Univision now charging for streaming. Daaaamn!
Wow. Homefield advantage not absolute so far.
Wtf I got up to get food in the snack line and missed three fucking goals!
They're just setting up the greatest comeback ever.
Has someone started the cryingbraziliansoccerfan tumblr yet?
I'm now in a hotel room on the Staroměstské namaste hoping to sleep soon, but many-mouthed cries keep coming from the square outside, despite the rain.
Very funny, autocorrect - Staroměstské náměstí.
Yay I saw that one. I though offside. I'm sitting next to the son of a FIFA ref actually.
Oh my. Somebody throw in the towel, please.
All of Brazil collapses from emotional exhaustion.
Huh. I guess every audible shout has been at a goal.
7-3 would be a respectable final score for football after all.
I texted 15 exactly to Blume. What is happening I don't understand
At least they'll avoid the humiliation of losing to Argentina.
This is hilarious. Not great football but it is hilarious.
So is there any norm in soccer by which Germany mostly stops trying to score?
And our adult league has mercy rules where the losers start to get extra players on the field.
At some point you just scramble everyone--Lahm playing forward with Neuer, Ozil in goal, etc.
Brazil sobbing gifs on screamer are amazingly sad.
Oh, crying Brazilians. I apoloize for laughing at you.
Holy shit, well this wasn't the game to skip the first half of...
34 - you're telling us.
Apparently all the largest comebacks ever were four goals, never five.
25, sure, at some point they prioritize not getting injured.
Yeah at least we only lost 1-0 losers.
Looks like the Brazilian team picked the wrong week to quit huffing scotch guard.
Could be worse, in a way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_31%E2%80%930_American_Samoa
Also great
https://twitter.com/FutbolBible/statuses/486612179911983105
I'm waiting for someone to make a tasteless WWII joke.
Whatever you do, don't mention the war.
Anyone know if this will be the worst knockout round defeat in World Cup history (if the score stands)? I know the Saudi team lost way worse than this one year (to Germany, IIRC).
My gast has been flabbered. SECHS!!
I want to see the German goalkeeper score one, just for the hell of it.
So will there be stoppage time?
I tell ya, if this is a fix it sure is ballsy.
Don't you mean sieben?
Well, now I do. Good grief.
But it is always time for sechs here ATM, right?
Is this what Halford meant by Strategy?
Why don't the Brazilians try it?
Times liveblog:
You know Scolari will resign. But how about the Brazil players? How can they live with the disgrace of this? How can they wear the yellow shirt ever again?
Um, they still have the third place match, right? Or do they just not show up for that?
This one via Cole's place was actually pretty good:
From Ricky Gervais: "This won't be the first time that thousands of Germans will have to lie low in Brazil for a while for their own safety."
It'd sure be interesting if they have to follow this up by playing Argentina this weekend.
Well, I'm relieved Sweden kept the record for goal difference and goals scored in a knockout game (8-0 against Cuba).
All kinds of records were broken.
Why didn't ESPN hire a Portuguese interpreter? What a bizarre decision.
The US ability to lose by one goal is an underappreciated skill.
That's a pretty damn shocking result. I thought Germany would win, but.....
Now, do we root for the all-European final in South America?
Yes, if only for the chance to see Argentina double down on Brazil's humiliation.
Hell no. Fuck UEFA. With a rusty pitchfork.
But how about the Brazil players? How can they live with the disgrace of this? How can they wear the yellow shirt ever again?
I wonder how Silva and Neymar feel. On the one hand, they must be thinking (especially Silva, since it was the defense that was so lacking) that their presence might have made a difference. But on the other hand, what a relief to not have been part of that atrocity.
I'd like to think that Özil missed his open shot in the final minutes intentionally, as a gesture of mercy.
That's how you know he's a degraded Turk and not a true German.
So we watched the Colombia/Brazil game, and we are not skilled soccer-watchers, but what was everyone so upset about? It seemed like both teams were playing kind of dirty and rough, but neither team seemed that much worse than the other. But the post-game narrative has been all about how nasty Brazil was and how we had to root against them, and this narrative apparently caught on in Mount Olympus or Valhalla or wherever.
Silva was probably thinking why was I an asshole who got a useless yellow for running in front of a punting goalie.
Once again a demonstration that offense in soccer is impossible against a marginally competent defense.
73 -- the Brazilians weren't even marginally competent.
71: Two things:
1) Brazil has the image (which has been out of date for 40 years now, but whatever) of being the carefree, happy-go-lucky, fun team. So seeing them play a rough game is more jarring to a lot of people than seeing, say, Germany play that way.
2) Brazil wasn't just rough, they were calculatedly rough. There was a discussion on Twitter a couple of days later about the way they specifically fouled James Rodriguez, and rotated the fouls through their players so that no one in particular would get singled out by the ref.
"But the post-game narrative has been all about how nasty Brazil was and how we had to root against them"
That's not something I recognise, both teams were seen as dirty. People were mainly angry at the ref and with FIFA, since they've instructed referees to issue yellow cards than normal, since it makes games too stop-start (and probably because they don't want too many top players suspended). Until now players haven't taken advantage of it that much afaik, but this game got out of control, the game became extremely stop start and Brazil lost Neymar and Silva.
"But the post-game narrative has been all about how nasty Brazil was and how we had to root against them"
That's not something I recognise, both teams were seen as dirty. People were mainly angry at the ref and with FIFA, since they've instructed referees to issue yellow cards than normal, since it makes games too stop-start (and probably because they don't want too many top players suspended). Until now players haven't taken advantage of it that much afaik, but this game got out of control, the game became extremely stop start and Brazil lost Neymar and Silva.
That was me. Both times.
That's a very strong assumption about intrapersonal consistency.
Well I never. I wasn't able to see that live, so I only just found out. I expected Germany to win. I didn't expect a cricket score.
That's a very strong assumption about intrapersonal consistency
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF.
Brazil have played like a bunch of dicks all tournament. Some nice stuff from Neymar, but most of the rest of them would barely get a game in the other top teams. While there has been a bit of tit-for-tat fouling in lots of games, Brazil have been among the worse offenders.
re: 75.1
Yeah, everyone's mental image is of the teams up to and including the amazing '82 team. But even the last team that Scolari managed to victory, had a couple of really good players, and a bit of charisma about their playing.
re: 79
That should have been posted as Opinionated David Hume.
Also, I think there was a perception that Columbia were the more skilful, stylish and organised team.
ttaM is basically right here.
Brazil had a strong reputation and a lot of initial affection due to their history. But then they played cynical, dirty soccer the entire time, and even their best/most charismatic/Official FIFA Selected Important Player Neymar didn't manage to do anything magnificent enough to justify their hype. Their initial match against Croatia made a lot of people (reasonably) think that they had been assured by the officials of a certain place in the tournament given how many questionable decisions were made in their favor (I am very willing to believe that with a fair referee they would have lots that match). From there they managed a win against Cameroon (yay!) and a tie against Mexico and Chile, which only made people more suspicious that they were a mediocre team scraping through by favoritism and playing dirty.
Colombia on the other hand was the exciting, new, charismatic team headed up by a brilliant, adorable striker, which is to say, they were what people thought Brazil would be before the tournament. So a match characterized by a lot of fouling (and especially cynical fouling on the Brazilian side) allowed by the referee, in which Brazil got two yellow cards that could very easily have been red and James Rodriguez got a yellow card for something that was debatable was a foul at all, in which Brazil failed to dominate or score goals in regular play, and in which a valid Colombian goal was disallowed, made Brazil look even more like the villain of a not-particularly-subtle sports movie. People were very willing to believe that the rougher fouling by the Colombians, especially later in the game, was retaliatory or a matter of frustration, but not when it came to Brazil.
I don't know about soccer, but he's right about the David Hume thing. I'm slipping.
even their best/most charismatic/Official FIFA Selected Important Player Neymar didn't manage to do anything magnificent enough to justify their hype
He had a really stunningly beautiful flop in their first game.
Let me just add that it's bullshit that PKs count towards the golden boot or how great a goal scorer someone is considered. Sure, they let the best guy on the team take them, but even the worst guy or heck the goalie would run up his scoring total if he were allowed to take all the PKs.
Wow. Just watched the game. Some theories:
1) Brazil got the starting time wrong, and assumed the first half was Germany's warm up time.
2) The Make-a-Wish wish for some teenage Brazilian kid was to have him and a bunch of his friends impersonate the WC team in the semi-final, and out of the goodness of their hearts, the Brazilian team went along with it.
3) Match fixing scandal of the millennium
4) Neymar and Silva are really that good
5) Someone forgot to bribe the referee enough (related to 3)
6) ...?
heck the goalie would run up his scoring total if he were allowed to take all the PKs.
Allegedly, in lots of teams, the goalie is one of the best penalty takers. They usually have a powerful strike, and understand what goalies do. It just seems to be convention that they don't take them that often.
88. Probably somewhere between 1 and 4. 3 would make me extremely happy if it came out, because I don't see how the FIFA bureaucracy would survive it, and they need to die in a fire.
The problem with having a goalie take a non-shootout PK is that play resumes immediately if it's not a goal or goes out of bounds, so then you have no goalie. I do recall some goalies taking shoot-out PKs.
My theory is that Brazil made it way, way farther than they had any right to be due mostly to one sided refereeing - without that I very much doubt they would have made it out of the group in the first place. So they were due for a loss, either because they got a referee who wasn't interested in openly helping them out or because they ended up facing a genuinely good team. And sadly for them they managed to get both at the same time, which resulted in the absurd loss against Germany. I think a lot of commentators are right that Silva (who could easily have gotten a red card instead of the yellow that kept him out of the game so there's no reason to feel sympathy there) would have helped a lot and Neymar (whose injury was karma but not his own fault at that moment) wouldn't have made too much difference, but even so it probably would have been embarrassing for them.
It did sort of seem like they knew in the Costa Rica game that they were screwed unless they played dirty and got favorable treatment from the refs.
93: But they didn't play Costa Rica... do you mean Chile?
I should have just hedged and said "the Spanish-speaking country beginning with C".
The Colombian super in our building grinned like a shark when I brought up the Brazil/Germany game. It made him very happy.
And this is not a man who smiles easily.
98: the Facebook statuses of my Colombian friend, during the game:
Hahahhahahahahah!!!!! Mwahahahahahah!!
Schadenfootballfreuden!!
Catalonia.
A word to the wise. If you think Catalonia is a Spanish speaking country, don't go on holiday there. (It is, to the extent that almost everybody knows Spanish, but you could get into a lot of trouble if you say that in public.)
Awesome, I incorrectly corrected. Booyah.
Chilavert of Paraguay was a PK-shooting keeper, even in international play. He was a fiery dude.
101: I was trolling our vast audience of Catalan lurkers.
Wait, the German for the team is "Die Mannschaft"? How has no one mentioned this before? I suppose the rest of you knew.
That has definitely come up before.
I know I've personally mentioned it before.
Not surprisingly, during the 2006 world cup.
104: Ves-ten al cony de ta mare, malparit!
I think I'm rooting for... penalty kicks? Dunno. Can I root for Germany again?
Have to root for the Oranje, since they're the national team of my religion.
108: 2006! Wow! He who does not wish to be named was commenting, and ttaM didn't have dyslexia yet.
In the Netherlands, even the Rastafarians are good Calvinists.
Are you allowed to throw your shoe at the ball?
That 2006 thread was pretty entertaining. I had forgotten about it.
89 --- keepers have also normally had quite a lot of practice taking shots / sending in crosses. If you tend to pair the keepers for warmups / drills, one of them has to be playing the attacker, after all.
Maybe the rule should be: no scoreless draws in knockout rounds, but penalties after any other kind of tie. So if it's 0-0 after extra time, the teams have to keep playing.
It's kind of awkward that the Argentine player who should have been pulled after a concussion wound up being their star today.
118 -- handball, technically.
And, by the way, this is what two good defences playing against very good offence can do: hold it to a nil-nil draw.
||
I am at the crappy ER with a god damn nosebleed.
|>
Becks said that the ER treatment for a nosebleed is pharmaceutical grade cocaine.
So, possibly a fun evening on some level?
Hospitals are one of the most fun places to be coked up, for sure.
If you bring your own pipe, they get angry.
129: hair of the dog what bit you, Eh?
That managed to incorporate many of the annoying features of soccer in general and this World Cup specifically.
Wow the ref saved the other half of that red card and have it to Robben for no reason. I guess FIFA had a stern conversation with the refs about the need to favor the home team after the semi.
If Brazil go down by three one of them is going to punch a Dutchman. Probably Silva, he's an idiot.
Hulk smash. Or at least he tried to an the Dutch player just ran away.
I really would have liked to have seen the game that got played in the parallel universe where the referee was allowed to call the game fairly and sent Silva off within the first few minutes. Now I can't decide who I'd like to see win the final more: Germany because they play beautiful soccer and I've been cheering for them so far, or Argentina because screw you Brazil.
Argentina because fuck UEFA with a road flare.
What's wrong with UEFA? I'd assume that everyone would root against Germany because Germans.
Bunch of self-aggrandizing pricks, run the sport in high colonialist style, etc.
Rooting for _federations_ seems some fucked up bullshit. Especially given the last few years of epic FIFA-cuntery, in which all the federations are complicit. Admittedly, Platini does seem like a dick, though.
141 is right. I had to google to even learn what UEFA is and can't imagine why I'd care.
I'm not *for* CONMEBOL. Just against UEFA. And please, don't pretend that the Cossacks don't work for the czar.
The czar is dead. The Cossacks work for Putin.
Is CONCACAF the stupidest acronym ever created or what? Yet I hear partisans of it all excited because Costa Rica and sort of USA.
UEFA sucks because its president, Michel Platini, wants to run for FIFA president and was instrumental in getting Qatar the 2022 World Cup. He's also intent on expanding the European Championships until basically every country in the federation qualifies.
I'm still not sure what the big deal about Qatar is. I mean, if a country has to waste billions of dollars on infrastructure they won't use only to be humiliated* why not have it be an awful country? It seems only fair.
And if it's because they got it (almost certainly) because of bribes, well, it's not like this is some new low for FIFA.
*(South Africa being an exception, because when they had the cup a lot of people discovered how awesome South Africa really is, which was good for them. Qatar seems unlikely to get this benefit.)
All those people who discovered how nice South Africa was in the 80s were the real pioneers.
Why is the "e" in "Потэто" backwards?
I don't know enough Russian to know which letter is a closer match for the sound I was going for.
Wikipedia suggests it's used in places where the ordinary "e" would be pronounced like "ye" and you don't want the "y" sound, but that this is at the beginnings of words or after vowels, so that doesn't seem to be the case here.
It does get more Google hits than "Потето".
I admire your dedication to researching my silly joke.
Oh, your jokes are never silly, teo. They're always worth researching!
It's also a dangerously hot environment for players and miserable experience for fans
159: I feel sure that I sat down at the computer intent on researching something else but after clicking a bunch of Wikipedia links about Cyrillic letters I have no memory of what that would have been.
But an hour or so ago I was looking up color vision because of some conversation and did you know that lots of non-mammalian vertebrates have more than three distinct color receptors in their eyes? Imagine a world with four primary colors. Maybe some of the really ugly brown fish are actually dazzling if you have fish eyes.
I guess it shouldn't be so surprising that the Russians got their word for potato from the Germans, but where the hell did the Germans get theirs from?
From Italian for 'truffle', it seems. Weird.
But an hour or so ago I was looking up color vision because of some conversation and did you know that lots of non-mammalian vertebrates have more than three distinct color receptors in their eyes?
Uh yes, DUH
Yeah, it does seem like "place with the worst weather on earth (heat version) may not be the best place for a massive soccer event. Are they air conditioning the stadiums?
Maybe they'll just have all the games consist exclusively of penalty kicks.
Imagine a world with four primary colors.
Human photoreceptors don't really subdivide neatly into primary colors.
Presumably Qatar will design the stadiums so that it is constantly snowing inside them.
Supposedly they will be air conditioned using solar power.
173: I didn't think they did, but I thought the converse was true: that the reason we use three primary colors is because we're looking to span a basically three-dimensional space of physiological responses. (After all, there's a continuum of visible frequencies, so it's not as if there's anything about the underlying light itself that singles out a three-dimensional space.)
I thought there were three types of photons.
172
I've heard it's actually pretty humid there, so no.
176: my understanding is that we use three primary colors because people thought (because they knew that humans were trichromats) that you'd need three colors to span the pshyiological space, but that the actual mechanism of opponent processes -- and the human least discriminable difference -- doesn't really line up with that (which is why you have things like TVs with four primary colors). But I don't know the research that well, and also color vision is crazy weird (like, as in, it's really hard to get a straight answer to questions like "so what is color vision for?")
178: Well, the place is a peninsula sticking out into a gulf, so.
But the three primary colors thing is a lot older than knowing that humans are trichromats, isn't it? I thought it predated knowing about cone cells. Maybe part of it is just a combination of historical accident and convenience: it's possible to get a basically satisfactory range of distinguishable hues by mixing three colors but not by mixing two, so artists or whoever a long time ago decided to use three?
There's also the weird thing that we're descended from a relatively recent bichromat ancestor, and so one of the three receptors is weird.
But I feel like there should be at least a pretty good correlation between the number of distinct color receptors and the perceived dimensionality of the color space. We need to figure out how to evolve intelligent dogs and lizards who we can discuss the issue with.
181: I dunno. I suppose it must predate knowing about cone cells (according to this it predates Newton, anyhow) but it seems like it can't possibly predate a relatively sophisticated ability to manipulate the color of light, since color mixing in pigments works completely differently.
183: not necessarily; first of all there are actually four types of receptors (counting rods, which also have a characteristic frequency response curve) and second of all there are all kinds of nonlinearities and other context-sensitive inputs before you get to perceptual discriminability.
From that link: "Thomas Young is credited with suggesting that the eye has three different kinds of color receptors".
Young also did a lot of work on deciphering the Rosetta Stone. Seems like an interesting guy.
So maybe the equality of the traditional number of primary colors and the number of cones is just down to the law of small numbers (i.e. "there aren't that many small numbers")?
187: yeah, I mean, if you were looking for the minimum number of colors to do a pretty good job of covering the perceptual range, hard to beat three.
I thought there were three types of photons potatoes:
potato
potahto
potatoe
Wait, we don't have to evolve intelligent dogs; we just need to isolate a society of color-blind people and let them develop their own color theory independent of trichromat hegemony. I guess there might be some ethical issues.
And surely it's only a matter of time before parents can choose to have designer babies with four or even five distinct kinds of color receptors in their eyes.
192: hey! maybe it's already happening.
"De Vries never wrote about four-coned women again."
Some humans are tetrachromats. Years ago I wrote a series of (philosophy) seminar papers on colour vision, so read tons of stuff, including Land's original 'retinex' papers.
Clicking through to that link, pre-pwned.
186. Thomas Young had a go at pretty much everything. Brilliant man, sadly overlooked. There's a well regarded biography that I've been meaning to read for years.