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LollipopsAreForever

Listed below are comments made by LollipopsAreForever between Wednesday, 6th May 2009 and Thursday, 11th June 2009.

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Capello close to World Cup goal 8:35pm on 11 Jun 2009 #69

2002 World Cup quarter-finalists: USA, S Korea, Senegal

2006 World Cup - I thought that Ivory Coast played incredibly entertaining football in a really tough group.

S America: 3 WC-winning countries/12 = 1/4 success rate
Europe: 4 WC-winning countries/53 = a lot less!!!

Name me some European teams that would genuinely add more interest and excitement to the competition, other than the 'usual suspects' who are already likely to qualify. Personally I want to see entertaining football and the best teams from each continent, not a repeat of the Euros. It's supposed to be a WORLD Cup...
Capello close to World Cup goal 8:26pm on 11 Jun 2009 norapeti - but these players are all part-time. Forcing them to play more matches (possibly) just to get to the level of teams that, let's face it, are almost as bad (England beat Kazakhstan 5-1) is just going to tire them out even more and then they run the risk of burnout, meaning even worse performances against the big teams.

Maybe you should just be facing up to the fact that Andorra, San Marino etc are of a similar standard to, say, a football team made up entirely of players from Nottingham, and there isn't much you can do to help them compete with a team that can choose the best of 60 million people
Capello close to World Cup goal 2:22pm on 11 Jun 2009 About this whole pre-qualifying malarkey, why is everybody saying this on the back of one game? Andorra clearly aren't being beaten 6-0 every match (their average goal difference/game is -3.7), and just because a team isn't very good doesn't mean they shouldn't be there. I mean, nobody called for Derby to be thrown out of the Premiership last season for just giving away points to everyone! (Admittedly, it's a slightly different situation, but bear with me). Just because in ONE match Andorra lost 6-0 doesn't mean they don't provide something of a test in other matches.
Also, their lack of improvement isn't down to the format of the qualifying tournament, it's because they're part-time, playing against professionals on £100k a week! It's a Burton Albion vs Man Utd type of situation, the best they can possibly hope for is to give a good account of themselves. If someone invested money in Andorran football and helped the players become full-time, I'm sure they would improve (Ok, I'm being slightly optimistic)
Finally, to whoever said that Africa and Asia are over-represented in World Cups, a look at the numbers:
Europe: 53 countries, 13 places
Africa: 53 countries, 5 places (and an extra one this year)
Asia: 47 countries, 4.5 places
Which of these is over-represented?
Of course, you could then argue that it was in terms of quality of football, but then why include South America in your over-represented countries? They've produced plenty of WC-winning sides...
Unless of course your real argument is that the WC should look something like this:
Brazil, Argentina, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland
Give the smaller teams a chance!!!
Barry gets England talking 4:22pm on 03 Jun 2009 I know it isn't strictly football, but...

"This far-flung Eastern outpost is only 200 miles from the Chinese border and also edges Kyrgyzstan"

Why on earth does it matter if Kazakhstan borders Kyrgyzstan? Is it some great secret of which only you are aware? :P

Wish Gareth Barry all the best, but wouldn't it be amazingly ironic if Villa got into the top 4 next season without him - I for one hope they do :)
Why SPOTY is moving to Sheffield 12:03pm on 06 May 2009 nott-hamish - so does this mean that women aren't allowed to enjoy watching sports like rugby because they're 'macho'? You think our poor little brains wouldn't be able to cope? For goodness sake, the prerequisite for commentating on sports, or presenting shows about sport, is surely just being a fan of it. I don't believe those women are 'token' females, I think they're there because they love the sport and are better at their job than their male counterparts (because they have to be, with attitudes like yours!) But hey, if it upsets you that much, maybe we should all just stay at home with our knitting...

PS. Seriously, since when was snooker macho?

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