Yes, Korea's accomplishment was quite an accomplishment. I've seldom seen a team that went completely, totally all-in the way Korea was today. I'm surprised that any of them had the strength to walk off the field after the game.

sounds to me like the rules and tie-breaks for advancement are as convoluted and complicated as those to get into the nfl playoffs

Not really:

1. Points

2. Goal difference.

3. Goals scored.

And that should cover almost all cases. There are more tiebreakers, but I've never heard of any being used. The sports announcers talk them up -- as filler, I think.

If in charge, I would immediately eliminate the offside rule.

Who came up with it and why?

It's there to prevent anyone from scoring except by a freak accident.

The answer is complicated, but, without the offside rule, the attacking team could just camp out in the goal mouth and have balls lobbed in with a higher probability of scoring. Tactics, passing, movement -- which make football the beautiful game -- would not often be seen. Without the offside rule, football would be an entirely different game. Maybe like basketball on an American football field.

We already have basketball.

Good teams are seldom called offside. Play has improved dramatically over the last 30 years.

Basketball is mentioned and a team can leave a player camped under their basket, but then would be one short on defense.

Football (soccer) has a full time defender.

As stated, it is complicated. And the basketball mention was intended as a constrast, not a similarity. Hockey has a similar restriction -- an offside rule. And so does football -- the receivers can't place themselves wherever they want on the field. For much the same reason.

But, all in all, that's the way it is. And, as the game is played, it makes sense.

great game last night in cws... arkansas had the national title won.... except that the 3 players converging on the pop foul that would have been the 3rd out for the win was not executed properly.... winner take all starts at 5:30 this evening (iirc)

care to rethink that one? had to go to fair play points (7th tiebreaker and highly subjective) to send senegal packing and allow japan to advance

apparently the beavers used their superior water ability to evade the hawgs...so congrats to the beavers of oregon state .... it was not to be to have the hawgs win their first baseball national championship... getting two hit and shut out has them thinking maybe next year

Yes, they did. Highly unusual.

That's a great thing about baseball. It moves through the seasons, and, as winter comes, there is always spring ... next year.

All in all, I think I agree with the Babe. I love soccer. But baseball is part of me. I couldn't envision sports without it, but I could enjoy sports without soccer or football or, definitely, basketball. And I played all four and reffed soccer.

+1

(but i do need college football... the big babies in the next league that are so overpaid can go jump in the lake for all i care )

Yup. And the game is different. More nuanced, the run is more important, the formations are more varied. College football is just more interesting.

pardon my severe neglect for not mentioning this when it started... was scanning what was available to watch monday and saw the wsop main event was being televised,... i knew it was time for them to start playing however.... i had no clue they were televising chunks of each day live (45 minute delay) and this was not a replay of last year's main event ... we are now on day 4 (actually the 7th day of play) and the money bubble has been broken in the 2nd largest main event ever held.... making the final table guarantees you to be a millionaire... escalating up to an 8.8 million dollar payday for the winner ... not too shabby for 10 days play

an unbelievable finish to round out the final table for the wsop championship which starts tonight at 8 cdt.... 3 in the hand...everyone all in.... two are at risk...only one is eliminiated but one is essentially eliminated as he limps in with a paltry 8 million total... it was kings vs kings vs aces and predictably, the aces held up for the devastating run out ... the gentleman who won is chip leader by only 3.6 million going in to tonight...

http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/24 ... main-event