Let's go! Last time this ended with me vowing to stab Ronaldo.

1-1 against America? Fuck off.

Ties in sports suck.

They do when it's my team against an inferior opposition.

USA, USA!

That must really suck for you, Thommy. I mean, most Americans make fun of soccer, and it's kind of your thing, and we tie you. I thought you guys were good at this by now.

It was the very definition of a fluke - an innocuous play forward bounced out of our keeper's hands and trickled into the goal. Hugely embarrassing, but England played better throughout (we scored within five minutes of kick off). Still, there's nothing wrong with the USA's team - they're a perfectly respectable side at this point, but not on England's level, despite the result. That's what makes it so annoying.

And it's called a draw, not a tie.

Also, I completely forgot that almost everyone else on this board is American when I started this topic...

I don't usually follow soccer. I'm more into American football, but that's just me. >.>;;

I wouldn't even know where to watch the World Cup.

Down the pub is traditional. Where's Magnus to talk about this with? I'm stuck with a load of fucking Yanks using words like "tie" and "goalie".

Oh wait, I know why Magnus isn't talking about the World Cup: Sweden didn't qualify

Everyone is saying the exact same thing about those trumpets ("vuvuzelas", apparently). So annoying. Hopefully as the tournament goes on and the fixtures that aren't yet set in stone start coming up they'll trail off, because I don't imagine so many South Africans will have tickets to those games. Also, South Africa will be out by then so they won't give a shit any more...

Couldn't agree more about Germany. A very impressive showing, albeit against a pretty dismal opposition (though I felt Australia took the fight to them pretty well before going two goals down). They look the strongest team so far, though we've obviously yet to see many of the big boys playing. Argentina look strong too. Greece and France look shit.

You've also nailed it with your assessment of England: we consistently lose because of some stupid piece of bad luck and that's exactly the kind of thing that shouldn't affect the outcome. Brazil and Germany and Argentina have bad luck too, but they have the ability to minimise its effect. You can see England know how to play, and they were dominant in the match against USA, with a clear advantage in terms of possession and chances, but it just doesn't translate into goals. And playing Hesky where he is is ridiculous: it's clear to anyone with half a brain that the ideal position for a player of his calibre is back in England, sitting on his fucking sofa like the rest of us. When he got taken off for Crouch last night, everyone in the pub cheered!

The offside rule is very simple:

When the ball is played forward, there must be at least two members of the opposition team (including the goalkeeper) between the furthest forward attacking player and the goal line. It applies only to players in the opposition half. This prevents players from just standing by the goal behind the defenders, waiting for a cross. Violation of the offside rule results in play being stopped and a free kick awarded to the other team. If a goal is scored when a player is offside, it will not count.

Easy.

Offsides isn't too bad. If you compare it to American Football, sure. But it's not that different than Hockey's offsides, at least in the method used to prevent teams from cherry picking.

That's not really that hard to understand, but then again I played on a junior soccer team as a kid. On the other hand I've forgotten half the rules anyway.

And I don't watch bowling. D:

I've never watched any bowling on TV in my life.

Which before Saturday would put it in a virtual tie with Soccer for total time spent watching. Probably a bit more on the soccer end though.

Americans don't need to watch soccer. We have access to the good sports.

Hahaha.

Well, I wasn't very impressed with Italy this evening. They didn't even seem to realise they were supposed to be playing football until they conceded a goal, and seemed content to hold a clearly inferior team to a draw.

In other news, the sky was blue today.

I hate the way the Italians play football. They like to win, but they never seem to have any passion for the game. They sit on one-goal leads or seem happy to play for draws and when they do fall behind, they just get angry and sloppy. The Italians would happily sit back and play conservatively, not scoring any goals and not letting any in, and then win on penalties if they could. That would be their ideal game. Italians are the reason Americans don't get football.

Here's hoping they don't retain this year, eh?

I am enjoying all the animated gifs of soccer players pretending to get hurt and falling down.

Is there one of the Ivory Coast player from last night yet? He got incedentally elbowed in the chest, went down holding his face and the Brazillian player that "did" it (Kaka) got a second yellow and was sent off. Absolute disgrace.