The Bobcat Nation

Chester personally can't wait until his defending World Champions Italy take the pitch on monday the 14th!! His is still breaking down tape, talking with some managers and reviewing the injury reports so he will not be able to give you his pick to win it all until later in the week.

So who else in BN has WC fever?? thoughts? picks?

chester Spartanpot wrote:Chester personally can't wait until his defending World Champions Italy take the pitch on monday the 14th!! His is still breaking down tape, talking with some managers and reviewing the injury reports so he will not be able to give you his pick to win it all until later in the week.

So who else in BN has WC fever?? thoughts? picks?

This is a sports board, so i dont know what you are talking about

I went to a soccer match once and fell asleep for 2 hours. Turns out I didn't miss anything!

And all along I thought this was BelgradeBobcat.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation ... ble,17553/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

chester Spartanpot wrote:Chester personally can't wait until his defending World Champions Italy take the pitch on monday the 14th!! His is still breaking down tape, talking with some managers and reviewing the injury reports so he will not be able to give you his pick to win it all until later in the week.

So who else in BN has WC fever?? thoughts? picks?

I do. Germany is looking good. England will get blown out. Italy is tough as ever. What do you think about start up teams? Who's your underdog pick?

I think it's the most boring sport on the planet. With that said, I don't think there's a sport that has more passionate fans. Peeps go crazy over soccer.

I'm kinda blase over the whole thing. I don't dislike soccer, but I don't really follow it. I saw a rugby scrum on FSN a couple weeks ago - that is an interesting sport that I'd like to understand a bit more.

cats2506 wrote: This is a sports board, so i dont know what you are talking about

you understanding what i'm talking about is not limited to just sports.

gtapp wrote:I went to a soccer match once and fell asleep for 2 hours. Turns out I didn't miss anything!

funny, the same thing happened to me when the Bobcats rolled into East Lansing last season.

BigBruceBaker wrote: I do. Germany is looking good. England will get blown out. Italy is tough as ever. What do you think about start up teams? Who's your underdog pick?

wow... i don't know if we could be further apart. Germany is kind of a mystery to me. they have an easy group, then they will play Algeria (or the US) in the round of 16... so they should advance to the quarters where they will likely meet up with argentina and lose.
england also has an EASY (England, Algeria, Slovenia & the Yanks) group. Ferdinand is out but they called up Dawson from Tottenham to replace him. they will face either mexico or france in the R16 which could give them problems, but they'll get to the quarters (unless they go to PKs in the R16 ).
Italy is not tough this year at all... Lippi stayed loyal to the order guard that won him the title in '06 and the old ones he took did not included Del Piero or Totti who are the best of the old farts. They are slow and uninspiring. I don't know if Gilardino can score constantly up front... Di Natale is going to have to have a big tourney. Not to mention their usually staunch defense (only gave up an own goal and a pk in WC'06) is almost pathetic. But once again, their group is easy and will probably see Cameroon (top ranked african side) in the R16, if they win, it will set up a grudge match with a loaded Spain.

this is the year an African side may do pretty well, they have all improved but some have key injuries (see ivory coast with drogba). the other problem is, none will win a group which means they will be up against a group winner to get to the quarters. if that happens, Chesters guess is Cameroon will be that team (that has a lot to do with his little faith in italy this year).
As far as the underdog... Chester is going with Mexico.

He has yet to decide on a winner

CapitalCityCat wrote:And all along I thought this was BelgradeBobcat.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation ... ble,17553/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah-that's me.

After team USA leaves the tourney (I have a feeling we're going to underachieve in a pretty easy group) I go full on for Holland. This is the Dutch's year...after all they settled South Africa-it'll be like home games for them.

In reality-Brazil will probably win-and if they could field two teams they'd finish 1 & 2.

Argentina has some scarey good players. If they get it together they'll be tough.

It's in the Southern Hemisphere so-even more reason to favor a South American team.

I am not a soccer fan, but I do enjoy the World Cup.

However, I'm watching Uruguay vs. France right now....while I'm "working" , and the buzzing noise from the fans is really bad.
Soccer is hard enough to watch, now it's hard to listen to.

Billings_Griz wrote:I think it's the most boring sport on the planet. With that said, I don't think there's a sport that has more passionate fans. Peeps go crazy over soccer.

And I thought GOLF was the most boring sport on the planet At least to watch.....

ha. i'm currently going back and forth between the world cup and the pga! i'm in the minority but i can watch a golf tourney start to finish.

First 2 games in the books...0-0 and 1-1. Two games down and no winners yet.

no one's a winner in soccer

catamaran wrote:no one's a winner in soccer

Yes....but more importantly, no one is a loser in soccer.......which is why the world loves it, and we don't.

I will admit that I will watch most of the games this weekend. But 2 goals in 3 hours of play sounds alot like baseball to me.

The first game today between South Africa and Mexico was quite entertaining - some great goals but also some great goalkeeping and surprisingly correct officiating (for once). The France vs. Uruguay game was horrid, but most games should be better than that. The big one between England and the USA is tomorrow! And I'm sure we'll all be getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to watch Greece play South Korea. Right? RIGHT?

Draws are very important in a tournament like the World Cup. They can be tremendously dramatic. The USA drew 1-1 with England-that's huge! It gives us one point against the group favorites. If we can manage a win in one of the next two we'll have four points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw). That got us through to the knock out rounds in 2002 where we went on the beat Mexico. If you watch just one game-a draw is unfullfilling, but in the context of the whole tournament it adds to the drama.

The US was lucky-but we've had more than our share of bad luck in this tournament so I'll take it. England probably is on national suicide watch right now-this is like our basketball team losing to England-it just shouldn't happen-ever.

Our next game is scarey-we generally suck against Eastern European teams. Slovenia is the smallest country in the tournament-but they beat our Russia to get here so they're no pushover.

This may be the best sports headline since



Also, I was watching another soccer broadcast later in the day, and the color commentator called Robert Green (the English keeper) the Bill Buckner of soccer.