Which of these two will take home the points or will it just be a point for each?
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by Randinho| 65 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Which of these two will take home the points or will it just be a point for each?
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piratedan
I’m pulling for the Nigerians, once I deposit this check from this exiled Nigerian prince, I should be absolutely rolling in the moolah……
Alex S.
“Why Soccer is Un-American” – WARNING: link to Politico magazine
I don’t care for this game at all… 1-1
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I’m happy whichever team wins this game. Two countries where I despise the governing elites but really like the people I’ve known from there.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
And the radio broadcaster is VERY Scottish.
Steeplejack
Did some digging and found the official FIFA rankings. These two teams are basically neck and neck at 43 and 44.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Nigeria will take this, and they’ll do so with ease. Nigeria 2(or 3)-0 Iran.
⚽️ Martin
Good lord, this is looking like an AYSO game – everyone run at the ball and kick it a lot.
Someguy
I’m rooting for Nigeria.
#BringBackOurGoals
scav
@Someguy: !
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:
Sure. And Switzerland is #6.
Teams from sub-Saharan Africa have been woefully underrated in the past few years. The best players from that region are often not released by their club teams to play games in Africa, under the theory that something bad will happen to those players. The national teams then have uneven records, drawing or losing games they’d have won if their most talented players were in the lineups. Ghana is really a top 20 team, maybe top 15. Nigeria is really a top 30 team.
Asia, otoh…You’ve got South Korea, Japan and Australia, who are all shoo-ins, then all of these other countries that don’t have many- if any- players in the top flight leagues. Iran won the fourth spot (and their ranking) by beating a lot of bad national teams, which got them to Brazil. Jordan- fifth place- lost to Uruguay in the play-in.
raven
I’ve liked Nigeria since they won the Gold here in Athens in thew 96 Olympics. They had a decent crown and somehow they had African ushers. I sat right next to their group and they were not allowed to stand up. One of the ushers told me on the sly “you can’t let these people get out of control”.
dedc79
@Steeplejack: The FIFA rankings are notoriously bad measures of how good these teams actually are. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.
Steeplejack
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again), @dedc79:
So what is a good source of the real rankings?
scav
The live crowds of Green Eagles fans I’ve sat through World Cups etc. with in basements surrounded by beer, pepper soup, fufu and dodo with have been fun.
(ETA: yes, you can generally date the times by the Green, not Super Eagles)
Onkel Fritze
@Steeplejack: Performance at the World Cup. Everything else is just BS.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Onkel Fritze:
This.
Fester Addams
@Steeplejack:
London bookmakers.
Belafon
@Alex S.: No time to read the article, but I’m assuming it says something about not being able to award a world championship every year to an American team, like every other sport.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Looks as if Iran has been happy to park the bus. Nigeria is leading possession 69%-31%, but can’t gt through.
Amir Khalid
@Alex S.:
Is there a sport you can’t describe in a way that makes it seem utterly ridiculous? Of course there’s no such sport. The suggestion that smarts, rationality and sophistication are what keeps Americans from appreciating football — a sport with smart, rational, and sophisticated fans all over the world — is risible. Politico might think that looking down America’s nose at the rest of the planet is clever, but I’ve seen the same old tired shtick in American newspapers, magazines and Internet sites every World Cup year for, like, three decades now. Harrumph.
Paula
@Steeplejack:
SPI
The SPI is updated daily now.
I guess people now want to argue about how the Group of Death is counted but it used to be the lowest average rank of the teams included in the group. Per SPI the lowest avg rank among the groups are
Netherlands/Spain/Chile/Australia: 11.25
Italy/England/Uruguay/Costa Rica: 15
Germany/Portugal/Ghana/USA: 15.25
Spain’s and Uruguay’s numbers dropped pretty heavily after their upsets. Group G now looking pretty well contested for the 2nd spot given POR injuries and suspension, BUT recent WC history favors Ghana to come up big on defense and countering, and unlike Portugal not relying on one dude.
Who knows which USMNT team are showing up, really? Our defensive problems haven’t been solved but at least Bornstein and Clark and a handful of injured players are not on the roster. /handwringing
scav
@Amir Khalid: Watching the bored Guard liveblogger bait Americans over poor beer is more amusing.
Amir Khalid
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
FIFA should make it an illegal tactic to park the bus. I’m serious.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Amen, bro’.
⚽️ Martin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): That might be the US’s best strategy as well. If they can beat Ghana today, and make sure they stay close to Germany, then they can play Portugal to a draw and get out of the group on goal differential.
Steeplejack
Alexi Lalas with short hair looks like Michael Palin’s long-lost nephew.
Steeplejack
@Paula:
Thank you! I am a simple man with simple needs, and all I wanted was a list I could give a quick look-see to get an idea of the match-up. This will do nicely.
I follow the English Premier League fairly closely, the national teams not so much, especially outside the top 10 or so.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
Hoo boy, I dunno. There are situations- such as Martin points out at #25- where I think it’s respectable to play for a point. But in this situation, where Iran isn’t getting out of their group without a win in the group, it’s pretty shitty.
raven
@Steeplejack: Got the link downstream, thanks.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
When Lalas had long hair, I remember an English football commentator saying he looked like Catweazle.
raven
@Amir Khalid: The should also make it illegal to show video of the damn busses arriving at the stadium. It’s so stupid.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Cool. “Daddy, we won!” Ouch, but hard to stay mad at that. Other relatives, neighbors, friends and dickhead coworkers, no jury would convict on a manslaughter charge.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Heh. The short hair is a much better look for him.
beltane
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, my mother just sent me a link to a NYT piece that says the USA is at a disadvantage in soccer because Americans do not fake injuries like the pansies that inhabit the rest of the planet. I mean, if ever other country stopped with the drama queen act, the USA would totally win every World Cup. I guess this means that there are no divas in American professional sports.
raven
@Steeplejack: I went to “Steel Magnolia’s” and no one said a word. Of course there was no change in the game from when I left. If it had been some fabulous finish someone would have blurted it out!
My real problem these days is blending the use of the DVR and the damn computer. I tape a lot of games when I hit the hay at 10pm and if I hit Facebook or here before I watch I am in danger.
beltane
@scav: Yes, his insistence that we all drink Coors Light is becoming grating.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:
The ranking system would work well if only UEFA and CONEMBOL teams were involved. The problems come in when you include teams like Maldives and (sorry, Amir) Malaysia, who don’t play many highly ranked, competitive teams outside of their associations’ WC qualifiers (and not many in those qualifiers).
And even then, UEFA has the likes of Andorra and the Faeroe Islands, while CONCACAF has its Belizes and St. Kitts…
raven
@beltane: I like that! Frickin poosies,
raven
I wonder if most Iranian fans at the game are expats?
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Ha! Wonder what that usher meant by that. When I think of rowdy football fans, I think of England.
Go Nigeria!!
Steeplejack
@raven:
Yeah, and so many sites have “sidebar” snippets that can sneak up on you. I think I even ran into a spoiler once on my Weather.com page!
Amir Khalid
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Sigh. I remember when we had a somewhat respectable national team, in the days of 1970s heroes like goalkeeper “Spiderman” Aramugam, striker Mokhtar Dahari, and defender “The Taukeh [Boss]” Soh Chin Aun. I was but a wee lad, then …
raven
@Patricia Kayden: I dunno, lot of the dudes had the scarred faces, looked pretty rough. They let the Argentine’s jump all over so it was surely targeting. Maybe they were just Africans other than Nigerians.
They also really killed business here in Athens when they beat Brazil in the semi’s. I heard that there were 20,000 Brazilians in Miami that would have come for the final if they were in it. Actually the “business” for soccer was way oversold to the greedy locals who thought they were going to make a killing. People drove in for the games and left when they were over.
raven
@Steeplejack: the swines
Paula
Angela Merkel using those Chancellor privileges wisely:
https://twitter.com/RegSprecher/status/478612717428019201
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/06/podolski-selfie-angela-merkel-germany
MikeJ
@Fester Addams:
Bookmakers will tell you who the average bettor thinks will win. The odds are balanced against the action and the house wins no matter what. Often the crowd is right about who the favoured team are, but sentimentality, grudges, etc all play a role in setting the price and has nothing to do with who will win.
scav
@beltane: I took it as he’s really bored — that and there may have been some really hair-brained (see Politico flavored.) email arriving before the next game. The “Fifa” end just didn’t wag the dog as well.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@beltane:
I don’t think we’re alone in that, though. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall any of the teams from the British Isles taking many dives, or reacting theatrically to draw cards. Maybe we inherited that from them, along with the political theories.
raven
1996, Athens GA
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
You’ll be back some day. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
piratedan
Well until the US ties or beats Ghana, then maybe I’ll believe. Are the Portuguese potentially ripe for the picking? Perhaps, but the US squad sure aren’t the Germans. After their draw, would be happy if the US team simply doesn’t look completely outclassed.
Amir Khalid
From Auntie Beeb’s liveblog:
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Getting ready for work. I should have taken the day off…But I didn’t. My nephew is going to call me with updates on the US-Ghana game, but I need someone to stand in for me here (I’m thinking that’s you, raven) to say the following:
Don’t score too early!
Don’t hit the ball too well!
scav
@raven: “Tribal” scars? Handy variant of tattoos, easily misread. Even some of the older-gen (eg drawn more from elite-class) PHDs I knew had them.
Steeplejack
Jahan Bakhsh on for Iran! Now shit will get real!
Just kidding. This game is a snoozer. Checking to see if one of my favorite SpongeBob SquarePants episodes is on Nickelodeon.
raven
@scav: Yea, it wouldn’t seem like it would be a big deal to other Africans but I could be totally wrong about why the situation was like it was. I only talked to one usher.
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Aite!
Onkel Fritze
Based on this game, 2 teams that can’t leave the Cup soon enough.
beltane
@raven: The usher could have simply been biased against Nigerians or even against a particular ethnic group of Nigerians. My English aunt is like that with the French, always boycotting a brand of French cheese or variety of apple.
scav
@raven: Ah, well if we’re getting into elbowing between on-continent neighbors, all bets are off. The things the Nigerians say about the Togolese, let alone the Yoruba-Naija Yoruba-Ghana grumbles . . . .You’d think they were Minnesota and Baja Minnesota or something.
raven
@beltane: Yea, could be. It was just something I always remembered and I do know that there was obviously African ushers in that section.
It was really cool to see them win.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
And before I leave, US 2-0 (or 1) Ghana,
Bradley scores a cracker from just outside the box in the 35th minute. Wondo, subbing for Jozy, poaches one somewhere in the 80th-85th minute to break the tie or ice it.
raven
I thought whistling was booing in this sport?
This woman’s voice is annoying.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
The ESPN Radio guys are savaging Nigeria. They squarely put the blame for the depressing play on them and say that the Iranians played pretty well except for an inability to finish.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Yes. Nigerian fans (justifiably) unhappy about not getting a win.