2014 World Cup

[Grey Fox]

2. What happened to the Brazilian samba drums? You'd always hear them at world cups when Brazil played. I haven't heard them this time around

Apparently musical instruments are banned in the stadiums.

You can blame South Africa for that one.

I know the lame horn things sucked but come on now.

Vuvuzelas ruined radio & TV broadcasts all over the world. That's unacceptable.

[Valmy]

The thing that ruined the 2010 World Cup were the shitty games.  And France sucking ass.

The obnoxious horns were the only thing notable about it.

[HVC]

The thing that ruined the 2010 World Cup were the shitty games.  And France sucking ass.

The obnoxious horns were the only thing notable about it.

i muted several games. And Frances hilarious implosion was half the fun.

[Valmy]

And Frances hilarious implosion was half the fun.

YOU MOCK MY PAIN!

[Valmy]

I think what made this one a bit worse than 2002 and 2010 was that France looked awesome during the first two games, I thought they really had a shot.  Then they just sorta went flat.  Very disappointing.

[HVC]

And Frances hilarious implosion was half the fun.

YOU MOCK MY PAIN!

come on, if it wasn't your team you'd laugh too. Player rebellion, striking practice, it was a weird display of million dollar cry babies. England tried too that year, but France did it better

[Valmy]

come on, if it wasn't your team you'd laugh too. Player rebellion, striking practice, it was a weird display of million dollar cry babies. England tried too that year, but France did it better

The icing on the shit cake was the conspiracy to get more white Frenchmen on the team that was revealed later. 

[derspiess]

My wife's cousins were at the Argentina-Belgium game.  Their seats were in the 2nd or third row judging by the pics.  Argieland is celebrating like they won it all-- they've tripped up so many times the past several WCs that none of them thought their team would make it this far.

Anyway, my desired outcomes of this final 4 in order of preference:

-Argentina beating Brazil in the final

-Argentina beating Germany in the final

-Netherlands beating Brazil in the final on some semi-controversial call that throws Brazil into chaos

[Ed Anger]

Watching Brazil lose would give me a hardon.

[The Larch]

The icing on the shit cake was the conspiracy to get more white Frenchmen on the team that was revealed later.

You mean Laurent Blanc's words? IIRC they were slightly taken out of context and were not that damning.

[Grey Fox]

come on, if it wasn't your team you'd laugh too. Player rebellion, striking practice, it was a weird display of million dollar cry babies. England tried too that year, but France did it better

The icing on the shit cake was the conspiracy to get more white Frenchmen on the team that was revealed later.

And then, it totally happened.

[Valmy]

The icing on the shit cake was the conspiracy to get more white Frenchmen on the team that was revealed later.

You mean Laurent Blanc's words? IIRC they were slightly taken out of context and were not that damning.

That a fact?  You have to understand the coverage of French soccer is pretty spotty over here

[The Larch]

The icing on the shit cake was the conspiracy to get more white Frenchmen on the team that was revealed later.

You mean Laurent Blanc's words? IIRC they were slightly taken out of context and were not that damning.

That a fact?  You have to understand the coverage of French soccer is pretty spotty over here

Well, I'm a bit fuzzy about the details, several years have passed since then after all, but IIRC the gist of Blanc's tirade was that the French youth teams had to improve their talent scouting because way too often they'd pick players based mostly in physical development rather than technique, which would make the national team lose out on technical players down the line. The subtext is that the more physical players would be blacks and the more technical ones whites, but I can't remember if that was said out loud, left unspoken as subtext or a post facto press invention.

[Duque de Bragança]

The icing on the shit cake was the conspiracy to get more white Frenchmen on the team that was revealed later.

You mean Laurent Blanc's words? IIRC they were slightly taken out of context and were not that damning.

That a fact?  You have to understand the coverage of French soccer is pretty spotty over here

Well, I'm a bit fuzzy about the details, several years have passed since then after all, but IIRC the gist of Blanc's tirade was that the French youth teams had to improve their talent scouting because way too often they'd pick players based mostly in physical development rather than technique, which would make the national team lose out on technical players down the line. The subtext is that the more physical players would be blacks and the more technical ones whites, but I can't remember if that was said out loud, left unspoken as subtext or a post facto press invention.

Yep, the real problem was the "racialist" if not outright racist view of the DTN (Direction technique nationale), not Blanc's  which saw tall Blacks as only fit for physical prowess, and North Africans for technical skills. European whites were kind of neglected. Of course, everybody somewhat informed knew about this "racial" view but telling it loud was very un-PC.
This led to French football organisations training many double/dual citizenship youths ending up in in their parents' countries of origin.

[Valmy]

Good.  We need people completely devoted to la gloire de la France, not peeps who will be taking that spot on the Burkina Faso team should this France thing not work out.