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

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

tables and results

i'll have the draw. good luck .

Stupid ref not allowing the players to grab a quick squirt of water.

Cracking game between Argentina and Ivory Coast (2-1) ... Glad we're not in that group. ;-)

excellent. Top of group and we did'nt even score a goal.
IN_GHERRR LAND
makes you proud
LOL

i find it incredible that the bbc panel were so critical of england's performance yesterday. i thought it was a very good performance for a first game, they got the 3 points and didn't really look threatened. no team in this tournament will dominate for the full 90. there will be times when teams are pushed back, forced to defend and i thought england defended well. did robinson have to make a save? to blame the second half on eriksson's time in italy is ludicrous. every team is hoping to stay in the tournament to the end which means it isn't wise to try to play 90 minutes at full pelt if you dont have to. if italy get a scabby goal and win 1-0 on monday i will be more than happy.

Bos

Accepting first game nerves, I still thought the England performance was far from good. Ball distribution was awful particularly by Neville and had we been up against a more accomplished side I think we would have struggled to draw nevermind a win. I thought the studio panel made some pretty good points re the replacement of Owen, why play a midfielder in a striking role? (despite J Cole having a good game) when he took Theo Walcott. I wouldn't be surprised if the omission of Defoe may come back to haunt us, particularly if he won't give Walcott a run and Owen remains listless. We reverted to playing Div 2 footy in the second half, lumping a long ball up to Crouch in the hope he could hold it up. Problem was he didn't have anyone to lay it off to and that sort of tactic will be food and drink to the better sides. However, that's the first game out of the way and TNT have done us a massive favour by drawing with the Swedes, hopefully we can stroll into the knock out stages and play the sort of football they are capable of playing.

Having seen all that's on offer so far, I can't say I've seen any team (England excepted) that looks as good going back as going forward.

Germany, Holland and Argentina certainly look great going for goal but look a bit vulnerable at the back.

Guys, I am sure the 3 Lions are just "jockeying for position" atm... Let us qualify first, avoid the Germans (not that they are any good but [1] they are at home and [2] they always plan their way towards the final stages) and take it from there...

just a thought. has anyone got one of those excel spreadsheet type things of all the fixtures? one of those where you can fill the scores and it does all the calculations? i think it would be good to have something like that on here , see how things are progressing. very impressed by argentina and portugal over the weekend.

the best team so far were Ivory Coast.
If Dogbag dod his job in the other teams area instead of getting in the way of his own defenders they would gone close to getting a draw if not winning. Not a bad feat for a team in their first world cup against one of the favs!!

The non-alllowed goal for the argies was balanced off by the offside goal that was given.
Im sick and tired of this stupid offside rule.

As someone said "If your not inteferring with play, what are you doing on the field"

for an .xls co to http://office.microsoft.com

I was hoping, for the sake of my American cousins, that the US soccer team might repair some of the damage caused by those excrutiatingly embarrassing Budweiser ads, but sadly not enough gas in the tanks...

Budweiser have done more to hurt the US image in Europe over the last six days than Dubbya has managed in six years... ;-)

Bos, good luck tonight. Would do me a favour as well, little bit of money on Italy.

Think he'll be on his knees again ;)

:)

Italy won although if Ghana had one clinical striker then it would have been different, England will turn it on in the latter stages when the ROON is back.

Bosley,

Check this out, amigo...

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/group/index.html

I was actually contemplating creating my own Excel spreadsheet but the above is more than adequate and is updated: 'real-time'.

very pleased with the performance tonight. italy won without having to get out of 3rd gear, very comfortable, buffon only having to make one save, the defenders dealing with most things. one or two scary moments , as mr potts says, a half decent striker and maybe ghana might have scored a goal , but i never felt this was a game italy was going to lose. it's a shame the panel and commentators didn't comment on some of the elbows and lunging tackles from the ghanaians. never mind, 3 points in the bag, look forward to the next game.

cheers pete, hope you put more than a little on :))
markus. cheers . i'll put the link up but i was thinking of something permanent in the first post.
chocolat, nice candles and ta very much:)) not sure i can blow out all four candles, might manage three though. would you like to blow my other candle ? ;)

Boz,
I too am of Italian extraction.
Well I'm wanted by Interpol for blackmailing Berlusconi if thats the same thing.
Alan

Good to see the czech`s bouncing along,england slumber on [god its to hot for football],mexico swagger on,argentina cruise on,and with spain & el nino at the helm,things are looking good,

Argentina all the way.