Euro, Fester...How is this possible???

Van · Post by **Van** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:13 pm

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/s ... index.html

The U.S., ranked above France, Argentina, Germany and even Blighty???

In soccer??

There must be some mistake. FIFA, fix this shit, now.

The Seer · Post by **The Seer** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:18 pm

That's about as prestigious as being 5th in line for a Phyllis Diller gangbang.....

titlover · Post by **titlover** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:34 pm

The Seer wrote:That's about as prestigious as being 5th in line for a Phyllis Diller gangbang.....

you never know. she could suck a mean one.

~gag~

Uncle Fester · Post by **Uncle Fester** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:07 pm

U.S. soccer team??

There was one?

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:27 am

There is one, and apparently it's currently ranked fourth in the world, ahead of most of the world's traditional soccer powers...

Moreover, this is great news for...you. I could easily picture an "Uncle Fester...Dateline: London...U.S. surpasses Blighty, even on the soccer pitch!" story, replete with frantic Brits casting themselves into the Thames...

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:05 am

Hate all you want, unpatriotic fucks, but we definitely kick ass.

And we definitely are overrated. Dudes ... it's FIFA, a French acronym. And the same organization that gave Italy a "top" bid over us in the World Cup.

Most of you fucks don't know nor care of wtf I'm talking about, with the exception of Nish, so I won't explain it. Suffice to say, the U.S. got a shit draw in the World Cup because we weren't deemed in the "top six" at the time of the draw, months ago. So us being ranked "Fourth" by FIFA is their way of saying, "We fucked up," at best.

Btw, Van, why did you start this thread, outside of your "loyalty" to the Kings?

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:25 am

For the obvious reason: To get Fester to do another soccer post (if you never read his first one, man, it was one of the three or four best posts ever, by anyone, on any of these boards), and to get Euro to wade in and respond to another Fester soccer blast!

:-)

Also, truth be known, I've at least followed recent soccer events just enough to know that there's no fucking way in hell the U.S. should possibly be ranked fourth in the world. Does anybody really think that when push comes to shove the U.S. is better than everybody but Brazil, the Czechs and the Dutch??

What on earth criteria did FIFA use to come up with this ranking? The U.S. still hasn't beaten anybody worth a crap when it matters and they've gotten their asses well and truly kicked by the Usual Suspects whenever they've been paired against somebody like Germany...

Just don't see how FIFA came up with this one.

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:27 am

RadioFan wrote:but we definitely kick ass.

If by "we," you mean Uraguay, Italy, West Germany, Brazil, Argentina, England, or France...then sure, I'll buy that.

Otherwise, this "kicking of ass" is quite reminiscent of all the "asskicking" the Astros do.

Just sayin'.

Show off your hardware, or shut your mouth.

JCT · Post by **JCT** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:32 am

Soccer is really interesting.

Sincerely,

No, it's not.

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:41 am

Dinsdale wrote:Show off your hardware, or shut your mouth.

Absolutely. Which is why FIFA's ranking system is pandering, not to mention we haven't beat anybody to move up from No. 6 to No. 4.

And we did kick ass four years ago. Beat Portugal 3-2 in the first round, and it wasn't even that close, given we were up 3-0 by halftime, against the No. 1 ranked team in the world then.

We've made huge strides in the last two decades. But you have to remember that there have been soccer leagues in Europe and S. America that easily predate any sports leagues in this country by decades.

SunCoastSooner · Post by **SunCoastSooner** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:48 am

RadioFan wrote:Hate all you want, unpatriotic fucks, but we definitely kick ass.

And we definitely are overrated. Dudes ... it's FIFA, a French acronym. And the same organization that gave Italy a "top" bid over us in the World Cup.

Most of you fucks don't know nor care of wtf I'm talking about, with the exception of Nish, so I won't explain it. Suffice to say, the U.S. got a shit draw in the World Cup because we weren't deemed in the "top six" at the time of the draw, months ago. So us being ranked "Fourth" by FIFA is their way of saying, "We fucked up," at best.

Btw, Van, why did you start this thread, outside of your "loyalty" to the Kings?

Sin,

Germany 4 - Nil.

They didn't fvck up we are just overrated.

We aren't one of the top six teams in the world. Anyone who has watched our last five frendlies realizes this.

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:58 am

FIFA are desperate to get the US on board, which was the reason for The Travesty That Was The World Cup In 1994 That Everyone Who Holds Football Dear In Their Hearts Has Tried To Forget.

The rankings are another ludicrous idea by FIFA that is based on recent performance. Seeing as the USA play in CONCACAF, they have far easier games. And, as stated before, FIFA are gagging to open doors in America, which is stupid seeing as Asia is where the real money is.

Don't worry, the US got a very shitty draw and will probably be out of the World Cup by the group stage. Very nice shirts, though.

Risa · Post by **Risa** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:14 pm

Nishlord wrote:FIFA are desperate to get the US on board,

So they're behind the flood of Mexicans?

Uncle Fester · Post by **Uncle Fester** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 4:28 pm

Strangest thing about soccer games?

All of those vendors selling sleep apnea masks.

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:25 pm

Fester,

Don't take it out on me because you were disappointed to find out Man United was a team, and not a video.

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:33 pm

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:37 pm

Anyway, isn't it ironic that you're 4th in the world for proper football? Because you're not even that in baseball, basketball and hockey anymore...

Uncle Fester · Post by **Uncle Fester** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:00 pm

Fester,

Don't take it out on me because you were disappointed to find out Man United was a team, and not a video.

(After a quick Google search):
Only the dainty yet rugged sport of soccer could produce teams that go by names like "Man United" and "Man City."

So what do British soccer fans do when a player manages to kick the ball within 200 feet of the goal? Throw their pillows and sleeping bags up in the air?

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:10 pm

Uncle Fester wrote: (After a quick Google search)

And there we go. The man has run out of swings of his metaphorical handbag and has to do research to find the next limp-wristed mode of 'attack'.

Now if you'll excuse me, there are pints to be drunk. Good day, Sir.

Uncle Fester · Post by **Uncle Fester** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:37 pm

Speaking of Google...

From Bill Hutchison,
Your Guide to World Soccer.

FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

April 01, 2006
English Premier League :

No Joke - Chelsea Held at Birmingham:
English Premier League

Saturday, 01 April 2006
In a scrappy first half at St. Andrews, relegation threatened Birmingham held league leaders Chelsea to a goalless draw.

At times it was difficult to decide whether Birmingham were playing well or if Chelsea were playing badly - but Birmingham looked the team most likely to score.

Emile Heskey should have netted on at least three occasions - especially following a corner kick taken by Jermaine Pennant six minutes into the game.

The big Birmingham striker met Pennant's cross perfectly - but his header sailed way outside Petr Cech's far post.

Going in at the interval Birmingham coach Steve Bruce looked happier than Chelsea's Jose Mourinho

HT: 0:0
As expected Chelsea moved up a gear in the second half and within five minutes Asier Del Horner had the ball in the net - but the the flag had been raised for offside and the goal was correctly disallowed.

Same song five minutes later when Damien Duff slotted the ball past Maik Taylor only to have his effort ruled offside.

Birmingham chased and battled and held on.
A minute before full time, Hernan Crespo - with time and space in the box -drove what should have been the match winning shot for Chelsea straight at Taylor.

Birmingham deservedly won a precious point with - and the draw could ensure their Premiership survival.

Should they defeat Bolton next week in a catchup game - they will leapfrog over West Brom to haul themselves out of the red zone.

No wonder Steve Bruce blew his cheeks out in relief when he heard the final whistle.

English Premier League
Saturday, 01 April 2006
Final:
Birmingham 0:0 Chelsea
http://worldsoccer.about.com/b/a/257278.htm

Chelsea was holding Birmingham.
It didn't matter if one team played well and the other did not -- nobody could tell the difference.
The "scrappy battle" ended in a 0-0 tie.
Somebody named Steve Bruce blew his cheeks out in relief.

Sounds like your average game of soccer to me. :)

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:42 pm

<---------Getting happier by the minute here.

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:48 pm

Nishlord wrote:Anyway, isn't it ironic that you're 4th in the world for proper football? Because you're not even that in baseball, basketball and hockey anymore...

Get it right. Here in California it's called futbol.

Anyway, granted, your quip there is a perfectly funny and timely jab and all but let's not get all carried away here and lose sight of reality. Namely, the U.S. is still easily #1 in baseball and hoops. These stupid thrown together squads we field at these bogus "World Championships" in no way reflect the best of what we could field.

Let the San Antonio Spurs or the Detroit Pistons play as a unit in the Olympics or World Championships and it'd be an absolute wipe out. Same with any of our World Series winners.

We just aren't so dominant anymore that we can simply throw together a jaded all star team, give 'em a few weeks of bored prep time and then send 'em on their way to gold, the way we used to do...

In that respect, yes, the world is catching up.

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:04 pm

Van wrote:Let the San Antonio Spurs or the Detroit Pistons play as a unit in the Olympics or World Championships and it'd be an absolute wipe out. Same with any of our World Series winners.

The Spurs wouldn't be able to without their international players (Parker, Ginobili, and to a lesser extent Nesterovic, Oberto and Udrih). Detroit probably could though.

Agree about WS winners, depending on which team it was and how many international players would be off the roster.

Terry in Crapchester · Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:15 pm

Van wrote:the U.S. is still easily #1 in basketball and hoops.

Sorry, Van, couldn't let you off the hook without exposing that little gaffe. And yes, I venture a guess that you meant to type "baseball," but it seems these days that people aren't much inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Agree with your basic premise otherwise, though, subject to the caveats RF mentioned.

Oh, and btw, Euro, I'll let you in on a little secret: the U.S. never was #1 in hockey.

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:25 pm

Terry in Crapchester wrote:
Van wrote:the U.S. is still easily #1 in basketball and hoops.
Sorry, Van, couldn't let you off the hook without exposing that little gaffe. And yes, I venture a guess that you meant to type "baseball," but it seems these days that people aren't much inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Agree with your basic premise otherwise, though, subject to the caveats RF mentioned.

Oh, and btw, Euro, I'll let you in on a little secret: the U.S. never was #1 in hockey.

100% God's honest truth...

I just re-read my post, caught the gaffe and then edited it. I then looked through the subsequent posts after the page refreshed and there was this post from you, correcting mine! Doh!

:-)

RF is certainly correct about the foreign influence in our major sports but the difference is simple: Our international teams are made up of jaded pros who often times as not consider it an inconvenience to represent their country in international play.

Their opponents are frothing at the mouth to take down our bored all star teams.

Now, if we were to use cohesive units from our professional teams, yeah, things would be different. The Spurs wouldn't cut it, obviously, if Duncan, Ginobili and Parker all went home to play for their respective national teams. The Pistons? They'd roll against some Argentinian or Serbian all star team...

Baseball? Yeah, that'd be tough. Far too many non U.S. players on far too many teams. Again, it comes back to bored U.S. players in the false role of Goliath facing off against a shitload of highly motivated and U.S. trained and employed Davids...

Uncle Fester · Post by **Uncle Fester** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:32 pm

Man-U fan gets geared up for the big game...

Terry in Crapchester · Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:39 pm

Van,

I agree, but all one needs is just the smallest bit of historical perspective to gather how quickly the rest of the world has closed the gap.

I'm old enough to remember, and I'm sure you are too, the days when we could cobble together a team of college all-stars and basically name the score in Olympic basketball. In fact, IIRC prior to 1988 the U.S. lost only one game in Olympic history, that due to some rather questionable practices of the game clock official at the 1972 Munich games. And we used exclusively collegians through 1988.

Even in 1992 the U.S. mopped the floor with the competition with the Dream Team. Of course, the leaders of that team -- Magic, Larry and Michael -- were made of different stuff, mentally moreso than physically, than are the players who get selected today.

Van · Post by **Van** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:51 pm

Yep. Remember, we're the same age, you and I, so we're both just a couple of bitter old white dudes who remember how things were back in our day...

Luther · Post by **Luther** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:17 pm

So this is how it's going to be huh, Mace? You know Lil Luth played soccer since she was high as my kneecap. You know I've related stories of just sitting in my Oldsmobubble down by the Willamette River, smoking a cigar, drinking a can of PBR and watching guys fish for salmon.

And here it is 4:15 PM on the left coast, and I just awoke from a two hour nap.

Rip City

Derron · Post by **Derron** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:31 pm

You know I've related stories of just sitting in my Oldsmobubble down by the Willamette River, smoking a cigar, drinking a can of PBR and watching guys fish for salmon.

I thought those were the old perverts that always got arrested there at Meldrum Bar ....

Derron · Post by **Derron** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:36 pm

just so you could hit on all of the hottie soccer moms.

Hmmmm.. we seem to have some disconjointed statemtns here..let me see if I can straighten this out.....

just sitting in my Oldsmobubble down by

the soccer field

smoking a cigar, drinking a can of PBR

watching guys fish for

hottie soccer moms.

There... I believe that ties it all together correctly....

Then Mace replies

Hell, I'd rather take a good shit than watch hottie soccer moms.

Fuck... I am so funny on Fridays..... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:01 pm

Uncle Fester wrote: Chelsea was holding Birmingham.
It didn't matter if one team played well and the other did not -- nobody could tell the difference.
The "scrappy battle" ended in a 0-0 tie.
Somebody named Steve Bruce blew his cheeks out in relief.

Sounds like your average game of soccer to me. :)

I know. Those two 'franchises' should have got some skanks to act out paedophialiac fantasies, given away some bobbleheads, had more breaks in the game so people could ram fried things down their gullets, got the local air force to intimidate the crowd, and all those other things American sports teams do to distract people from finding out that a tall black man putting a ball through a hoop or someone with Dynasty shoulders jamming his hand against someone elses prostate gland gets terribly boring after 30 seconds.

In any case, anyone who knows about football would be able to tell you that that game was a massive victory for Birmingham, seeing as Chelsea are the richest club in the world and owned by a Russian petrobillionaire and are coasting to the Premiership, while Birmingham are fucking awful and owned by a Porn king. Maybe there weren't enough stats for you to truly enjoy the game, Fes.

8 out of 10 people across the entire world will be watching the World Cup. And when I say 'watching', I mean actually watching the game, and not flicking onto it to watch a halftime show. And please don't give me this 'We don't care what other countries think' bullshit - the WLAF and NFL Europe showed the desperation of the NFL to expand globally, and the NBA were confidentally predicting in the late 80s that they would have franchises in Paris, Milan and Tel Aviv by now.

I mean, I love American sports, but to compare the Super Bowl, March Madness and the World Series to the World Cup is like comparing shutyomouth to Hendrix.

Van · Post by **Van** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:18 pm

Still though...

0-0??

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:48 pm

what he^^^ said. i don't care how fugging epcot it is for the underdog, nil to nil means that basically, all that happened is a bunch of blokes worked up a good sweat. nothing more.

something needs to happen to liven these fukking stalemates up. and i don't mean really bad halftime shows. i think that futebol needs to reconsider the no substitution role. yeah, i know they can sub, but, once subbed for, yer out. if everybody in a basketball game had to sit the rest of the game out after a break, it would suck. i realize that baseball has a similar rule, but, then again, the average baseball player expells about as much energy during a game as a fukking bowler does. actually. a bowler probably burns more calories than a right fielder.

nish, is this even a topic for discussion amongst the proper *snicker* football community? if i wanna see endurance, i'll watch tour de fag or the kenyan errrrrr boston marathon.

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:03 pm

Van wrote:For the obvious reason: To get Fester to do another soccer post (if you never read his first one, man, it was one of the three or four best posts ever, by anyone, on any of these boards), and to get Euro to wade in and respond to another Fester soccer blast!

a single thread isn't big enough for the fester/euro soccer debate. i think there needs to be a euro/fester sahhkah forum.

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:57 pm

Van wrote:Still though...

0-0??

Yeah. No more ludicrous a score than 104-98.

Van · Post by **Van** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:33 pm

Except that with 104-98 you actually saw something happen. You probably witnessed a lot of offensive execution to go along with some great defensive plays. You probably also saw some lead changes and maybe even a bit of real drama.

0-0 is like watching two smart people playing tic-tack-toe. The game is obviously too easy for the defense.

Uncle Fester · Post by **Uncle Fester** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:45 pm

Soccer is the Stewart Smalley of the sports world:

It's good enough,
It's interesting enough,
and doggone it...people like it.

Nishlord · Post by **Nishlord** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:04 pm

Van wrote:Except that with 104-98 you actually saw something happen. You probably witnessed a lot of offensive execution to go along with some great defensive plays. You probably also saw some lead changes and maybe even a bit of real drama.

0-0 is like watching two smart people playing tic-tack-toe. The game is obviously too easy for the defense.

No, you saw some big lads showing off. Anyone whose first reaction to a ball is to bounce it with their hands instead of kicking the bastard is basically wiping his cock upon the face of God.

Van · Post by **Van** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:15 pm

Anybody who's first reaction to a ball flying directly at them is to to concave their chest or use their forehead to make the play rather than simply use their hands is basically a guy stuck on the middle rung of the evolutionary ladder who didn't make the cut for Cirque Du Soleil.

Face it, Euro, if neither team is able to score at all then the game is biased far too much to the defense.