Most shocking football (soccer) game ever

[Avonrepus]

England 1-0 up against France (best team in world) with less than 2 minutes to go-

Final Score: 2-1 France. a free kick and penalty-unbelievable.

I'm no great fan and my comments afterwards of "it's just a game" didn't go down too well.

[stepnw1f]

1. It's Religion... not just a game (lol)

[BlueStateGirl]

2. Zidane's two goals just elevated me to the top of my Euro 04

fantasy league. :)

[MallRat]

40. Fantasy soccer?

Wow. I thought my fantasy sports addiction was bad.

Then again, a wise man once said, "I'll play fantasy monkey boxing if you give me a spreadsheet, a scoring system, and some stats."

-MR

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Starring David Beckham, of course, for England --

and England is now out of competition!

On edit: This news maybe belongs in GD as part of discussion of international events -- most Americans have no idea how important football is to the rest of the world. It's a real disconnect.

[HuckleB]

5. True.

Most Americans have no idea just how exciting a football match of this caliber actually is. They work hard to keep themselves deluded with the idea that "soccer is boring." Oh, how hard they work.

[madrchsod]

16. what the problem is that

Americans are used to tv sports with tight shots on individual players and the play-such as football is no more than 10 seconds or less. when the camera found dr. j,bird,johnson,and jordan basketball became the sport in the usa. why? because the camera focus on the player and his gifts-jordan and his amazing dunks,handling skills.
in world football the camera seems to look more at the big picture instead of the player with the ball..if the americans could see some of the amazing ball handling skills of the top players they would realize these guys are as good as jordan or any other basket ball player in their ability to entertain.
the best experience in watching football is being a youth soccer coach for 17 yrs,you just can`t beat that...

[BlueStateGirl]

18. Edit. wrong spot. And now I can't find the post I want to respond to.

I'm such a moran sometimes :)

[Kellanved]

4. not the most shocking

For example Munich vs. Manchester Champions League Final was even more shocking (I would have loved to see almost any team other than Manchester in the situation - I don't like Manchester, Munich, Madrid and the other national 'big clubs').


It was a good match, the English did extremely well, but simply had not the class; Beckham proved to be overrated when compared to Zidane and other real super stars. The match wasn't won by a team , but by two stars (Zidane and Barthez), so it wasn't an exceptionally good match, just a real thriller.

[madrchsod]

6. i take it beckman

didn`t bend it..have to watch for the game on foxsports net this week ,sounds like a good match

[Canadian_moderate]

36. That was exactly his problem

He bent it like Beckham when he should have thrashed it into the back of the net with his laces (top of the boot).

I was cheering for England, but ultimately support the Netherlands. I can't wait until tomorrow afternoon.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. Well, it was an OK penalty

but not a great one. It was a great save from Barthez, however. And Beckham did make the English goal from a free kick.

England's problem is they still rely on Beckham too much. The rest of the midfield is mediocre.

[Canadian_moderate]

42. What was up with Steven Gerrard's brain cramp?

What the hell was he thinking?

Beckham's penalty was pretty soft and its directly looked very predictable. A straight run up and a good thrashing of the ball results in a goal with most penalties (a la Alan Shearer). Keepers have to be extremely lucky to save those.

BTW, any one else feel that Rooney should have passed to the wide open player (Vassell?) before he was fouled?

[HuckleB]

7. No. Just the typical England heartbreak.

Every England fan was filled with dread throughout, knowing the roof would cave in at some point, as it almost always does.

[AP]

8. And all of Scotland celebrates.

[HuckleB]

10. LOL!

:)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

29. Well, we do have a 700-year alliance with France.

Nothing to do with the great pleasure we take in English misfortune, honest.

[HuckleB]

9. By the way, the USA took on the Grenada powerhouse...

winning 3-0.

[Baltimoreboy]

13. Remember, Americans don't care about soccer

As a general rule. Look at what happened to the womens soccer league.

[Cascadian]

22. Not ALL Americans hate soccer.

Let's not generalize here. It's a big country.


John

[HuckleB]

26. MSL grows every year.

The failure of the women's league means very little, really. We've already seen the demise of one women's basketball league, and the WNBA would be bankrupt without the NBA there to pick up the losses.

[AP]

11. Zidane's a muslim and his parents immigrated to France from Algeria.

He has done a world of good for race relations in a country which has had some serious problems with religion and immigration.

http://www.famousmuslims.com/zidane.htm

[Kellanved]

12. France has less problems with immigration than most other EU Countries

Far less to be exact. It has a very liberal immigration law; most problems at the moment occur because of the "France first, Religion second" thing, but I have to admit: I agree very much with that.

[AP]

15. Thanks, in part to Zidane, perhaps. But, La Haine wasn't a totally ...

...fictional account of the state of rarce relations in Fr in the mid 90s, and the fascists did do better than the center left party in the first round of the elections in '02, and they did it by exploiting anti-immigration sentiments.

[Kellanved]

20. not really

The left had a majority, the problem was that it was fractured. France in special and Europe in general was robbed of a historic chance; I can't really say who robbed it: was it the media predicting a secure Jospin win? the democratic right for letting candidates to their right grow? the left voters for voting for third party candidates? the (non-)voters for staying at home?
Le Pen was an accident, not the will of the French people; -Chirac was the winner of that accident. That Chirac was forced into the role of the German/French reconciliation's advocate and a European Unity promoter is the one greatest achievement of Bush.

[uncle ray]

14. screw the game, how were the fans?

i read here the other day that officials were allowing the fans to smoke pot at this game. how'd that go?

[Kellanved]

17. Most were singing "God save the Queen"

Number one reason for me to dislike British fans: singing their national anthem during the game ;-)


almost totally kidding ;-)

[Cascadian]

23. A nice little pic of the crowds.

Looks like something was going to happen but the police had control.




John

[Cascadian]

24. Can you imagine what the English Papers are going to look like?

They are probably already going to call for Sven Goran Eriksson's head.


John

[Screaming Lord Byron]

30. I wouldn't be kidding about that. It's a dreadful imperialist dirge.

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!

Yeah, you can see I might have a wee problem with that particular verse, eh?

[Minstrel Boy]

19. It was crazy

I was in a pub, and the game was on with the sound off. 1-0 with 88 minutes gone, I turn to my pint of Caffrey's and onion rings. I look up, moments later, and France has won. What the hell?

A good case for pubs to have the sound ON, instead of playing feckin' music.

Happy for Zidane. That guy kicks ass.

[Gloria]

21. Having practically lived in Giants Stadium during the Cosmos reign...

I saw so many exciting matches, domestic and international, it was simply amazing.
Tops had to be the playoff game with Franz Beckenbauer, that most elegant of midfielders, the best player in the world at the time (late 70's-80's) taking a kick during the shootout (the league invented shootouts to add excitement for Americans), with 67,000 fans going NUTS...I will never forget it.

Alas, no more Cosmos or league. What a shame! Of course, there was a media blackout on soccer and what talk there was was usually to mock it--I've hated Imus ever since he badmouthed soccer......

[bhunt70]

25. Go France - (well italy first, then france, then switzerland)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

27. THAT is shocking? Feh.

World Cup final, 1950, Rio de Janeiro.

That event is to Brazilians what the JFK assasination is to Americans.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

28. Allez la France! What was that English midfielder thinking?

What do you expect the goalie to do with a pass-back like that? What a total idiot! I turned on at 85 mins, and turned to my anglophile wife and conceded defeat with what I thought was grace, and then...I guess they found a portal to football bizarro-world.

[Endangered Specie]

31. Think they can add this to a "French Military Victories" list?

it be a good start (j/k) ;)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

32. I'm worried, ES. Been spending a little too long at Freeperville?

:evilgrin:

[Endangered Specie]

34. You mean I cant do French jokes here?

:wtf: ;)

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. Remember that France were favourites before the game

Seeing as how they won the World Cup in '98, and Euro 2000. The only question was whether they were past their peak.

The scoreline was probably fair to both teams; England did play a little better in the first half, but spent most of the second desperately defending. The surprise was that the 2 French goals came so late.

English 'fan' violence was mainly back in England:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3802125.stm

[AngryAmish]

33. You can scream and you can shout

Even suck our eyeballs out
but soccer's not a real sport

(to "Battle Hymm of the Republic")

[HuckleB]

35. Now that's funny.

Some goofball American's always gotta bring on the boring cliches, meant to hold back the tide of soccer. I suppose if we can maket the snoozefest that is American football into popularity, we can propagandize against another sport nearly as successfully. Still, in time, the cliches are dying. Word of mouth and eyes wins out.

[Canadian_moderate]

38. Your obviously not sophisticated enough

to understand what we simply call "the beautiful game". Nuff said.

edited for spelling.

[Guy_Montag]

41. Tee Hee

:evilgrin: