The World of Football/Soccer.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by LFC1892

9-1 Tottenham over Wigan(Defoe 5 goals) ....how freakin embarrassing.

Not really it's a loss, embarrassing would be only winning one game in ten even though you spent £40 million

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

I understand that most of the top soccer countries have a league structure like the English Premier League, Coca Cola 1, Coca Cola 2, etc. My question is what are these midseason cups and are they more important than winning the league championship? Also would a team like Manchester U rather win the Premier League Championship or the Euro Cup? Also why was Man U vs Real Madrid on a couple weeks ago during their countries league seasons?

It would depend on the team, examples being Real Madrid would probably want to win the Champions League above any other because A) It's what their reputation is built on. B) In their eyes they haven't won it recently enough. Man Utd on the other hand would take either the EPL or Champions League either to go ahead of Liveroopl in league title wins or get closer to Liverpool in Champions League (European Cup) wins, Liverpool would probably take a league title as they haven't won it for so long, so in a way it really depends on which team it is to if they would prefer winning a league or Euro Cup.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

So many of you guys are so good at predicting outcomes which is great however I get confused when I am watching a 1-0 game and the announcer will be talking about how X team is dominating the game when that 1 goal was scored on some fluky play. How is being ahead 1-0 dominating a game when the 1 goal that has been scored was on a penalty kick in which the ref made a terrible decision on.

He probably means dominating in possesion and shots on goal, bit of an example (i think) would be say the Yankees beating the Red Sox 1-0 and that run being scored on an error despite the Yankees having 15 hits to the Red Sox 1 hit.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

I play this World Wide Soccer Manager game which I have a lot of fun with however I have no idea what my assistant coach is trying to tell me to do a lot of times.

Ask either on here or the FM thread in OT and I'm sure plenty will be glad to help you.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

"You should try and cut off the supply to X person or we will get hurt"

He could be a striker in which way you could either put a man to man marker on him to pressure him when he gets the ball or put another player in midfield to cut the supply off.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

"You have a too wide gap between your midfielders and attackers"

Means that the midfield players have to play longer balls to your strikers and the defenders have an easier job of reading where the pass is going.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

"This person is not used to playing this style you should play a more direct style"

What position does the "person" play ? Could be different things for different players.

[rudel.dietrich]

Wigan players to refund fans after Spurs slaughter - Barclays Premier League - ESPN Soccernet


Ouch

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by His Own Bad Self

Actually saw a comment about it on the FM boards, and had to find highlights of it. Since when does a Premiership side put nine on the board?

Man Utd 9 v 0 Ipswich 1995.

People get carried away by the score line but fail to see that 3 of the goals were scored in the last 3 minutes when Wigan had given up the game even though 6-1 would have been nearly as bad, in fact they'd probably given up the game when the 4th goal went in. End of the day they lost 3 points and freak results come round like this every so often just Wigan's turn this time, as it could be Spurs turn next week or next season aka 1978 when they lost 7-0 to Liverpool.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

Wigan players to refund fans after Spurs slaughter - Barclays Premier League - ESPN Soccernet


Ouch

I'm not 100% but I think it's been done before.

[jbergey22]

Thanks a lot UKhotstove. I appreciate the reply.

As far as your question about what position does the "prefer a more direct style" play it was usually the midfielders

[phightin]

jberg dont know if this will help you out in your fm game, but the three styles of play they usually offer in terms of attacking are short, direct, and long.

A short style is usually only used by high level teams ie the inters, madrids, barcas of the world, or a team that is much more talented than their opponent. It's also the more italian approach. It involves a slow build-up of the attack from the back to the midfield to the forwards using a lot of passing, possession, and patience where the team will wait for the best opportunity they have towards goal. The advantages of using this is obviously the possession factor, you have the ball the majority of the time while the other team doesnt etc, as my english coach used to tell us possession is 9/10ths of the law. The disadvantages can be that despite the possession advantage and pressure it can put the opposing team under a team can have too much patience and limit themselves with the amount of total opportunites they have on goal. In essence you're sacrificing quanity for quality.

A direct style is what the majority of teams, especially english, usually use where the ball is played forward from the backs to the midfielders/forwards and upfield as quickly as possible. If you watch two mid tier premier league sides going at it this is usually the vintage style you see. The pace of the game is quick and teams are quick to look for any opportunity they see at goal in the attacking third. Advantages are obviously the less time spent building up of the play and more time simply getting the ball upfield and looking for scoring opportunities. The disadvantages would include limiting the quality of opportunities a team may have on goal and also any sort of breakdown in passing up the field can result in subpar performances.

A long style is simply that a team kicking the ball from the back upfield looking for a forward to win the ball in the air or a player to run onto the ball in the channels. While it is the ugliest form of soccer that can be played if done effectively it can produce some surprising results. Usually a less talented team will pack it in defensively and play this sort of style against a much better opponent and it will give them a chance in the match. The disadvantages of this can be seen in Wigans recent embarassment where if youre going to pack it in and kick it long you better be able to defend.

[Muppetus Galacticus]

World Cup seeds

Pot 1
South Africa
Brazil
Spain
Netherlands
Italy
Germany
Argentina
England

Pot 2
Denmark
France
Greece
Portugal
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Switzerland

Pot 3
Mexico
USA
South Korea
Japan
Australia
Honduras
New Zealand
North Korea

Pot 4
Paraguay
Ghana
Cameroon
Ivory Coast
Nigeria
Uruguay
Algeria
Chile

[mlyons]

What the hell are the Koreas and New Zealand doing in Pot 3 ahead of all the African nations?

EDIT: Crap, never mind, I forgot it's not really seedings outside of Pot 1.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by mlyons

What the hell are the Koreas and New Zealand doing in Pot 3 ahead of all the African nations?

EDIT: Crap, never mind, I forgot it's not really seedings outside of Pot 1.

South Korea has been more successful than any of the African nations however. They have qualified for seven straight World Cups and reached a World Cup semi-final.

[mlyons]

Originally Posted by bababui

South Korea has been more successful than any of the African nations however. They have qualified for seven straight World Cups and reached a World Cup semi-final.

Qualifying for a World Cup isn't really a fair basis for comparison when the standards for qualification are completely different, though, and reaching a World Cup semi-final is quite a bit different when you're the host nation (no host nation has ever failed to at least get out of the group stages, even the US). Africa has far more competitive qualifiers for the World Cup than Asia does, and their performances have been improving each tournament. I'd be shocked if one of the African nations wasn't in the semifinals next summer, actually. On the other hand, outside their terrific run when playing as the home team, South Korea is 1-5-11 in World Cup play, and not really looking like they're on their way up.

[phightin]

Argentina, France, Ivory Coast, and the USA in Group "US Go *%^& yourselves"

[Muppetus Galacticus]

300 players under match-fixing suspicion in Spain

Around 300 players are under suspicion in a match-fixing scandal being investigated by the Spanish football federation, Marca sports newspaper reported Thursday.

The federation is also investigating claims of illegal betting on games involving seven lower-tier players after being alerted by UEFA.

Of the seven players named in the probe, only goalkeeper Javier Lopez of Real Zaragoza is currently playing top-flight soccer.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by Muppetus Galacticus

300 players under match-fixing suspicion in Spain

Wow. How can it happen on that sort of a scale??

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by bababui

Wow. How can it happen on that sort of a scale??

They probably have a list of games that they are suspecting, and pretty much all players involved in those games would be suspicious.

This is just a follow up to the Germany case earlier where the Germany police found a gang of maybe 200 people arranging all kind of fixes in the low level spanning about 10 countries.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...4bVcNFlHYFTiyw

Overall, you can say there might be thousands of players that can be suspects.

[Muppetus Galacticus]

WC draw soon, but check out Charlize

BBC Sport - Football - World Cup draw from South Africa - live text and video

From BaldwinBoy5 on 606: "In the practice draw Charlize Theron pulled out France and read out Ireland. Beautiful and hilarious. The perfect woman?"

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by phightin

Argentina, France, Ivory Coast, and the USA in Group "US Go *%^& yourselves"

I try, and I try to be objective about this.

The US has been one of the top ten best countries in the world for years and years, but they just CANNOT get respect.

[phightin]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

I try, and I try to be objective about this.

The US has been one of the top ten best countries in the world for years and years, but they just CANNOT get respect.

I don't know about top ten as they are largely inconsistent at times, the post was more about fifa's and the world of soccer's anti-american bias that runs rampant at the international level. I would say when it comes down to the world's best playing at the international level the US is more around 20 than top ten. If the US wants to do well in a world cup, ie make the semi-finals or even further they're going to have to go through hell to get there.

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

I try, and I try to be objective about this.

The US has been one of the top ten best countries in the world for years and years, but they just CANNOT get respect.

Top Ten? Are you kidding? I can easily name more than ten clubs in Europe who are better.

[jbergey22]

So how does this work? Do they draw the teams then seed them according to reputation or is seeding at this point irrelevant?