World Cup 2014

This is a bit harsh on the French players - Benzema, Pogba and Valbuena all had an excellent start to the tournament.

neuer,
lahm, hummels, de vrij, blind,
mascherano, kroos,
robben, rodriguez, muller,valbuena.

no strikers, they were all rubbish.

“Right now I don’t care about the prize. I don’t care about anything. I wanted to take Argentina to the World Cup for all the people,” Messi told Spanish newspaper AS.

Benzema was far too wasteful imo

That's what he told me when I spoke to him last night (xp).

I thought I was onto a good thing with benzema top scorer at 33-1 after the first 2 games and then he lost it completely xp.

yeah, my flatmate bet on him as well. Had some laughs at the keeper OG and the goal after the whistle

of course I bet on Dzeko ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

he was good odds iirc

but then that's how being shit works

his gutless coach betrayed him tbf

team of tournament

lloris
ekotto
vertonghen
zokora
bentaleb
chadli
paulinho
prince boateng
dembele
postiga

Lloris, "Why did I believe them when they said it was still a big club?"

Still no Dos Santos!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's just cruel in that company.

ah yeah dos Santos

we did sell him didn't we?

amped for the women's cup next year :)

lehmann

dixon
hanson
cannavaro
keown

seedorf
pnev
hoddle
oneill

henry
lineker

no Giles? fuck off.

Nobody riding for Ochoa huh

good WC for gk position tbh he'd be in most top threes I guess but neuer is the standout in that he stops chances before they turn into shots. Howard lloris and Ochoa after that, then lehmann

still think Lloris is one of the greats, but not based on what he's displayed at this WC (although no fault of his own).

congratulations to germany on their first world cup win, big moment for any country

agree that messi doesn't feel right for best player. for a tournament with a lot of goals it is interesting that a lot of goalkeepers really stood out. neuer was exceptional, shout out to navas too. i thought khedira (autocorrect suggestion in chrome: dickhead. why is that even in its dictionary?) who i have had doubts about in the past was really good when he played, but i am sure he'd have been miles away from winning even if he had played the final and scored. of the teams that reached the semis, and really you can only pick from them, i do think robben was as visibly impressive as anyone and have a better shout than messi. i saw that di maria is getting widely mixed reviews for his tournament but i think he was the guy that provided a spark for arg more than messi a lot of the time. i think losing the ball a lot can be a product of being the only guy on a team who is consistently, energetically trying to make something happen.

sure this has been covered before but is the "Golden Ball" - best player of the World Cup - actually a different thing from the the "FIFA Ballon d'Or" - best player of the previous year? if so that's fucking stupid

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsdOq3PIYAEh_Fn.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsdZ3VRCIAM6M13.jpg

I don't ever remember a Golden Ball being a thing before, except dimly remember Zidane getting some award in 2006. In any event it doesn't matter, nobody's memory is going to be shaped by Fifa approval however much Blatter'd like it that way.

Best player this time was definitely James Rodriguez fwiw. Loads of honourable mentions but he stood out.

Mods, the World Cup is over, please lock this thread. Thanks in advance!

Messi winning that trophy was a classic Borgesian "inversion" (cf. Stanislaw Lem article in Microworlds) and underneath the thousand yard stare with which he accepted it one might interpret the stoic, world-weary fatalism that is his birthright. Perhaps a tango lyric or two was going through his mind at the time, but who can say.

congratulations to germany on their first world cup win, big moment for any country

Eh?

sure this has been covered before but is the "Golden Ball" - best player of the World Cup - actually a different thing from the the "FIFA Ballon d'Or" - best player of the previous year? if so that's fucking stupid

Eh?

Germany != W. Germany, apparently

Messi had a good World Cup, goals at the start to carry Arg, then that pass from the moon for ADM, pretty good final, marked out the game in the Semi. He doesn't look athletically like he once did. Don't know why. But a good tourn. Didn't act like a moron in the final, diving everywhere like some Germans.

Götze boner all over my feed atm

But you didn't have to cuuut me ouuut...

http://m.fifa.com/ballondor/news/newsid=2261052/index.html

Messi's been injured all season on and off, vomited on the pitch during the final (admittedly not unusual for him, apparently), and his friend died a few days before the final.

The Castrol index (on the official FIFA website) says Toni Kroos was the best player of the tournament, followed by Robben and De Vrij. Messi's not even in the top ten. http://fifa.to/1sTLV4p

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/full-time-fading-images-of-the-world-cup/

^^ this is a lovely way to cap it off

It is, thanks for the link. Great photos, too.

so which club side had the most scorers at the world cup?

Must be one of Utd, Bayern, or Madrid. I know Utd had six

yeah, Bayern had seven

just creeping over the line with that Julian Green goal

I would like imago to present my FF world cup trophy to me plz

I was surprised by how aggressive argentina were yesterday, I expected them to hang back more but they got forward quite a lot. ridiculously fine margins in the end, more than any other final I can remember

fine margin was higuain being a choke artist

if ye signed him tomorrow you'd be gargling out of him

Belgian 15 minutes of fame hunter girl is back, she did the celeb kickoff for a match in the Belgian competition.

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/949/Belgisch-Voetbal/article/detail/1979320/2014/08/03/WK-babe-Axelle-verzorgt-aftrap-in-Brugge.dhtml

fittingly, that link took me to an advertisement for the newspaper :D

Remove your hln.be cookie & try again

Ismael, you're not really worried about LFC are you? They'll be fine.

― pandemic, Thursday, 26 June 2014 14:41 (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thread is a total fucking joy obv

We hadn't sold Suarez then had we?