BBO Discussion Forums: Official BBF 2014 World Cup Thread - BBO Discussion Forums

I was looking at Betfair before the match and 7.5+goals was 249-1. I suggested this might be worth a punt and got mocked...and that was probably deserved.

gwnn, on 2014-July-08, 15:28, said:

Seven.

My beef is not really with the refs, it's with FIFA, most of the refs shouldn't be anywhere near a world cup, but Blatter gets all his votes from Africa and Asia, so he has to throw in refs from there to curry favour. They then want the "big players" not to be suspended from matches so tell the refs not to book people, so even the better refs lose control of games.

This has been a really easy game to ref given that it was all over so early.

LOL the narrator is trying to figure who did NOT score for Germany in this match

I was just 7 down in a voluntarily bid slam when I failed to realize that my 3NT bid showed 28 HCPs in the GIB system.

But at least I put one pound on Germany at odds 8 in the office pool

This morning I was feeling pretty good because I was set to win $1,500 if either Brazil or Argentina won the whole shebang.

I am currently kicking myself for not taking insurance.

A couple of hours after posting, this became a contender for the worst headline ever:
For Brazil's David Luiz, The World Cup Is Already Won

(The article also contains the following gem of a sentence:
Neymar is good at dribbling and has pace, which is considered important by many in the game.... Forbes has some fantastic inside sources it seems!)

Cyberyeti, on 2014-July-08, 15:41, said:

I kind of agree with what you're saying, of course. There are some referees from very strange countries. However, I'm not sure what the best alternative is. I think the idea to have a referee from a different continent than both teams (unless they are from the same continent) is a reasonable one. Maybe trying to let these "top" referees (i.e., referees who are likely to lead games from a world cup) officiate in Europe/South America is an option. But from what I gather from your posts you were convinced from the first match that there is an evil conspiracy trying to push Brazil forward and keeping track of all those mistake. I think that is a biased approach, you need more data than a successful Brazilian dive to establish such a conclusion (I still think the Croatian goal was illegal but let's not get into this again) - players dive successfully all the time, with or without conspiracies. I think you're not applying the scientific method particularly well here, and robbing yourself of enjoying the sometimes scintillating football by having this bitter grudge against FIFA.

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I'm not sure about this, it just sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

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If Brazil had bought the referees, they could have got a penalty after Marcelo was cleanly tackled at 0-0 I believe. Note that it was not a dive since there was a contact between the legs as well, not just the defender with the ball.

I actually feel that FIFA needs taking down to the roots and remaking. It's like the IOC pre Salt Lake City, thoroughly corrupt and not prepared to do anything about it. Blatter needs to stand for another term because he might go to jail if he doesn't for some of the things he and people around him have done, if he's in control, he can whitewash it and serve up a few heads on platters when they fall out with him.

I don't think Brazil have done anything wrong, they simply exploited bad refereeing, FIFA know (and they are dead right about this) that getting the hosts to at least the semis makes for a good tournament atmosphere, look at the refereeing of the Japan/Korea world cup for another example.

Not all the non European/South American referees are bad, there's a Kazakh or Uzbek who's excellent, but they lack experience, there needs to be a program of getting the best "small footballing country" referees some experience of refereeing in bigger footballing countries. This has been an issue for a long time, Maradona's hand of god goal was refereed by a Tunisian?

The comment about the direction to referees is more than a conspiracy theory, referees who've officiated at previous world cups have confirmed that it's not uncommon to get a "clamp down on this aspect of foul play" order then after several well known players have received yellow cards that order gets rescinded.

Another example which then settled down, in the first 10 minutes of the Brazil-Mexico game, Brazil got 6 or 7 ludicrous free kicks for good challenges.

I'm afraid the whole Qatar/Russia award scenario has completely robbed me of any trust in FIFA and that anything that happens is fair, to me international football is a joke now. We've seen it in Europe when having said playoffs would be unseeded, a number of huge TV markets have dropped into the playoffs and they mysteriously change their mind and seed them at the last minute, then 2 competitions in a row, France get to a major tournament via a ludicrous refereeing decision.

Cyberyeti, on 2014-July-09, 06:41, said:

What about UEFA and CONMEBOL just agreeing that after 2018 they'll boycout the FIFA World Cup and organize an alternative World Cup between them?

Cyberyeti, on 2014-July-09, 06:41, said:

Yes, I think you are making yourself look very bad when you say that 2014 was another 2002. They are miles away and putting them in the same paragraph is a conspiracy theory in and of itself. I fully agree that FIFA is corrupt, but the two cases are not the same, not even comparable, sorry.

edit: I know I'm not addressing all of your points because it would take ages. You say something like "6 or 7 ridiculous free kicks against Mexico" - now I'm supposed to go back and look at each of them, judge them on their merits and get back to you, I guess, in the meantime carefully checking whether there were any Mexican fouls missed by the ref? No, sorry, I don't have another 90 minutes and then another 90 for detailed replays/statistical analysis, I actually saw that game and all I saw was two relatively bad teams playing, I did not observe the evil teeth of a FIFA conspiracy.

About the 2010 World Cup playoffs, I know they had a seeding system in 2006 as well but Ireland/UK was not involved so there was no one there to whine about it, I guess. I heard that "FIFA announced first there would be no seeding" but only from the whiners, no actual evidence or source to back it up. I also remember how many people complained about a penalty given in 2005 against Slovakia, never mind that the final score was 5-1 (the penalty made it 3-1) and never mind that the defender took the ball under his armpits while sliding in, no, let's just find a good way to be outraged and complain about the UEFA/FIFA mafia and ignore any contrary evidence, woo hoo.

helene_t, on 2014-July-09, 06:47, said:

Not sure they can actually do it without causing all sorts of problems, but I'd love to see it.

The 6 or 7 ridiculous free kicks are not my opinion, I was listening to the radio and I thought the BBC commentary team were about to spontaneously combust they were getting so angry as they had in the Croatia game.

helene_t, on 2014-July-09, 06:47, said:

That would be more or less reasonable for me - even though I am unconvinced about charges of widespread corruption influencing referees, FIFA is corrupt in other ways, and it seems completely obvious that Qatar bidding for and winning the rights to organise 2022 are a product of corruption. I am not as outraged about 2018 as Russia is at least a proper footballing nation, although of course the 2022 decision being on the same day as the 2018 one and being made by the same corrupt committee raises serious questions on the integrity on it.

There are also a "non-profit" organisation who takes huge amounts of money from the organising country and renegotiating that part would help.

But this boycott is unlikely to ever happen as there is just this magical aura about the world cup and the fans absolutely love it and the players would also hate their federations if they weren't allowed to participate.

Cyberyeti, on 2014-July-09, 07:59, said:

Fair enough, in that case the BBC commentary team were less than objective, in my opinion, wouldn't be the first time. The Dutch made no such mention, for what it's worth, maybe they were trying to commentate on the game instead of talking about the refereeing 24/7.

For what it's worth, Eurosport writes "A lot of challenges going unpunished so far." after 17 minutes while mentioning two tackles by Mexicans that should have been booked but weren't. I'm not trying to say that Eurosport or NOS are 100% objective, just that it is not established that BBC are and there is evidence that they might not be.

gwnn, on 2014-July-09, 08:08, said:

I would say, it wasn't so much the commentator who is "BBC staff", it was the summariser who is a distinguished former international player who was getting most angry, and normally knows what he's talking about and is pretty fair about it.

Cyberyeti, on 2014-July-09, 08:22, said:

And do you prefer his opinion to the commentators I cite because:
(a) he is normally knows what he's talking about, as opposed to the Dutch TV, who knows who they are.
(b) it fits in neatly in your narrative and you prefer not to consider that it might be wrong.

gwnn, on 2014-July-09, 08:34, said:

I'm 99% sure the summariser was Chris Waddle, somebody who's a hero in France and very well known in the UK. He is also not afraid to step outside of the party line. I recalled there being a lot of free kicks all to Brazil in the really early stages, and I trust his opinion. His comments as England got stuffed by Germany in the last world cup as to exactly why were right on the money.

The commentator was saying the same thing. My usual experience of those two is listening to commentary on a Saturday afternoon, then watching the highlights in the evening, and their calls are usually right, when they make that sort of call a large number of times, I'd be well nigh certain they're right for most if not all of them.

gwnn, on 2014-July-09, 08:02, said:

I guess it depends what you mean by "corrupt". As far as I know, FIFA is a private organization. If so, they can choose their venues in any fashion they wish. If they choose those who give them the nicest gifts, that is up to them.

I suppose if this goes on long enough, then eventually they will lose their credibility to the point that a startup organization could compete with them.

billw55, on 2014-July-09, 11:46, said:

By corrupt I mean they pick the country who bribes them, and not the country with the most merit. Other countries spent millions trying to develop sensible projects, thinking/hoping the latter was true.

MickyB, on 2014-July-08, 15:37, said:

There were 4 real bets in London on 7-1 score, odds 1000/1

Trinidad, on 2014-July-06, 01:38, said:

For the record, she said Netherlands when asked who would she root for, in 2010, for argentine TV.
OTOH, can't see how could she answer differently.

Context: the Dutch queen was born in Argentina.