World Cup: Group G discussion

Gil wrote:Can anyone explain why Gotze doesn't celebrate goals? It's even worse than Balotelli's normal routine.

my best guess is: His name.... pretty bad ass name...
he needs to stay "true" to that - It is not a choice but an obligation

And just for the record - if there is no Umlaut on the keyboard it translates to GoEtze not Gotze.

Zizou wrote:

Gil wrote:Can anyone explain why Gotze doesn't celebrate goals? It's even worse than Balotelli's normal routine.

my best guess is: His name.... pretty bad ass name...
he needs to stay "true" to that - It is not a choice but an obligation

And just for the record - if there is no Umlaut on the keyboard it translates to GoEtze not Gotze.

I myself love a good arrogant celebration but his aren't "bad ass" at all he just simply lacks any emotion or passion. You'd never know he was the one that scored against Ghana if you just saw the celebration alone.

I've only started noticing it since he's joined Bayern.

halamadrid2 wrote:Lol at people criticising Ronaldo, if it wasn't for him Sweden would be in the WC right now. I wish he had the tendinitis in November

From Real Madrid's perspective Ronaldo not playing will be good for us because he will get the rest he has so far refused to take for various reasons

Lol at people giving a World Class player and 2 time Balon D'or winner a complete pass for looking like going out of the group stage of the pinnacle of the sport.

Anyone else in this situation, doesn't matter who it is would be ridiculed to the heavens i don't see why Ronaldo should be in different.

Lol @ the injury excuse btw, you're acting like he's performed at the World Cup before and the injury is stopping from doing what he usually does.

2 goals in 12 WC games lol and those two goals were against Saudi Arabia.

Absolutely hilarious, if this was Messi we would see about 15 threads on how he needs Xavi and Iniesta to perform.... but nah Ronaldo gets a complete pass for flopping as hard as any world class player at the World Cup in recent memory.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:2 goals in 12 WC games lol and those two goals were against Saudi Arabia.

It was a penalty against Iran in 2006 and one goal against North Korea in 2010 (when Portugal won the match 7:0).

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

halamadrid2 wrote:Lol at people criticising Ronaldo, if it wasn't for him Sweden would be in the WC right now. I wish he had the tendinitis in November

From Real Madrid's perspective Ronaldo not playing will be good for us because he will get the rest he has so far refused to take for various reasons

Lol at people giving a World Class player and  2 time Balon D'or winner a complete pass for looking like going out of the group stage of the pinnacle of the sport.

Anyone else in this situation, doesn't matter who it is would be ridiculed to the heavens i don't see why Ronaldo should be in different.

Lol @ the injury excuse btw, you're acting like he's performed at the World Cup before and the injury is stopping from doing what he usually does.

2 goals in 12 WC games lol and those two goals were against Saudi Arabia.

Absolutely hilarious, if this was Messi we would see about 15 threads on how he needs Xavi and Iniesta to perform.... but nah Ronaldo gets a complete pass for flopping as hard as any world class player at the World Cup in recent memory.

1. He's injured still. His patellar tendon is severely inflamed.
2. He assisted the goal that saved portugal a point last night.
3. His team in actuality is a bunch of scrubs, bar the defense (not anymore) Moutinho went down the toilet.


I personally don't see why his performance in the WC is underwhelming. How long have we known CR for, years? We know his strengths and weaknesses, and like any other player, if you don't play to his strengths you only see his weaknesses. With decent playmakers/ final passers ronaldo is an absolute meance and constantly will score and beat defenders 1v1 in dangerous positions. Similarly, with good team players, messi is the monster we see at barca, and he can play his 1-2s and be a goal machine.

Unfortunately for CR his playmakers consists of one, moutinho, who like I said earlier, is completely out of form if you've watched monaco.

Messi has teammates who had great seasons, bar (maybe) aguero, who still did work. Gago has been impressive. Not to take credit though, he impressed me with his goal vs iran and showed he can carry a team against bosnia, where poor finishing let them down despite messi creating tons of chances.

Football is a team sport, if you can't see that, then I guess you need to go back to the basics



And please, don't EVER Say ronaldo doesn't get criticized. Stuff it in a toilet and stop lying

Already forgotten what I said about Messi vs CR7 here in this thread? Giggity is lucky he focused more on CR7 who actually played in Group G, but the other post was absolutely senseless and thus got kicked into the data nirvana.

*sighs* I can't say how much I hate this continued bickering, even moreso as I'm no fan of either of them. On the plus side, no one can accuse me of bias in that respect. ^^

PS: RG, I'll kill you. US flag and Red Bulls New York as club?

.. I may have been trolling .. I thought it was obvious enough that I was though ..

In all seriousness though, despite my indifference to the Messi CR7 "debate".. Cr7 had this to say after their draw to the US;

"It could have been a lot easier for me, I could have not come to the World Cup and I would have sat at home as a Champions League winner.
"Instead I answered my country's call as always," said Ronaldo, who inspired the Portuguese to a surprise run to the Euro 2012 semi-finals"

Oh so good of you Ronaldo. So good of you to grace your country with your presence and walk around half the player not lking like you give a toss.

Even after he got the assist, he just puts his head down and walks off, the bloke doesn't care.
Yes he is the best player in Portugal and their success is somewhat dependant on being a successful "one man team"... But Ronaldos performance don't even make them that.. Do you see Suarez whinging about his team mates? Acting as though he is too good to play for Uruguay...

What a massive twot that man is.

rwo power wrote:Already forgotten what I said about Messi vs CR7 here in this thread? Giggity is lucky he focused more on CR7 who actually played in Group G, but the other post was absolutely senseless and thus got kicked into the data nirvana.

*sighs* I can't say how much I hate this continued bickering, even moreso as I'm no fan of either of them. On the plus side, no one can accuse me of bias in that respect. ^^

PS: RG, I'll kill you. US flag and Red Bulls New York as club?

Sorry, I just wanted to use an example I guess.
Ronaldo's injured pecca so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Playing with an injury gives you points in my book. Dude could barely run lmao.

Well, I really wonder about CR7's motives to join the Portuguese NT and play in the World Cup, I have to admit. If he really feels that he probably shouldn't have bothered and rather stayed at home and enjoy his CL medal, then why should he play despite an injury that prohibits him to give his 100 percent and thus he is not really helping his team in the first place?

I wonder if he thought that his chances for another Ballon d'Or might be diminished if he wouldn't show up at the World Cup and that was his real motivation? If so, then it would be a rather risky decision as he can't believe his injury would get in any way better when playing on (possibly against doctors' orders, if some rumours can be trusted).

I bet he must be really upset when he sees players all around bang in goal after goal (Neymar is at Nr.4 already and this is only his first World Cup or Thomas Müller and Arjen Robben already scored 3 etc.), while he still hasn't added to his tally (and he probably won't get many more chances)...

rwo power wrote:Well, I really wonder about CR7's motives to join the Portuguese NT and play in the World Cup, I have to admit. If he really feels that he probably shouldn't have bothered and rather stayed at home and enjoy his CL medal, then why should he play despite an injury that prohibits him to give his 100 percent and thus he is not really helping his team in the first place?

I wonder if he thought that his chances for another Ballon d'Or might be diminished if he wouldn't show up at the World Cup and that was his real motivation? If so, then it would be a rather risky decision as he can't believe his injury would get in any way better when playing on (possibly against doctors' orders, if some rumours can be trusted).

I bet he must be really upset when he sees players all around bang in goal after goal (Neymar is at Nr.4 already and this is only his first World Cup or Thomas Müller and Arjen Robben already scored 3 etc.), while he still hasn't added to his tally (and he probably won't get many more chances)...

You can dislike him but that's plain low, do you really not know how much it means to represent your nation in the WC?

rwo power wrote:Well, I really wonder about CR7's motives to join the Portuguese NT and play in the World Cup, I have to admit. If he really feels that he probably shouldn't have bothered and rather stayed at home and enjoy his CL medal, then why should he play despite an injury that prohibits him to give his 100 percent and thus he is not really helping his team in the first place?

Thats the thing

We both know ronaldo is better then his whole team at 50%

We can talk crap about the rest of the Portuguese NT, but they had WAY more than enough talent to beat us. I mean, there are players for Portugal that don't even get capped that I would drown a bag of kittens, just to get the chance to put Klinsmann in the position to see how they perform in our team.

Ronaldo played a terrible game. He was locked down by an MLSer on the wing who came up through the ancient, archaic american system of college football and getting drafted in his 20's and was thought to not even be able to succeed at the MLS level because people thought he would be a liablility on defense ine a league where Dom ****ing Dwyer and Brandon Wright Phillips are top scorers.

His team mates let him down I guess, but he let his teammates down as well.. Because they were certainly good enough to compete against us but no, the game had to be all about him.. Lovely cross at the end coming off of a brainfart turnover, and a stupid needless, time adding by the officials sub.. but if he had believed in his teammates and passed like that Portugal would have won. He was absolute crap other than that because he tried to do everything himself and was frankly pretty horrible at it. I wasn't even worried whenever he got the ball because even I knew he would be too predictable for players who never even had much experience at the international level to easily defend

Am I the only one that thinks Germany is gonna do Klinsmen a solid and just play out to a draw? I literally have no reason to think USA won't progress. I actually already marked them up in my bracket as qualified.

Peccadillo wrote:.. I may have been trolling .. I thought it was obvious enough that I was though ..

In all seriousness though, despite my indifference to the Messi CR7 "debate".. Cr7 had this to say after their draw to the US;

"It could have been a lot easier for me, I could have not come to the World Cup and I would have sat at home as a Champions League winner.
"Instead I answered my country's call as always," said Ronaldo, who inspired the Portuguese to a surprise run to the Euro 2012 semi-finals"

Oh so good of you Ronaldo. So good of you to grace your country with your presence and walk around half the player not lking like you give a toss.

Even after he got the assist, he just puts his head down and walks off, the bloke doesn't care.
Yes he is the best player in Portugal and their success is somewhat dependant on being a successful "one man team"... But Ronaldos performance don't even make them that.. Do you see Suarez whinging about his team mates? Acting as though he is too good to play for Uruguay...

What a massive twot that man is.

When was he any different btw   
you missed some other parts.

He said "Maybe we’re an average team. It would be a lie to say that we are a ‘top’ team".
We have many limitations and suffer from injuries such as with Pepe (who was suspended) and (Fabio) Coentrao. This limits us a lot.

‘We have a very limited team and we are not at the best level. This does not enable you to beat top teams.

‘There are no miracles. We knew we would have a tough group, with perhaps teams better than us. I never thought we could be world champions, we have to be humble and know our level.

‘I’m not a hypocrite, I never thought we could win the tournament.’

His fanboys already were fighting with those excuses   

This "Portugal is crap and they let Ronaldo down" argument is one of the most stupid things someone can say.

What I've seen from Ronaldo in two games is this : he doesn't defend, he can't dribble, his shots are all off target and crap and he wastes freekicks one after one. he can't create. so all of this things are the teammates fault?

being a star means you should create, dictate the play, involve your teammates and always make the best decision. Ronaldo? he is the "create for me so I'll score" man.

as i always said, he is a user not a creator. that's poison for his teammates considering he is supposed to be the star man.

lol @ ronaldo can't dribble. Otherwise true. His free kicks are hilarious.

Anyway, I think a lot of people here, Americans included, are downplaying the talent of the American players and the integrity of the MLS in general. These are still professionals, and fine professionals at that. I see no reason why anyone would say there's a bunch of non-capped Portuguese players that you'd want to see on the USA, the USA has more than enough capable players that are better than Portuguese bench players.

Code:

Giggity I'm only going to say this.

A balon dor winner almost certainly going out in the group stage is embarrassing and almost everyone is giving him a pass.

Name any other star for any other country and they would be ridiculed, Benz would be laughed at till the cows come home.

Also when i mentioned Messi i meant put him in Portugal's team instead of Ronaldo and if the end result is the same he would get constant ridicule and abuse.

Its the same with any other star, as for his team mates they are better than USA for the large majority and USA would take them.

Also yes he put in that great cross, but one great cross in otherwise an awful two games lead to an almost certain Portugal exit the large majority expected them to qualify from.

Its simply not good enough for a player of his ilk to be in this situation and there can be no excuses.

As for its a team sport, another one on the long line of terrible excuses... It is a team sport yes but i don't recall anyone using that excuse for any other flopped star if anything its the opposite and would be the opposite for anyone else.

Plus "its a team game' might be applicable if he wasn't complete and utter shit against Germany and USA apart from one cross in the 95th minute and not even Portugal's best player in either game.

Wouldn't be that bad if he wasn't complete turd at every World Cup, again he fails to show up and the excuses rain in.

Seems fair to me.

Yeah, sure.   

Put anyone in his position huh? Let's just act like the guy isn't injured, like he's not playing with tendonitis in his left knee and is clearly barely 60%.

Let's just ignore all that.

Also, comparing other players and saying they would get criticism is such a fallacy. None of those players you are mentioning were playing INJURED and less than 100% going into those tournaments.

2 completely different scenarios.

But let's ignore all that, he's supposed to absolutely carry his team hobbled like all the other players who are doing it..........

The only criticism Ronaldo should get is from Real Madrid fans for pulling a Kaka in WC 2010.

Given his obvious lack of any fitness whatsoever I don't think his performances are bad to enough to hate on him, if anything it actually speaks to his quality that he's been able to single handedly keep a very poor team in the World Cup.

Any opinion Mole or Mamad have on Ronaldo are null and void imo considering where their loyalties lie.

NOOOOOOOO, Pardew sees value in the MLS player. FFS, keep your mittens off.

Mole, time to enact the secret protocol

Muntari and Boateng have been sent home by the Ghana team

Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng have been expelled from Ghana's World Cup squad for alleged indiscipline.
A statement on the Ghana Football Association website said both players had "been suspended indefinitely".

It added that Boateng had used "vulgar verbal insults targeted at coach Kwesi Appiah", while Muntari delivered an "unprovoked physical attack on an executive committee member".

The news comes just hours before Ghana take on Portugal on Thursday.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/28035928


There's the "let's make our nation proud" spirit.

Imo Boateng mainly chose to play for Ghana to spite the DFB anyway, don't think he very much involved in Ghanaian national pride in his daily life.

Portugal to blast out Ghana and USA to lose. All the world class players are going through to R16. It's just the way things roll unfortunately

Hapless_Hans wrote:Imo Boateng mainly chose to play for Ghana to spite the DFB anyway, don't think he very much involved in Ghanaian national pride in his daily life.

Dunno if he did it to spite the DFB or if it was that the DFB wasn't interested in him. I dimly remember that he already retired from the Ghanaian NT once (I think after the WC2010?) and then made a U-turn right before the WC2014 when the qualifiers were over.

I dont know why Ghana bother with him.

It's obvious they dont need him, he hasnt had one good game yet and they dont even start him. The play just fine without him.

Clearly there are problems because someone of his talent (he has it) should be starting, its something other than that.

As RWO said, he disgracefully retired when it was time to put in the qualifying work and then "changed his mind" when it was basically all over and it was time to go to the WC.

And to top it off he comes out with arrogant statements like  "They (Ghana media) are very critical but after my goal in Egypt I was hailed, and now all of them love me. Now the World Cup is here, they know they need me and that's why we are an amorous couple again."

I dont get why any Ghana fan would want him at all.