if you were to make the automatic goal rule count for handballs in the six yard box, you'd have a wave of problems

first, the box is so much wider than the goal there would be plenty of balls with no real chance of going on goal that could be subject to automatic goals

then, desperate defenders would camp out on the six yard line, cutting down the angle on regular shots from the penalty area and making it harder to score a legitimate goal

on top of all this, it seems like a bunch of you skipped your philosophy courses. NO ONE CAN PROVE GHANA'S SHOT WAS GOING IN.

the hockey rule that awards a goal for pushing the net off involves looking at a replay and making sure the puck fully crossed the line between the holes for the net moorings, meaning that the puck did go in, just without the net in the place it should be.

7/3/2010 11:38:45 AM

To be fair Uruguay had by far the easiest draw of all the south american teams as far as the knockout round goes

7/3/2010 11:39:25 AM

true, but i doubt many pundits had uruguay in the semifinals..which is all the more reason why my vote still remains with Forlan as the player of the tournament


the one thing i do like about germany is when they have space like 25-30 out, they look for a pass still out wide instead of just shooting it. but even with the extra passes i still feel like they arent dwelling on the ball like arsenal or sometimes barcelona do


was that a messi stomp??? lol prob not

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 11:43 AM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 11:41:37 AM

clinic clinic clinic clinic

7/3/2010 11:45:49 AM

jesus christ. klose looks to be eying that goal record

7/3/2010 11:45:52 AM

hahaha typical klose finish. argentina ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE

7/3/2010 11:45:53 AM

ahahaha

OW, I'VE BEEN KICKED IN THE FACE!! HIGH BOOT!

Oh, no one saw it?

I'm fine.

7/3/2010 11:46:12 AM

wow that was perfect

7/3/2010 11:46:16 AM

gotta give klose credit. that dude always puts himself in a position to make the easy finish.

7/3/2010 11:47:20 AM

lol 1 minute of extra time...i love when they do that in routs

7/3/2010 11:47:54 AM

1 min stoppage time, refs showing some mercy

7/3/2010 11:48:10 AM

haaaaa messi cant score and wont score this tourney. gaaaarbage on the international level just like ronaldo

7/3/2010 11:48:48 AM

maradona is so sad

loves it

7/3/2010 11:48:57 AM

i personally take offensive to shitting on messi with the same ass that shits on c. ronaldo. messi is 10x the international player that ronaldo is. every play runs through him. he's not a goal scorer, but he holds that team together, unlike gel-head

7/3/2010 11:50:45 AM

with all that talent, and still a ton more that couldnt make this squad...all they could muster is a quarterfinal appearance and an ass beating. argentina just "spain'd" their way out of this tournament


doesnt matter, if you want to make him out to be the go to guy for this team, then he definitely failed today

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 11:52:01 AM

messi took like 40 shots this tourney. he played better than ronaldo, but he's a scorer and he didn't score in 5 matches.

7/3/2010 11:52:42 AM

"sandlot soccer"


good one, alexi. i actually kind of agree

7/3/2010 11:53:00 AM

^^

there you go


even before this tourney there was much talk that he couldnt do it on the international level.

im thinking hell still win FIFA WPOY with his ridiculous numbers on club level and because he was so far ahead of all the other challengers, but who knows. there are still more games left in this tourney for other players

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 11:55 AM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 11:53:08 AM

yeah yeah yeah. i know. the thing is, if they were winning, then his lack of goals wasn't a problem. but now that they lost in humiliating fashion, everyone wants to look at messi for not scoring. thems the breaks, i suppose.

7/3/2010 11:55:28 AM

wow, germany is stomping teams without argueably their best player on the team, ballack, and the scary thing is, none of these guys are going anywhere anytime soon, this core team could have two more world cups in them, really glad i picked them to win

7/3/2010 11:55:46 AM

thats the flack you take when you are the best...lebron goes through it, kobe went through it. on international level, hes not the best

schweinsteiger is much better than ballack. ballack is a few years past his prime...

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 11:56 AM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 11:56:21 AM

deutschland, deutschland über alles

or at least argentina

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:04 PM. Reason : ']

7/3/2010 12:03:54 PM

Messi had a really good tournament. Ignoring everything he did because he didn't score a goal is just being stupid.


Germany is scary good.

7/3/2010 12:05:19 PM

landon donovan had a really good tournament, where is he at now? id say he had a better tourney than messi, he finished his good chances. i cant praise messi cause he knows how to dribble. he took 4 billion shots and couldnt convert one....

7/3/2010 12:07:08 PM

germany gets stronger every game they play. yikes. this team just re-loads every world cup. when's the last time they didn't make a semi-final?

7/3/2010 12:07:30 PM

i think it was like 1950 or something crazy like that

7/3/2010 12:08:03 PM

98 i think. if not 98 then definitely 94


i know france, brazil and the netherlands made it to the semifinal and i really dont remember the germans being i the last 4 so i think 98 then

croatia was the other one! that must have been the world cup croatia got the run off of Suker's performance

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:13 PM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 12:08:53 PM

In the S. Korea game, everyone kept saying, "It's a shame that Messi doesn't have a goal because he's responsible for them all," and now they're going to shit on him for not scoring?

WTF.

7/3/2010 12:10:15 PM

where is that from?

7/3/2010 12:11:31 PM

messi isn't a #9 player though. historically for argentina, their best goal scorers played like a Batistuta, or a Crespo. Not the Maradona types. I mean, i don't think Messi's game is catered exclusively to scoring, but also to creating open looks for teammates, individual runs, and demanding defensive help opening up space for players like Tevez and Higuain. Messi is an all-around player, and to measure him only on his ability to score goals is to overlook his better qualities, in my opinion.

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:25 PM. Reason : just #9, then to avoid confusion]

7/3/2010 12:13:07 PM

wat? he took the most shots on this team of all the players. he does the same for club. his game is catered to scoring


11 is traditionally a left winger i thought

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:16 PM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 12:14:15 PM

Quote :

"where is that from?"

Some posts from 6/17/10:

Quote :

"messi should get at least half of the second one"

Quote :

"ha. Messi did all the work and #9 gets the goal."

Quote :

"Messi. "

Quote :

"Messi's touch and ball control is unreal. That would have been an amazing goal had that been a better finish."

7/3/2010 12:18:24 PM

messi had a pretty good tourney, but he took like 10 shots every game and didn't score. he's a scorer, he had like 50 goals for barcelona this year, and maybe 10-15 assists. he plays the same way for argentina as he does for barca, in a free role somewhere between striker and attacking mid. substitute ibrahimovic for higuain and pedro or henry for tevez and its the exact same attack. this team was geared so that messi could do exactly what he always does.

7/3/2010 12:18:56 PM

^^well i was curious cause they played south korea, not north

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:20 PM. Reason : ah you edited the post]








[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:35 PM. Reason : lol]

7/3/2010 12:20:17 PM

Messi had a good tourney - yeah, he didn't score but he created quite a number of opportunities and chances and before the Germany game, they weren't exactly hurting for goals. Could he have been better? Of course, but his performances were nowhere near -

Quote :

"gaaaarbage on the international level just like ronaldo"

that just sounds like somebody that doesn't know shit about soccer, saw the statistics for Argentina games and didn't see Messi's name in the box score and said, well I guess he sucks. and i know you know more than that

7/3/2010 12:37:23 PM

yeah thats exactly what i did. i havent watched a single game this tournament. im not questioning his dribbling skills and the 4000 other great players he has around him he can pass to. im saying he shot and shot and shot and shot and shot but look at how many goals he produced...sorry but the team was setup around him and they failed, he failed.

7/3/2010 12:40:26 PM

Quote :

"and i know you know more than that"

7/3/2010 12:41:00 PM

quoting yourself isnt helping the fact that he was basically the striker of this team and had 0 goals and didnt do anything in the most important game of this tourney, the last one they played

7/3/2010 12:42:17 PM

whatever man

If you honestly think Messi was "garbage" in this World Cup, then I don't know what to tell you.

7/3/2010 12:43:14 PM

dont tell me anything then.

you havent told me anything other than the fact that he can dribble and pass. everyone knows that. but he can also score and is great at that on the club level. where was that this tourney? its not even like they had a tough group either.

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:45 PM. Reason : f]

7/3/2010 12:43:48 PM

i don't think you can say he was the striker for argentina. he wasn't the lone striker up top. he'll get a share of the blame simply for not being what maradona was for argentina, but i don't think we should dismiss everything he's done this tournament. teams like argentina rely on a goal scorer like a david villa or miroslav klose or diego forlan type. they've had strikers like gabrielle batistuta and hernan crespo who just know how to score goals. Messi never was and never will be that kind of striker, in my opinion. he got pretty unlucky this tournament, but today was the only game where you could argue that he needed to score, and he didn't. i dunno, i think comparing him to cristiano ronaldo is just criminal. yeah, messi is a striker, but he's not a finisher. he creates opportunities and scores amazing goals, but rarely do you see him in a position for the easy goal.

maybe that's just a tactical issue, though. he naturally plays somewhere in between attacking mid and forward, and sometimes it's just hard to put a player like that in a certain box without limiting his abilities.

[Edited on July 3, 2010 at 12:49 PM. Reason : ]

7/3/2010 12:46:53 PM

pavelski plays hockey, jeremy schapp, you fuck.

7/3/2010 12:47:52 PM

lol

7/3/2010 12:49:29 PM

i hate that jackass

7/3/2010 12:55:36 PM

jeremy schaap is not his dad, that's for sure

7/3/2010 12:59:50 PM

i can't stand Jeremy Schaap. what a douche.

7/3/2010 1:02:37 PM

Quote :

"true, but i doubt many pundits had uruguay in the semifinals..which is all the more reason why my vote still remains with Forlan as the player of the tournament"

lol I just read that Harkes had Uru in the semi's

7/3/2010 1:23:04 PM

paraguay has never scored a goal in the knockout round of the world cup.


and yet, here they are. in the quarterfinals. today's game might get ugly. not a good round for south america.

7/3/2010 1:35:16 PM

Croatia beat Germany 3-0 in the 1998 quarterfinals

7/3/2010 1:51:20 PM

anyone have a live link to watch the game? im on the road to the beach and cant find a working link

7/3/2010 2:44:36 PM