I dont understand. But Argentina has such a great team. They keep on losing. Its like Messi has a curse. Feel so bad for him. They should have won.

 

Chile gave him (them) 120+ minutes to score.

 

yea underatand. But its like they have a curse. Has nothing to deal with chile. Messi has that curse on him. He can not win a title dor his home country. @Emeister

 

I had a pulled porque sandwich yesterday.

 

Lol. That made me laugh. @ulackfocus

 

Messsiiiii?

 

Very.

(thanks for finishing )

 

Noles, its simple, they cant play that 4-2-3-1 and then continue to attack with Messi and Higuain/Kun... all three attacking midfielders have to push... last night, every time he (Messi) got the ball all Chile needed to do was get four guys on him because they knew there was no one to pass the ball to, when you attack in numbers they cant just load up on Messi. The other thing I don't understand is why doesn't Kun and Higuain ever play together???

 

I agree one hundred percent with you. That doesnt make sense. Kun is an amazing player. Argentina is such a great team. But Messi cant do it himself. But at the end of the day its amazing that they can not win a title. I feel bad for Messi that he cant win one for Argentina. @Lessismore

 

They have the same syndrome that Portugal has with Rolando.... But at least Messi has a better supporting cast in my opinion. But it looks like he might retired from the national team, if that happens, a few other players will follow...

 

Very much agree. Another player that will have a nightmare that will last forever is Higuian missing thag goal.

 

Pretty sure the 'curse' is the *other* "Hand of God" giving some payback for Maradona...

 

It's up to the particular tournament organizers to determine how to handle tie-breakers. Sometimes more then one OT is added. Different things have been tried here and there over the years. The main issue with additional OTs is the limited # of allowed substitutes.

one way of looking at the whole PK tie-breaker issue is this: If you know it is essentially a toss of the coin, then you should play that much freakin' harder to avoid having the game go to PKs!

As far as the flopping, I suspect that will never go away. Some of the fouls will definitely leave you on your ass for a few minutes, but no question many players embellish in hopes it will result in a yellow card, or to burn time off the clock. Going to better monitoring of downtime so a reasonable amount of time can be added on at the end of the half helps negate this, but many players came along before the newer timekeeping and it is too full engrained for them to stop. The reality is it is another way to 'manage the clock' and/ or try and halt momentum the other team may have at the time, so it is another element in the players' arsenal.

As far as the game being 'silly', well it is a GAME! Just like baseball, football, basketball, etc. All sports based on having a skill at something, with team play added in. The PKs are not an issue in regular league play. A bot of what you are turned off over is related more to high-stakes tournaments.

 

Like a thousand times. I tried to watch the ARG v. USA game but all the drama, flopping and fake injuries. I was embarrassed for the players. I had to turn it off. Real men don't play like that and a game that encourages that behavior is just wrong. When I played hockey in high school the absolute last thing you could do was show you were hurt by another player. I can remember getting checked so hard the wind got knocked out of me and I was face down on the ice, couldn't breath and all I was thinking about was - stand up! Don't allow that other player see he hurt you. My friend posted this to my time line.

 

well, at least if there is a "world series" they allow other countries to play as well ...


at the end of the match ... the winner is who made more goals ...

90 min
+30 min extra time
+ penalties

 

Too true! Here is the US, every major pro sports proclaims their season champion is "World Champion!!!!" Well, at least some of the sports include some Canadian teams, so they can legitimately claim "International Champions"

 

90 min ---- > well don't forget, the refs get to add on something called "stoppage time"
+30 min extra time ---> do they add "stoppage time" here?
+ penalties

Of particular relevance, this being a watch forum. The whole crazy idea of "stoppage time" was that in the beginning soccer games were timed with wrist watches - so you could not stop the watch for a stop in play. So the ref added additional time to make up for the various stoppages in the game.

Maybe, we as semi-experts in this field, could go to the soccer authorities and inform them that wrist watches do have the ability to time an event outside of the watches time function. I believe the astronauts may have used such a contraption about 50 years ago. Let's do it!

 

I am very concerned about the future of timing soccer games, as I have seen the substitution and 'extra time' boards emblazoned with the sponsor's name "Hublot"...

 

Agreed. The women are much tougher. None of that nonsense.

Now, what's up with that fighting in hockey?