Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I think it's more a case that Australia are exceptionally good at sports.
Look at the USA, who have the most Olympic medals: 2549 with 309 million people. If the UK had 309 million people, we'd have won 3673 medals, so our medal haul relative to population is actually considerably superior to the US. If Australia had 309 million people, you'd have won an incredible 6056 medals at the Olympics.
This is hardly a scientific method, but I don't think the Olympics back up your point in the slightest.
this is why canada kicks ass...only 30 million people...the most gold:P
SYSTEM-J
Canada is nowhere near having the most gold medals overall. And you guys are one of the few nations who can dominate the Winter Olympics.
Trance-MB
quote:
Originally posted by woscar
:stongue: :stongue: :stongue:
Spain has the best team. They've had it for over two years now.
They were not my words, I predicted Spain would win in my pool like many Dutch did. Even after reaching the final many still kept Spain as most likely to win.
I think he was more referring to Romance vs. Germanic.
quote:
I don't know where to begin, really. Spain has always been a very offensive team, one that always goes for the win. It's part of their football philosophy. Luis Aragonés built upon that and added his own stroke of genius by making them search for the opposing goal in a very specific way which is to take and maintain possession of the ball and by consequence take control of the match. You may not like that style, and you might favor teams that give the ball to the other team and counter-attack or teams that use fast breaks along the sidelines or any other style, for that matter. You should just go out and say that instead of evidencing that you don't know what you're talking about like that malek idiot who said Spain plays like Italy.
On a side note, Spain's success isn't exclusive to football. In addition to their Euro and WC trophies in international football, and FC Barcelona's impressive run in club football they've been excelling in a lot of major sports recently. They have Rafael Nadal dominating tennis, Fernando Alonso in F1, Alberto Contador in cycling, FC Barcelona won the equivalent of the Champions League in basketball, and Spain won the World Championship. The list goes on and on...They've been putting a lot of time, money, and effort into their young athletes and it's paying off big.
LOL, it was a customer of Spain probably twice the age of people over here who said it. Don't act like it were my words.
But I agree with SYSTEM-J's answer however.
By the way, the Dutch don't have that winning mentality eighter.
I'm aware of Alonso, Contador, Indurain, Nadal and all Spanish football clubs. How many Dutch did play (and train) for Barcelona in the past you think?
But if those football clubs have that winning mentality is questionable. Barcelona and Real Madrid did have the money to buy the best players available. Which also is no guarantee as we saw this year, but still.
Schadenfreude
they had the most gold in vancouver..i was talking winter games here of course. It has not always been this way though...the federal government increased funding to athletes in their push for the podium program. The last time the winter games were hosted in this country they did not win one gold.
i still find the performance very cool when you compare the size of the country to the other winter powerhouses.
Trance-MB
What would have happened if we did win?
Sadness is over, today we celebrated being second (with Armin) :)
woscar
quote:
Originally posted by Trance-MB
They were not my words, I predicted Spain would win in my pool like many Dutch did. Even after reaching the final many still kept Spain as most likely to win.
I think he was more referring to Romance vs. Germanic.
I'm refuting the "now they think they have the best team" argument. It's irrelevant if you, or your friend, or your grandmother said it. Furthermore, what does the fact that you predicted a Spanish win or that "many still kept Spain as most likely to win" have to do with what is being discussed? Again, it's grossly irrelevant to the discussion.
quote:
Originally posted by Trance-MB
LOL, it was a customer of Spain probably twice the age of people over here who said it. Don't act like it were my words.
LOL, that's a logical fallacy called argumentum ad verecundiam or appealing to authority. Regardless of how old a person might be or how big an expert in a specific field, arguments are backed up with facts, not credentials or dates on birth certificates.
If you want to go with that logic, then maybe I should bring my great grandmother who is 4 times the age of people over here into the discussion and trump everyone's arguments.
And, as mentioned above, the argument is ridiculous regardless of who said it.
quote:
Originally posted by Trance-MB
But I agree with SYSTEM-J's answer however.
By the way, the Dutch don't have that winning mentality eighter.
I'm aware of Alonso, Contador, Indurain, Nadal and all Spanish football clubs. How many Dutch did play (and train) for Barcelona in the past you think?
But if those football clubs have that winning mentality is questionable. Barcelona and Real Madrid did have the money to buy the best players available. Which also is no guarantee as we saw this year, but still.
That has nothing to do with the argument of having a "winning mentality". That's why I began that paragraph with "On a side note...".
Schadenfreude
quote:
Originally posted by Trance-MB
What would have happened if we did win?
Sadness is over, today we celebrated being second (with Armin) :)
it is fitting to have losers and armin in the same place:p
Trance-MB
Not if you they both aren't :)
Certainly not with 200.000 party people out there and 550.000 or more elsewhere in the city.
By the way, regarding your discussion above, looking at our country size we definitely should be proud of our team.
Trance-MB
quote:
Originally posted by woscar
I'm refuting the "now they think they have the best team" argument. It's irrelevant if you, or your friend, or your grandmother said it.
Germanic vs. Romance is different. That would make it relevant as it was an Italian who said it.
noikeee
quote:
Originally posted by malek
wow go figure lol... only moron woscar with his biased goggles can't see the obvious.
Offensive team my hairy untanned ass.
This spanish team style has very little in common with the italian style, the italians like to have a lot less of the ball, giving the control of the match to the opponents, focusing on defending well and hitting them on short busts of counter-attack, or attacks with few players. That is what usually is considered a defensive style of playing, the teams that actively try to control the match through possession are considered offensive.
Now of course, the spanish have developed this control of possession to the extreme, trying to hold to the ball for so long that they bore out the opponents. That has an interesting side effect of actually being super effective defensively, because if the opponents can't have the ball at all they won't attack at all.
I still wouldn't call it defensive, because this is actually an evolution of the all-out attack style you can see in Barcelona matches: pay no respect to Barcelona, leave space behind to put your players forward, and you'll be utterly hammered. And what happened in this World Cup is that almost every opponent of Spain went into the pitch -scared of being hammered, putting a lot of players in deep positions to try not to give any space to the spanish. The spanish already expected it, so purposely refrained from continuously pumping balls into the wall of players protecting the box, and rather waited for the defenders to tire and for the space to appear.
It's genius, and it can only be done if you have a bunch of players which are gods of technique like Xavi and Iniesta are, never missing a pass, never losing a ball. This is why I still see this as a victory for positive football. The attacking superstars outsmarted the thugs and the defensive-minded opponents at their game.
And I know you don't deserve this much text as a reply. :p
malek
quote:
Originally posted by noikeee
This spanish team style has very little in common with the italian style, the italians like to have a lot less of the ball, giving the control of the match to the opponents, focusing on defending well and hitting them on short busts of counter-attack, or attacks with few players. That is what usually is considered a defensive style of playing, the teams that actively try to control the match through possession are considered offensive.
Now of course, the spanish have developed this control of possession to the extreme, trying to hold to the ball for so long that they bore out the opponents. That has an interesting side effect of actually being super effective defensively, because if the opponents can't have the ball at all they won't attack at all.
I still wouldn't call it defensive, because this is actually an evolution of the all-out attack style you can see in Barcelona matches: pay no respect to Barcelona, leave space behind to put your players forward, and you'll be utterly hammered. And what happened in this World Cup is that almost every opponent of Spain went into the pitch -scared of being hammered, putting a lot of players in deep positions to try not to give any space to the spanish. The spanish already expected it, so purposely refrained from continuously pumping balls into the wall of players protecting the box, and rather waited for the defenders to tire and for the space to appear.
It's genius, and it can only be done if you have a bunch of players which are gods of technique like Xavi and Iniesta are, never missing a pass, never losing a ball. This is why I still see this as a victory for positive football. The attacking superstars outsmarted the thugs and the defensive-minded opponents at their game.
And I know you don't deserve this much text as a reply. :p
I understand this very well, but at the end of the day, Spain has scored even less goals than Italy in 2006 (12 vs 8), I don't even know if its possible to score less goals than that and win a world cup. Offensive team and no scoring? That doesn't make any sense. Controlling ball team, yes, offensive? no.
If you think about it Spain scored 4 goals in the knock-out stage, the absolute bare minimum, does this rate as an offensive team?? lol The action on the pitch speak otherwise.
For comparison sake, Brazil scored 18 in 2002, and France 15 in 98.
noikeee
quote:
Originally posted by malek
I understand this very well, but at the end of the day, Spain has scored even less goals than Italy in 2006 (12 vs 8), I don't even know if its possible to score less goals than that and win a world cup. Offensive team and no scoring? That doesn't make any sense. Controlling ball team, yes, offensive? no.
If you think about it Spain scored 4 goals in the knock-out stage, the absolute bare minimum, does this rate as an offensive team?? lol The action on the pitch speak otherwise.
For comparison sake, Brazil scored 18 in 2002, and France 15 in 98.
I don't think being offensive or not is a matter of pure mathematics. It's unusual for an offensive side to score very few goals, but I'd say the fault for that was evenly shared between Spain's lack of objectivity and their opponents' extra defensive plans.
I'd call this style a cynical evolution of an offensive team.
