US SOCCER

[Grizalltheway]

No reason at all for the 12 venues, that was waste in and of itself - FIFA only requires 8 venues.

In their defense many host countries are relatively small in size and 8 is plenty. Brazil is massive both in size and population with terrible transportation from what I've read. They probably wanted to make sure enough of their own got to see games which meant bringing the games to them.

Brazil = 3.3M square miles
South Africa = 471K
Germany = 138K
SK + Japan = 182K

Korea and Japan had 20 venues between them.

[89Hen]

In their defense many host countries are relatively small in size and 8 is plenty. Brazil is massive both in size and population with terrible transportation from what I've read. They probably wanted to make sure enough of their own got to see games which meant bringing the games to them.

Brazil = 3.3M square miles
South Africa = 471K
Germany = 138K
SK + Japan = 182K

Korea and Japan had 20 venues between them.

Looked it up and SA had 10 and Germany 12. Seems 8 would be low for any country, let alone one seven times larger than any of the previous three hosts.

[UNI88]

Korea and Japan had 20 venues between them.

Looked it up and SA had 10 and Germany 12. Seems 8 would be low for any country, let alone one seven times larger than any of the previous three hosts.

Those figures are a little misleading for SK and Japan considering one's an island nation and the other is a peninsula. A more accurate number would include the Sea of Japan to help demonstrate the true distances involved.

[89Hen]

Looked it up and SA had 10 and Germany 12. Seems 8 would be low for any country, let alone one seven times larger than any of the previous three hosts.

Those figures are a little misleading for SK and Japan considering one's an island nation and the other is a peninsula. A more accurate number would include the Sea of Japan to help demonstrate the true distances involved.

Which figures, the area or the number of sites? AFAIK, nobody lives in the Sea of Japan so there's no reason to put a stadium in the ocean. Point is, it would seem 8 stadiums would be a very small number for a host these days.

[clenz]

Those figures are a little misleading for SK and Japan considering one's an island nation and the other is a peninsula. A more accurate number would include the Sea of Japan to help demonstrate the true distances involved.

Which figures, the area or the number of sites? AFAIK, nobody lives in the Sea of Japan so there's no reason to put a stadium in the ocean. Point is, it would seem 8 stadiums would be a very small number for a host these days.

Then we should be able to take about 95% of the Amazon rain forest out of Brazil's space


No one lives there

[Grizalltheway]

Well, no one who's aware that there's a World Cup going on, anyway.

[GannonFan]

I think the biggest mistake last night was subbing out Van Persie during extra time. It meant there was no Van Persie to take the first PK (the Dutch coach said he asked two different players to take the first PK and they both declined before finally Vlaar agreed to do it - seriously, two guys turned it down? Not a lot of guts on that Dutch team), and it meant that he couldn't bring on Krul. The Dutch keeper was great all game, but he clearly is not a PK stopper. He should've blocked two of those shots, one of them being the last where he had two full hands on the ball and couldn't turn it away. And subbing out Van Persie made no sense - the game had already slowed down and both teams were starting to set up camp to get it to PK's - it didn't matter if Van Persie was tired, no one was going to threaten much anyway. On a team where you don't have a lot of great scorers anyway, you can't take out probably your best one with PK's less than 30 minutes away. Especially when it meant you had to stay with that keeper. How the coach can go from making great decisions in the Costa Rica game to just blowing it in the next game is interesting and should make his upcoming tenure at Old Trafford very interesting.

I think they were worried that Persie was going to shatter his leg if kicked another ball

Well, no need to worry about that for another 4 years now. Phew!

[89Hen]

Which figures, the area or the number of sites? AFAIK, nobody lives in the Sea of Japan so there's no reason to put a stadium in the ocean. Point is, it would seem 8 stadiums would be a very small number for a host these days.

Then we should be able to take about 95% of the Amazon rain forest out of Brazil's space


No one lives there

Are you arguing Brazil should have had the minimum 8 venues?

[Grizalltheway]

Then we should be able to take about 95% of the Amazon rain forest out of Brazil's space


No one lives there

Are you arguing Brazil should have had the minimum 8 venues?

Would have saved the government a lot of money. I don't think the Brazilians who could actually afford tickets would have had any trouble traveling a little ways to get to the games.

[GannonFan]

Those figures are a little misleading for SK and Japan considering one's an island nation and the other is a peninsula. A more accurate number would include the Sea of Japan to help demonstrate the true distances involved.

Which figures, the area or the number of sites? AFAIK, nobody lives in the Sea of Japan so there's no reason to put a stadium in the ocean. Point is, it would seem 8 stadiums would be a very small number for a host these days.

The thing is, Germany didn't have to build or update a single stadium to host the World Cup, they already had all the stadiums. Japan and South Korea are far more wealthy (take GDP per capita) than Brazil so they could build whatever they wanted to. Brazil and South Africa are more on par economically and South Africa built 5 new stadiums and Brazil built 7, including stadium in places where they don't even have teams to play in the stadiums (the one in Manaus for instance). Conservative estimates have Brazil spending $3.6B on stadium costs, versus South Africa spending $1B (just stadiums, not everything else). That's of course where the controversy lies - you have these relatively poor countries spending a boatload of money on wealthy sporting events that they really can't afford and don't need, when you have wealthy countries (like the US and Germany and so on) that could host a World Cup tomorrow and not have to spend a dime on stadiums if they didn't want to since they are already loaded with World Cup standard stadiums. Heck, even China, with all their rise in the last decade, isn't immune to this - that Bird's Nest stadium they built for the 2008 Olympics has sat empty since those games were over. That's why people protest.

[89Hen]

Which figures, the area or the number of sites? AFAIK, nobody lives in the Sea of Japan so there's no reason to put a stadium in the ocean. Point is, it would seem 8 stadiums would be a very small number for a host these days.

The thing is, Germany didn't have to build or update a single stadium to host the World Cup, they already had all the stadiums. Japan and South Korea are far more wealthy (take GDP per capita) than Brazil so they could build whatever they wanted to. Brazil and South Africa are more on par economically and South Africa built 5 new stadiums and Brazil built 7, including stadium in places where they don't even have teams to play in the stadiums (the one in Manaus for instance). Conservative estimates have Brazil spending $3.6B on stadium costs, versus South Africa spending $1B (just stadiums, not everything else). That's of course where the controversy lies - you have these relatively poor countries spending a boatload of money on wealthy sporting events that they really can't afford and don't need, when you have wealthy countries (like the US and Germany and so on) that could host a World Cup tomorrow and not have to spend a dime on stadiums if they didn't want to since they are already loaded with World Cup standard stadiums. Heck, even China, with all their rise in the last decade, isn't immune to this - that Bird's Nest stadium they built for the 2008 Olympics has sat empty since those games were over. That's why people protest.

Agreed, but it's a bit of you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You won't get another sniff at a WC or Olympics if you don't make it look great. The sad news is that there are countries that simply should not have either.

[GannonFan]

The thing is, Germany didn't have to build or update a single stadium to host the World Cup, they already had all the stadiums. Japan and South Korea are far more wealthy (take GDP per capita) than Brazil so they could build whatever they wanted to. Brazil and South Africa are more on par economically and South Africa built 5 new stadiums and Brazil built 7, including stadium in places where they don't even have teams to play in the stadiums (the one in Manaus for instance). Conservative estimates have Brazil spending $3.6B on stadium costs, versus South Africa spending $1B (just stadiums, not everything else). That's of course where the controversy lies - you have these relatively poor countries spending a boatload of money on wealthy sporting events that they really can't afford and don't need, when you have wealthy countries (like the US and Germany and so on) that could host a World Cup tomorrow and not have to spend a dime on stadiums if they didn't want to since they are already loaded with World Cup standard stadiums. Heck, even China, with all their rise in the last decade, isn't immune to this - that Bird's Nest stadium they built for the 2008 Olympics has sat empty since those games were over. That's why people protest.

Agreed, but it's a bit of you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You won't get another sniff at a WC or Olympics if you don't make it look great. The sad news is that there are countries that simply should not have either.

The reality is that most of these places will never see another WC or Olympics in our lifetime's - unless you're already a super major city (London, Los Angeles, Tokyo) then these things will never come back to those cities. Does anyone think there'll be another World Cup in South Africa in the next 100 years? Another Olympics in Rio in 100 years? And these places have done fine hosting so it's not like they didn't put on a decent show, but the reality is that there are way too many other options to go to for other events and these cities won't be repeat cities for a long, long time, if ever.

[89Hen]

Does anyone think there'll be another World Cup in South Africa in the next 100 years? Another Olympics in Rio in 100 years? And these places have done fine hosting so it's not like they didn't put on a decent show, but the reality is that there are way too many other options to go to for other events and these cities won't be repeat cities for a long, long time, if ever.

Ever?

[GannonFan]

Does anyone think there'll be another World Cup in South Africa in the next 100 years? Another Olympics in Rio in 100 years? And these places have done fine hosting so it's not like they didn't put on a decent show, but the reality is that there are way too many other options to go to for other events and these cities won't be repeat cities for a long, long time, if ever.

Ever?

Ever.

[Skjellyfetti]

Thanks to an exciting World Cup and an unexpected run from the U.S. Men’s National Team, professional soccer appears to be having a real moment in the United States. ESPN and Univision have seen huge numbers for U.S. games. Nielsen ratings put the U.S. and Portugal game at 24.7 million viewers, making made it more popular than this year’s NBA finals.

And while some have attributed the bump to nothing more than the allure of soccer’s biggest stage, Major League Soccer argues it is seeing stronger engagement than ever before inside the United States.

Chris Schlosser, the MLS’s vice president of digital, told BuzzFeed that interest in the MLS has “skyrocketed” in the past month. Most notably, Schlosser said that since the World Cup began there has been a 300% jump in subscriptions to MLS Live, the league’s subscription package that includes streaming for all regular season MLS games. (Schlosser said that MLS does not release specific subscription numbers) The league has also seen its website’s monthly unique visitors multiply threefold — to a total of 6.6 million in June.

[93henfan]

300% jump? So they went from 500 subscribers to 1,500? That's almost as big as my hometown!

[JMU DJ]

For the Hen.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvsuYssoTw0[/youtube]

[GannonFan]

Luis "The Biter" Suarez is on the move - leaving Liverpool and will now play with Barca next year when his suspension is up. Makes for a pretty imposing front line at Barca - Messi, Neymar, and Suarez.

[DSUrocks07]

Luis "The Biter" Suarez is on the move - leaving Liverpool and will now play with Barca next year when his suspension is up. Makes for a pretty imposing front line at Barca - Messi, Neymar, and Suarez.

The rich get richer, Barca will never settle for being second best in La Liga for long

[89Hen]

For the Hen.

One of the sports talk shows actually made a good point on this. Are players forced to flop so the ref can see there was a foul? There is ONE ref on the field and two assistants on the sidelines. I don't know the exact size of the field, but it's obviously close to the NFL (maybe even larger) and there are 22 players on the field. What are there 7-8 refs for American football. Four refs for NHL on a much smaller surface with half the number of players. Three for NBA, four for MLB... could some of the flopping be stopped simply by adding another ref or two on the pitch?

[bandl]

For the Hen.

One of the sports talk shows actually made a good point on this. Are players forced to flop so the ref can see there was a foul? There is ONE ref on the field and two assistants on the sidelines. I don't know the exact size of the field, but it's obviously close to the NFL (maybe even larger) and there are 22 players on the field. What are there 7-8 refs for American football. Four refs for NHL on a much smaller surface with half the number of players. Three for NBA, four for MLB... could some of the flopping be stopped simply by adding another ref or two on the pitch?

pitch or field? Make up your mind!

[89Hen]

One of the sports talk shows actually made a good point on this. Are players forced to flop so the ref can see there was a foul? There is ONE ref on the field and two assistants on the sidelines. I don't know the exact size of the field, but it's obviously close to the NFL (maybe even larger) and there are 22 players on the field. What are there 7-8 refs for American football. Four refs for NHL on a much smaller surface with half the number of players. Three for NBA, four for MLB... could some of the flopping be stopped simply by adding another ref or two on the pitch?

pitch or field? Make up your mind!

Interchangable.

[GannonFan]

For the Hen.

One of the sports talk shows actually made a good point on this. Are players forced to flop so the ref can see there was a foul? There is ONE ref on the field and two assistants on the sidelines. I don't know the exact size of the field, but it's obviously close to the NFL (maybe even larger) and there are 22 players on the field. What are there 7-8 refs for American football. Four refs for NHL on a much smaller surface with half the number of players. Three for NBA, four for MLB... could some of the flopping be stopped simply by adding another ref or two on the pitch?

I'm all in favor of more refs on the field, I agree, I don't know how one can do it. Granted, he gets help, even on non-offsides calls, from the side refs, but adding another ref or two on the field wouldn't be a bad thing IMO. Especially then you can get refs that would be in the attacking zone rather than always chasing after the play.

[BDKJMU]

No reason at all for the 12 venues, that was waste in and of itself - FIFA only requires 8 venues.

In their defense many host countries are relatively small in size and 8 is plenty. Brazil is massive both in size and population with terrible transportation from what I've read. They probably wanted to make sure enough of their own got to see games which meant bringing the games to them.

Brazil = 3.3M square miles
South Africa = 471K
Germany = 138K
SK + Japan = 182K

Yep. That's what happens when you start and lose 2 wars. Was about 215k sq miles a hundred years ago before losing over 1/3 of its territory.

Montana is slieghtly bigger at about 147k sq miles, with about a million people to about 81 million for Germany.

[clenz]

God dammit Müller...show some god dammed class and quite fucking smiling so much. You've now resorted to yelling in celebration. You're officially worse than Hitler.