Who will win the world cup?

[Mike]

Well I watch the final World Cup game and glad Italy won as I'm part Italian. The French guy who head butted well deserved the boot.

Now I'm gonna say something that might upset some people, oh well. I just can't believe how much little babies some of these world class players are. You touch them and the fall down and crawl around for a minute in such pain, then get right back up and play. Any player who did that in hockey wouldn't last very long. The would get the crap beat out of them. In fact a rule in hockey is that if you force a stoppage of play due to an injury, you must go to the bench, you can't stay on.

If your hurt, fine, that happens get off the field but so much faking going on it was a laugh. I'm not a big soccer fan but was still very dissappointed in the amount of acting in this game. Parts were very, very good to watch, the skilled player on so on but, I'll stick with hockey

[funkbeatle]

Well amigo, as I said before I understand people who likes other sports than football(or soccer as americans say). Sometimes the matches turn so boring that may even make sleepy but I tell you that these are exceptions to the rule, because a football game is pure emotion and thrills me a lot everytime I watch the games on Tv or in arenas most of the times(yea right I'm south american ). I think that's why the football WC is the second event after the Olympic Games that moves billions of people 'round the world.

[Cologne girl]

Now I'm gonna say something that might upset some people, oh well. I just can't believe how much little babies some of these world class players are. You touch them and the fall down and crawl around for a minute in such pain, then get right back up and play.

Yes, definitely, sometimes you wondered if they were going for the World Cup or for an Oscar. When starting the match, the referee should say "showtime" instead of blowing his whistle . It's really annoying because it destroys the flow of the match, and some referees are actually stupid enough to buy the crap. Funny you should say that though because precisely the Italians are quite fond of that kind of showmanship.

And the Zidane story is far from over - now the Italian guy admitted he had insulted him quite badly. If you watch the images, you can actually see that Zidane tried to walk away and avoid being provoked, but the Italian guy followed him, knowing a) that he understood Italian and b) that he could be quite irritable at times. Of course, we still don't know what exactly he said, but if it was some racist comment, as some people seem to believe, and this could be proved, according to Art. 4 or 7 (always mix these numbers up, I'm sorry) of the new FIFA rules, Italy might still lose their title. But as we won't know what he said, this won't happen, and probably these kinds of foul play will continue

BTW, part of my mum's family is from the North of Italy.

[Mike]

"Sticks and stone will break my bones but names will never hurt me". This is what I was taught as a child. Referring back to the hockey comparison, not only would the player who head butted be ejected from the game, he would no doubt face a lengthy and very expensive suspension from the game. Saying that, in hockey if some little twirp calls you a name you don't have to head butt him, you can drop your gloves take off your helment and fight. Yes, I'm so glad fighting is still allowed in hockey. Perhaps if it was allowed in soccer there would less acting going on and more of the exciting action. Wouldn't it be nice that if someone steps on someone else's toes, they can fight like men, instead of falling down and rolling around in the grass pretending they are hurt like school children. Na, too dramatic of a change, officials should use video replay and inspect the contact area, if any for evidence of a so-called injury and severely penalize the actor. Another new rule could be: if a player rolls around in supposive excruciating pain, forcing a stopage in play, said player must sit out at least 2 minutes on the bench before re-entering the game. Substitutes must be allowed obviously. Yes this would slow the game down initially but teams will adjust to new rules and by the time the next World Cup begins, there will be less controversial calls and more action.

Again in hockey that is what referees do. If blood is drawn the referee can increase the severity of the penalty right there on the spot.

[Paperback Writer]

Ha! and I thought I didn't know soccer! Reading the experts here, I interpreted the action accurately!

Zadame wouldn't last one minute in any sport in US - if he can't deal with "trash talk" - we say he has "rabbit ears" - the death knell for any athelete.

Now the plusses of soccer:

Great sing - a -longs, a great change from the borrrring canned stadium music in the states (always loved the 'block that kick...." chant from The Beatles Revolution No. 9)

The almost continuous action - a great refresment from all the commercials here - especially the "stupor" Bowl which is one long, gross, tired commercial after commercial and the dumb public likes that!

Here, in the States, the "melting pot" of Europe, it was great to see the old ethnic Neighborhoods alive with celebration, The Italian district in San Francisco, Boston and San Diego had thousands, upon thousands packed into the streets, parks, bars, wonderful!

The people love soccer and display passion. Love and passion=Goal!

[james1985]

In England, hockey is for girls

US sports just have far less passion, they're more social events than true sport. ie: Macca at the Superbowl is just so, so wrong to the European sprts fan on so many levels

[2 of 3]

In England, hockey is for girls

You would know, janes1985.

[Cologne girl]

excellent, two final defeats in two months for Thierry Henry!

What's wrong with Thierry Henry?

1) [i]He plays for Arsenal[/i], a team that dive and cheat and moan at the referee like no other.

I had suspected some of this. Now I must say that this kind of attitude is totally alien to us Germans. Like (I suppose) in all countries where they play football most people have some teams they hate and others they love. The one I like best, for instance, is Borussia Dortmund, and I don't like Bayern München at all - and there's lots and lots of Bayern haters here in this country. They are the richest by far, whenever there's a promising young player, they snatch him away, even if only to sit him on the bench, and they exert a lot of influence on a national level. In the beginning, our ex- coach Jürgen Klinsmann had to stand up against them in order to be able to work the way he thought best - all Bayern München went wild when he decided to sit Oliver Kahn on the bench and make Jens Lehmann (whom I suppose you hate as well then??) no. 1, but he withstood the pressure. But he's - understandably - tired out now, which is one of the reasons why he retired as national coach. In short, Bayern do a lot to make us hate them. But when the national teams play, we forget about Dortmund, Bayern, Schalke.... there's only Germans (or half-Germans or imported Germans , but that doesn't matter either). I don't particularly like Oliver Kahn, but when he was between the posts for our national team, I wouldn't have dreamed of doing anything but keeping my fingers crossed for him. And much less still would we go against a player from a foreign team (such as Holland) just because he plays for a team (such as Bayern) we don't like. Even my husband says that's "one of the few good things that we have"

So that's why this anti-Arsenal sentiment surprised me a bit in this context. The only thing I saw of Thierry Henry (maybe I didn't pay enough attention) was him slaving away out there on his own all the time, I most certainly didn't see one thing worthy of blame that he did (but as I said, I'm getting short-sighted...).