y va marquer wrote:

@ GF Thierry's got to play MLS and Seedorf's got business to attend to in Milan.
The only good reason for watching BBC coverage goes with them 🙁

Damnit! Henry's punditry's been great, I love how frustrated he gets when he doesn't agree with one of the others. Savage must be relieved.

[quote='Grimandi's Foreskin' pid='455799' dateline='1403462326']

y va marquer wrote:

@ GF Thierry's got to play MLS and Seedorf's got business to attend to in Milan.
The only good reason for watching BBC coverage goes with them 🙁

Damnit! Henry's punditry's been great, I love how frustrated he gets when he doesn't agree with one of the others. Savage must be relieved.
[/quote]

Thierry improved with games, I thought he was a little bit boring initially.
Savage is diabolical.

Yeah he hasn't said much of real value, but he's charismatic and clearly watches enough football to know all the players well. He's obviously the sort of guy who will never leave the game, expect he'll be a manager pretty quickly after retiring.

Yeah, he seemed well fed about having to leave while the WC was going on too.

Seedorf has been the star.
Typically opinionated Dutchman who clearly knows his stuff, articulates it well and never follows the crowd. The other day Henry started backing down after lineker and shearer/hansen ganged up on him but Seedorf resolutely took up Henry's point and the others backed down.

Not sure which team to support though i'm liking the mutual shitty defending.

I find it hard to get into games when I'm not willing one team to win, or when I don't have a reason for badly wanting one of them to lose.
Somebody here needs to start playing some great stuff, or commit a crime against football or something.

Lukaku's bang average

LOL Slimani channeling Diego.

The introduction said that Algeria has scored more from long balls than any other country in the qualfiers, that first goal was well worked.

What the hell? I was expecting a boring 0-0 so I decided to skip the game.

Korean defense is just physically dominated by the Algerian striker. Midfield has been sloppy and Korean wide players are just dribbling into cul de sacs constantly

happy for my algerian pals - they've been impressive today and were decent enough against the Belgians.

Nela wrote:

What the hell? I was expecting a boring 0-0 so I decided to skip the game.

You can't do that Nela, what makes football and in particular the World cup so addictive is everyone has an opinion but no one really knows what will happen.

Thats why football is a metaphor for life.

That's true. 🙂

Although I'm still glad I skipped Nigeria-Iran the other day.

For all the talk about technique heat and pace, this Algerian team are Jack Charltons Rep of Ireland- They are destroying Sth Korea by out running out muscling them with long balls and set pieces. 😆

Dont think Korea expected the hard approach from Algeria , physically dominated in that half

No cuppa or slice of orange then.....

Ki Sung Yong oozes class. Such a great player

Ooo. Enough time in 19 ish minutes for another two for Korea?

Great game of football, Korea probably could have scored 2 more to equalise with abit of luck.

African teams doing well.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Would love see an African team win it this year

Won't happen. Think only the Ivory Coast and Algeria will go through to the next round.

Nigeria have a good chance and to a lesser extent Ghana.

Great game and what a performance from Algeria.

I never got the whole Beigum as a favourite thing. They have a lot of well known players because most of them play in the most watched league, but when you actually look at them they all play for Spurs and Everton. Even the United player was an Everton player his whole career until the last season which was the worst he's had, and one of the Chelsea players has spent his career loaned out at West Brom and Everton. Aside from Kompany and Hazard (and Vermalen although he's third choie for us) noone else is really a big name or plays for one of the big clubs. If they all played in La Liga for equivalent clubs like Villareal or Valencia noone would be rating them as highly.

Think they'll get battered in the next round.

I think what matters is team cohesion more than what teams people play for, evidenced by the numerous "top" teams who have crashed out. I think Belgium play well together and have good team spirit from my limited viewings of them.

invisibleman18 wrote:

Great game and what a performance from Algeria.

I never got the whole Beigum as a favourite thing. They have a lot of well known players because most of them play in the most watched league, but when you actually look at them they all play for Spurs and Everton. Even the United player was an Everton player his whole career until the last season which was the worst he's had, and one of the Chelsea players has spent his career loaned out at West Brom and Everton. Aside from Kompany and Hazard (and Vermalen although he's third choie for us) noone else is really a big name or plays for one of the big clubs. If they all played in La Liga for equivalent clubs like Villareal or Valencia noone would be rating them as highly.

Think they'll get battered in the next round.

Courtois, Kompany and Hazard are world class. Mertens, Witsel, Lukaku and de Bruyne are very good players. They also have plenty of decent players who can do a good job.

Clrnc wrote:

Ki Sung Yong oozes class. Such a great player

Yes he does. Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Swansea loaned him out, and to bloody Sunderland no less.

think the criticism of him is that he isn't good enough defensively, which may be fair, tbh.

korea's defence was pathetic. all 4 goals were schoolboy errors. should also bench park chu-young - we look better in attack without him. but not enough quality to progress, anyway.

lee chung-yong looks to have lost a step or two since the broken leg, which is a shame. used to be a pretty decent player.