Well, since we're such an international crowd :)

Who ya got? I for one am happy with the U.S.'s performance against Italy considering they had a ref who was a complete douche.

What about the rest of you? Cheering for Beckham and his incredible jawline + cheekbones?

P.S. Bats, my condolences to your team for having to play Brazil at this point.

How about pity for me for having NO team to support? Scotland didn't even qualify....fucking tossers.

Interesting blurb in The Economist this issue about why the World Cup is so much better than the Olympics. Primarily because governments can't politicize the teams by sponsoring them. Mass quantities of funding can only improve a team so much, and accordingly the echelons of power in football (soccer) doesn't necessarily follow the real world nation equivalents.

[quote:4b1a856d7e="Gabriel"]P.S. Bats, my condolences to your team for having to play Brazil at this point.[/quote:4b1a856d7e]

I really thought Brazil would win by a larger margin. I think we're up against Croatia next. If we win that game we'll get through to the next round. You know it's a miracle we qualified at all - soccer is about the only sport that Australians suck at*. I guess that explains why there are only two guys out of the entire Aussie squad who actually play for Australian clubs. The rest were borrowed from England, Germany, Switz, Italy, etc. Heh.

At this point I should probably confess that I haven't really been following the soccer beyond drooling over Aloisi, Viduka and Kewell. Last week I was completely confused as to why everyone was cheering those guys in black. Who knew Brazil wore yellow?? :roll:

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[size=8:4b1a856d7e]* Erm, not counting those snow-related sports of course. Pfff, you know what I mean. Just ask the English Rugby team, 34 to 3 then 43 to 18, poor England boo hoo. Hey, maybe if we actually had a few more Aussies on our team, we'd be better at the sport.[/size:4b1a856d7e]

[quote:41ec7d92bb="batty"][size=8:41ec7d92bb]* Erm, not counting those snow-related sports of course. Pfff, you know what I mean. Just ask the English Rugby team, 34 to 3 then 43 to 18, poor England boo hoo. Hey, maybe if we actually had a few more Aussies on our team, we'd be better at the sport.[/size:41ec7d92bb][/quote:41ec7d92bb]

Then again, let's remind ourselves who won the Ashes series this year[1]

In respect of rugby, our team is all full of new people, following the retirement of our top team who spanked everyone to win the world cup. If I recall correctly, you didn't care about rugby at that time, how things change when you start to win :P. I expect you don't care for cricket just now.

[quote:41ec7d92bb="batty"][size=8:41ec7d92bb]maybe if we actually had a few more Aussies on our team, we'd be better at the sport.[/size:41ec7d92bb][/quote:41ec7d92bb]

Actually they are all australian nationals (or Aussie in some way) or the rules wouldn't allow them to play for the Oz team. It's common that top players don't always play at club level in their own countries and in particular play for the rich clubs in Europe. As an example, Ronaldinho, possibly the most marketable player in football currently was born in (and plays for) Brazil, but at club level plays for Barcelona, whilst the England captain, David Beckham plays for Real Madrid.

Um...

So Nur...

[1] For the benefit of the international audience - The Ashes is the trophy awarded to the winner regular England vs Australia Cricket Test Match Series. This trophy is currently held by England.

Our house has gone footie mad!! If there not watching it live there watching the highlights or reading about it on teletext. Enough to drive you nuts!!

I must admit though I enjoy watching England play and you can't beat the atmosphere down at the pub when they are playing :)