Leferd

Argentina looking good so far. They're being aggressive.

Robben is fun.

Man, you realy get super excited about the most random things. The rails ended some time ago, but the train continues, somehow, inexorably. Is the game on TV today ... I don't have cable. I see they're shutting down a city block here, for the final. It's as if Americans care about soccer. In real football news, pre-season starts August 7, Cowboys, Chargers. Finally! It's on ABC.

Yep. Morey botched it. Then again, if I was Pat Riley, Evil Mastermind, why the hell would I offer Bosh a max deal -5 years $118 million?? Dude is past his prime and even he admitted that he's gone soft in his "old" age. Well atleast the real free agency period has started now that Lebron is no longer holding the 30 teams hostage.

Welp. Looks like Bosh is staying in Miami now.

Houston wants to trade Lin to LA to clear space for Bosh and Parsons. The Lakers can absorb Lin's contract.

Immediate repercussions: Looks like Bosh to Houston. Houston will match Dallas for Parsons. Lin to LA Lakers. Cleveland is now going after Kevin Love.

Dupe.

Egads! Lebron AND Johnny Football in Cleveland now. It's The Center of the Sports Universe now.

http://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers His words.

Finally got around to watching the match. Avoided all social media and tv/radio all day. ... Totally worth the effort.

You will be able to go through character creation for your main character and any character you choose to make through the adventurer creator. They will all act as adventurers, not companions (meaning they don't have story content). Makes sense in that you don't have to take additional resources to create even more extra content for the demo. Really looking forward to this.

Will we be able to play around with character creation and level up to the appropriate level of the demo or is your party made up of these pre-made characters exclusively? Will these characters be interactable like companions, or will they be like adventure hall party members?

Well we have four quality, albeit flawed, teams going into the semis. GER - BRA ARG - NED Any of those four can win and won't be a complete upset. Looking forward to these matches! ... Rostere, I get your point. And no, I wasn't wrong, I stated Costa Rica didn't surrender a goal in regular play during the group stage. The surrendered goal game on a penalty kick. Anyways, this was about semantics, don't need to belabor it. We'll agree to disagree regarding Costa Rica's tactics. I thought they played well executed futbol and were playing well over their heads. It was fun and extremely entertaining to me.

"Of course it's their right to play as they want, it's just that they are not using their skills to win the game, they are using a special rule which is there for the elimination rounds. An other example of **** strategy would be if a coach should instruct all his players to always lie still on the ground and scream after they fall, if the team has a goal advantage, or pass their own players safely back and forth. It is completely in their right to do so, as much as they can get away with at least. But it is using the rules against the purpose of the game." You realize that both teams still have to play the game, right? As good as their defense was, an Offside Trap defense is beatable. It's not like it's a complete new strategem that came out of nowhere. It's been in use for decades. In fact, as many times as Holland got called for offsides, they beat the trap dozens of times and got numerous scoring opportunities to score and would have done so if it wasn't for a combination of blind luck and Navas being the Keeper of the Tournament. It would be sheer stupidity and incompetence on their coaching staff, if Costa Rica were to employ an attacking style. They have to rely on the counter attack to generate scoring chances due to the huge skill disparity. To Costa Rica's credit, they actually did generate a few chances, especially late.

Completely and utterly disagree. It'd be nice if they could play attacking football, but they are just outclassed talent wise. Costa Rica has maybe three good players, one being the keeper. They actually employed a very aggressive high defensive line trap, trying to congest the midfield, limiting the ability of their opponents to go out on runs. They bought in completely and put on a CLINIC on team defense. That was beautiful tactical football and defense pr0n. No. You use a lot of words for what was just plain and simple ordinary all-out defensive football. The objective behind that strategy is to force the game to penalties, where there is typically a higher probability for weird **** to happen. This is obviously only a feasible strategy in games which can be won on penalties (which is why you don't typically ever see this). So to exploit the fact that this is elimination rounds in that way is a very underhanded strategy in my mind. They surrendered 0 goals in regular play during the group stage and flat out won their group. Sorry if you can't grasp tactics and appreciate perfect team execution.

Completely and utterly disagree. It'd be nice if they could play attacking football, but they are just outclassed talent wise. Costa Rica has maybe three good players, one being the keeper. They actually employed a very aggressive high defensive line trap, trying to congest the midfield, limiting the ability of their opponents to go out on runs. They bought in completely and put on a CLINIC on team defense. That was beautiful tactical football and defense pr0n.

Oranje wins! Krul with two stops! Bravo to Costa Rica!

Krul paying immediate dividends!

Because Jasper Cillessen has never stopped a penalty kick in his career.

Klaaaaaaaaaannnnk!!!!!! Goalpost 2 - Sneijder 0

Costa Rica now on the offensive in Extra Time.

As much as I like Costa Rica as the Underdogs, the Netherlands needs to put this away.

Navas down! This could be a massive catastrophe. *Navas back up.

Costa Rica's high defensive line is definitely working. Forced 9 Dutch offsides. Dutch are also getting plenty of chances with their superior play. But then then again...MAGIC.