Smogon's Official World Cup Discussion (Congrats to Glaucius on winning Pick'em!)

[WaterBomb]

Hello folks! With the World Cup fast approaching, I thought it might be fun to set up a Pick 'em on Yahoo for us to have some friendly competition. This will be free of course, and anyone can join. I have never created one of these before, so hopefully I did it right. The invite link is below:

http://y.ahoo.it/suRBu6zR

Group name: Smogon
Group ID: 398
Password: smogon (all lower case)

Please let me know if you experience issues with signing up and I will attempt to work them out. We can also use this thread to discuss picks or the World Cup in general. Good luck!

EDIT: as an opening question to kick off the discussion, which country do YOU think is going to win it all, and why?

 

[Brap]

If anyone calls this anything apart from FOOTBALL...

This World Cup is one of the most wide open World Cups in a very long time.

You've got 3 South Americans teams all in with a shout - Brazil, Argentina & Uruguay. I hear the media in Brazil are bigging themselves up even more than the English media have done before every single major tournament until this one.

There's the European Teams as well - Spain, Germany, Ronaldo, Holland. Belgium could be dark horses, and it's always nice to see the likes of the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Korea & Japan making the latter stages.

 

[WaterBomb]

If anyone calls this anything apart from FOOTBALL...

You do realize it was actually called Soccer first, 18 years before the singular term "Football" began to be used, right?

 

[shade]

You do realize it was actually called Soccer first, 18 years before the singular term "Football" began to be used, right?

well football comes from medieval times meaning 'games being played on foot' rather than on horses, so this is probably not strictly true

 

[Myzozoa]

Argentina is unbelievably overrated on this forum. I don't understand it, maybe someone could explain it to me?

 

[Brap]

You do realize it was actually called Soccer first, 18 years before the singular term "Football" began to be used, right?

Then why is it the FIFA World Cup?

 

[Eagle4]

Going for some pretty interesting picks

Argentina is unbelievably overrated on this forum. I don't understand it, maybe someone could explain it to me?

Argentina simply have a fantastic squad from an offensive perspective, and they're accustomed to the South-American climate. I honestly see them as second-favourites to life the cup (first being Germany).

Edit: Ranking my top 5 teams that will most likely win it

1. Germany - They have the best squad depth and some really damn good quality players that it doesn't matter if they have no prominent striker (Just look at Bayern Munich)
2. Argentina - Reasons above
3. Brazil - On home turf, used to the conditions and spurred on by an abundance of support. Their squad is pretty great too I guess
4. Spain - While I don't see them winning due to their aging squad and their found-out tika-taka, they have some real quality players.
5. Italy - They've been under the radar this world cup build up despite having an experienced and impressive squad. I can see them topping "The Group of Death" quite handily and advancing to at least the quarter finals (if not semis)

 

[WaterBomb]

Then why is it the FIFA World Cup?

mainly because the name "football" became the popular term as the game filtered down into the middle and lower classes. Back then, many games were called "football" since they were all played on foot, so they had prefixes to distinguish them. What we know as "Rugby" was initially called "Rugby football", and soccer was called "Association football", etc. Soccer was a merging of "assoc-" from the official name with an -er added to the end, much like Rugby was referred to as "rugger". This is why, in my initial reply, I stated that soccer was used as a name for the sport 18 years before the SINGULAR "football" was used, since clearly the word "football" was being used earlier but to describe all manner of sports.

Anyway I just find it a little amusing when people get so indignant over the use of the word "soccer" and portray it as some American bastardization when in fact it was created and used by the Brits themselves, and prior to the sport simply being called "football".

 

[Imanalt]

First off i would like to say that Eagle4 is whack.
I'm overall high on argentina, but having them over brazil is uh....

Anyways my list of favorites (in order):
1. Brazil - As strong of a squad as anyone, only question for me is whether they can really gel into a team, not 11 players.
2. Germany - Pretty unfriendly group and the fact no european team has ever won on south american soil are really the only reasons they aren't first.
3. Argentina - They have an excellent set of attackers, and may be able to play tactically roughly the same way as real, playing a hybrid 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 with Di Maria in the midfield swinging out wide... The only concern for me is that they don't have the depth of truly elite players at basically every position of Germany and Brazil.
4. Spain - I mean they still have everything they've had, I just think their old issues (lack of a true striker, concerns about tiki-taka against elite counterattack) combined with several very strong squads puts them this far back. Also being in the strongest group in the tournament (chile is really underrated) doesn't help.
5. Belgium - They have a squad that is fully capable of being higher on this list (probably #3), but their youth and concerns at a couple positions (no true fullbacks who can go forward well), hold them back a bit, probably the single worst matchup for most any team because they can play very well.

 

[Brap]

Anyway I just find it a little amusing when people get so indignant over the use of the word "soccer" and portray it as some American bastardization when in fact it was created and used by the Brits themselves, and prior to the sport simply being called "football".

You can't use that logic. That's like the american republican party. Years ago, Lincoln & co got rid of slavery. These days, that party is full of close-minded jesus nutjobs.

Time my friend, time. The sport is called football.

 

[WaterBomb]

You can't use that logic. That's like the american republican party. Years ago, Lincoln & co got rid of slavery. These days, that party is full of close-minded jesus nutjobs.

Time my friend, time. The sport is called football.

Just because one term has grown in popularity does not make the other term incorrect. Both ways are acceptable, in my opinion. Regardless, there's no need to get bent out of shape when someone calls it the other name that you don't use.

 

[shade]

who cares really

 

[Killah]

I have no idea what I'm doing but how likely is it that 'murica makes it to the knockout round? Germany is obviously good but surely they could get past Ghana and Portugal lawl

 

[WaterBomb]

Ghana and Portugal are no slouches. USA can beat them both but whether they actually will is very much the question. Ghana knocked us out last time iirc and they always bring a good squad, so they could potentially make the later rounds and it wouldn't be a huge surprise. Germany is going to win it all though so I guess it doesn't matter in the end.

 

[Imanalt]

Ghana is the clear 4th in that group, although there are several groups theyd have a shot at qualifying from. As it stands in my predictions, i have portugal advancing over the us on goal differential, because ronaldo gives them more consistent scoring against ghana. The american tactics against portugal will be important. In general klinnsman tries to play fairly proactively, but against portugal it seems like a more counterattacking set up could be useful, as portugal has no real way through a parked bus... This increases the chances of a tie however, which would presumably mean second in the group is decided by goal differential, which is always fun... Of course theres always a chance of an upset anywhere to shake things up, but well see

 

[Myzozoa]

Calling ghana to beat america. they won the u-20 world cup a while back in 2009 (1 year before the last world cup), and they all play in better leagues than american players. also your optimism about the US (and Belgium) is not making me take your rating of Argentina more srsly.

 

[shade]

problem with the usa squad is the attacking options if you ask me. jozy altidore is garbage, dempsey is getting on a bit and the rest are relatively unproven on the world stage. you never know though, they could turn out to be class acts - i hear wondolowski (sp?) is pretty good. ghana look better going forward with the ayews, prince boateng and even asamoah gyan (even though i think he is pretty shit) and just look like a generally deeper squad.

 

[vyomov]

Personally, while I'll be supporting England I don't see them going too far into it, but I think Germany and Brazil have the best chances of winning, although I'd say Chile is a dark horse - a really good team that played very well against Spain in a friendly, remains to see whether they can push it all the way.

 

[HBK]

I expect Belgium to go pretty far but their lack of experience will prove to be their undoing. Argentina don't have what it takes to make it to the finals imo, Brazil and Germany will face each other for the trophy. And Spain might reach the semis (lol what if they won again)

I'm supporting Portugal (on my father's side) and I expect us to qualify for knockouts without much of a struggle. We might scrape through the first knockout phase if the draw's kind to us but Ronaldo could only carry us so far.

 

[Ratochu]

I'd also expect Brazil and Germany to face each other for the trophy, but I think it's impossible, they should face each other in the semis.

 

[HanPyol]

I'm hoping South Korea can make it out of the Group Stage, we have a pretty good chance to. However, our performance against Tunisia Wednesday wasn't too convincing, lol.

 

[baddjordan]

I'm hoping South Korea can make it out of the Group Stage, we have a pretty good chance to. However, our performance against Tunisia Wednesday wasn't too convincing, lol.

This isn't held in korea and the refs aren't from there. Your chances are therefore slim.

 

[Trax]

As an Australian, lets just say I'm already resigned to seeing Australia lose 3 games in the group stage (Chile, Spain, and Netherlands.. talk about group of death, all are top 16 teams in the world).


No European team has won a world cup in South America, so continuing that trend I think it's probably going to be Brazil winning. My second pick would be Colombia.

 

[HanPyol]

This isn't held in korea and the refs aren't from there. Your chances are therefore slim.

We are nice and clean. Don't tell me you're another sore Italian.

 

[latinoheat]

Not sure who will win tbh, i thought Argentina not too sure.

A lot seem to be writing off Spain a little too easy though. This is still the team that won Euro 2012 without really getting out of 1st gear, they have arguably a better squad now. Brazil have their number though.

Fabregas is probably their 8th or 9th best midfielder that is how insane the midfield is.

Ghana is better then USA, they are both a mile behind Germany and Portugal, it will be a miracle if either make it out the group.