So long as other sports take precedence over football, a nation will never reach its given potential [in football]
in brazil the thought is it will be Brazil vs Netherlands in the final... assuming nethetlands will get by mexico and costa rica their last big challenge will Argentina in the semi....the other side of the draw is tougher, france, germany, brazil, Belgium... so assuming there are no upsets the finalists will come from ...germany, france, brazil, belgium vs either netherlands or argentina now we're left with mostly power countries we'll find out if brazil is more than just Neymar and argentina has more than just Messi...brazil and argentina have had relatively easy opponents until now, now they have to face the other big teams that have the talent to stop the supply of balls to neymar and messi....germany imo hasnt shown a lot yet but they have enormous depth of talent I dont see in any other squad...
only in Soccer, can a tie (with Portugual) feel like a loss while a loss (against Germany) feels like a win #stupidsport
Dresden is Dresden and Football (or Soccer) is Football (or Soccer). To include Dresden in a soccer topic is tasteless. BTW:The victim number of 25.000 comes from statistical tricks and deliberate downscaling. I could explain you how, but that is not the topic here. (In short: add a "zero" and you will be in the lower range of a realistic estimation. Start another topic in another forum category and I'll be happy to explain it to you). Until then: Have fun with football. Football is today, Dresden was 70 years ago.
The "Big Idea" about football is that one day it will replace war, therefore it is apt to juxtapose World War 1 or 2 with the World Cup imo.
dutch have multiple offensive threats, defending gets dodgy when they press forward but they've demonstrated solid defending need they need to(chile match)....germans are very solid throughout their lineup... my money is on germany but now that we're into the tough matches one mistake and any team could be eliminated...this WC could be decided by who has the best coach, right now thats the netherlands van Gaal ...
you can't have ties in any of those.... if two teams tie, there is OT NFL you can... and it's rare, but it's completely stupid when they do. Heck, the last time two NFL teams tied, a player said "I didn't even know you COULD tie in the NFL"
except the World Cup outcomes have actually STARTED wars, so the World cup has actually done the opposite of that statement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War
teething problems, bound to happen somewhere in the world. whose to say how many wars football has stopped? probably thousands.
speculation.... and I don't see human nature working that way. I mean, whenever people get into arguments at a bar, they don't go out and grab a soccer ball and settle it that way.... they fight. How many fist fights have started over soccer? THAT'S human nature. Don't get me wrong, it would be great if we could settle the problems between palestine and israel in a good ole fashioned game of soccer where the winner gets Gaza and the loser leaves forever.... but that's not how reality works. I've backed up my claim that futbol has started wars, whereas you have only said "probably 1000's" as your 'proof' Please show at least one international incident settled by soccer as an example. I can't even think of one, and you seem to believe 1000's.... so it should be easy to back that claim up.
reality? What is reality? Also, you never backed up your claim that soccer starts wars, your very own link states IN THE VERY FIRST Sentence that the war began over economic reasons. The cause of the war was economic in nature, namely issues concerning immigration from El Salvador to Honduras. Who will ever know how many wars were settled by a soccer match, its something that cant be proven.
reality is, noone is ever going to solve problems over a game of soccer. and my link showed that the soccer war of 1969 was a result of many issues, and this was the spark that ignited the war. Your theory is, all the underlying issues the two countries had in 1969 should have been resolved by a soccer match, when reality was, it did quite the opposite. it's very idealistic to think all the worlds drama can be overcome by a game that not everyone even plays. I bet Canada wouldn't be too thrilled to think it's economic partnership with China revolves around who wins a game Canadians don't even care for....
