Does anyone want to hazard a guess here? I say Ecuador, especially now that Wilson Palacions won’t be around.
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by Randinho| 59 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Does anyone want to hazard a guess here? I say Ecuador, especially now that Wilson Palacions won’t be around.
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Morzer
I think it might be a game like Iran/Nigeria that just saps the will to live of those watching.
Ecuador will probably just about steal the game 1-0.
MattR
Was listening to ESPN’s discussion about FIFA having to figure out a way to deal with concussions. What do you think about adopting a rule where there is an independent (and neutral) doctor on hand to make that decision and any substitution resulting from a head injury would not count against the three that a team is limited to?
As for the game 2-1 or 3-1 Ecuador (EDIT: I am admittedly optomistic about the amount of scoring, but it has been a good world cup for goals so far)
scav
@MattR: Didn’t I hear that they — meaning WC — have a Fifa Dr. that can overrule the team doctors? Do you mean expanding that? No idea as to game either, so more colorful flag wins.
? Martin
Speaking of Honduras:
So, a city the size of Daytona Beach, comprised of nothing but kids, crossing the border this year. This is the humanitarian crisis that Obama just declared. And will anything be done about immigration policy? Nope, because negro in the White House. Some of the kids coming across the border are to young to tell officials who their parents are. Their parents are ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ and they live ‘at home’. There’s effectively no possible way to get some of them back to their parents unless the parents show up and start asking for them.
mali muso
I vote for the team with the kits that match their flag. Vamos Ecuador!
MattR
@scav: Apparently not. Yesterday a Uruguyan player was knocked out by a knee to the head and was able to overrule the team doctor’s desire for him to be substituted and instead returned to the field for the last 30 minutes of the game. If there was a FIFA doctor on hand, he utterly failed in his duties.
? Martin
@MattR: I think that’s a good policy. Formula One has something like that, with the head of the medical team also helping to set safety policy. It would come down to the same corruption accusations. Could you bribe the doctor to keep Ronaldo out of a game if he went down? In F1, everyone knew and trusted Sid – it was a small community. FIFA is huge, and you need as many doctors as head refs.
? Martin
Man, Honduras looks like shit out there.
Morzer
@? Martin:
They couldn’t even score against England, so how they are supposed to do so against a real team like Ecuador?
scav
@MattR: Ouch. Wonder what it was I heard then. My heads a little over-full with trying to cram all this new stuff into it. Having figured out tiki-taka-taco-tico pinky-winky, I put a brief nose into total football and then was so foolish as to look at the positions and all those codes and shapes . . . . Colorful flag–food-and-random-based appreciation it’s going to be for a bit longer.
Calouste
@Morzer: Say that again?
scav
oh those gods . . .
Morzer
@Calouste:
Just testing my “Amir Khalid is not the only god” hypothesis.
Successfully, too.
UPDATED: Possibly too successfully.
MattR
@? Martin: Not sure how the possibility of corruption could slip my mind when talking about FIFA. I was more thinking about teams faking a head injury to get a free substitution. You probably wouldn’t need as many doctors as refs at tournaments because the doctors should be able to cover more games (they don’t have a strenuous job so they don’t need recovery time and you shouldn’t have the same degree of being assigned future games based on good work in the previous one). But it would still be a significant number (maybe 8-12 for the World Cup compared with about 30 head referees) and it would still be a potential issue for other games.
@scav: Maybe you heard someone talking about the way it should be? If you really want to dive into the World Cup, check out this website.
scav
butterflies must be dropping everywhere like, well, exhausted dead butterflies from all their flapping at this point.
kindness
TGIF. Need to blow off some stress. Planning a bottle of red wine with friends down at the Berkeley marina. Watch the people fly their acrobatic kites and kick back and enjoy.
scav
@MattR: Yoikes! who needs sleep anyway! bookmarked.
raven
@MattR: Holy smokes!
mali muso
NPR story about the prevalence of players from one small province of Ecuador playing on the national team. Only 7% of Ecuadorians are of African descent but as you can see on the pitch, they make up a majority of the talent.
raven
Que Pasa?
Patricia Kayden
McAuliffe is going to bypass lawmakers and expand Medicaid (saw the story on The Obama Diary). So glad to hear this!!
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140620/NEWS/306209938/va-governor-to-bypass-lawmakers-expand-medicaid
Onkel Fritze
@Patricia Kayden: Impeach! Impeach!
scav
@raven: El Cóndor?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@raven: @scav: ¡No Pasarán!
MattR
@mali muso: Reminds me of this story about a group of Thai children who built themselves a wooden field on the water after watching the 1986 World Cup and went on to become one of the top youth teams in the country.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Is that a statement or a battlecry?
raven
What is the damn ESPN WC song they play in and out of breaks?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Morzer: Floor wax and dessert topping,
James E. Powell
Yo no tengo un perro en esta lucha
James E. Powell
@mali muso:
African-America percentage in the United States is about 13%
In the NBA 76% – In the NFL 66%
scav
@James E. Powell: In light of the above ravens and condors plus earlier slow-thread foodstuffs, I can’t but read this as you’re not eating a parrot for lunch.
Onkel Fritze
@scav: No, I think he’s struggling with a Hot Dog.
Morzer
@James E. Powell:
For the pen of my aunt is bigger than the elephant of my grandfather.
Burnspbesq
That was waaaaay too easy for Ecuador.
Morzer
MattR’s prediction is looking good.
scav
@Onkel Fritze: Well, that would be far less amusing, unless I leap to his leaving a hot dog in the lurch, or maybe a tangoing deep backbend with said hotdog.
Burnspbesq
Honduras typically looks like they care more about fucking you up than beating you on the scoreboard. If Costly had been born in the USA, he would have ended up playing linebacker.
Morzer
Fricksen Erazo would make a wonderful name for a bounty hunter. Much better than Boba Fett.
mali muso
Can’t figure out how to reply directly on ipad. One of the things mentioned in the story was the poverty in that province and how soccer was one ticket out. Perhaps not unlike sports can be here as well.
Is it just me or is this match turning into a free for all?
WaterGirl
oops, wrong thread.
um, go team!
raven
@Burnspbesq: Marley had a son that was a linebacker at Miami.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
ED Kain, Freddie de Boer… oh the heart beats faster at the possibilities!
raven
@mali muso: It’s also interesting that futbol is pretty much middle class here in the US and not so in the rest of the world.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: Oh ye of little faith!
NoneNeither of them stayed, but we still have Betty Cracker! :-)raven
Oops, I just realized I was 10 minutes behind ya”ll on account of the DVR!
kindness
@James E. Powell: nepotism for black folk doesn’t have the same benefits. That too will change over time.
Morzer
@raven:
Well, DougJ ran off with the beautiful Latina from the recording studio, John is heartbroken and Betty Cracker is driving towards West Virginia in an attempt to stop him from…
Oh, you meant the soccer!
mali muso
Yeah, raven, that is interesting. Maybe accounts a bit for why we are not as good in futball?
Ok the ref has overlooked some egregious behavior from Costly again. No card?
HumboldtBlue
You guys are still watching soccer?
raven
@HumboldtBlue: Is a bullfrog waterproof?
Schlemizel
@raven:
No money in futbol here. If you are a poor kid with not-good prospects you focus on basketball, football or maybe baseball. If you are comfortable & see a career in business you piddle around on the grass with your peers.
EDIT: which is why futbol is still a ways from an actual breakthrough here. When kids start signing 10 year $250million contracts to play for the Cleveland Kickers or Boston Booters you will see those asphalt courts turned into turf & serious competition.
raven
@Schlemizel: I’m down.
HumboldtBlue
@mali muso: It’s more than that, it’s the organic nature of soccer in other nations as opposed to the US. We have millions of young athletes playing football, basketball and baseball at colleges and universities across the land, we don’t grow soccer players naturally because of the focus on the other sports, all of which we invented or greatly changed and adapted (football).
It’s not the poverty that makes the game the international sport, it’s the accessibility and the pervasiveness of the sport. Poverty does play its role just as the drive to escape poverty plays a huge role here in the US as well.
Sports is identical to the arts in many ways because it is part skill and part science and part sheer artistry and human inventiveness. We have more than enough athletes to compete at the highest levels of soccer but it will take a massive change in attitude before that happens.
HumboldtBlue
@raven: Smartass, I was typing out “yes” when I realized the snark.
Schlemizel
@raven:
I say that a lot but I think you mean something different than I do!
mali muso
Yeah I wouldn’t disagree with your assessment. Having grown up in Southeast Asia and lived in Africa, I have certainly seen how ubiquitous soccer is in most places outside the USA. And it doesn’t take any fancy equipment. I used to see kids playing in the street with a homemade ball made up of wadded trash.
As much as I would like to see us improve our game, I don’t see it happening anytime soon. And that’s ok too. Maybe it is good for us to be middling to average at something and not always “the best”. We are already arrogant enough as it is. :)
HumboldtBlue
And if you want some more good coverage, Deadspin is doing a great job covering the WC, their collections of the home nation goal calls are simply perfect, particularly Colombia
Walker
OT:
Major crash here in Ithaca. It looks like it has destabilised a 135 year old building on the Commons.
WaterGirl
@Walker: One minute you’re eating dinner in a restaurant, the next you’re dead or in the hospital. Life is so fragile.