No, Football took over.

I vote for two threads, a USA thread and a other teams thread.

This, so I don't have to read about a team who call it soccer :P

It's weird living in North America, calling it soccer with non fans and Football vs everyone else, then calling handegg NFL.

In!

Yea I know ... but 80% of this forum is American so here it's soccer

just because you americans wasted "football" for your weird handegg sport? :/

ugh, I am getting close to hating football altogether. Just watched a documentary yesterday where they talked about how 14-15 HS kids end up paralyzed each year playing football, not to mention all the brain trauma. Yeah some of its freakish ****, but its starting to turn me off the sport quite a bit. Soccer and basketball are really the only ones that keep my attention.

That just means that 80% of this forum call it the wrong name then.

i wonder how many times this will be argued during the actual world cup, who the **** cares if americans call it soccer.

Your Euro's should camouflage the name of your WC thread. But let me know what its called so I can come in and read the stuff!

Bull****. Soccer is a perfectly acceptable term for the game. In Ireland I use soccer more frequently than football so it is clear what sport I am referring too. Australians, Canadians and Americans all have their own versions of football also (they are called football whether you think its hand egg or some other such nonsense is another matter). Therefore it makes perfect sense to call it soccer so that there is never any confusing about what you are referring too.

I sometimes accidentally call it soccer in England and everyone laughs and I point out how ******ed they are every time.

I watch Soccer AM every Saturday, buy my boots from Pro Direct Soccer and the magazine I most frequently read is called World Soccer.

Now please shut the **** up.

Not to mention in the host nation, it is usually referred to as soccer.

And add the Kiwis to the list.

I prefer football, but to say Americans are the only ones who say soccer is ignorant.

plus an Englishmen created the term!

but how much you lose?

In case anyone is curious, here is the performance of various groups from the last 3 World Cups.

Advanced to Second Round

Non-Seeded UEFA 52% (15/29)
Non-Seeded CONMEBOL 50% (4/8)
CONCACAF 40% (4/10)
AFC 23% (3/13)
CAF 20% (3/15)

Advanced to Quarterfinals

Non-Seeded UEFA 21% (6/29)
CONCACAF 10% (1/10)
AFC 8% (1/13)
CAF 7% (1/15)
Non-Seeded CONMEBOL 0% (0/8)

Advanced to Semi Finals

Non-Seeded UEFA 10% (3/29)
AFC 8% (1/13)
Others 0%

You can't draw much as the sample size is really small, but it's clear that European sides are the strongest non-seeded teams. Also, I don't think you can lump CONCACAF in with Asia in terms of being super weak. Mexico have gotten out of the group stage four straight times and the US have sporadic success. Africa have really underachieved, but I think that will change this year.

THIS!

I mostly call it football and called my blog analytical football but soccer is a perfectly acceptable term when there are other games that are close to as or even more prominent in a certain place also called football.

This has been pointed out by me and others but the reason football was called football wasn't because 20/22 players primarily use their feet it was because it was played on foot. The upper class games like polo at the time were played on horseback so that was the distinction. Other games like rugby that developed from the territorial ball game were also called football.

Iplayboard,

Interesting post. The sample sizes are small but all we've got since the finals have only had 32 teams 3 times.

Very interesting post.

I am seriously considering betting that an African team will reach the semi finals. Can't find odds anywhere. What do you think would be reasonably? I am thinking 3/1 at least.

The only thing I would add as a caveat to your post Iplayboard, is that some of the other confederations have gotten better overall since the 1998 World Cup. Maybe those % don't change much, but I can see them being better for CAF teams, due to the number of spots they get. For CONCACAF its still basically between US or Mexico. Maybe its fair to assume Asia's % gets better, but they are still a bit behind the other confederations.

The Asian confed are only better because of Australia imo. I really don't think teams from there have actually improved much.

yeah, other than Australia, Japan, and S. Korea, its not a real great Confed. Maybe a few random Arab countries are decent. I think its easily the worst confed (other than Oceana ldo).

A huge caveat goes here IMO. Technically it's just 2 as Australia were in Oceania last time around. That's not just being nitpicky as they advanced out of a group with Brazil, Croatia and Japan. So the group had two countries that would now be considered Asian, making it a lot more likely that one of them got out. The other two were the cohosts in 2002.

Even though they have 2 more fails, Africa's 3 look a lot better.

Ghana coach to meet with Balotelli

would love that to happend

He is an absolute beast when he's on. I remember Bjorn I think talking about a lot of locker-room problems, but he can flat out dominate on his day.