I'm equally satisfied with Portugal or Brazil leading.

i have, as i said elsewhere, continental loyalties, so i'm for brazil first, portugal second. i have other layers of loyalties beyond that, i.e., latin countries (in europe) over germanic ones (where i include the visigoth country, spain), and good teams (germany) over crap ones (australia). it's all very complicated and i can't explain it all in 1 paragraph.

Well, it's my obligation.
I'm happy as long as Argentina doesn't win.

i don't hate all argentinians, only porteños, unless they are playing england.

o you're part brazilian, right? do you also say "argentino merda"? ha ha ah ha

eh, it's 5:16, i gotta get to work--- let's talk shit about argentina soon.

this is the first world cup I have been more interested in the sports rather than politics. I was very surprised with US defense against the furious offense in UK.. I was hopin my folks from parahuay would put the smack down on Italia but a tie is much better than a loss in the Cup..

Of course the only drag is the teams are not necessarily representative of that country's talent like it used to be, only teams like Korea(north or south) and Japan have predominantly national teams, the rest are all imports. That is what makes Japans win over Cameroon so interesting, cuz generally speaking Japan sucks but at least they are largely japanese..

or germany, or italy, or brazil, or portugal, or france, or holland.

sorry about the correction i'm about to make, but here it goes: all of the italian team plays in italy, same as the german team playing in germany, the english in england, and the spanish in spain. they don't have "imports". podolski is a pole but he played in the bundesliga and, believe it or not, was rejected by his own national team! (poles are famous dunces). klose was born in poland but has a german father. and of course he plays in germany. in fact, the base for the german team is the bayern munich. ozli and gomez are children of immigrants and german from birth.

reason for this is phenomenon is that these countries have rich & mighty world-class leagues that attract talent rather than export it. hence, the american goalkeeper plays in england, the paraguayan goalkeeper plays in spain, but the reverse doesn't happen. the "imports" you find in the usa are mostly, i'm sorry to say, "rejects". but not like podolski.

nonsense, there are plenty of 'imports' who became foreign nationals to join the team, I'm not saying they are ringers or making up a majority, just that they change the game up a bit from what it used to be back in the day..

this world cup sucks big time so far.

anyways, our team plays the first world cup game ever against the Kiwis tonight so we might actually score our first victory as well.

My mom's friend from Malta was mentioning how bad her home team is because they export their players. However, she also seemed proud that Malta's football talent receives international demand. Of course, though, it does complicate the sport a bit if you want to see it as a nationalistic challenge (nik would have a word(s) with you, however). I admit that it does hamper my enthusiasm for the sport a bit, as antithetical as that is to the consuming spirit of my homeland.

who? can you name them? who did italy import? who did argentina import? who did brazil import? names, please.

best wishes dude

and... how many players in your national team are imported?

I was trying to find it for ya, the LA Times had a nice breakdown that showed the country of origin alongside the club they played for.. you are absolutely correct, all the players from the national teams play for clubs in the respective country, but they are not all native born nor necessarily even citizens or even necessarily residents!

In the 60s and 70s teams were all drawn from locals in a country..

In regards to the US, of course we imported like a shitload of cats from the UK, including our ass kicking goalee who put the smack down on UK on saturday ;)

i think you got it a bit mixed up, and it's ok, there's too much info out there.

there are a lot of players in national teams that play "abroad" with respect to their home countries-- especially those in poor countries or those who don't have very strong professional leagues. e.g., the best american players don't play in the MLS, but abroad.

eg, tim howard was born in brunswick, new jersey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Howard but he does play in england.

see more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_men's_national_soccer_team

of course, 'merica being a country of immigrants and having little soccer tradition, it's going to have imports (real imports) in the team, but not nearly as many as it used to have back in the day. e.g. feilhaber was born in brazil but moved to the us when he was 6 (oh my! foreigners!) but no, in reality what you have lots is kids from immigrant parents.

most soccer teams however it's 100% national meat. seriously. well, england's got an italian coach, ha ha ha...

now, while most if not all of the italian national team plays in italy, the PROFESSIONAL italian teams are full of imports. check out the inter milan, current european champions:

http://sports.yahoo.com/fbit/teams/int/roster

that's a truly international team, eh? not a lot of italians. but if you search well, you'll find materazzo there, who played for his national team today. the other dudes are with their own national teams, e.g., lucio, who is the captain of the brazilian team. all very complicated. yet, all of the brazilian national team are native brazilians.

now, if you think about american sports-- how many native californians play for the l.a. lakers? :confused:

anyway, im tired, gotta go crash early today. but don't let this import theory kill your enjoyment of ritual world war! it certainly beats nukes.

What intransigently incorrect point is !@#$%! trying to make this time? All I see is exception-making.

I think we are best represented by our contract-writing team. Really, it's a whole sport onto its own here in Usonia.

no, it's just the football team that is not liked. bad losers.
i've never heard anyone say that.

shit. I have watched nearly every match so far and they have all been fun as fuck. not the best futbol all the time, but either way it has been awesome.

Now to watch Ivory Coast v Portugal on Univision.com

i like argentine football, especially with the nostril of god there as the coach, i'm down to see a world cup trophy full of merda this year

ha ha, i have...


yes, they play very well, and i want a south american team to win the cup, merda or not merda, ha ha ha.

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shit, i wake up to find out portugal went 0-0 against ivory coast? that doesn't sound promising at all...