Back in the day the Super Cup used to be held in Tokyo (between European Club champs and South American Club champs) a similar noise used to drive me nuts. Actully I rememeber it being higher pitched. After a while I can tune this one out but I'd hate to hear it live.

And now there is a ball controversy.

Yahoo sports story

Sure, those two missed saves were on soft shots, but if the ball were truly that bad, wouldn't there be more scoring? Outside of the 4-0 current score in the Germany game, there were no games with more than 2 goals combined so far. lol

So, England 1 USA 1, great outcome for the Yanks...and for England.
You see, all those fans, all those newspaper columnists and the England management now have a chance to put the blame for England's INEVITABLE World Cup failure on one man, Rob Green the England goalkeeper.
Sure the goal he let in was a shocker, but it's always more important for the hierarchy to blame a player, rather than the system (just the way airlines prefer to blame 'pilot error' for air air crashes and not a fault of the aeroplane).
The fact is this: Green's mistake (which allowed USA to equalize) did not cost two points - England's failure to score any more goals did that. They had 45 minutes, and could not.
Another fact is, England were outplayed by the USA for long periods, but apart from that, if they can't beat the USA, then they will not beat better teams (than the USA).
Unless England pull something out of the hat and win their next two games, it looks like England vs Germany in the round of 16.
And then it's a case of "going home, going home, going home..."

Blame it on the ball...
I haven't seen the Jabulani 'flutter' in the air, also due to a surprising lack of shots from distance so far. I have, however, seen the ball bounce VERY high on a number of occasions. In my opinion, this is nothing to do with the ball, but with the thin air at high altitude. Most teams have trained with this ball for half a year, whereas they only had a couple of weeks of training at 1200 meters altitude, if at all. This would explain their surprise at the way the ball bounces. Note how England played at 1200m, Algeria at 1500m.
Today Holland and Denmark should experience difficulties at 1750m in Johannesburg, Japan and Cameroon too in Bloemfontein (1400m), whereas Italy and Paraguay should have no problem at sea level in Cape Town.

Vuvuzela...
Every part of the world has its particular football noises. I do not consider the racist choruses of Europe, the insults hurled from soutamerican stands, the trumpeting of westafrican stadiums or the weird high pitch noise emanating from the typical Japanese/Korean game much less annoying than the vuvuzela.
Even though it sounds like we are living in a beehive, I do not mind it too much, but you will see measures are being taken to ban them.
Of course this is not simply because people complain, it is because people get so annoyed by it, that they actually might switch off the TV. One percent audience, means 1% less consumers watching. For an advertiser 1% off a $1 million budget is $10000.
The FIFA generally is impervious to fan complaints, but very susceptible to an eyebrow raised by sponsors. Money talks!

By the way, I hear English TV missed the first English goal because they switched to commercials, that sounds very American to me.

If you dont like strange noises at football games, come to Australia you wont here a thing from the crowd.

Shouldn't underestimate the US as a football team, they wont win but they have come on in leaps and bounds.
Poor old Australia talk about your reality check! Carved up by a german team who, well, theyre just better at it really. Did Australia really think they could German with an offside trap for 90 minutes, surely not?
Oh well, they got two games to go.
My Dutchies are off to a winning start. I still remember 1990 when every game in the group was drawn and every team scored 1 goal! But they dont look like a champion team yet.
They say the cricket balls go further in the jo'burg air so I guess it will have some effect on footballs too.

It was only those in England that were watching it in High Definition. Luckily I am to poor to afford such a luxury

Many years ago a tv network cut short the broadcast of a very important close american football game to go to the Disney movie. I dont think they've made that mistake again, Thats probably the moment behind "sounds very American to me".
Australian television is notorious for messing up sports broadcasts. Especially the tv channels concept of the term "live" annoys a lot of people.

Congrats to New Zealand

There is a new phrase that applies to all Australians.. "Don't mention the soccer!"

Good on the Kiwis though

Maybe most people are getting used to the horns but I just can't .. I dunno, I tend to think it's because it's just a constant drone and no up and down of ordinary crowd noise. I want to hunch my back and say "the horns! The HORNS!"

As for Australia .. there was a story yesterday that it wasn't fair that Germany had longer to practice with the new ball. Errr .. the full story is that the Australian league let money get in the way because it is contracted to use a certain ball so couldn't use the world cup one. It's our fault not Germany's. Why do we have to look for excuses every time we don't win something? Can't we just say that soccer is only fourth on the list of football codes and aren't we good to have gotten this far (and then start claiming the Kiwis )

Anyone listening to the Baddiel and Skinner podcasts? they're fun.

No team has ever won the World Cup after losing their opening match. Does this spell the end of Spain's quest? Never had faith in them anyway.

Everyone who loves football had hoped Spain would finally live up to their potential, but instead they fell back into their old habit of underperforming at world champs. They were the dominant team all game, but it just didn't happen. Everyone who wonders how the USA-England 1-0 of 1950 came about, this is what it must have looked like.
Loved the sign saying "chocolate beats paella".

The South African goalkeeper received a red card today...is he out for the next match as well? Don't remember how that works.

I don't watch a ton of football, but that was the first time I'd seen a GK receive a red card.

Yes pyonir - he will be suspended for the next match and it doesn't look like South Africa will be able to make it to the next round, so that red card probably ended his World Cup. Another South African player is also suspended from the next game for picking up a yellow card in both of the games they have played in to date.

It is a shame if it is the end of his World Cup as I don't think the referee got it right. The ball was moving away from the goal and thus by the Laws of the Game a referee should not be as strict in their interpretation of the "last man foul - red card" rule as applied to this situation as the referee was today.

I have only really watched Football World Cups since 2002 (this is my third) and in that time no goalkeeper has been sent off...so this is a record in itself. The record could go back even further as goalkeepers are pretty careful in World Cups as many countries struggle to find two world class players who can sufficiently perform in that position.

Red cards to goalkeepers used to be very rare and always came as a shock but it has become more common in recent years. Arsenal and Germany goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann got sent off for Arsenal (against Barcelona) in the Champion's League final...the most prestigious club match in European football. Not only was he the first goalkeeper to get sent off in the final of the competition but the first player to be sent off at the occasion. This was in 2006, and being sent off in the final of the Champion's League then seemed to come into fashion as Didier Drogba got sent off for Chelsea in 2008.

Thanks for the info jonnowales. I knew that other player had gotten his second in the WC and would miss the next match and glad I remembered the rule correctly that a red means you are suspended for the next match.

As for the moaning about the ball - this happens at almost every World Cup; I know that they made a big deal about it at the South Korea/Japan World Cup in 2002. Both teams have to play with the same ball, so get on with it!

It looked for a while as if long range goals were going to be unlikely but Diego Forlan for Uruguay proved today that the ball does not prohibit such awesome goals! We won't mention that it took a bit of a deflection! Another example was Cristiano Ronaldo - fabulous strike, shame it hit the post. If they can't handle the ball, they shouldn't moan about the ball itself but at their own inability to control it.

No problem pyonir!

Here is a web site that is a must for all World Cup Fans Interactive Fixture calendar

How come the Germans have been using the new ball for 6 months and no other team were able to?

Another straight red card today - this time to a Nigerian player. The referee will have to submit a violent conduct report (which will likely be written by the assistant who saw the incident) and could receive a ban lasting more than one game. It would be pretty harsh if he was suspended for more than one game though - the player was ill-disciplined but it wasn't exactly a dangerous kick.

France looked pretty terrible today...talk about a disappointing WC performance.

^^^^^How come the Germans have been using the new ball for 6 months and no other team were able to?


The way I understand it is that all the companies were given the ball at the same time but contracts with other countries in their local leagues meant they couldn't use them in game conditions.

pyonir - I have been doing some research on red carded goalkeepers in World Cup history and discovered that the Nigerian was only the second ever goalkeeper sent off in a World Cup. The first goalkeeper sent off was Gianluca Pagliuca for Italy against Norway back in 1994 in the United States! A bit of soccer history for the USA there.

He was sent off for intentionally handling the ball outside of the goalkeeping area.