world cup - general anticipation thread

world cup - general anticipation thread

no doubt YF site architects - aided by us all will punt up a decent world cup space closer to the thing itself

Can't wait! Unfortunately did not pay too much attention to the world cup last time it was around, only watched the final match. I am revelling in the opportunity to watch next years games!

Outside of NZ who will we all be supporting?

Myself England and then maybe Australia.

ewwww....

What World Cup? Is there a World Cup soon then? 

Thats one way of avoiding the All Whites.

The All Whites will keep. I'm in mourning at the moment. Again.

We'll just nickname you the man in black.

Oranje everytime.

Jag2009-09-11 08:46:55

AWs as 1st choice, even if they face Engalnd in a group game (i think )

Pretty much anyone but Australia and England.

oh yeah - against the habit of a lifetime, i might start to want USA to do well, but only because of Altidore

oranje til i die

Bafana Bafana and then Die Mannschaft
Bullion2009-09-11 13:45:37

im an oranje man too... genetic ties and all

Same here paulm. orange blood but AWs until the last 16 lol

If they stop pissing around and ctually get there Portugal will be (as always) my team.

Will be supporting any team playing England.

ubergunner's a fan too. There should be a few more of us around as well - come world cup time we'll start an oranje thread whammy

why dont you just pick every team in it you almost have if they get there

NZ first but other than that I will support Italy or England in the cup. (Having strong heritage from those two countries.)

Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.
Will be supporting any team playing England.

At the Euros, the Bencher hosted quite large groups of Dutch and German fans. I think we had staff from each embassy put word around that we were showing all the weekday games live. I am expecting larger crowds this time around. Might even look at talking to the brewery and setting up host pubs in welington for each nation.

Hate to burst your bubble, but a few facts - Yugoslavia effectively ceased to exist in 1992, and what was left of it (back then Serbia and Montenegro) were banned from international competition until 1996, and had a fairly indistince World Cup in 1998. So can't see how that classes them as the best team of the 1990s.

If you're thinking of the Yugoslavia team in 1990 World Cup, very few of the players in that team were actually from Serbia (obviously Stojkovic, and I think Spasic was also in the starting line-up).

Yeah I made it there for 2 games. Met some other Dutchies and got well into it. Will Definately be there for the WC. The host pubs is a good idea too, would love to see that. I can see all the England haters crashing the English base hoping for a choke. AWESOME.

Yugoslavia played at Euro 2000. Fact.

They were the best team that I saw. Unfortunately because of the (stupid) ban they were the Lost Generation of Football. Every player in that era was a class as Football player. Even the defenders were just great to watch. Stojkovic (Pixie) one of my favourite players of all time.

I could imagine the competition around the pubs to be the host of the English fans. Im sure the Brewery has something up its sleeve.

Note the wording of my original post (emphasis on effectively) - rump 'Yugoslavia' continued to exist until 2001 (Serbia and Montenegro, primarily for political purposes), but no-one in their right mind (and legally too) would see that Yugoslavia and the continuation of the pre-1992 Yugoslavia. But this is going too far into politics now so I'll stop there.

The point I was raising why go with Serbia as the team to support now if you're basing that support on the Yugoslav team of the 1980s and early 1990s when very few of the players in that team were actually from Serbia?

As for your argument about 1994/1996 tournaments, if you mean that if Yugoslavia had stayed together for those tournaments, then I agree, they would have been one of the favourites for both tournaments. If you only mean 'rump' Yugoslavia, then I disagree. Probably would have qualified, but would have struggled to do much better than they did in 1998/2000.


PS. Nothing 'stupid' about the ban. Unless you think it was stupid for South Africa to be banned from sporting events during the apartheid era.el grapadura2009-09-15 10:48:00

I support anyone with a United player playing in the match, but of course sleeping patterns are modified and I watch every match. This will be the first tournament where I am working though (provided I don't get fired in the meantime for being on here too much) so I will have to work through that. Not watching the games is not an option though.

England and Australia for me, always had a soft spot for the Dutchies aswell though.

Yea, Serbia isn't the same as Yugoslavia. But say someone supported France because they really liked Zidane and when they won the World Cup and Euros, then France was split up into all different countries. Those people would probably move on and support various parts. Possibly the largest part... Especially if it was still called France for a few years after the split. These things are often not completely rational. And I reckon Serbia do have a good team these days. Keen to see how they look - hoping they don't get a rediculously tough group like last World Cup.

Yea, was meaning that the whole of an unsplit up Yugoslavia could have gone very far in 94/96. Of course, that's just an opinion and nobody will ever know.

Don't want to get involved in a political discussion, but that ban was as deserved as any dished out. Iraq had had sanctions imposed on them for similar things, so the precedent had been set, as had South Africa, so it's not as there had been no precedents. Enough of that though.

Haven't seen Serbia play lately, but from what I've heard from people who have, they've started the campaign very well, and have hit a bit of a crisis at the moment, and just trying to hold on to the top spot. Some of their fans were very disappointed with the performance against France, where they got outplayed at home by a 10-men French team (their keeper had been sent off in the first ten minutes, the game finished 1-1). Think a lot will depend on the draw they get, but can't really see them going anywhere beyond the first knock-out round unless they get very lucky.

I'm also interested about how European sides go - they've never won a World Cup outside of Europe, but this is the first time that a non-European World Cup will be played in the European time zone, but don't know if that makes any difference. As for kick-off times in NZ, I'd expect them to be local time +10/11 hours. Assuming local kick-offs would be on the basis of 6pm and 8.30pm give or take half an hour.

i reckon we could do with a forum space for the world cup

We don't discuss the World Cup until Novembr 15th... otherwise we may curse it.