Brazil > South Africa

BeautifulGame wrote:2006 better for me. They had some great games in the latter stages of the tournament as well.Ita vs Ger is semi Arg vs Ger in QF and Fra vs Spa.

Will have to see how the latter stage matches this time.Could easily fizzle out like 2002 considering the quality of teams so far imo

wut, we have Brazil-Colombia,Germany-France,Argentina-Belgium/USA,and Netherlands-Costa Rica in quarter finals, those are some great games imo.

2002 is the worst WC ever held

Ganso wrote:

BeautifulGame wrote:2006 better for me. They had some great games in the latter stages of the tournament as well.Ita vs Ger is semi Arg vs Ger in QF and Fra vs Spa.

Will have to see how the latter stage matches this time.Could easily fizzle out like 2002 considering the quality of teams so far imo

wut, we have Brazil-Colombia,Germany-France,Argentina-Belgium/USA,and Netherlands-Costa Rica in quarter finals, those are some great games imo.

We will see.Seeing the way the likes of Brazil Dutch and CR/Greece playing doesnt give me much confidence.We many get highly entertaining games but quality and classic doubt it.we will see

Hopefully Ger-Fra will be memorable

BeautifulGame wrote:2006 better for me. They had some great games in the latter stages of the tournament as well.Ita vs Ger is semi Arg vs Ger in QF and Fra vs Spa.

Will have to see how the latter stage matches this time.Could easily fizzle out like 2002 considering the quality of teams so far imo

Which has been excellent? Unlike in 2002 when big teams did not progress far because of fatigue, this time around it has been because the "rest of the world" have really upped their game. If Costa Rica are playing instead of Italy/England, it's because they deserve to.

Frankly, my memory is fading a bit. But in my book this is the best WC since 1986             .

Better than South Africa but lacks quality. Too many injured affected teams.

Greece and Uruguay's elimination has ensured this is the best world cup I have seen and properly remember. Attacking teams are being rewarded, football is winning.

I was 11 years old during France '98.. I remember that as being a great world cup.. strong Arsenal involvement with Bergkamp, Overmars, Petit etc... I just remember it being full of amazing players... Laudrup, Zidane, Bebeto, Rivaldo, Klinsmann, Cocu, Davids, Baggio.. just names that used to make your mouth water as a kid.

But... since that world cup, I can say without hesitation that this is the best world cup I have ever seen - the best world cup of the 21st century - even with England being pathetic.. may it continue.

Yea, Im glad the recent trend to be a bit mroe boring sicne more focus on defending and to some degree match control via possession instead of attacking and trying to score like a lot of the group stage matches.

But then the KO stage has been very different already Teams looking tired not even at 90mins too... although others fighting it out over 120 mins, its great.

Betting sake I dont like to see too many upsets, so it seems that has stopped also lol.

Have to say the quarter-finals round was disappointing, 3 out of 4 games boring anti-climaxes with only the Brazil v Colombia game offering some quality and excitement.

Hopefully the semi-finals will be better. The group stage of this World Cup was amazing and the round-of-16 pretty good as well, so it would be a shame if it ended to the tune of these quarter-finals.

I think the last remaining games will be great.

Netherlands are a good attacking team and they're coming up against Messi and co.

Brazil have a point to prove and Germany will want to do better than their recent Semi's.

It's been a great WC though.

Art Morte wrote:Have to say the quarter-finals round was disappointing, 3 out of 4 games boring anti-climaxes with only the Brazil v Colombia game offering some quality and excitement.

Only if you consider hack'n'slay quality and excitement, though. I mean 54 fouls committed? That's 1 foul every 100 seconds!

I felt Costa Rica vs Netherlands was the best match of the quarter finals.

rwo power wrote:

Art Morte wrote:Have to say the quarter-finals round was disappointing, 3 out of 4 games boring anti-climaxes with only the Brazil v Colombia game offering some quality and excitement.

Only if you consider hack'n'slay quality and excitement, though. I mean 54 fouls committed? That's 1 foul every 100 seconds!

It wasn't a great game by any means and the constant fouling and poor refereeing hindered it, but at least both teams looked capable of scoring and did score and try to attack.

Germany v France and especially Argentina v Belgium somehow managed to lack almost any excitement even though in both games there was an early'ish goal, which should usually open up the game a bit. I'm one of the first fans to say that defensive-minded football is as fine a way to play the game as any, but in the World Cup quarter-finals even I expected more than an early one-goal lead comfortably holding until the end with neither team looking like scoring the game's second goal.

M99 wrote:I felt Costa Rica vs Netherlands was the best match of the quarter finals.

It wasn't a bad 0 - 0, but nothing special, either. The fact that an ordinary 0 - 0 game gets anyone's vote as the best quarter-final in a World Cup says it all about the level of disappointment in the quarter-final round.

Hm. Germany had several chances to score some more goals - we were just let down by Schürrle's, Özil's and Müller's inability to put some real sitters into the net, so you can't really say Germany wasn't looking for a second goal.

In general i agree with Art. Massively disappointed with the last 8 matches.

The WC got off to a flier with the group stages, then started to peter out during the last 16.

Hopefully it picks up in the semi finals and beyond.

I thought the last 16 were just as amazing as the group stages .quarter finals have been garbage though aside from Chile-Brazil and Netherlands-Costa Rica

Yeah I thought the round of 16 was quite good actually. As good as the group stages. Didn't think the quarterfinals were very good however. Hope the semi's are great.

RED wrote:In general i agree with Art. Massively disappointed with the last 8 matches.

The WC got off to a flier with the group stages, then started to peter out during the last 8.

Hopefully it picks up in the semi finals and beyond.

Correction

How can anyone complain about the last 16 games?

That was the pinnacle of the world cup, unbelievable games after one another.

The quarter final have been a let down in comparison.