Thankfull that rugby is not like soccer

 Wise words Seb nothing has been proven yet. Let' s see how the second test goes.As for the soccer I haven't watched a match. 

 Brazil was really crap last night. It just looked as though they did not really want to play, or weren't interested. I watched the post-match discussions between Gary Lineker, Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer and another guy whose name  I cannot remember. They highlighted a lot of the Brazil  players who were just on the pitch and that was about it. The defenders sort of walked around  without marking their men and the forwards were in almost the same kind of lack lustre mode.

 
Mexico's keeper did a fair bit to keep the Brazilians out.

The Brazilians look to be waiting for their striker to create something on his own. I can't see them going all the way. Very disappointing.

From what I've seen so far it looks as if Germany and Holland are the early front runners for title honours.

Oz should by rights get thumped by Holland tonight.

 

competition in soccer is on a whole different level to rugby though IMO.

in rugby, NZ, SA, OZ and eng have been crowned RWC champs, other then france, can anyone else really see any of the other nations ever winning the RWC???
i cant.

france would need some exceptional circumstances as their flair cant account for all the teams all the times, and a lot of luck/dodgy circumstances like the 07 quater finals.

england in 03 were deserved RWC champions, never heard of NH team to beat the All Blacks, wallabies andd Springboks in a calender year, but that england team was chock blok full of talent and superstars to boot like wilko, johnson, delaglio, robinson, tindall, vickery and lewsey.
its very unlikely that england will ever field a team of such insane talent ever again, cos that england team could mix it with the best of any nation in any era.

in soccer, the nature of the game and the competitiveness of the teams is more spread out, meaning any number of teams can on their day win the WC, eng, france, brazil, argentina, spain, italy, holland, germany and im sure a few others my soccer noobiness hasnt mentioned could all win the WC and while some might be a big surprise, it wouldnt be a down right shocker like if scotland or argentina won the RWC.

 True. The Mexican keeper was good. He made some  great saves. I agree about Brazil's chances. They just did not seem  to be in the game. Maybe they thought that everybody would just roll  over because they are the hosts.

I was more surprised at how the Dutch demolished Spain. After what happened in the CL, one would have thought that they would have had the upper hand. My prediction was that my head said that Germany would take it and that my heart said Spain. But then the Dutch came waltzing in................

 Dutch struggled against Australia, barely winning. Spain is down 2-0 to Chile at the half right now

 
The Ozzies played an awesome game. Nearly upset the apple cart.

I gave it to the Dutch by 2-0.

Never saw Spain bowing out so early. From hero to absolute zero.

I gave the match to Spain by 1-0.

Told ya I suck at Super Bru.

 These tournament comps are a different animal. Same for the RWC, there is always a strong element of luck (the old "on any given day" applies) & injuries and team management are a big part of who wins also. They are great PR events & part of our world culture but a game played in these tournaments is different from a one off game.

 There is also another element.One would  think  that because the CL final was between two Spanish teams, the Spanish national side  should be strong as well. The Spanish club sides, like most other football sides  are not exactly made up of Spanish players only. In addition,many of the Spanish players have not been that good for their clubs either. If you listened to the commentators they were expecting Fernando Torres to perform miracles at any moment but he has been off the boil for ages. Since he left Liverpool for Chelsea, TBH. Cesc Fabregas hasn't been anything special for ages and has judt been released by Barcelona to sign with Chelsea.