Big Question: Which Team is the Second Favorite to Win the World Cup?

What you need to do is go through the group games. Its Brazil v either Germany, Argentina or Mexico or England

Thats it…….

No argument, its what the logistics dictate, not pipe dreams

Posted from  Peru

fo.reca.st users vote for Germany and England, following by Argentina and France. Take a look on the so called “forecast field” at http://fo.reca.st

Yeah, and the champion will be Brazil, they said. What a surprise!

man, it’s england man, england is the most favorite team to win the world cup, they have the most talented player ever, just one goal from Gerrard like the one in english cup final and “we” win the world cup, i love this team, i was hopping a better coash like morinho, ericson has a very small horizon but we will do it, watch out brazil, we are coming!!!!!!!!

clearly for me.. it is not brasil.. reasons are besides that this brasil are not at any way near perfect coz of much shaky defence ( notice there no big names at all in Central defence and full backs are too old).. also since 1970 all world cups held in europe were won by european countries.. so to make it clear this world cup will be won by european country and im sure of this.. So the favourties will then be :

1# Italy ( we have a very balanced squad with about no clear weak points)

2# England ( I believe this will be the best world cup for england to show thier abilities.. in terms of players they have it all)

germany ( although i believe this germany side is too weak to do it but believe me with manshaft believe only wht ur eyes see)

remember this in july 9th and contact me

Posted from  Lebanon

Brazil have too much confidence, i dont think they will all the way because of that, and because the world cup is being played in Europe. Italy are really good, but i can’t see them winning. I wouldve said England if they didnt have a bad qualifying campaign. Argentina, yes, but again their last performances are not convincing. Netherlands can probably do it if they gain confidence. So Saudi will win lol j/k i’d say netherlands or england.

Posted from  Canada

1. Brazil
2. England
3. Italy
4. Argentina
5. Netherlands
6. Italy
7. Germany
8. Portugal
9. USA
10. Spain

mannnnn … WHY is Brazil always favourite and Italy always second …. This yr (just as in WC 94) italy has clearly the best team…. All i gotta say is LUCA TONI — WORLD BEST FOOTBALLER RIGHT NOW … EATS ROHNLADHINIO UP!!!!

Posted from  Australia

For this World Cup, look for big deffensive teams to do some damage. My favourite roster is:

Brasil, Argentina, Italy, France, Holland, South Korea. I like England & Germany but there is so much pressure on their players.

Posted from  United States

Sweden can win if they are on their best.

Posted from  Sweden

1. Germany
2. Netherlands
3. Brasil
4. Sweden
5. Argentina
6. Crotia
7. Portugal
8. England
9. USA
10. Italy
:D:D:P:):) SWEDEN!!

Posted from  Sweden

i think that the best 5 favourites to win the world cup are

Brazil
England
Germany
France
Italy

Posted from  United Kingdom

I would go for the team that has the best forward line. Looking at past world cups, almost all were won by teams who had the most effective attack in the tournament. I am not suggesting that the team that plays most entertainingly will win it, because teams that play that way are not particularly effective when it comes to scoring.

Let’s look at the past record, from 1970 onwards:

1970 Brazil: 6 of the best forwards of all time

1974 Germany: Gerd Mueller

1978 Argentina: Kempes

1982 Italy: Rossi with Bruno Conti providing quality service as a winger

1986 Argentina: a bit of an exception, since Diego was more of a midfielder, but Valdano was pretty effective too

1990 Germany: Voeller and Klinsmann

1994 Brazil: Romario and Bebeto

1998 France: THE exception

2002 Brazil: Ronaldo and Rivaldo

So: It’s going to be a big team, one that has played in a world cup final before, it’s going to be a European team, and it’s going to be very effective going forward, although it might not be pretty. Doesn’t sound like Germany, but it could be Italy or France, maybe even Holland or England. I would love for the Czechs to win it, but something tells me it’s not to be.

Posted from  Greece

I think Portugal!!!
The team is in excelent shape, they win all the games in Pre-games. And they came up 2nd in Euro 2004.
And the coach is a World Cup Winner, Scolari.

the others…

Germany – no way, bad team…
England – they suck in past championships, always go home very early, no way.
Argentina – Maybe …
Italy – Maybe….
Netherlands – Hard to came 2nd..
Spain – Maybe…

Strongests:

-Brasil, Argentina, England

Very Strong:

-France, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Spain

Strong:

-Netherlands, Czech Republic, Portugal, USA

MARK MY WORDS! =D

england 2 win once we get roonaldo!

Posted from  United Kingdom

In my opinion England have a crappy team and have no chance of winning the world cup. The Manager, that nob ‘ed sven is a Sh*t manager

Posted from  United Kingdom

I love chocolater surprises

Posted from  United Kingdom

Football is sh*t, Watch quality snooker instead.

Posted from  United Kingdom

I am a German living in Britain, and are proud of my home nation. England have a rubbish team and we will thrash them in the final. This time it wo’t be like 66 and the World Wars.

Posted from  United Kingdom

We’ve all seen the popular cartoon of evolution’s march from an ancient sea, beginning with a single floating cell that morphs into increasingly complicated creatures, on the way to the punch line of Weekend Man slumped in his armchair.

It’s just a joke, but the idea that life starts simple and gets more complex over time persists even in scientific circles. Yet one of the biggest events in evolutionary history — the origin of the cells that make up every tissue in our bodies — may be a case of life getting less complicated, according to recent research.

These types of cells are called eukaryotes, and they’re found in organisms from fungi to humans. They look like the souped-up versions of simpler cells such as bacteria and their distant cousins called archaea. Many researchers think eukaryotes are the descendants of either bacteria or archaea, or some combination of the two. But genetic and protein evidence do not support this view, researchers report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

Posted from  United Kingdom

As will become apparent, “scientific explanation” is a topic that raises a number of interrelated issues. Some background orientation will be useful before turning to the details of competing models. A presupposition of most recent discussion has been that science sometimes provides explanations (rather than something that falls short of explanation — e.g., “mere description”) and that the task of a “theory” or “model” of scientific explanation is to characterize the structure of such explanations. It is thus assumed that there is (at some suitably abstract and general level of description) a single kind or form of explanation that is “scientific”. In fact, the notion of “scientific explanation” suggests at least two contrasts — first, a contrast between those “explanations” that are characteristic of “science” and those explanations that are not, and, second, a contrast between “explanation” and something else. However, with respect to the first contrast, the tendency in much of the recent philosophical literature has been to assume that there is a substantial continuity between the sorts of explanations found in science and at least some forms of explanation found in more ordinary non-scientific contexts, with the latter embodying in a more or less inchoate way features that are present in a more detailed, precise, rigorous etc. form in the former. It is further assumed that it is the task of a theory of explanation to capture what is common to both scientific and at least some more ordinary forms of explanation. These assumptions help to explain (what may otherwise strike the reader as curious) why, as this entry will illustrate, discussions of scientific explanation so often move back and forth between examples drawn from bona-fide science (e.g., explanations of the trajectories of the planets that appeal to Newtonian mechanics) and more homey examples involving the tipping over of inkwells.

With respect to the second contrast, most models of explanation assume that it is possible for a set of claims to be true, accurate, supported by evidence, and so on and yet unexplanatory (at least of anything that the typical explanation-seeker is likely to want explained). For example, all of the accounts of scientific explanation described below would agree that an account of the appearance of a particular species of bird of the sort found in a bird guidebook is, however accurate, not an explanation of anything of interest to biologists (e.g., the development, characteristic features, or behaviour of that species). Instead, such an account is “merely descriptive”. However, different models of explanation provide different accounts of what the contrast between the explanatory and merely descriptive consists in.

A related point is that while most theorists of scientific explanation have proposed models that are intended to cover at least some cases of explanation that we would not think of as part of science, they have nonetheless assumed some implicit restriction on the kinds of explanation they have sought to reconstruct. It has often been noted that the word “explanation” is used in a wide variety of ways in ordinary English — we speak of explaining the meaning of a word, explaining the background to philosophical theories of explanation, explaining how to bake a pie, explaining why one made a certain decision (where this is to offer a justification) and so on. Although the various models discussed below have sometimes been criticized for their failure to capture all of these forms of “explanation” (see, e.g., Scriven, 1959), it is clear that they were never intended to do this. Instead, their intended explicandum is, very roughly, explanations of why things happen, where the “things” in question can be either particular events or something more general — e.g., regularities or repeatable patterns in nature. Paradigms of this sort of explanation include the explanation for the advance in the perihelion of mercury provided by General Relativity, the explanation of the extinction of the dinosaurs in terms of the impact of a large asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous period, the explanation provided by the police for why a traffic accident occurred (the driver was drinking and there was ice on the road), and the standard explanation provided in economics textbooks for why monopolies will, in comparison with firms in perfectly competitive markets, raise prices and reduce output.

Finally, a few words about the broader epistemological/ methodological background to the models described below. Many philosophers think of concepts like “explanation”, “law”, “cause”, and “support for counterfactuals” as part of an interrelated family or circle of concepts that are “modal” in character . For familiar “empiricist” reasons, Hempel and many other early defenders of the DN model regarded these concepts as not well understood, at least prior to analysis. It was assumed that it would be “circular” to explain one concept from this family in terms of others from the same family and that they must instead be explicated in terms of other concepts from outside the modal family — concepts that more obviously satisfied (what were taken to be) empiricist standards of intelligibility and testability. For example, in Hempel’s version of the DN model , the notion of a “law” plays a key role in explicating the concept of “explanation”, the assumption being that laws are just regularities that meet certain further conditions that are also acceptable to empiricists. As we shall see, these empiricist standards (and an accompanying unwillingness to employ modal concepts as primitives) have continued to play a central role in the models of explanation developed subsequent to the DN model.

Go England!

Posted from  United Kingdom

American football grew out of the English game of rugby. Unlike soccer, the foot hardly even touches the ball in American football. (Soccer is the game most of the world calls football.)

The Field is 100 yards long (and 160 feet wide). The middle of the field is the 50 yard line. The lines are labeled every 10 yards descending in both directions from the 50 yard line. Thus there are two 40 yard lines and no 60 yard line. Each team owns half of the field (they switch sides every 15 minutes of play). Thus, the two 40 yard lines are distinguished by who owns them. The “zero yard line” is called the goal line. The areas to either side of those 100 yards, extending 10 yards past the goal lines, are called the end zones. Teams try to get the ball past the opponent’s goal line into the end zone to score a touchdown. At far edge of each end zone are the goal posts which, together with the cross bar, look like a big H. These are used only when a team decides to kick a field goal instead of going for a touchdown or to kick for an extra point after scoring a touchdown. To score the field goal or extra point, the ball must go between the vertical posts and over the bar.

In the other direction, the field is divided into three parts, left, center and right, by the hash marks, which are 60 feet from each side line. Normally, for each play, the ball starts where it ended up at the end of the previous play. However, if the ball ends up outside of the center part of the field, it is brought back to the nearest hash marks so plays never start at the extreme sides of the field. The area to either side of the field is out-of-bounds.

Kickoffs: At the start of the game there is a coin toss to see which team gets the ball first. The team that has the ball is the offense; the other team is the defense. A football game is supposedly one hour, but takes about three hours to play because the clock is often stopped for various reasons. The game is divided into 15 minute quarters with a major division at 30 minutes which is called half time. At the end of the first and third quarters, the players merely switch sides. The ball is moved to the corresponding point on the other side of the field, and play continues. This switching of sides evens up any advantage due to the sun or wind. The players leave the field for 20 minutes at half-time. After half-time, play does not continue where it ended. Instead, the team that originally lost the coin toss gets to have the ball first following another kickoff.

At the start of each half and after each touchdown or field goal (when it’s time to let the other team have the ball), the defending team starts by placing the ball on a tee at their 35 yard line and kicking the ball toward the other team. This is a kickoff. The other team tries to catch the ball and run it back as far as possible. If the player catching the ball sees there is no hope of running it back, he raises his hand asking for a fair catch. In a fair catch, the defending team may not tackle him and he may not run with the ball. If the ball is kicked into the end zone and no one catches it or the player catching it does not run with it, there is a touchback and the first play starts at the offense’s 20 yard line. Unlike a touchdown, a touchback does not score any points.

Downs: The offense has 4 plays or downs to cover 10 yards or more. A play ends when the player with the ball is either stopped or goes out-of-bounds or if the ball is thrown and missed (which is called an incomplete pass). A player is stopped when his knees touch the ground either because he was tackled by a defensive player or because he fell. When a play is over an official blows a whistle. Normally, teams try to cover the 10 yards in 3 plays or less. If they don’t make it in 3 plays, they use the 4th down to kick the ball toward the other team. The ball is not placed on the ground and kicked as it is in a kickoff. Instead, the ball is snapped back to the kicker who kicks the ball. This is punting. Teams don’t have to punt on 4th down. Sometimes, if the distance to complete the 10 yards is very short or if a team is far behind in the score, they elect to go for it on 4th down–to try to complete the 10 yards with another play. If they fail to make it on 4th down, the ball is turned over on downs where it ends up. On 4th down, if they are close enough to the defense’s goal posts, the offense may also elect to kick a field goal. If the field goal misses, the ball is turned over to the other team where it was before the field goal attempt.

If a team succeeds in advancing 10 yards or more, they get a first down. That is, they get a new set of 4 downs to make another 10 yards.

Scoring: The object of the game is to score more points than your opponent. A touchdown is worth 6 points. After a touchdown, the team then attempts to kick the ball through the goal posts to get an extra point. Because this kick almost always works, most people think of a touchdown as being worth 7 points and then subtract a point if the extra point kick is missed. The team that scored the touchdown has the option of trying to get the ball into the opponent’s end zone again in just one running or passing play instead of kicking for the extra point. If this two point conversion works, they get two points instead of just one. This is, however, more than twice as difficult as kicking an extra point.

A field goal is worth is worth 3 points.

If an offensive player is stopped in his own end zone, the defense scores a safety which is worth 2 points. This rarely happens. After a safety, the offense must kick the ball to the other team with a free kick where the kicker kicks the ball from his own 20 yard line. It’s called a free kick because the kicker may not be tackled.

The Players: Each team has 11 players on the field. Before a play starts, the offensive players meet in a huddle to decide which play to use. Plays are normally selected by the coaching staff who radio their selection to the quarter back who then tells the other players. The defensive players might also huddle to select their own strategy for the next play. The players then come up to the line of scrimmage which is an imaginary line drawn from one side of the field to the other through the tip of the football closest to the defense. Each team must stay on their own side of the line of scrimmage until the play starts.

The offensive team typically has a quarter back (the team leader), two additional players behind the quarterback often called the fullback and the tailback, five players in a line in front of the quarter back called the offensive line, and three receivers off to either side of the offensive line that are called tight end, split end, and flanker. The tight end is close to the offensive line; the others are further away. The center player of the five linemen on the offensive line is the center.

The defensive team typically has four linemen in front, three line backers in back of them and four defensive backs further back or to the sides called corner backs and safeties.

The Plays: The offensive linemen all put a hand on the ground except for the center who puts both hands on the ball. The quarter back stands behind the center with his hands between the center’s legs. The quarterback calls out a series of signals. Only the offensive players know which signal starts the play; the defense has to wait to see the play start before they can react. Once the secret signal is given, the play starts when the center snaps the ball to the quarterback. The offense has a maximum of 25 seconds from the end of the previous play to start the next play unless a time-out has been called.

In a pass play the quarterback takes a few steps back, waits for someone to get open, and throws the ball to that person. That pass receiver can be any offensive player other than a lineman. During a pass play, the defensive front four rush the quarterback hoping to either make him throw the ball early or perhaps even sack him by tackling him before he throws the ball. The offensive linemen try to prevent this by blocking the defensive linemen. However, the offensive lineman are not allowed to use their hands while blocking. Meantime the defensive backs cover the receivers (try to stop the receivers from catching the ball) by either running with them in man-to-man coverage or by covering any receivers in their part of the field in zone coverage. Sometimes the defensive team blitzes by sending one or more defensive backs after the quarter back. That can be dangerous because it can leave a receiver open–but that won’t matter if they can sack the quarterback.

If the pass is not caught before it touches the ground, it is an incomplete pass and the ball returns to the original line of scrimmage. If a pass is picked off (caught) by a defensive player, it is an interception and the ball is turned over to the other team.

In a rushing play the quarterback hands the ball off to the tailback or, sometimes, the fullback and that person runs with the ball. The offensive linemen try to open holes in the defensive line for the rusher to run through by blocking the defensive linemen. If the rusher fumbles by losing the ball before the play is over, there is a mad scramble while everyone tries to pounce on the ball. If a defensive player recovers the fumble, the ball is turned over to the other team.

Penalties: The people in the stripped shirts are the officials. They carry out various tasks such as raising their arms to signal a touchdown or field goal, deciding if a pass was caught in bounds or out-of-bounds, placing the ball on the line of scrimmage for the next play, measuring to see if 10 yards have been covered, and assessing penalties for rule infractions. To call a penalty, an official takes a piece of yellow cloth, called a penalty marker or flag, from his pocket and throws it on the ground. There is then a flag on the play.

Illegal procedure: An offensive linemen moved before the play started or a receiver who was in motion before the play started did not move parallel with the line of scrimmage. Or the quarterback was past the line of scrimmage when he threw a pass. 5 yard penalty.

Ineligible Receiver Down-field: An offensive lineman was too far advanced past the line of scrimmage when the quarterback threw a pass. 5 yard penalty.

Delay of Game: The offensive team took more than 25 seconds to start the play. 5 yard penalty.

Grounding the Ball: The quarter back threw the ball away instead toward a possible receiver because he was about to be sacked. 5 yards and loss of down.

Off-sides: A defensive player moved across the line of scrimmage and either made contact with an offensive player or failed to get back before the play started. 5 yard penalty.

Holding: An offensive lineman used his hands while blocking. 10 yard penalty.

Clipping, Illegal Block, Chop Block: Blocking a player from the back. This can hurt a player because he doesn’t know the hit is coming. 10 yards.

Pass Interference: Grabbing or tackling the pass receiver while the pass is in the air. The defender must wait until the ball arrives. However, the defender can try the catch the ball himself, so he may collide with the receiver as they both try to make the catch. If there is interference, the penalty is 15 yards (or to the point of interference if that’s less) and a first down is granted even if the ten yards has not been made.

Unnecessary Roughness, Roughing the Passer, Roughing the Kicker: Tackling someone after he no longer has the ball or after the play is over. 15 yards.

Facemask: Grabbing the front of a player’s helmet during a tackle. 15 yards if flagrant; 5 yards if incidental.

Unsportsman-like conduct: 15 yards.

After a penalty is called, the other team can accept or decline the penalty. When a penalty is assessed, the ball is brought back to the original line of scrimmage and the penalty is marched off from there. The down is then repeated unless the penalty includes loss of down. That is, the play with the penalty does not count as one of the four allowed to get 10 yards. Thus, if the team with the penalty did poorly on the play, the other team may want to turn down the penalty and accept the play as it was.

If both teams get a penalty on the same play, the play is repeated from the original line of scrimmage.

The maximum penalty is half the distance to the goal line even if a larger penalty would otherwise be assessed.

For the signals used by the officials, see http://football.netdesigners.us/info/rulebook/signal.php.

The Clock: The last two minutes of a half can take a long time to play. Throughout the game, the clock is stopped whenever there is an incomplete pass or the player with the ball runs out-of-bounds. And the clock is stopped temporarily when there’s a first down so the officials can move the chains at the side of the field that are used to measure the 10 yards. And each team has 3 time-outs they can call per half to stop play for a couple of minutes. In the last 2 minutes, the offense uses incomplete passes and running out-of-bounds just to stop the clock. Unlike professional football, there is no “two minute warning.”

Posted from  United Kingdom

Question of topic what are pixies-

Green fairies who often take the form of hedgehogs. They are also known as urchins, pisgies, piskies, and pigseys. They originated in Cornwall. They like to dance in the shadows of stones. Their bells are often heard on the moor. They like to steal horses and torture them to get them to run faster. They delight in throwing pots and pans at kitchen girls. They usually mean no harm, however. Beware of doing pixies favors, for they have a tendency to backfire.

Posted from  United Kingdom

portugal are a brilliant team and there country is beautiful!!!!!!!!

Posted from  United Kingdom

i am bin laden i stink and im choccie skin!11!11!

Posted from  United Kingdom