I went out on some huge limbs and didnt check my picks when I made them(manly had Germany and Australia switched). Also I just noticed I never put in any goals for the tiebreaker... thats what I get for filling that out at work lol.

No need for all the threads...shoulda kept this one going.

eh, whatever. We can keep this going. The others can just fall to the second page.

SportsAndLady;401486 wrote:http://games.espn.go.com/bpredictor/en-us/group?groupID=30216&entryID=623411

Yours truly, Goon, and idrain3s on top

For the top eight:

The three leaders and Patriots34 all have 7 out of 8 quarterfinal teams and 4 out of 4 semifinal teams. I Wear Pants and hoops23 both have 6/8 and 4/4. Killdeer has 6/8 and 3/4, and Laley23 has 5/8 and 3/4.

Two people globally picked every team/group right but mixed up USA and England in placement.

Laley23;401532 wrote:eh, whatever. We can keep this going. The others can just fall to the second page.

Except for USA/Ghana of course that deserves its own thread!

And Goon Im surprised that only 2 people picked them all right I figured there would be more and that atleast 1 person would have gotten them all totally correct haha.

trackandccrunner;401582 wrote:Except for USA/Ghana of course that deserves its own thread!

And Goon Im surprised that only 2 people picked them all right I figured there would be more and that atleast 1 person would have gotten them all totally correct haha.

Probably not that many people who did this...it's not even close to as popular as the March Madness brackets people do every year. Hell, I didn't even know about this til this year.

Don't know if you guys had the chance to see this yet, I thought it was pretty cool. Saw it on Yahoo! Sports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbn3rOPmR9w

I've watched that video and had it sent to me so many times I've remembered that jbn3rOPmR9w at the end... how sad is that?

But I think most of us has seen but not a bad thing to post it again because its that awesome.

I had 5 entries in the bracket predictor thing, and just stuck my last one in the OChatter group. We should have had a soccer pick'em group (match by match basis... picking each individual match). I'm doing much better in that one with only 1 entry (98.3 percentile), cuz I'm not doing any bet-hedging.

Oh well. There's always 2014.

Thanks for the video, pretty sweet.

I do not want to sound like a broken record, but I really hope FIFA doesn't consider an Africa nation as a location for another 80 years. How can you not fill the whole stadium for a knockout stage?

like_that;402103 wrote:I do not want to sound like a broken record, but I really hope FIFA doesn't consider an Africa nation as a location for another 80 years. How can you not fill the whole stadium for a knockout stage?

Wasnt it full until the rains came and people started to move? Im not really sure, but I just remember noticing the empty seats, but I only noticed once the rains started to come down.

Just watched the highlights to make sure and there were definitely a lot of open seats during the whole game.

like_that;402103 wrote:I do not want to sound like a broken record, but I really hope FIFA doesn't consider an Africa nation as a location for another 80 years. How can you not fill the whole stadium for a knockout stage?

I was reading on the Wall Street Journal that its partially FIFA's fault due to their encouragement of companies to develop travel packages for the World Cup. The companies they reached out to were asking ridiculous prices for lodging in South Africa so people decided to resell their tickets rather than pay $5k to get there and get gouged for a room. I know when I looked to go a room was about 1700RSA which is about $180 a night. Then I looked a month or so later and the same room was $500...

I posted that video here after seeing it from Donovan's facebook Thurs., it had 2500 views. In less than 2 days it has 1.6million views.

I am ok with all the teams left alive winning a title, except for the Germans (happy they got rid of england though). Hopefully someone knocks them off.

like_that;402787 wrote:I am ok with all the teams left alive winning a title, except for the Germans (happy they got rid of england though). Hopefully someone knocks them off.

Argentina will next round.

The Nigerian president has banned the Nigerian team from competing in international games for two years after an abysmal performance, saying they will investigate the funds put into the program. Now, FIFA has stated that this ban from the political side could lead to a ban from all international soccer due to politics mixing together with athletics. Also, FIFA is also concerned that the French investigation could also go too political as well. I understand the reasoning for the statutes that force the federations to work independently, but it seems a bit harsh, in my opinion.

It's kinda like after Togo withdrew from this year's CAF that they were banned from competitions for two years, I think. If a government thinks a team is at risk and calls them to come home, then they shouldn't be punished for that. The government of Togo had legit concern for their soccer players, and their team gets punished for it?

I thought the Togo team pulled itself out, no?

Come on Holland and Germany (more so Holland)!

Come on Holland and Argentina. I want a Spain-Argentina semifinal.

^^^agree with this. I think Argentina v. Spain is a potential "final" quality semifinal match...and a very interesting contrast in styles with the more open attacking side in Maradona's boys, and an absolutely beautiful ball-control and virtuoso passing performance in Spain. Some of those sequences during the Portugal match were stunning.

Spain should make the semi's easily...Argentina will be pushed, but should come through against Germany.

My heart says Spain in a match-up with Argentina, but my head, (and my vbucks) say Argentina.
Germany getting through would make for a much easier match for Spain, imo.

Argentina v. Netherlands final is my bet

Spain/Brazil > the rest.

I'm ridin' the Villa train all the way!