2006 World Cup

I only get it on the Spanish-language channel because I don't have cable. It's kinda funny to watch. "<gibber gibber gibber>! <gibber gibber gibber>! <gibber>! <gibber>! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!"
 
jtg3885 said:
I only get it on the Spanish-language channel because I don't have cable. It's kinda funny to watch. "<gibber gibber gibber>! <gibber gibber gibber>! <gibber>! <gibber>! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!"
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You've officially lived every comedians soccer joke.
 
MaxwellSmart said:
jtg3885 said:
I only get it on the Spanish-language channel because I don't have cable. It's kinda funny to watch. "<gibber gibber gibber>! <gibber gibber gibber>! <gibber>! <gibber>! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!"
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You've officially lived every comedians soccer joke.
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I'm just glad that my ex-girlfriend doesn't have that kind of lung capacity, or she would have complained me to death roughly a week into things...
 
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Hey, I think one of our members is playing in the World Cup. I just saw South Korea score a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL against TOG.
 
I just heard last night that the US was ranked number 5 by FIFA. That's not bad I mean we still got spanked, but we're not that bad of a team overall.
 
MaxwellSmart said:
I just heard last night that the US was ranked number 5 by FIFA. That's not bad I mean we still got spanked, but we're not that bad of a team overall.
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as much as those rankings are a joke (they use a computer system that doesn't really work), and as much as we got killed, we've moved up into "good team" territory. teams don't really want to play us like they did back in the day. i'd say we're a second tier team, which is good. in the middle of the second tier, maybe top 13 in the world.
 
MaxwellSmart said:
I just heard last night that the US was ranked number 5 by FIFA. That's not bad I mean we still got spanked, but we're not that bad of a team overall.
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I'm not perfectly fluent with the ranking, but I think this mostly has to do with the fact the US team finished first of its zone as defined by the FIFA World Cup.

Fact one : It is the weakest zone in the world. North America has teams like Canada, Panama, Jamaica...

Compare that to South America or the two european zones... Even Asia is a lot better nowadays and there are plenty of good African teams.

Fact two : That zone still has Mexico.

So the bottom line is that you have to take the ranking with a grain of salt because US is operating in the weakest zone. But it still means US finished ahead of Mexico which has a decent team.

Remember though that US is given 100/1 by gambling site while strong team are given 15/1 or less. That's a better indication of the US standing as a middle of the pack team. Still, not a team to be ashamed of, far from it.

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Brazil 1-0 against Croatia. You know what, Brazil has close to 200 millions of population. As good as their national team is, you gotta admit that Europeans team can produce world class teams with a much smaller base of players. How many soccer players do they have in Croatia?

Anyway, Brazil needs much more convincing victories in their next two games in order to build their confidence and also to avoid giving confidence to the other teams. Croatia is a tough little team and has done surprisingly well in recent world cups but there are tougher teams out there. England and Germany have duly taken notes.

France 0-0 against Switzerland. Come on! I'm sure they'll beat Togo but so will everybody else so now they will probably need to score at least a draw against Korea to insure finishing in the top 2. The Korean are not that easy. France has needlessly complicated its way to the next round. The Swiss are far from Easy, but as a major team France needed to take this one. Especially if they want to prevent a repeat of 2002, which was incredibly embarassing after 1998.
 
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I'm just going to be sad when it ends and I no longer can hear the Spanish guy scream "¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!"
 
iceman said:
as much as those rankings are a joke (they use a computer system that doesn't really work)
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What's this about the BCS?
 
ESPN(2) have noted a 197% increase in their average world cup rating.

The first game of the of the US team was watched by 2,2 millions viewers. Yeah, yeah, not the Superbowl but not bad, eh?

I'm guessing the challenge of ESPN would be to gain some of the latino audience because about 5 millions american viewer saw the Mexico match on something called Univision (which I assume from the article I read is a spanish language chanel boradcasting in the US).

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I saw the first half of Argentina - Serbia. Final score 6 -0. They destroyed them! You gotta take Argentina seriously for the second phase, as they are now qualified. The second goal was an incredible team effort and will no doubt find a place in retrospectives as one of the most beautiful goal of the World cup.

Netherland beat Ivory Coast 2-1. Hard fought but it looks like no African team will make it to the quarter finals this time around.
 
Football?

This ain't football!

Where's the helmets?

Where's the funny looking ball?

Why are my fellow Americans hiding in Rammstein?

Why are beautiful women running around nekked and kissing each other over this nonsense?

Just some of the questions running through my mind as I again, for the 38th time, try to understand why SOCCER is so damn big in the rest of the world and is only played by 12 year olds here (ushered around by Moms in Mini-vans) in the States.

heh heh heh.

No offence intended to those hardcore football fans out there. But I couldn't resist the urge to take my life into my hands.
 
E.Vi.L. said:
The first game of the of the US team was watched by 2,2 millions viewers. Yeah, yeah, not the Superbowl but not bad, eh?
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Not bad? That's terrible. Shows like that get cancelled within 2 episodes.
 
Ice said:
Not bad? That's terrible. Shows like that get cancelled within 2 episodes.
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Not if it dominates the rest of the world's television screens. :wink:

And BTW, it's an event, not a TV episode.
 
Ice said:
Not bad? That's terrible. Shows like that get cancelled within 2 episodes.
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For ABC or NBS, yes. But Ice, ESPN is cable. It's not one of the major network. For cable, it's pretty good. By comparison, the top 10 shows on cable for the week of june 5 had a 3.7 million viewers for show #10 (Hannah Montana on DSNY if you must know). So 2.2 Millions is nothing to be ashamed of. I'd wouldn't be surprised if the final edged its way in the top 10.

2.2 millions is a big increase over 2002 and we can expect the final to be substantially higher. ESPSN has secured further rights to major soccer tournament as late as 2011 (Women's World Cup) which means they believe there is money to be made. Soccer is doing okay an will keep doing better in the US. You have to realize that there are now more latinos and than african americans in the state. They prefer soccer to football. Lots of immigrant in this country and in most case soccer is their sport of choice. And all these soccer moms with the their soccer kids... these kids won't suddenly revert to baseball when they grow older. So yeah, the World Cup 2006 will do okay and watchout for 2010. I'd lay down good money that by 2052 the World cup will be bigger in the US than the Superbowl.

*sigh*

It's amazing how often, as a Canadian, I've had to explain to Americans how things work in their country.

:lol: Kidding. Peace.
 
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E.Vi.L. said:
For ABC or NBS, yes. But Ice, ESPN is cable. It's not one of the major network. For cable, it's pretty good. By comparison, the top 10 for june for cable shows ended at 3.7 million (Hannah Montana on DSNY as #10, if you must know). So 2.2 Millions is nothing to be ashamed of.

2.2 millions is a big increase over 2002 and we can expect the final to be substantially higher. ESPSN has secured further rights to major soccer tournament as late as 2011 (Women's World Cup) which means they believe there is money to be made. Soccer is doing okay an will keep doing better in the US. You have to realize that there are now more latinos and than african americans in the state. They prefer soccer to football. Lots of immigrant in this country and in most case soccer is their sport of choice.

*sigh*

It's amazing how often, as a Canadian, I've had to explain to americans how things work in their country.

:lol: Kidding. Peace.
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It's still not good ratings here. :?

I was just using shows getting cancelled with those ratings as an example on how bad ratings like that is. :?
 
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