🏀 KuBuckets Archive

I've been really enjoying watching the kids gets unleashed by US soccer in the last 2 friendlies. Playing France, a World Cup favorite, to a 1-1 tie was riveting! After years of being let down by Michael Bradley, Altidore and co, these kids played with fire ( always challenging on D, holding form, keeper making huge saves down the stretch) and athleticism, making people pay for mistakes. I'm hopeful for the future. If only we had cleaned house sooner, we'd be in this World Cup.

That said, here are the odds this year. Who else will be watching?

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-world-cup-predictions ↗

There is nothing quite like the WC.

@approxinfinity

I will be watching. Brazil is always a favorite and always has talent but it is not always used correctly (see Brazil 2014), Germany is always solid and a true contender, Spain had for many years the best team but it is somewhat down now but still a great team, France and Belgium have very good teams with a decent shot to win it all. Argentina had great talent and the players have been together for a while and has a decent but not a great shot, same with Uruguay and Colombia. The rest are longer shots and the only other team with a shot is Russia who has the home advantage which can be considerable.

In short, if I had to list the top candidate teams in order I would go Brazil, Germany, France and Belgium. All the rest are one step below.

Can't wait to watch France flame out again. It's a great time honored tradition. Also I expect Zidane to be their manager for the next WC.

Never been able to get into soccer, if I wanted to watch someone struggle to score for 90 minutes, I'd take my friends to the bar.

@kjayhawks

You must really hate baseball when both pitcher have no hitters going.. :smile:

@kjayhawks funny... without any judgement on soccer.

@JayHawkFanToo very much so lol

My own hierarchy is...

Hoops

Footy/soccer

Baseball

Football

Hockey

@kjayhawks I agree. I doubt I watch one second of the WC. I loved soccer as a kid. I played for 6-7 years and just could care less about it now.

@BShark

Hoops

Dirt track racing

Football

Softball

Baseball

Hockey

@kjayhawks My dad really like racing, I couldn't get into it myself.

Interestingly enough if I was asked even 3 years ago, football would probably have been my top pick. I've kinda drifted away from it, I think in part due to how much absolute dead time there is during a game.

@BShark ya football has faltered a little for me me in recent years. I’m a big fan of college sports so KU not fielding a competitive team in nearly a decade hasn’t helped, that and with the kids I try to just stay engaged to KU hoops because my wife would kill me if I put that much time in anything else lol. The NFL has gotten more lame to me over the years. I used to watch about every Sunday, now I say I watch about 3 games a year.

Kindle on my phone has helped me fill in the lengthy gaps in action in both football and baseball, although with KC in the dumpster I am not watching any MLB this year. College playoff has been exciting, tho, so I am looking forward to the College World Series this coming week.

Great game going on between Spain (Adidas) and Portugal (Nike). I wonder how long before the conspiracy theories start flying...:smile:

If you can, watch the Telemundo stream in Spanish, the difference is like watching Steve Wright on downers and Robin Williams on speed.

Amazing game! Well worth the price of admission.

1 KU basketball

2 KU basketball pre-season

3 KU basketball practice

4 NFL/ Chiefs

5 Royals

6 Olympics

7 strongest man competition

8 Tiger Woods

9 Hockey (mainly ovechkin partying)

10 Fishing

11 KU football (in its current state)

12 NBA finals only

13 women’s NCAA basketball

14 tennis

15 boxing

16 MMA

17 horse racing

18 Logger challenges

19 US women’s soccer

20 racing

21 ruby

22 croquet

23 badmitten

But in all fairness I could fill all 23 slots with KU basketball related stuff.

@BShark

Agreed. One of the better opening games I remember. Spain should have won but Ronaldo had himself one heck of a game. The first goals for Spain by Costa and the last goal for Portugal by Ronaldo were things of beauty. This could well end up being the best game of this World Cup.

@JayHawkFanToo Do you have a specific team you cheer for? Might have missed it earlier.

@BShark

Not in this cup specifically since the US team is not there. I tend to cheer for the Latin American teams and, from the European teams, Spain would me my favorite.

Spain Portugal was muy bueno. Iran leads the pod and could spoil the hopes of one of those two teams now.

Messi plays at 8am EST. Also looking forward to Germany Mexico. should be a good game. Looks like renaldos gunning for James Rodriguez's golden boot award!

@approxinfinity

Iran got lucky; Morocco should have won the game.

Some great upsets today. Mexico beating Germany was amazing. Mexico looked like the better team. Their offense was electric consistently getting downfield faster than the Germans. The Swiss tying Brazil was also a surprise. Neymar seemed to feel the pressure as much as Messi did yesterday.

@approxinfinity My 5 year old nephew just got back from a couple year stint in Germany. Little guy can dribble the ball ⚽️ quite well now. It’s impressive what he picked up on recess while over seas.

approxinfinity said:

Some great upsets today. Mexico beating Germany was amazing. Mexico looked like the better team. Their offense was electric consistently getting downfield faster than the Germans. The Swiss tying Brazil was also a surprise. Neymar seemed to feel the pressure as much as Messi did yesterday.

Yeah Mexico shredded German'y midfield. It's Low's own fault really for playing Khedira....

Japan has stunned Colombia 2-1.

@BShark

When you start the game 1 goal and one man down it is uphill the rest of the way, even more so at a World Cup level. Colombia still was the better team but they seemed to be happy with a tie and stopped attacking and cost them the game.

@JayHawkFanToo Well, the red card was very deserved. That guy lost his mind.

@BShark

Judgment call for the ref and if he determines the hand was intentional then it is an automatic red card. If the player is facing the ball and the arm is not tight against the body it will always be called, although apparently there was an almost identical play in the previous World Cup (by a Netherlands player???) that was not called.

Senegal takes the lead against Poland 1-0! A win or tie against Poland would be huge for Colombia (same pod)

James started that Colombia game on the sideline with an injury, then played second half but did not do much. I wonder if they will regret not starting him with 20/20 hindsight. Quintero played in his place and did score the penalty (under the wall) so there is that...

@approxinfinity

With James healthy, Colombia is a very different team with a top notch finisher.

Lots of surprising results so far. With Germany losing, Argentina, Portugal, Spain and Brazil tying, France and Belgium appear to be the favorites now. Of course it is way too early and even a loss in the first game does not eliminate a team.

@JayHawkFanToo thus far, I believe in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico.

Belgium is so good. Lukaku is a beast! Not only are they timing their passes perfectly going downfield, they're avoiding offsides, then getting 5 steps past their defender and then breaking down the goalie 1v1.

approxinfinity said:

Belgium is so good. Lukaku is a beast! Not only are they timing their passes perfectly going downfield, they're avoiding offsides, then getting 5 steps past their defender and then breaking down the goalie 1v1.

They could have legitimately scored 8 or 9 goals today. I can appreciate that neither team camped in that game.

Belgium are firmly my 2nd choice team, just love how they play. Plus the whole country is barely more populated than the NYC area which makes their depth of talent quite remarkable.

@approxinfinity

Interesting game. Tunisia dominated the first part of the second half and with a little luck the score could have been 3-2 or even 3-3. After Belgium settled it missed at least 3 more point blank goals. It would not have surprised me if the final score was 7-3.

Next, Mexico to prove if it is a contender or just another team with a lucky win over a powerhouse.

Mexico should absolutely beat South Korea.

goooooooooooolllllllll

Mexico needs to stop settling for haymakers outside the box. 2 for Chucky 1 for Chicharito

They're faster than this team. Do them like they did Germany

S Korea getting nice opportunities here. Mexico looks tired. Could be a comeback brewing.

Nevermind :) Gooooooooooollllllllllllllllll

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/romelu-lukaku-ive-got-some-things-to-say ↗

Uruguay wins big over Russia; I though the game would be closer. Past the stage where the crowd is a big help and now contender move ahead of the pretenders.

Interesting factoid: Out of 23 players for the Iceland team 22 players (except for the backup goalie) have last names that end in "son."

!0_1529945815772_upload-e1a2b31d-51ac-486f-abd6-66aacb12eebf ↗

@JayHawkFanToo :)

@BShark this was a fun read.

MOROCCO!!!!!!!

approxinfinity said:

@BShark this was a fun read.

Yeah it was quite good. I think @mayjay would appreciate it.

@BShark I have saved it and will check it out soon!

@approxinfinity What is this World Cup you speak of??

@Barney Only the best international sporting spectacle by far. You're not missing everything.

approxinfinity said:

@Barney Only the best international sporting spectacle by far. You're not missing everything.

The drama today was pretty damn good.

@BShark it really was. I was pulling hard for Iran.

@approxinfinity I enjoyed it when my son played in HS but there is way too much flopping for me to watch on TV. Actually being satisfied with and playing for the tie does not sit well with my competitive nature. I am glad others enjoy it though.

@BShark Excellent article. There is definitely a different mindset to world-class athletes.

@Barney

Playing for a tie in the World Cup happens occasionally in the first stage when the object is to finish in the top two and advance but it is certainly not the norm. No more ties after that, you win and advance.

3.2. billion people tuned in for the 2014 World Cup and over 1billion watched the final. This edition of the cup is expected to draw 3.6 billion people or half the world’s population and the Final will be watched by ~1.5 billion people.

@Barney I agree that the flopping is annoying but so many things are great about soccer that it doesn't spoil the game for me. The uninterrupted play (no commercials!), the creativite ways one can score, the level of difficulty that some of these things they do takes, the passion of the fanbase, the national pride, the fact that these guys play with many of their rivals in professional play... Yes, sometimes people get rooked on flops. But that's just one thing.

!alt text ↗

Talk about trying to lose...

@approxinfinity

I was surprised by all the flopping by Sweden against Mexico and the ref did not do Mexico any favors either. it was almost comical to see a 5'6" Mexican player jumps against a 6'4", 40 pound heavier Swede and almost every time the Swedish player ended up on the floor holding a part of his body that was not even involved in the collision; Swedes made Argentinian players look like amateurs.

@BShark

Both Belgium and England have the best teams they have had in a while and both have the potential to get far. Both have already booked a place in the knock out stage but their upcoming game will tell which has the better chance to go farther.

A Brazil-Spain clash could be a likely final.

@JayHawkFanToo Those line-ups are trying to lose for bracket positioning lol.

That is literally the Belgian back-up 11 with their current roster. :grinning:

@BShark

The winner gets the easier next opponent, Japan, and then the winner of Brazil-Mexico. The loser gets the much harder Colombia and then the winner of Sweden-Switzerland.

England should be ahead instead Belgium is.... :smile:

I know I said it was for bracket positioning. :p

Would much rather play against Japan. Colombia has the potential to be a tough out. Brazil is good but would you take the harder opponent now to avoid Brazil the subsequent round?

@BShark @approxinfinity

Exactly. Which is the more desirable bracket? Six one way, half a dozen the other.

Now, this is pretty funny...

🐦 View Tweet/video/1

Who let the goats out?????

Japan ahead of Belgium 2-1. Germany, Spain and Italy (did not even make it to the Cup) the 3 more recent champion and powerhouses from Western Europe already out as well as Current European champion Portugal; only France has advanced so far.

Belgium ties Japan 2-2 with 15 minutes left...

Belgium pulls a miracle and wins 3-2.

Eh they were huge favorites. Great game though.

Columbia in the 93' to stay alive. Now in 2OT. Both teams look gassed. Expect to see this go to PKs.

@approxinfinity Belgium!

Can't believe these games. Breathtaking. Heartbreaking.

@Barney Most watched sport globally

Croatia-Russia was very entertaining, and the result was satisfying.

Suck it Russian bots!