04/19/24
July 06, 2010
Uruguay-Netherlands Play for Spot in World Cup Final: Favourites Netherlands seem set for a familiar task of having to pierce a massed defence when they tackle Uruguay on Tuesday in the first World Cup semi-final.
Suggested Youtube improvement: have everything that ever happens available immediately so I can link to them and rewatch in HD. No reason.
posted by yerfatma at 02:53 PM on July 06, 2010
apoch and I are holding down the the IRC channel and watching the match live. Join us.
posted by scully at 02:56 PM on July 06, 2010
Beautiful first goal. That was incredible.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 03:02 PM on July 06, 2010
All I have to say is: Diving belongs in bodies of water, not the pitch.
posted by apoch at 03:04 PM on July 06, 2010
They don't need the last 20 yards or so of the pitch. And yes, even though I'm rooting for the Dutch, the diving is inexcusable.
posted by yerfatma at 03:17 PM on July 06, 2010
I picked up Gio and Forlan for my fantasy team just this morning.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 03:25 PM on July 06, 2010
Historic background. Two time winners versus the best team never to win the cup.
80 years of the tournament, 40 years since Uruguay reached a semi. The decade that followed belonged to the Dutch -- in everything but the trophy.
posted by etagloh at 03:35 PM on July 06, 2010
I went from rooting for Netherlands to rooting for Uruguay by the end of the match. Robben should be better than that sniper shit and von Bommel is a goddamn embarrassment. He belongs in Slapshot.
posted by yerfatma at 07:10 PM on July 06, 2010
I disagree. Van Bommel is one of the main reasons Holland have got to where they are. He carries the piano, as the Brazilians say. He'll have his partner De Jong back for the final as well.
posted by owlhouse at 07:47 PM on July 06, 2010
Ummmmmm.... GO NETHERLANDS.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 08:54 PM on July 06, 2010
A hummmmer for Holland.
posted by cjets at 09:13 PM on July 06, 2010
I assume they gave a yellow card to the dirty Dutch player for headbutting the Uruguay player's foot on this play.
SHAMEFUL!
posted by grum@work at 09:24 PM on July 06, 2010
I assume they gave a yellow card to the dirty Dutch player for headbutting the Uruguay player's foot on this play
The entire clip looks like guys on both sides competing ... no diving, no cheap crap - let 'em play, I say.
posted by cixelsyd at 10:32 PM on July 06, 2010
The entire clip looks like guys on both sides competing ... no diving, no cheap crap - let 'em play, I say.
Yeah, that's fine but it was a "dangerous," play. It's fine to high kick or do a bicycle as long as you aren't doing it in a crowd or close enough to another player that something like that may happen. Here, it (booting someone in the face) did happen. Easy call for the ref, it was a dangerous play.
Also, the Dutch certainly didn't invent diving. The shock factor that they actually participate in diving is ridiculous. With the way these refs are calling the game, I'm not sure they'd see a foul unless someone acted as though they just got a cap popped in their calf.
I think Robben has perfected making a defender commit to fouling him and then getting out of the way so quickly that he is not actually fouled. In other words, if he wasn't so talented at avoiding actual fouls, he'd be fouled and then his diving wouldn't be diving. Make sense? :)
posted by tselson at 11:09 PM on July 06, 2010
Through my Oranje colored glasses, I still will admit that they seem to be spending a little to much effort trying to draw fouls.
Through the same glasses I will also say that I believe that they've received the only yellow for diving, (deserved yet ridiculous considering how many triple lindies I've seen)
He (Van Bommel) belongs in Slapshot.
That's a compliment, eh?
posted by tselson at 11:38 PM on July 06, 2010
That's a compliment, eh?
Kind of, and I'll defer to Owlie on his abilities. I'd seen Zonal Marking complaining (?) about him during half time, and it colored the way I watched the rest of his game, but I still can't get over that awful tackle at the end of the game that he followed up with a stare at the other player and some (one imagines) less than sporting comments. I've not had the pleasure of watching von Bommel ply his trade outside the World Cup, but it doesn't sound like I'm missing much (again via ZM, who may have an axe to grind):
'Perhaps this is no surprise when they are captained by a man as cynical as Mark van Bommel. No player in the modern game has such a reliance upon the concept of free-kicks conceding them in "professional" fashion to prevent counter-attacks, winning them by running into players and getting them booked, shackling them for the rest of the game.'
posted by yerfatma at 09:07 AM on July 07, 2010
Van Bronckhorst is the captain, in any case. I'm not defending Van Bommel and the way he plays, except to say that his team mates would appreciate what he does more than the spectators. He'd be the first one picked in the side. And not just because he's also the coach's son in law.
posted by owlhouse at 02:31 PM on July 07, 2010
Historic background. Two time winners versus the best team never to win the cup. Forlan may be the best player thus far in the competition, but I can't see Uruguay overcoming Holland without Suarez.