The Guardian recently published a beautiful article about Danish Dynamite, the '80s Danish national soccer (football) squad. Rob Smyth and Lars Eriksen write about how the success and failure of the national team highlighted national traits that Denmark has. The writing about the matches is among the most inspired I have ever read. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Nov 11, 2009 - 6 comments

What`s great about the World Cup of football is that everyone gets a chance to qualify, against all odds. This week was a fascinating week of World Cup qualifying matches around the world. But while the world's attention was focused on Portugal and Argentina and France and Cameroon and England, among others, a small victory was won in a dusty forgotten corner of UEFA Group Seven. On Wednesday the Faroe Islands recorded their first cWorld Cup win , a 2-1 victory over Lithuania. [more inside]
posted by salishsea on Sep 10, 2009 - 46 comments

70 year old Pak Doo-Ik will lead North Korea's prestigious Olympic torch bearers to Beijing this summer. In the 1966 World Cup at Middlesborough, Pak scored the goal that lead his team to a stunning 1-0 upset win over Italy (video). Pak Doo-Ik and the team returned home as heroes, but ultimately fell under the suspicion of North Korean leadership. The team underwent "mental re-education" and were exiled, Pak Doo-Ik spending ten years as a forest laborer. Dear Leader Kim Jong-il later allowed Pak to coach North Korea's national soccer team, and a fascinating 2002 BBC documentary brought Pak Doo Ik back to the international stage.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Mar 27, 2008 - 12 comments

Ready or Not. "South Africa is a great place to have a party, and people are incredibly generous of spirit. What we should be doing is trying to make the World Cup experience uniquely African: where the bus comes 10 minutes late but nobody gives a toss because they are having such a good time. Instead, the organisers seem to want to try to run the World Cup as efficiently as the Germans did. What a load of bull. The Germans could invade Poland in three days. We could not invade Swaziland in three months." Article in today's Observer about preparations in South Africa for the soccer World Cup in 2010.
posted by hydatius on Jun 3, 2007 - 17 comments

The Homeless World Cup: "Yes, there is a World Cup for homeless people, made possible with help from corporate sponsors such as Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola and Bank of America."
posted by kliuless on Aug 9, 2006 - 8 comments

Jugadas Espectaculares WorldCupfilter: clipshow of some staggeringly fancy footwork. Even non-fans should love this. (youtube)
posted by CunningLinguist on Jun 8, 2006 - 25 comments

Please, do mention the war. Really, it's hard not to. After all, in a sense football is war, as the General famously joked. Sometimes it's peace. Same goes for that other football, by the way.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jun 3, 2006 - 11 comments

Screw Nike adverts. It's what they can do on the pitch that counts. Poetry without the bells and whistles. Some of the young names to look out for in this Summer's football World Cup in Germany: Manuel Fernandes (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Sergio Ramos (Spain), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Wayne Rooney (England).
posted by nthdegx on Apr 16, 2006 - 34 comments

And you thought football itself was the universal language. The London chapter of the Goethe Institute jumps on the opportunity and offers a £35 crash course in German for the World Cup. Start out with these handy play scenario charts (pdf). Or, take the easy route and turn to AskMen for guidance.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 12, 2006 - 16 comments

Changes in Football (Soccer). Including a ball with microchip technology that will allow the ref to instantly know if the ball crosses the goal line. Avoiding all manner of problems, from the clear goal in the January Spurs vs. Man United game, to the situations of too bloody close to tell, such as Geoff Hurst's goal in the 1966 World Cup final. The under-17 world cup will test the ball in Sept.
Oh, and offside laws, carding dangerous tackles and substitutions in friendlies have been tweaked.
posted by edgeways on Feb 26, 2005 - 8 comments

2006 World Cup Tickets went on sale last night at midnight, and since then over 500,000 tickets have been ordered. Orders have come in from over 108 countries from people looking for their chance to see the premier competition of the most popular sport on the planet. Everyone will get a fair shot at the tickets with any orders between now and the end of March being put into a lottery to see who gets tickets.
posted by daveirl on Feb 1, 2005 - 8 comments

Sir Clive Woodward to switch from rugby to football? Sir Clive Woodward is the head coach of the England rugby union team. Appointed in 1997, he has had stunning success, including winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup. On Tuesday, the Daily Mail carried an incredible story: Woodward was planning to turn his back on rugby in favour of association football (soccer). Premiership club Southampton appear to be his next port of call with his ultimate aim, the England football team. Is it possible for a head coach to switch sports like this? Many experts think not. Is there any previous example of a coach switching sports like this?
posted by salmacis on Sep 1, 2004 - 24 comments

Brazil vs. Germany. The 2002 FIFA World Cup has come to an end. History was made today.
posted by riffola on Jun 30, 2002 - 48 comments

Is Univision's coverage of the World Cup, like, way better than ESPN's or what?
posted by brookish on Jun 25, 2002 - 16 comments

Ready To Rumba? Or Samba? Will England or Brazil go through in tomorrow's crucial World Cup game? Predict at your peril. I'd love Brazil to win but, no doubt influenced by the treacherous utterances of Pele and Jairzinho[see penultimate link], say England will tragically but deservedly win 2-1.
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 20, 2002 - 36 comments

World Cup Conspiracy. Here's one for the X-Files. The Azurri believe they were the victims of a conspiracy to oust them from World Cup 2002.

Alessandro Del Piero broke his usual cool exterior as anger seeped through. "In ten years of my career I have never complained," said the Juventus star, "but in four games too many strange things have happened."
posted by percine on Jun 18, 2002 - 19 comments

Korea 2-1 Italy. A classic World Cup in the making? First it was Senegal dumping out the French, and then the Argies and the Portuguese were left biting the dust. Spain and Ireland fought out a nail-biting penalty shoot-out, Saudi Arabia got hit for eight, and now South Korea continue their miraculous journey by sending Italy home. Next on the cards: let's hope for another classic when England take on Brazil!
posted by arrowhead on Jun 18, 2002 - 39 comments

U.S. Soccer needs you now. The US soccer team has not been this far in the World Cup since 1930. Where is the sea of red, white and blue? Watching mundane sports...like baseball. (match results in link. from sts)
posted by lostbyanecho on Jun 17, 2002 - 47 comments

One of the teams in the Mexico vs. USA World Cup game made history. As of before the game, the USA has never won a knockout game of the World Cup - Mexico had never won a knockout game of the World Cup when not in Mexico. Click the article to see which team made history - or if you don't want it spoiled, don't click at all!
posted by twiggy on Jun 17, 2002 - 28 comments

Yet another African dream. After Cameroon's heroics of Italia '90, Senegal follow up with a quarter-final achievement themselves.
posted by arrowhead on Jun 16, 2002 - 10 comments

Bon voyage, mes amis... France now holds the dubious honor of being the first World Cup champs to drop out in the first round of the subsequent Cup tournament (i.e. Champs in '98/Goats in '02) since Brazil '66. Somebody, strike up Sergio Mendez for me...
posted by Bixby23 on Jun 11, 2002 - 35 comments

The ugly side of football: man dies in Moscow riots. The World Cup has been great so far, but it was only a matter of time before things got out of control.
posted by claire on Jun 9, 2002 - 25 comments

How two perfect moments in time brought such tremendous joy and pride to a nation. To me, this truly is the world's most beautiful game, if just for moments like these. I wish everyone could feel this kind of passion for something, whether it be football or not. Sadly, we may never experience this kind of a reaction to anything here in the US.
posted by dopamine on Jun 4, 2002 - 120 comments

Check out this soccer/baseball stadium. You can fold the baseball field and roll in the soccer one. Animation here. Amazing.
posted by sikander on Jun 1, 2002 - 17 comments

so which site has the best soccer live coverage? is it yahoo!'s fifaworldcup.com? is it the bbc? is it someone else? right now from here (germany) it looks like none of the big sites is holding up to the traffic. is any site as well prepared as msnbc was for the olympics? oh, and it looks like senegal is winning the opening match.
posted by HeikoH on May 31, 2002 - 17 comments

World-wide obsession I am told these sports betting sites are readying themselves for an onslaught of World Cup Soccer traffic never seen in history. Will you play? Does it make the sport uplifting or uncouth?
posted by Voyageman on May 29, 2002 - 11 comments

All worldwide conflicts to take a break until after June 30 [NYT reg req] "If the U.S. forward Clint Mathis scores a beautiful goal, Iranians, Iraqis and Libyans will rave about it. Soccer has many uses, and one of them, fleeting as it may be, is universal love." But perhaps more interestingly : " For foreigners, meanwhile, the World Cup is the one time that they get to treat the U.S. like a lightweight. " Indeed.
posted by Voyageman on May 25, 2002 - 11 comments

Captain of Irish World Cup squad Keane sent home
This is big news here in Ireland. He's our best player - he keeps the team together on the pitch. But after some incidents in the past couple of days, and some prima donna style behaviour (something he's always been known for), he's been told to feck off. I think the manager did the right thing, but I can't help thinking that our chances of getting out of our group have been diminished...
posted by tomcosgrave on May 23, 2002 - 27 comments

The world cup (of football) is very nearly upon us. You can win tickets to it by playing a free kick game. I am not sure if it applies to those outside the U.K but it doesn't matter because you would have no chance of winning at all. It is devilishly difficult but quite addictive and tremendous fun. You can also find a prediction league type thing and other bits and pieces here. If anyone has the motivation it is possible to set up a private league within the wider thing.
posted by Fat Buddha on May 21, 2002 - 16 comments

England squad Goalkeepers: David Seaman, David James, Nigel Martyn, Defenders: Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell, Gareth Southgate, Wes Brown, Danny Mills, Ashley Cole, Wayne Bridge, Martin Keown, Midfielders: David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes, Kieron Dyer, Nicky Butt, Owen Hargreaves, Joe Cole, Strikers: Michael Owen, Emile Heskey, Teddy Sheringham, Robbie Fowler, Darius Vassell Well?
posted by Cobbler on May 9, 2002 - 41 comments

I have a bad feeling about this. The UK government has urged employers to be leniant to staff who want to watch the World Cup when they should be working. Isn't this instantly discriminating against people who happen to like football (Soccer) all that much? For example, I'm sure I know what would happen if I broached the idea of turning up for work late on May 16th after I've been to the first showing of this thing.
posted by feelinglistless on Apr 29, 2002 - 15 comments

It's the Shperiks! Those wacky mascots for the upcoming FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan! I can't tell what the heck is going on here, and if it weren't for the upbeat BGM, I'd probably be scared to visit this site again. But it was an interesting little adventure...
posted by Bixby23 on Mar 26, 2002 - 6 comments

Preparing Asia for the World Cup.
posted by Spoon on Mar 15, 2002 - 1 comment

Welcome to the 2002 FIFA Worldcup, er, make that WorldCup, um... "The efforts being made by organizations of all kinds to ensure that a positive image of [Korea] is projected this summer deserve the highest praise. It is a crying shame, however, that so many of these efforts will be undermined by the comedic quality of much of the English being used." Not intended as a poke at Korea, but an interesting example of how hard it is for people (or a people) to change their mindset (more inside).
posted by Bixby23 on Feb 24, 2002 - 13 comments

As Seoul Prepares for Soccer World Cup, a Debate Is Unleashed Over Dog Meat. Cultures collide as FIFA warns and Brigitte Bardot threatens to organize boycotts of Korea over their Canine Cuisine. Koreans are offended. (more)...
posted by Mack Twain on Dec 11, 2001 - 27 comments

World Cup Fever! The draw for the group stages of the FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan was made on 1st December. England got an awful draw: Argentina, Sweden and Nigeria. The USA look like they did much better: Portugal, Poland and one of the hosts, South Korea. As an Englishman, I'm pretty down about it at the moment.
posted by salmacis on Dec 3, 2001 - 36 comments

The World Cup draw is Saturday, though I am a bit confused about the process. Why on earth is England ranked behind Germany?
posted by tranquileye on Nov 28, 2001 - 19 comments