God became, to me, a fun player having fun. Disregarding all the evidence to say that he was somehow divine. A crazy man-god who was too busy enjoying the moments to care that he had pissed off a lot of people.
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I'm truly thinking (hoping) he was thinking of something more innocent.
Yes. Yes, I was. Seagulling in amateur football is when you hover by the opposition goalkeeper, behind the defence, hoping to kick stray balls into the net. It's actually sanctionable even in the junior leagues, in spite of the fact that they don't have an offside rule.
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The Hand of God became, to me, a fun player having fun.
The HoG also restored some pride & joy to a population who'd been through the ringer from their own govt dictatorship and Thatcher's criminal militarism. It was seen as helping (in a small way) to right a wrong, a little bit like a certain disallowed goal yesterday...
He's still absolutely hated by most England fans of course.
I still think Pele is the G.o.a.T. but Maradona is 2nd, a genius crazy man that no amount of money or professionalism can straighten out.
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he was a bit naughty in 1994 though, running around the pitch on speed, took aussie out of world cup qualification with an inspired drug fuelled performance and then changed the nature of the first round group he was in, until the americans had to point out that running around on speed at the world cup is a bad look for the game.
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He was done for cocaine, whose performance-enhancing properties are extremely dubious.
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Cocaine has a rather attractive honeymoon period where performance is somewhat enhanced but i take your point not for a professional footballer.
...but I remember it being weightloss drugs that bought him down. He came out of nowhere in 1994 to start playing and running like a young man.
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Actually, you're right, it wasn't cocaine - it was ephedrine.
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Actually, you're right, it wasn't cocaine - it was ephedrine.
He truly was a renaissance man.
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He truly was a renaissance man.
Or a pseudo-renaissance man.
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I still think Pele is the G.o.a.T. but Maradona is 2nd, a genius crazy man that no amount of money or professionalism can straighten out.
Only being 5 during the World Cup that is widely acknowledged as the peak of Pele's career (1970) I feel unqualified to judge the comparitive merits of the two, other than through the blunt instrument of statistics, or the biased blandishments of erstwhile teammates or opponents or journalists, but hell, if anyone could do more to dominate a world cup (1986) or drag a fairly useless team sign-handedly to the final (1990) than the wee man with the very low centre of gravity, big personality, and the left foot not just kissed but licked to within an inch of its life by god, then I totally salute them.
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It's actually sanctionable even in the junior leagues
When I was a kid I was the goalie. I got cold as shit standing around for 90 minutes with very intermittant action. What better way to keep a kid goalie involved in the game and a seagulling striker learning to out maneuver the goalie. Both stay warm!!
The yanks moved the offside line to about 25 yds out a few decades ago but that too was chucked.
It makes a good discussion topic though.....
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Re: Spain-Portugal: This may sound odd from me, considering my hatred of dives, but could Ronaldo get a break in that game? He went down at least twice that I counted where he was tripped or pushed, and few more times where it could've gone either way.
Perhaps he was the boy who cried "Ref!"
In the meantime, down the other end, a Portuguese player was sent off for disturbing the air near a Spaniard. In subtle irony the Spaniard was made to wait on the sidelines for a short time to recover, despite his protests that he was ok... well except for the massive head trauma he had apparently endured.
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In ice hockey if play is stopped because a player is injured, that player must leave the ice and go to the bench while play resumes. And it has to be a serious injury, where the referee thinks medical attention might be required. It's a good rule. Ice hockey players don't lie around on the ground, they get themselves up and either drag themselves to the bench or chase the other team.
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...could Ronaldo get a break in that game?
Perhaps he was the boy who cried "Ref!"
Maybe he and Messi could throw a pity party for each other. I'm sure Maradona would obligingly jump out of a cake for them.
But true, he was closed out of the game, and got no help from the officials. Overall though wouldn't you say both teams played with amazing control and in good spirit? I missed the red card (in the final minute?), and am somewhat surprised.
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