The Official 2006 World Cup in Germany Thread

I'm sure you'll get them in some pubs with pay tv try Australian-frequented places.

Yay! Slovakia is matched with Spain! C'mon Slovakia!
I remain vaguely worried about cze but hopeful, as norway hasn't exactly been spectacular so far.

And an aussie bar is a brilliant idea. Hopefully that'll all sort itself out nicely.... I hope no-one actually wanted me to do anything during those times.....



And yes, the english team does make absolutly no sense... but they're amusing anyway!

edit: It occurs to me both games are going to be at ridiculous times. At best, I think it will be 2am-ish for the game in montevideo, and I'm not sure enough of what happens when we do the next time change to predict the time in sydney, but I'm suspecting something else relatively useless.....

As long as Norway qualify I don't really care if it's Slovakia or Spain in the other match... Norge!

Yeah, American football pricks < English football prick athletes.

As someone who follows "soccer" or football in England and lives in the US, I think we have it worse off.

Ok, here's my next rant... as the draw's finally happened! The sad part is its now six months till we get anything else....

Prelim predictions:
Group A- Germany will probably come out on top but unsure as to ecuador or poland being second...
Group B- England will dominate, but paraguay or sweden could be second... slightly favouring paraguay.
Group C- Argentina and the Netherlands, in some order.
Group D- Mexico and Portugal but I fully admit thats a shot in the dark. Technically I wouldn't be surprised with any combination form this group... at this point. Have to see how people are playing!
Group E- Czech Republic dominating, unsure about second, probably Italy tho.
Group F- Brazil and Croatia will fight it out in what I expect to be the most interesting first round match, altho not technically the most interesting group since I fully expect them to smack the other two teams, each.
Group G- Korea and Switzerland, why not. But I'm not standing on that one, France has a shot as well.
Group H- Ukraine all the way, newcomers or no! Spain *should* slide in for second, but I wouldn't garuntee it.

And for fun shot in the dark type theories.. will update this closer to actual play of course!
Match 49: Germany, regardless of who's second
Match 50: Wildcard, I'm not going to call this this far out.
- And I'd say Germany next step
Match 51: Likely England, but a definate chance for an upset.
Match 52: Another wildcard....
-England, but with knowledge this is far from odds on
Match 53: Possibly the best round of 16 match, Cze against brazil or croatia... I would say Cze if croatia, but brazil if brazil...
Match 54: I'll call for Korea
-Tricky, but whoever wins 53 I think
Match 55: Brazil or Croatia, whichever gets this slightly easier draw- and thus is doing the best anyway!
Match 56: Ukraine
-This may be the best round of eight match, I think I'll call for the winner of 55 tho...

Which means, final four, I'm very nearly expecting Brazil to play Croatia again... Although Could be CZE against the other of the pair. And Ukraine has a chance. The bottom half is very very interesting... as far as the top, I'd say probably germany regardless of who they take on - and then would predict germany's loss in the finals to whoeever the heck wins the bottom half.

Anyone else fancy sharing predictions?

Cheers!
-The insane Kyri....

Group A: gotta be Germany, though we're crap really, and then probably Poland.
B: England, then Sweden. We can't lose Sweden in the 1st round. Nonono!
C: Netherlands and Argentina, though I'd love the Ivory Coast to get through.
D: Portugal and Angola. Wild guess here, too
E: Italy and Czech Rep
F: Brazil and Croatia
G: South Korea and France
H: Spain and Ukraine.

No idea about after that, I'll do that when we get there! Have to get everyone here to put some money in!

By the way, Germany Poland is (violence-related) the possible worst combination for a group. The hooligans have already have street fights to see who'll "rule the streets" during the tournament. I hope they keep everyone else out of their fights

im going to the first game

taking the poi

OMG you suck. what a lucky lucky ducky.

Me and a coworker are gonna make one of those match chart thingys and predict stuff. I hope its slow tomorrow because that sounds like a lot more fun than anything else I can think of (and monday is time enough to have a crazy work day).

this should be the official english sogn

I am no big football hooligan but I must say I saw every game of the EC 04 and it was outstanding sport, knuckle biting drama on the lawn, lots of magic moments and quite a few surprises. That will happen again on a bigger scale, so watch those games!

I guess the ususal suspects, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina will go quite far again. England was on my hotlist too, but without Rooney they lost the edge. France and Czech are strong teams, but with downward momentum and their best player unfit or near retirement.

Upcoming teams to watch are Holland (Nistelroy), Ukraine (Shevchenko), Sweden (Ivaniesevic), Mexico (impressive team in 05 Confed cup) and the USA (worldrank #5).

African teams will struggle ans they hit very strong groups, Spain and Portugal are strong on paper but have a tradition to arrive with highflying hopes and then stumble over their own feet. Korea wont be able to reapeat their WC 02 performance that had been fueled by them running like rabbits still in 88 minute, cheering spectators and very dubious referee decisions.

On paper, this is what I see coming but as said, I am expecting surprises like the Greec miracle in 04, as "the ball is round and the game lasts 90 minutes" (Sepp Herberger).

AF1: Germany - Sweden
AF2: Argentina – Portugal
AF3: England- Poland
AF4: Mexico – Holland
AF5: Italy - Croatia
AF6: France - Ukraine
AF7: Brazil - Czech
AF8: Switzerland - Spain

QF1: Germany-Argentina
QF2: England-Holland
QF3: Italy-France
QF4: Brazil-Spain

SF1: Germany-Holland
SF2: Italy-Brazil

Final: Germany-Brazil

Ooooh I don't know who to support if Germany plays Sweden. Not fair!!!

Though if you're right about SF1 it's no question

Yeah everyone knows Germany's gonna be in the semi's... I didn't know Holland was any good but I'll willingly take your words for it!

nonononono! I don't really think we'll make the semifinals, but IF we make the semifinals and IF it's against Holland, then I'll be for Germany.

I got a Germany t-shirt for my birthday, so the team better not be too bad or I'll look silly

Oh, and ZeroG, the only thing I dislike about your plan is that Germany can't beat England on the penalties.

8 days and 32 minutes to go..... yeah

Australia's going to the world cup

2 more friendlies to go...

Australia played surprisingly well in the Confed Cup ... I say surprise cause I wonder where they find 11 player amongst all those surfer, swimmer, sailor, rugby, oz football, poi player, crocodile wrestlers and bondi lifeguards ...

Anyway, group F has just 1 seat left behind Brazil and Japan and Croatia are both strong, this will be an interesting fight and it could come down to number of goals deciding ...

woo! international football rocks!

i've set up a HOP fantasy world cup league - details here

it'll be more interesting if plenty of people join, and it should only take five minutes to set up a team

oooh the first two games were ohmygod fab.... i didn't actually watch the first one but six goals and three of them in the first 16 minutes, and everyone was telling me how great it was. (I was out doing some community service). I did watch the second one, which was absolutly amazing, go ecuador! Ecuador is TIED with germany for the moment, and with a liklihood of the actual game against germany decideing who goes first and who goes second in their group.

Now there is still time for poland to pull a comeback for the second place slot, but, watching them play today I'm not sure I was feeling it. Ecuador doesn't have a strong record, but they played well and their defense was pretty decent (obviously their offense was as well ). Anyway, tomorrow is the england game, which i probably won't be able to watch much of given the time, and then t&t vs sweden, which i don't care about and can't watch, and then argentina vs civ which i would kind of like to watch but still can't. *le sigh* I suppose you won't hear much from me until sunday then

Hey, Kyri! Guess what! The Germany game was REALLY good! :P

Seriously, I was a bit too drunk to really follow the 2nd half, but the first 20 minutes were ace!!!

OK, so Germany has no defense and England has no offense.

And the US could be out before they're even in if they lose Monday.

Should I just pencil Brasil in now?