Excelsior

The most popular and watched sports event in the world starts today through July 13.

Any other Football (soccer) fanatics here? Any predictions who the winner will be?

Hope everyone enjoys the month long Football fest and best of luck to your team.


Alex (Alejandro)

Or as it is called in the US...the Rest of the World Cup. Or The What?

Usually this is the dead time after Champions League finals and before the new season. Hooray for even year giant soccer tourneys! As for a winner, let's see...who's won euro/world/euro right now? To me it is Barcelona, oops, I mean Spain (for some reason they just look alike to me) until it is not Spain. If not Spain, then Brazil.

But I know who won't be winning the cup. USA! USA!

Sigh.

Isaac Newton

Hey Alex

I just love the world cup as well. It's the happiest event in football I always try to watch ALL the matches hahaha Reminds me of when i was a kid and the world cup meant the beggining of summer holidays yayyyyy

I think it's impossible to predict who'll win. Everyone thinks is gonna be Brazil, so it probably won't xD And here in Spain, everyone secretly "knows" that Spain is gonna win again. It sounds so ridicolous that it might just happen hahaha But anyway, my (monopoly) money is on Italy or Argentina. Great teams that arent getting so much media atention as say Brazil,Spain or Germany ("the big three" xD). Tho ARgentina depends largely on Messi, and if he plays like he has on the spanish league (i've seen a number of barça matches) he is not going to be that great. Also Ballotelli could come out of nowhere and score 10 goals xD

So i think this world cup is one of the most exciting in recent history, cuz there aint a real favourite

Hope u guys enjoy it as much as i wil.

Best regards from the land of football and omelettes,

Khamul

Johnny Warren, where are you?
"qbf" on the forum?

Anyway, Australia has the worst draw. Group B:
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/teams/team ... index.html

And a good infographic here :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/w ... er/5514706

June 23 Dain! We are on!

1 word-Ger-mah-nee.

round 1 concludes today, with Mexico vs Brazil kicking off round 2. i think there have plenty of surprises and highlight plays and goals; however, the reffing has been questionable at times. was glad to see the US manage to win yesterday in the 86th minute, but if they want to move on to the next round, they definitely need to step up their game since it will not suffice for Portugal and Germany.

Germany and Netherlands seemed most impressive in round 1, but it's to early to write off Spain or Brazil. also, no European team has ever won in the Americas.

@Birko: Both teams are now under pressure to win with both losing (Spain and Australia). that will make it even more fun and intense.

i hope everyone continues to enjoy the best event in the world. feel free to post comments and predictions.

I'm really surprise by the open play almost all team play
There was only one game at 0:0 and we have an average
Of 3 goals per game!!!

For the referee i agree with you...some are to fast in their decision and some could be more active

Lets get ready for round 2

Just in case people have not seen it yet......Robin VP Header Goal - NED VS. SPA



I love the fact that it had such a great start because I started getting texts from people (US) that don't watch saying....."Dude this is amaaazzziinngg"

Huge football tragic here.

Germany is my pick after the first round of games. Although quick and skillful opposition could give them problems in the center of defense.

Brazil and Spain were the 2 main favourites and both have not been playing with the fluidity we expected.

Mexico's Guillermo Ochoa

Shared by: https://twitter.com/SupermanTweets & https://twitter.com/cbcsports

^ + 1,000,000

Birko wrote:June 23 Dain! We are on!

I dont think anyone expected it, but the match on June 23rd will not matter since both Australia and Spain have been eliminated today. Australia's performance today was great, unlucky at the end. Spain just seemed lackadaisical.

Dain Firehelm wrote: my (monopoly) money is on Italy or Argentina

Both seemed solid contenders but both need to step it up further. Brazil needs to find their groove too. Germany looked solid.

Tomorrow's match between England and Uruguay will determine who goes home and who potentially moves on.

Overall, very exciting World Cup start with a record number of goals scored.

I agree Alex.
I was expecting a whitewash with the Australia v Netherlands, and my nation's media seems happy with a very honorable loss. I slept through the match.
The Spain/Australia match will be interesting even though it doesn't count.

Australia still has a consolation. We got to stick it to the Dutch ....
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/kookaburras ... zs8r2.html

My bet is on The Netherlands as they have confident offense, and now see flaws in defense. They will not be cocky and become more formidable.

WOWOWOW England and Spain eliminated from the World Cup! what a blow for both teams.

I never thought our team would be this good (so far), Robin van Persie made such an impressive goal. Lets see if we can beat Chili too (I think not)...

Spiwak (Amsterdam)