AcesHigh

good lord! Are they TOYING?! Just shoot the damn ball instead of wasting chances! This can be hard on the end!

OH MY GOD! As I said, the baby-blues are being destroyed by the blues.

I am not english. What are some good derogatory names towards Manchester City? Anybody ever call them "baby-blues" (because of the baby-blue color)?

geee, the blues are destroying the baby-blues!!!

awesome!!!! Only regret is that it could be 2-0 already. Not that "could" counts anything in football...

more a mistake of the ref than cheating from Ramires, imho.

ROFLMAO Congrats to Eto'o for believing in that play until the end... but you just can´t believe a goalkeeper in the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE will be such an imbecile and commit that kind of amateurish mistake. He was just kinda of blind to everything going around him... can´t believe he never saw Eto'o aproaching, with the corner of his eyes.

well, true, but Brazilian domestic football is disrupted every World Cup year. (right in the middle of the brazilian calendar).

Well, my national team has good chances of winning the Cup, but IF it is eliminated (causing a cataclism that will implode the country), I will root for Germany, because I live in a german settled area and my wife is german from all sides of her family and 3rd generation through her grandfather.

I would be surprised if he HAD started, considering he played last saturday on South Korea (vs S.Korea) and Tuesday on China (vs Zambia)! Mourinho knows he will need his best players fit for other more important matches, so making Oscar play 90 minutes today after the midweek travelling marathon would be crazy.

true, but actually, the thread started asking about moving the World Cup from Brazil, not Qatar. So I was answering those posts.

well, there have been 5 winter World Cups already: Uruguay - 1930 Brazil - 1950 Chile - 1962 Argentina - 1978 South Africa - 2010 and a new winter World Cup in 2014 in Brazil.

anyway, aside the protests, this was one (if not THE) of the best Confed Cups ever. btw, I can post photos of the 2014 stadiums still under construction (the ones that were finished already were used in the Confeds Cup), if anyone wants.

didn´t riots happen all over London a few months before the Olympics? Were the Olympics moved?? also, the protesters are mostly idiots who don´t really know where and how the money was spent. They say "30 billion (reais) spent in the World Cup" and they think that money was spent on stadiums. Nonsense. 7 billion spent on stadiums, of which at least 1/3 is either private money or money lent to construction companies who will later pay the money back to the BNDES public bank. The rest of the money is being spent on stuff like airports, roads, streets, etc. Things that BENEFIT the idiotic protesters. This guy can barely be considered a referee. The match was not an organized amateur game. The place they were playing can barely be considered a pitch. The rural area of the small municipality where this happened is farther away from the closest World Cup Host city than Paris is to Berlin. this has absolutely ZERO relation to brazilian organized amateur leagues, or to any professional league and even less to the World Cup.

Brazil is 4000 km from North to South. Its rainforest around Manaus. At Porto Alegre, where Oscar played for Internacional, temperatures drop to 0ºC in the winter. Plus plenty of fog. You even get the occasional snowfall in cities above 500m height. Caxias do Sul, north of Porto Alegre. Its not Moscow, not London either, but its also not a tropical paradise that makes players get scared of London´s winter. However, there is certainly less sunlight hours in London than in Porto Alegre in the winter.

only a few years ago, WHO would say an english team could have 4 brazilians on the field and win? It was thought that brazilians could not adapt to english football, except Juninho Paulista at Middlesbrough. Chelsea proved everyone wrong.

CBF politics. The new president never liked Mano Menezes, who was a protegee of the CBF Director of Football Andrés Sanches. Andrés Sanches had been president of Corinthians and was still linked to the club, and got the job at CBF under the Ricardo Teixeira term. The new CBF president had been president of São Paulo FC, a traditional rival of Corinthians. He did not like Andrés Sanches nor Mano Menezes. He wanted both out, but needed a good replacement for him. Brazil never had a foreign coach, so a good foreign coach was out of the picture. And all the good ones in Brazil were hired and with contracts. So the new president waited and allowed Mano to keep doing his job. When Scolari was sacked from Palmeiras, it was the opportunity they needed to get rid of Mano and Sanches. It is 95% likely they were already in talks with Scolari and Parreira long before sacking Mano. When they closed the terms of the deal with Scolari, they sacked Mano, even though Mano was starting to do real progress with the Seleção. In common between Dunga, Mano and Felipão: all the three are from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil´s southernmost state. ps: Dunga´s real name is Carlos Bledorn Verri and Mano´s real name is Antonio Venker Menezes. Rio Grande do Sul is a land of german and italian descendants, and that also shows in its football and coaches. Grêmio fans cheer a good tackle more than a dribble.

We are more insular than Europeans. Notice there are no africans playing in South America, even when many clubs here clearly are much richer than African clubs. (any african club spends $5 million dollars a month in salaries?) To most of us, there is South America and Europe. And North America, for players who want to retire at MLS. We consider the Middle East a place of riches who attract players, but there is no quality in the end. Same thing with Japan. Also, the World Title was always disputed between Europe and South America, since the 60s. (and really, there wasnt even a real reason to include clubs from other continents. Specially back at that time, until the 80s, most of South American best players stayed here. When Liverfool was thrashed by Flamengo in 1981, they didnt even knew Flamengo, even though that Flamengo team had 3 players that took part of the amazing 1982 Brazilian National Side: Zico, Leandro and Junior!) And since the FIFA World Club Cup started, only once has a non South American or European cup advanced to the finals. All the while, Europe and South American equally divide the World titles. BOTH AT CLUB and NATIONAL TEAM level. So yes, there is a very clear supremacy, both at national and club level, of South America and Europe. And even though European clubs are superior NOWADAYS, still South American cups can compete and win the title. With all that in mind, I think there is a clear reason to consider African, North American and Asian clubs inferior: statistics. Therefore yes, we consider losing to an african club in the Club World Cup a big shame and reason for endless mocking towards the club that does it. Specially considering it such a unique event. When/If african/asian/north american clubs start winning over European/South American clubs more regularly, we will have to reconsider of course.

Japanese TV has always been bad on World Club Cup tournaments. Most off-sides (or lack of) saw no replay either.

I think there are some real misunderstandings about brazilian football in England (Tim Vickery tries to correct that, but his column at BBC and weekly participation at World Football Phone In does not have the ratings it deserves). Is Corinthians what brazilian football is all about? Well, yes and no. First of all, we ALL KNOW one thing is NATIONAL TEAM football and another thing is CLUB football. Also, we all know not all clubs in England play the same kind of football. Why would brazilian clubs do it? Is Corinthians the best brazil has to offer? No. But its certainly the best DEFENSIVE club, currently, that the brazilian league has to offer. They didnt win the Libertadores by playing beautiful football. They won it by breaking the DEFENSIVE RECORD of the Libertadores, conceding only 4 goals in 14 matches. This is a team that is cool under pressure and love its 1-0 results. The english have a wrong notion that brazilians love beautiful football. Couldnt be more wrong. Brazilians love to win. IF we can win playing beautiful football, thats nice and all. If our clubs can´t compete with Europe for players, we will play to win with what we have. Can you blame Corinthians? Chelsea played to win against Barça. All in defense exploring counters. Chelsea did what it needed to do in order to win over Barcelona with an inferior team. If Corinthians were to give the trophy to Chelsea because Chelsea has a more "beautiful football", than Chelsea should do the same to Barcelona. Also, NEVER TAKE IN ACCOUNT how the south american club performs against the african side. THAT is the most nervous match for a south american club, not the match against the European club. Losing to an african club is the ultimate humiliation to south american clubs, and there will be mocking forever. Players are all VERY nervous. All the while, European clubs who dont care so much, play at their natural. It has been like that EVERY TIME since the Club World Cup started. São Paulo played worse against the african team than against Liverpool (who they won 1-0). Internacional played worse against the african team than they played against Barcelona (who they won 1-0). Too bad Chelsea lost. But there will be other chances to win the World Title. All that is needed is another Champions League. (and THAT my friends, is why we south americans consider the World Title important. You are not "invited" to play it. You can only do so if you win a continental title. The chances to play the World Title are rare. You dispute the Premiership every year. You dispute the Champions League most years when you are in a good spell. The World Title you dispute 2-3 times a decade, AT MOST. (ok, African teams usually are the same Al Ahly every time, but its valid for disputed continental competitions like Champions League and Libertadores.)