germany 2006 begins in a few weeks. time to get a thread going for anyone's thoughts and opinions.

all the latest world cup news




ah ......the beautiful game!! joga bonita!!

tables and results

happy to be meeting the germans and not argentina. the germans look very beatable to me. it'll be the biggest test of the tournament for cannavaro and buffon keeping klose and podolski out but the italian goal looks pretty impenetrable at the moment. gattuso wil shackle ballack. you never know, totti and pirlo might actually play well for a change ........

It's looking more and more like an Anglo-Deutchland Final now. I've had this feeling, all along.......

dont worry , markus, that feeling will be gone tomorrow ;) good luck.

the germans arent beatable unless you really kill em 3-0 or 4-0.

It fixed, the ref was such a 2nd half homer. I know he cant really change the result, but he can do his best to influence it and today he did.
The Argies had a clearcut pen.

Mind you gve the way they were after, espceically that Manshite Heinze im glad they lost.

Maybe a greater medal awaits Lehman!!!!

Agree for once Pommy ... there was one instance where Argies should have had pen at a a corner , ref had a long look but but thought sod it.

Glad Gerries won , wanna see a repeat of 66 .... without the blind Russian linesman :-)

pommy, dil, in every tournament i have ever seen the host nation gets a few dodgy decisions. the germans have now had theirs. fifa are happy that the hosts are in the semis, it keeps interest alive, but we will beat them.

Come on England !!!

Have i got the right picture ,the trainers tracksuites look a bit dated.

Call those suites?
They look more like numb bum thingies to me.

Gordon Bennett! Still nil points :S

Well, if England survive the penalty shootout, the good news is that they will be without Looney in the Semis, what a wan***r!

So................is Andy Murray going to win Wimbledon?

Andy Murray was fantastic Kim ,he seemed a different player from the last match ,i didn't think he could beat Roddick but he out played him in every department ,if he plays like that he can go a lot further ,however Federer will be too good ,hope i'm wrong but i don't think so.
As for England my opinion is fairly worthless (i don't know enough about football) ,but Rooney was a plonker he stamped on the guy in front of the ref ,what did he expect??. It has looked to me though that they had one problem after another ,Owen gone ,Beckham off in this game and Rooney red carded ,you can't win like that.
This should now be the Wimbledon thread .

Understand Ronaldo is trying to sign for Barca, according to last week's papers. Following today's game, I think it might be a good idea, cos the first thing Rooney will do if Ronaldo goes back to Old Trafford is deck him.

Haven't seen the replays yet, but I was baffled to see Rooney get sent off, from my viewpoint he didn't appear to stamp on anyone deliberately?? As usual, had the ref blown for the fouls on Rooney prior to the rumpus the sending off would never have happened. In the final analysis Sven picked negative teams throughout and we didn't really deserve to go any further, although I wouldn't have complained much if we were rubbish throughout and won!!

Really impressed by France tonight, Zidane was superb.

Unfortunately my abiding memory of this World Cup is the constant cheating and conning of referees, players collapsing holding their hands to their faces / heads, when the replays confirm that no contact has been made. We also have the double bluff, where a defender commits a foul in the penalty area, only for goalie and defenders to attack the player for diving (see Argentina v Germany - last five minutes). Guess that's a product off all the diving gits in the first place.

The only way all this play acting will ever be stamped out is for the governing body, be it FIFA or EUFA, to use video evidence after the game to ban the cheating twats until they have stamped it out. France and Brazil seemed to get on with it tonight and it was all the much more enjoyable without the cheating.

It's getting to the point where I just can't be arsed to watch anymore.

pth

i'm not going to say anything. it's a horrible way to go out.

the other semi-final is

france



versus portugal

Well done bos ,i quite like France,,, keep em coming

One question being asked is should Wayne Rooney have been sent off at all?

Was the referee too harsh in giving him a red card?

Click HEREto watch the video of his tackle and subsequent reaction and judge for yourself.

Watch out for the knowing "We've got it done" wink from Ronaldo at the end of the video.

Cristiano Ronaldo's Manchester United career is now finished. He is a cheat. I don't think the fans will have him back easily, if at all.

england are out because they weren't good enough. it really is as simple as that. it doesn't matter what the formation or system was. not enough players performed. gerrard, lampard, beckham , rooney, did not do enough to warrant their stellar status. ferdinand, hargreaves and crouch can hold their heads high knowing they gave everything they could and more. as i said, it is a horrible way to go out, but if you can't score from 12 yards then you shouldn't be in the semi finals.
as for ronaldo, don't forget that they are not team mates. ronaldo plays for portugal , not england, and don't kid yourselves that if ronaldo had done the stamping , neville , ferdinand and rooney wouldn't have been the first in the queue to argue with the ref.
and as for alan shearer and his , "we english are just too honest " bollocks, well, the less said , the better!!!

Agree bosley except that some of the players didn't perform (Gerrard) for example because of the tactics.

On the bright side ... at least the penalty takers were on target this year.

... saying that , I reckon I could manage 1 out of 4 against any goalkeeper in the world .... with my eyes shut.