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Post by littlepea on Nov 10, 2005 8:59:54 GMT -5
Scotland are playing the USA at football (soccer) on saturday, anyone gonna watch it? i would normally watch it, but i have to see my club team play a match which is actually important, whereas this is just a "friendly" or exhibition match (basically practice for the USA before the world cup next year - which Scotland didn't qualify for) the USA should win, cos they are something like 6th in the world while Scotland is something like 80th (mind you the rankings don't really reflect the true quality of the teams - many teams below the USA are probably much better than them). either the USA will thrash us 6-0 or Scotland will come out fighting and we'll get a 2-2 draw or even beat you, we're just like that sometimes (in other words we're crap but sometimes we "click" and things start going well). anyway, it's a 4pm kick-off over here, so that'll be something like 10am eastern time for you people across the pond (i'll be going to match which kicks-off at 3pm, so i can only listen to the 2nd half on the radio on the way home, unfortunately)
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Post by Tara on Nov 10, 2005 12:14:53 GMT -5
I don't think I'll watch it. However, I'd love for you to be the announcer and tell us the score.
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Post by cenk on Nov 10, 2005 14:42:17 GMT -5
The USA wil win.
They could probably beat England at the moment. Man why can I sense another painful worldcup involving elimination during the early knockout stages.
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Post by littlepea on Nov 10, 2005 18:06:21 GMT -5
of course the USA could beat england at the moment, the USA could beat anyone and anyone could beat england. england have better players than the USA, though, and should be a better team, but you have an amusing habit of under-achieving, it's great ;D scotland can beat anyone at home as has been shown even in recent years. a couple of years ago we beat holland 1-0 in a euro championships play-off (though they beat us 6-0 in the away leg ... ) and we deserved to beat italy a few months ago only for them to get a sneaky equaliser towards the end ... we were even out-playing Spain away from home in a friendly a while back and beating them until the lights went out and the game had to be abandoned (seriously...). the USA definitely has a better team than scotland, but it's a funny old game and we're at home so you never know. in the end it's just a friendly and doesn't count for anything (i'm sure we'll see lots of scottish youths taking to the field at some point), though i'd be willing to bet that if the USA were in scotland's place and vice versa for the world-cup qualifiers then we would have qualified and the USA wouldn't. i wish you would watch it, tara, so you can see the scots' passion for football as close to first hand as possible. we have officially the most passionate fans in europe, don't you know? cenk might well point to the attendance figures at our domestic league games which rarely reach 15,000 at most grounds, but taken proportional to our population, we have the best support in europe :smug: at the world cup next year i'll be support ABE, as per usual - that's Anybody But England, by the way ;D it's not that i'm particularly racist, it's just that the english build themselves up with such arrogance and blatant bias that people who are forced to listen to it (ie. the scots, irish and possibly the welsh) can't help but delight in england's failure. remember the night in belfast, cenk? northern ireland 1-0 england ... earlier in the evening scotland beat norway 2-1 away from home too - that was the best night of international football i've seen in years ;D ;D ;D fantastic! *deep breath* see what happens when you get me started talking about football?
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Post by Tara on Nov 10, 2005 19:44:53 GMT -5
Question. Do you think that there is a possibility that games could be set up? For example, a little undercover oath to purposely allow one team to lose and another to win. This would seats filled or wahtever... (I just assumed this was done in baseball one way or another and I wonder if it may be also done in other sports) This is what happens when you have a wild imagination. .... ;D
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Post by littlepea on Nov 10, 2005 21:40:01 GMT -5
it has happened in the past and there are many ways to do it. often the goalkeeper is involved in some kind of match fixing scandal since he can easily give goals away (and in real games goalkeepers occaisionally make blunders anyway so it would be wrong to immediately call it a fix because of some glaring error) - bruce grobelar (sp?) was accused of match fixing about 10 years ago in the english league. there have been match fixing rumours concerning referees in germany (i think) within the last couple of years, since obviously they can influence the game heavily by giving biased decisions. also there have been scandals throughout history of entire teams fixing results (ie. intentionally losing) most noatably in germany (again) and italy. a top german side was once caught and most of the team stepped forward and admitted that everyone was in on it, though to this day 3 of them maintain they were not involved in it - i'm sure a german football fan could tell you the names of the team and the people, but i can't, though i do know that the team was kicked out of the league and had to start from the very bottom tier (something like the 7th division - basically it killed the club). the team i support was rumoured to have been involved in match fixing a couple of years ago as we were flying high at the top of our division and we were 14 points clear at the top of our league at christmas (half-way through). for those unfamiliar with how football leagues pan out, this was practically an insurmountable lead and basically we were already champions, but somehow the team fell apart and started playing the most abysmal football i've ever seen and at the end of the season we were sitting 4th out of 10 (we needed to finish in the top 2 to get promoted to the division above - which is where we're still trying to get to today). the rumour was that while we were sitting at the top at christmas, the players bet a load of money on the team sitting in 2nd to win the league - since this was virtually impossible the odds were very very generous, and then they intentionally threw it away. this isn't as dumb as it might sound since the players aren't paid very much as this level of football (most teams are part-time and the top earners at my club - which is full-time - don't get more than £800 per week) but really it's still very unlikely. if it turned out that the whole sport on a global scale was fixed then no-one would be interested in it any more. the fact is that it's not and the superstars at the top are there because they are the best in the world and deserve all the praise that they get. think about it - there would be hardly any serious injuries if it was fixed. the players wouldn't commit to dangerous tackles like they often do if they knew that the game was scripted (just like in WWE you never see them actually use a sledgehammer to demolish the other guy's face). really you would need so much more skill to fix games according to some script that you would be better off playing the game properly and selling your skills to the highest bidder (which is what happens at the very top level). occaisionally you get the situation in cup qualifiers where it's better to finish 2nd in your group than to finish 1st because you already know that 1st place will have to face a tougher opponent than 2nd place in the knock-out round (eg. 1st place has to play brazil, 2nd place has to play england ), and then the top two teams in the group face each other, the winner takes 1st place and the loser takes 2nd. both teams are going through to the next round, that is guaranteed, so straight away the game won't be as competetive as it might otherwise be, and the consolation for losing is that you get an easier opponent in the next round, which is really a bonus, so if your side goes a goal down they might not seem all that determined to get a goal back and try and win ... in africa and asia, several times the teams have approached games like these and each side has tried to lose, one time it was so bad that towards the end of the match a team intentionally scored an own goal to throw the game away, and then for the last 5 minutes each side defended their opposition goal to prevent their opposition from scoring an own goal ... obviously this is frowned upon and whenever something like that happens the teams are fined, though in my opinion they should be kicked out of the competition. and you thought your imagination was wild?
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Post by littlepea on Nov 12, 2005 12:15:27 GMT -5
the game finished just seconds ago and the result was scotland 1-1 USA. i didn't see any of the game and only heard the half-time round up and the second half on the radio but i'll tell you the impression i got from what i heard. apparently scotland were absolutely diabolical for the first 20 minutes 8 minutes in the USA went 1-0 up from a penalty (dunno exactly what happened but it sounded as though no-one was complaining, so fair enough). scotland picked up for the rest of the half and started to come into the game a bit more and close the americans down (which is what scotland does best) and we got an equaliser before the break. a couple of substitutions at half time and the game was off again. second half didn't sound particularly inspiring though the american striker Beasley missed a couple of decent opportunities with poor finishing and was subbed off mid-way through the second half (although by the sounds of it he was causing the scottish defence the most problems). scotland made a few changes and James McFadden came on and lit up the game for us with some cheeky flicks and skills (commentators said he was probably trying to prove a point to the manager for not letting him start). with about 5 minutes to go mcfadden put in a cross from the left and the other scotland sub, youngster Scott Brown, got on the end of it, controlled it and smashed it into the net to make it 2-1 to scotland, except it was ruled out since Brown was offside. final score 1-1. i spoke to my dad on the phone at half time and asked how the game was going - he said scotland were atrocious and the USA didn't look particularly amazing, though they looked quick and were first the ball most of the time. but from listening to the second half commentary it sounded like it was a pretty even game - the USA should not be happy with this result, they should be beating teams like scotland regularly and easily. i wish i'd seen it so i could tell you more about it, but i'm loyal to my club side, so i wasn't allowed to miss it the match i attended had a crowd of less than 500, but we won 3-0 while the team above us dropped points, so i'm in a very happy mood for anyone who did watch it - that is not what a real football match is like. the stadium was half empty (about 27,000 in a 52,000 seater stadium - sounded like there was no atmosphere at all over the radio), the game was ultimately meaningless and the football was uncompetitive. interestingly it's been 9 years since scotland has won a home friendly match, which isn't very good ... i'm sure no-one really cares, but i'm amused to see that argentina is beating england 2-1 in a different friendly match, though it hasn't finished yet and for some strange reason they've decided to play it in Geneva
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Post by littlepea on Nov 12, 2005 12:21:32 GMT -5
oh, and apparently some scots fans booed the american national anthem. i didn't think people were particularly anti-USA in scotland, but i guess there's always some. i would boo the english national anthem if i attended a scotland v england match, but that's cos it's england and they deserve it
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Post by littlepea on Nov 12, 2005 18:09:31 GMT -5
unbelievable - i was wondering if the highlights would be on tv at some point so i checked several channels to see if it was on and didn't notice anything so i forgot about it and did other things for a while. now i just checked the BBC 1 Scotland listings and guess what - highlights were on from 11.25pm - 12.05am ... it's bloody 12.07am and i've just missed them!!!
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhh...
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Post by Tara on Nov 12, 2005 19:11:04 GMT -5
lol Well... thanks for the score. I don't know how these things operate. Will there be a rematch or something like that?
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Post by littlepea on Nov 13, 2005 9:28:34 GMT -5
no, it was just a one-off thing, it doesn't count for anything. it was basically just a practice match for the USA before the world cup next year, they'll play a few more against different teams i'm sure, but really the only reason they would play us is to put a few goals past us and they didn't manage it ... i'll look up what the american reaction to the result was in a minute but the scots were relatively pleased with how things went, though the first 20-30 minutes was absolutely crap by all accounts. ok, just watched the american post-match reaction here, but they didn't show the scotland goal or the one that was disallowed at the end first i'd say that the scottish reporter in that clip is a dunce, sure we don't think the USA are really 7th best in the world like the fifa rankings show, but they're still a hell of a lot better than Scotland - he made it sound like we thought we were favourites ... i was expecting something like this from the americans and i'll just say that i'm not impressed with the attitude of the players and staff. why? they look like jocks and that sort of attitude is more suited to rugby than to the football, in my opinion footballers are meant to be hard as nails, working class types, not these middle class jocks ... still, you're 7th in the world and we're 62nd or something like that, so maybe i'm just a bit jealous i wish i'd seen the game for myself so i could give you my own insight, but that wasn't possible unfortunately
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