World Cup Fantasy League (Spoilers Ahoy!)

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 12:35 pm

Wanchope POWER!! Game on again. Costa Rica may be poor, but Germany are not much better.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 12:46 pm

What a goal by Frings!!

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:17 pm

go, ecuador! new world solidarity!

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:18 pm

Poland have been really poor. I'm very surprised. Nice to see the underdogs scoring some goals today.

I love the World Cup - in what other universe would we even be remotely interested in a match between Poland and Ecuador?

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:37 pm

I wish I could see it. I'm following a intermittently frozen ESPN matchtracker.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:40 pm

Wow - a second goal for Ecuador. Someone go get invisible pole down off the ledge!

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 4:49 pm

Pole, you out there? It ain't all bad, mate. Klose was your captain, remember? That's the way to do it, cushion the hurts of real footie with the fantasy stuff.

Rahm-a-Lahm-Dingly-Dong! Yes, first goal of the World Cup is a defender and he's mine all mine. And pig-mounting Scheweinsteiger too, with two assists, I believe. Only thing is, a bastard at work had both of these and sodding rubber legs Wanchope too!!! I daren't look and see if he has Tenorio or the other one.

Isn't the World Cup the best thing ever? It's surely one of the absolute pinnacles of civilisation. In many ways we'd have been better left grunting in our caves, but the World Cup is a valid argument against it, though, um, I guess there's a lot in common between the two conditions.

Anyway, 2pm Saturday, beer in hand, Eng-er-land!

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:15 pm

Shame the USA isn't the clear favorite in any of the matches in their group. Would be nice to place a few longshot bets on their opponents and be able to console myself with either victory for Uncle Sam or a wad of cash in Who Shot Sam's pocket.

I do like Ivory Coast's chances against the Argies and maybe Iran to upset Mexico - ridiclously long odds there, and Iran are a decent team.

Post by **BlueChair** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 6:49 pm

I'm sure a lot of us would LOVE to see a USA vs. Iran matchup.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 7:03 pm

Who Shot Sam? wrote:maybe Iran to upset Mexico - ridiclously long odds there, and Iran are a decent team.

Not a hope. Especially as I have two Mexicans.

D'you see turd-on-legs Oliver Kahn smirking slightly when Lehmann let in goal 2? 'Zo, I put on ze gloves for game number 2, ja?' He looks more disgusting ever, especially gloating over his own chances and not giving a sht about the country he's supposedly representing. I was dismayed to hear he's no older than Lehmann and arguably the better choice for the tournament, I was praying he'd have been kidnapped and dumped in the Baltic by now, swathed in heavy chains and with a large concrete boulder attached to his feet. Someone commandeer a steam-roller quick and sort this out once and for all.

Mechanical Grace · Post by **Mechanical Grace** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 7:32 pm

The Group C match tomorrow will be a fun one for me-- I've got up to four guys in! I really have no idea what I'm doing but I'm enjoying it immensely anyway!

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 8:31 pm

Otis Westinghouse wrote:D'you see turd-on-legs Oliver Kahn smirking slightly when Lehmann let in goal 2? 'Zo, I put on ze gloves for game number 2, ja?' He looks more disgusting ever, especially gloating over his own chances and not giving a sht about the country he's supposedly representing. I was dismayed to hear he's no older than Lehmann and arguably the better choice for the tournament, I was praying he'd have been kidnapped and dumped in the Baltic by now, swathed in heavy chains and with a large concrete boulder attached to his feet. Someone commandeer a steam-roller quick and sort this out once and for all.

Yes. He really is odious, and he was almost singlehandedly responsible for putting the US out of the tournament in 2002, so I have developed a healthy hatred for him as well.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 8:32 pm

BlueChair wrote:I'm sure a lot of us would LOVE to see a USA vs. Iran matchup.

I don't know when/if that is possible, but they did a number on us at France '98. I'd rather not see a repeat of that, thanks.

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:18 am

Oh dear dear ..... what a terrible hangover ! Both from the lost game and the booze that went with it.
Waiting four years for the greatest sports event in the world and then watching such a poor performance by Poland. What a let-down!

Just a couple of short comments:
Klose is my candidate for the top scorer of the tournament. That's why I made him the captain of my team.
No way can Iran upset Mexico. I've got Borgetti in my team.

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:31 am

Ha Ha, funny seeing the Poles blow in the first game (although they are not incapable of beating Germany imo). Met BWAP for beers last night and the pub was full of chanting Polaks, the evening got gradually quieter as it went on, and almost silent when Ec got goal 2 (apart from BWAP trying to get an Ecuador chant going).

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 6:47 am

invisible Pole wrote:Klose is my candidate for the top scorer of the tournament. That's why I made him the captain of my team.

I'm not sure the Germans will last that long - very shaky defensively. I like them to make it out of the group stage, but not much beyond that.

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:13 am

apart from BWAP trying to get an Ecuador chant going

I would pay money to see this.

go, Paraguay! New world solidarity!

j/k

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:57 am

Gawd that was rubbish.

Stevie Gerrard MIA and Ashley Cole just terrible.

Let's hope that's as bad as it will get. And why were the cameras miles from the pitch. Was like watching the match from Mars, and those damn shadows were annoying as hell.

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:13 am

After 10-15 minutes I thought this would be a much more convincing win.
Ugly as it was, it made England go through to 1/8.

Mechanical Grace · Post by **Mechanical Grace** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:16 pm

Paul Robinson gave me 14 today, as he's my captain!

I'm enjoying the view, as I suspect it will be very temporary... I can't account for that many points from A. Cole (6??). Do they often make mistakes before the non-provisional awarding of points, or am I missing something?

In any case I've absolutely no one playing tomorrow....

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:13 pm

Mechanical Grace wrote:Paul Robinson gave me 14 today, as he's my captain!

I'm enjoying the view, as I suspect it will be very temporary... I can't account for that many points from A. Cole (6??). Do they often make mistakes before the non-provisional awarding of points, or am I missing something?

In any case I've absolutely no one playing tomorrow....

Cole got that 6 points for playing 90 minutes as a defender and keeping a clean sheet, though if they subtracted points for being rubbish, he would certainly have taken a hit.

Guess I was wrong about the Ivory Coast. Nicely taken goal by Drogs, but they generally looked poor.

Mechanical Grace · Post by **Mechanical Grace** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:16 pm

I guess it's a bit beyond my depth to know whether someone's played a clean sheet or not, unless he's the keeper! Also, it looks like a player can't score negative points-- true? I'd have though he could, if you had any points to take from the rest of your squad.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:19 pm

Mechanical Grace wrote:I guess it's a bit beyond my depth to know whether someone's played a clean sheet or not, unless he's the keeper! Also, it looks like a player can't score negative points-- true? I'd have though he could, if you had any points to take from the rest of your squad.

You can get negative points - for example if you're a defender, let in a few goals then get sent off for a straight red card.

Mechanical Grace · Post by **Mechanical Grace** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:26 pm

Okay, I get it now-- I hadn't realized that Eboue would get three, in addition to losing three-- I thought he'd only lost them! Don't mind me....

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:41 pm

England started well, looked promising, but the heat seemed to sap them, and Paraguay were quite organised. I wanted to see Walcott come on for Owen. As Shearer said, it was an insult to him to see Downing come on instead. Or even try Rooney for a few mins to piss Ferg off (is he going to sell Roon to express his anger? Noooo!). We needed some pace and power. V dangerous to sit on 1-0 all that time. Crouch isn't up to it. gerrard wasn't all bad, had some good moments. Too much whacking the ball high from long range. Lampard looked like our best asset in second half.

Trin & Tob an amazing result. I didn't actually see it, just heard it, and it seemed heroic. I was sure my man Ibrahimovich (which Jimmy Armfield simply can't pronounce!) would get one. Hot player. Good for us that we one and Sweden didn't, obviously.

Cote d'Ivoire did very well, I thought. They put up a spirited fight for much of the game and had some moments of impressive speed and imagination. Argentina looked pretty solid. Good in defence, and good work by the players you'd expect, i.e. Riquelme and Saviola. Nice to see Heinze back in the fray. Group C is by far the most interesting. I can see Ivory taking points off Holland.

It's almost too much. The tournament itself. FF in two leagues and a small-scale predictions game too. Every detail is of interest. I never want it to end. Cambridge's big public screen on Parker's Piece getting lots of attention from BBC on both telly and radio. Am planning to go down there for the Sweden game. It will be heaving. Assuming this amazing weather holds, which it won't!