Expert Football

If Pele were to predict brazil to win and paul (from beyond the grave) picked brazil to win. Would they actually win? Curse vs octopus.

nick117 wrote:If Pele were to predict brazil to win and paul (from beyond the grave) picked brazil to win. Would they actually win? Curse vs octopus.

The easy answer is that they would both neutralize each other, and some improbable happening would occur, like Canada winning it.

Rome_Leader wrote:

nick117 wrote:If Pele were to predict brazil to win and paul (from beyond the grave) picked brazil to win. Would they actually win? Curse vs octopus.

The easy answer is that they would both neutralize each other, and some improbable happening would occur, like Canada winning it.

I Think this should happen Make sure pele bets against the next psychic animal.

Met wrote:

mrbeankid22 wrote:R.I.P. Paul the Octopus

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/67/world ... s-has-died

He was the star of the world cup, unlike england.

Is he 6 feet under or is it different for octopusses?

6 feet under, 2 over.

Anyway, I can exclusively reveal Paul isn't dead. He had been worried that the sea-life centre didn't have enough ambition and he's just signed a 5 year contract.

At present, he is in Dubai with his wife, a silicon-enhanced puffer fish...you know the ones, they get all fat and prickly when they are annoyed.

slyly looking towards euro 2012.....

'Its coomin ome, Its coomin ome, its coomin, footballs coomin ome'

Hey so I was looking at videos on youtube, specifically Germany 4 - England 1 cause I wanted to watch Mesut more up closely, and I found this comment:

england and argentina are the 2 most overatted teams ever!

everytime they talk about win the world cup and everytime they dont even reach the semifinals!

they have no winner mentality like brazil germany or italy they have just a big mouth!

im sure in 2014 we will see the same thing like 2010 2006 2002 1998 1994 1990 and and and

england and argentina-overatted sh*t teams with looser mentality!

obviosuly our friend seems to be eastern european, my guess eslovenian!

I think it has some truth to it, specially the mentality part.... both England and Argentina have world class players in there prime and have players that are key in there teams, for every position, Messi, Higuian, Cambiasso, Di maria - Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney we're talking about stars from Top Clubs.... and every 4 years it kind of is like "the golden generation" untill they get so far and then they get knocked out.. why?

panchester07 wrote: both England and Argentina have world class players in there prime and have players that are key in there teams, for every position, Messi, Higuian, Cambiasso, Di maria - Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney we're talking about stars from Top Clubs.... and every 4 years it kind of is like "the golden generation" untill they get so far and then they get knocked out.. why?

They tend to get knocked out when they meet a team that is better than them, although England fans might understandably argue that penalty shoot-outs have played a part. I think one of Argentina's biggest problems is the fact that their squad plays all over the world and it must be hard to get a good team spirit going.

England obviously don't have that problem. Mentality has much more to do with it - in the player's heads when they reach a tournament, in the heads of the idiotic journalists and pundits who put too much pressure on them by whipping up expectations, and then crush them for not performing how they do on a Playstation game, but also, more crucially, with the English attitude towards nurturing young talent.

When I was younger I remember the players that got picked up by professional clubs were the big ones and the fast ones, and perhaps not unreasonably so as those are the players that perform well at very young ages. However if you look at the Spanish team that won in South Africa, none of them are remarkably big or fast by today's standards, but for every position (apart from left-back) there is a Spanish player in the top 3 in the world. Villa, Torres, Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Ramos, Pique, Casillas, Reina, Silva, Puyol... In a few years we will be saying the same about the German team that knocked out England and Argentina (Ozil, Khedira and Muller are very hot prospects). My point is that by encouraging young players that winning above all else is everything they will never be able to compete with the European and South American powers that consistently impress at tournaments. The focus should be more on development of skill and tactical awareness, facets of the English game that are frequently exposed as disappointing both at club and international level.

One of my favourite post-World Cup statistics; England currently have about 2,500 fully-qualified UEFA certified coaches. Germany has about 30,000.

Theres also an amount of luck to it.. I remember Argentina outplaying Germany in 06 in the quarterfinals, and having Klose tie the score just 8 minutes before the second half ended... Then Lehman had a sheet that said how each player shot a penalty and he blocked all of them or the mayority... I don't think this Germany was better than Argentina at alll... In 2010 though, Argentina had more big names, and more Argentines doing well in the present they just had a numbnuts for a coach.... You had Zanetti and Cambiasso lifting the Champions League trophy, Bunch of Strikers doing so well.. Tevez scoring in England, Higuian and Lio in Spaying, Militto in Europe, Messi scoring 47 goals per season, you literally had a golden generation, but Maradona is a circus clown for a manager.. I don't know why the hell he played Veron all the elimination rounds as a "motor" and when the tournament good spicy and the team needed him the most he sat him in the bench, and had Maxi Rodriguez as a "6"

but for every position (apart from left-back) there is a Spanish player in the top 3 in the world. Villa, Torres, Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Ramos, Pique, Casillas, Reina, Silva, Puyol... In a few years we will be saying the same about the German team that knocked out England and Argentina (Ozil, Khedira and Muller are very hot prospects). My point is that by encouraging young players that winning above all else is everything they will never be able to compete with the European and South American powers that consistently impress at tournament

I think thats an interresting statement, and I think Brazil and Argentina can really say that every year.. For every position they have top 3 or top 5 in the world.. they could make a B team that coud also compete for the trophy...

Can't speak of England's problem, because I'm not so educated in English footballl and the system and what not, but I think Argentina's been a series of problems :

2010- freak manager, Argentina owes so much too him they gave him the position and he motivated the fu** out of his players but tacticaly he was raw, knocked out 4-0 and fu**ed tactically

2006 - fu**ed everybody in the group stages, playing mad football, outpayed the germans in their own world cup, lost in penalties cause lehmann had a sheet explaining how each Argentine player shot..

2002 - no comments, horrible tournament, no idea what happened, lost to england, tied to the sweedish who where first in the group, beat nigeria, and lost to england due to a pk beckham shot to the middle.. 1 won, 1 tied, 1 lost, 4 points not enough to go through..

1998 - fu**ed everybody in the group stages, beat england in the first knocout round in pk's, and lost 2-1 to netherlands with the bergkamp goal in the 90th minute that you see in every video, sweet goal by the way...


in 1994 they knocked out early, and in 1990 they lost the final to the germans in an illegal goal, I realy think Argentina has the best players in the world, they just lack the organization and chemistry some other teams like Germany have every tournament...for the raw material they have, along with england, i think they are madly underachieving, cant believe italy has 4 world cups and argentina just 2 and england just 1, playerwise both nations are miles infront of italy imo. seriously some times its been luck, and sometimes its been terrible preparation for these two.. but they've always had super players.

Nail on the head Panch. Luck always plays a massive part.

I'm not entirely sure about Argentina, so you could clarify this for me Panch, but in England, one of the biggest problems is the press.

The media in England puts so much hype into the world cup, and puts so much pressure on the managers and players, that it turns into a game of trying their best not to upset the majority, to not make mistakes and to not go against the grain, which inevitably leads to under performance.

If you walk onto a football pitch scared of making mistakes, then you will never be able to do anything good either, regardless of how well you stop yourself from making mistakes.