Entries Tagged as ‘World Cup’

August 11, 2006

Fisking an economist on football

I am all for economists like Tim Hartford, Steve Levitt, Tyler Cowen and others popularizing a rather forbidding subject through books and blogs. But at certain times and instances, a line needs to drawn. For example Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek links to a piece by Allen Sanderson, a lecturer in Economics at [...]

July 10, 2006

Terrorist ? What’s that ?

As mentioned in the previous post, the Zidane send-off has been the big talking point rather than the actual football played during yesterday’s World Cup final. Naturally, the question on everyone’s mind is what Materazzi did or say to provoke Zidane into such an action, since, in spite of Zidane’s record of similar indiscretions earlier [...]

July 9, 2006

The World Cup ends….

…with a final match that was an uncomfortable reminder of several negative aspects of the tournament itself - players diving, wrong decisions by the referee, red card etc. The match will forever live in infamy for the incident - with 10 minutes remaining in the second half of extra-time and the score tied, Zinedine Zidane [...]

July 7, 2006

The FIFA ‘All-star’ squad

According to this report, the FIFA technical study group has chosen the following 23 players for the 2006 World Cup ‘all-star’ squad.

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Jens Lehmann (Germany), Ricardo (Portugal).
Defenders: Roberto Ayala (Argentina), John Terry (England), Lilian Thuram (France), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy), Ricardo Carvalho (Portugal).
Midfielders: Ze Roberto (Brazil), Patrick [...]

July 6, 2006

And then there were two….

Well technically, there are still four - the losers from the semi-finals get to play another game on Saturday for the third position. But that game is as important as the position of the vice-president of the United States (well - maybe not now - but whatever).
Just in case anyone is wondering, I am [...]

July 4, 2006

Germany vs Italy: semi-live blogging

Feeling too tensed watching the Germany v Italy semi-final. Trying my hand at some live-blogging (sort-off).
After about 32 minutes - the game seems evenly matched, although I have to admit that Italy has had slightly better chances.
33min40sec: Schneider misses the best chance so far in the game to score - hits over [...]

July 2, 2006

This is why I dislike England…..

….and their football/cricket teams. Someone is always whining after a major loss and blaming the defeat on external factors rather than honestly accepting that they suck. After losing their quarterfinal match against Portugal on penalties (yet again!), Alan Shearer said yesterday:

"I wouldn’t be surprised if Wayne Rooney goes back to the Manchester United training [...]

June 27, 2006

Quick thoughts on World Cup

So much to write about………and the usual lame excuse of so little time. I guess a major topic of discussion should be the knockout stage of the World Cup. Two excellent games on Saturday with a possible contender for the best goal of the tournament, followed by a few insipid games and one high-octane wrestling [...]

June 16, 2006

Predictions and such

Peter Crouch is probably the most (unintentionally) comical player I have seen on a football field for a long time. The manner in which he missed the open goal where he tried to dive and hit a volley rather than trapping and tappin the football in (he had the time, he was wide open and [...]

June 15, 2006

The Cup so far…

All 32 teams in the World Cup have now had a chance to play. Two teams have played twice with one team (Poland) all but eliminated. So a good time to jot down some thoughts. Thanks to a small TV in a nearby conference room, set up by kind souls, I have been able to [...]

June 10, 2006

First upset ?

Can the islands renowned (at least to us Indians) more for cricketing giant Brian Lara than any soccer prowess pull-off what Cameroon did in 1990 or Sengal in 2002 - the first upset of this World Cup ? I am watching the Trinidad and Tobago v/s Sweden game and so far they have held off [...]

June 10, 2006

Time delay in ABC World Cup Coverage

Started watching the World Cup games (and don’t ask me which World Cup) from today (missed yesterday’s action due to a conference). After a while, was extremely fed up with ABC/ESPN’s coverage - the ‘play by play’ commentary is too inane, full of unnecessary jargons borrowed from American sports and too dumbed down, perhaps in [...]