Nah, Rory McIlroy would have put that free kick miles over too. That's what you mean right? Otherwise you're just bringing up irrelevant sports for no reason.

Would PHIL THE POWER TAYLOR have scored Ron Vlaar's penalty? I mean, darts requires a steady nerve and precision.

Maybe some wicket keeper you pull from your arse could have gone in goal for Greece!

I wonder what happens to all those wall-charts that people fill out during the World Cup

Is it like Christmas Cards... on display for 2 weeks... and then in the dustbin?

Think i'll probably not bother next time

You know what i mean.

Mcilroy would have lipped the hole.
Taylor would have hit the wire
Any NFL team would have had a play designed to give them a shot at a TD.

Not just a hopeless blaze over the top. And thats from the best player in the world. You expect better, somehow.

They're not comparable at all, and you know it. Go watch other sports and stop pretending to like this one.

Global ad campaign for car manufacturers.

German Team Bus states "Mercedes Benz makes World Cup winners" or so..

Let's face it if Mercedes Benz puts money into the German team and the more continue to spread the efficient, technical clinical bloerb more people gonna buy Mercedes.

BMW always sponsors police cars on German telly unless it's from Swabia where Porsche and Mercedes come from.

Germany is an export nation with a trade surplus so it becomes more and more a brand with a badly dressed ex GDR ex commie now conservative chancellor at the helm and an arrogant peacock like ex GDR pastor looking slightly befuddled (Gauck) featuring as the President.

Are you only allowed one sport then? Not allowed to make critical observations?

Why are sports not comparable? Football is the only sport in the world where amateurs can beat professionals. 100%. There is no other sport in the world where amateurs get close to professionals on such a regular basis.

Either this is because so many people play football that there is an abundance of talent. Alternatively, it may be because many of the best players dont work as hard as they could, and cruise a bit. It could be both, but I suspect its often the latter.

A dead ball free kick is exactly the same as a golf putt or a tennis serve. A skill that can be practised.

So a Championship-deciding golf putt is therefore the exact same as parallel parking in a side street, as it's a skill that can be practiced.

Serving to stay in a match? Exactly the same as baking a cake, which you can practice.

I'm an absolute sports nut with football obviously being my favourite sport, so I can kind of (!!!) see what gemma means. In any sport the sign of a true champion is to perform his best at the most important times. For anyone who has seen Federer come back from a 5:2 and championship point to win the fourth set in the Wimbledon final this year - that's a true champion! However, obviously football cannot be directly compared to other sports and I don't agree that all footballers are lazy. Messi just couldn't hold his nerve in the final. He was too nervous. It wasn't just the free kick, it was the chance he missed to score in the corner past Neuer. Messi just wasn't ready for all the responsibility on his shoulders.

In general, yes. Muscle memory. So you repeat the process under pressure.

Similar to the idea that we become expert in anything after thousands of hours of practice.

And i didnt say all footballers were lazy. I said some cruise a bit. But i am sure there are people in all walks of life that could have been more successful had they worked harder.

Ok... I just said above that a could see your point, but now I've changed my mind

Surely elite sport is more than just "muscle memory" otherwise England would actually win on penalties once in a while!

I don't know how many here watch figure skating (my other passion) but Kurt Browning was a Canadian skater who won World Championships for fun, he was just head and shoulders above everyone else and could jump the most difficult jumps in his sleep. Yet, at the Olympics, when the pressure was on, he could never even medal. Surely his muscles remembered all the jumps, but his head just went blank? There are countless similar examples by the way.

'Practice makes perfect' is just a saying and repetition leading to expertise is demonstrably wrong.

Yes, but its the whole package. You need the talent to do the thing without thinking, and then the resilience to do it under pressure, for which the practice helps. Some cope with it all better than others.

It just looks like when england, (and holland ) fail to cope with the pressure as well as some others, then its not just the law of averages at work.

Greg norman and colin montgomerie failed under pressure at some points. Tiger woods got stronger under pressure. Johnny wilkinsin thrived under pressure.

I think beckham would have got closer than messi with that free kick.

I dont think football is unique though.

I think Pirlo would have scored

I'm not a Messi fan by any means, but he is on a completely different planet to Beckham when it comes to talent, you must see that surely? Beckham was not even the best English player of his generation and remains extremely overrated.

Gemma you are comedy gold.

The face of a putter head is a relatively uniform piece of metal is it not?

Blow a decent footballer up to 24 foot high and give him a giant putter and I can guarantee after practice he'd slot the ball in the corner most times.

A foot is a bumpy and pliable appendage to the human body that's not precision made for hitting a football.

Ask a golfer to throw the putter away and putt with his foot. I suspect failure rates will be spectacular in their increase.

As for amateur versus professional, it's sometimes not mediocre versus highly skilled, it's simply one doesn't get paid and one does. Many top non league teams are professional as they draw enough revenue to pay people as professionals and therefore attract the better amateur players at their level. But there's not a massive disparity in skill. Boxing is certainly one sport where amateurs would regularly beat professionals if they fought each other.

It's fine having an opinion but admit it's a minority one - for a reason, I'd say

there is no way on earth that an amateur boxer would beat a top pro.

As for kicking with a foot

- A rugby place kicker gets pretty close most of the time.
- A NFL kicker gets close virtually all of the time, or he gets the sack. And that isn't a place kick. It's a game play.

Slight difference in that they are both kicking for accuracy and distance, and not to get the ball under a bar.

Anyway, the thread is about the world cup in general. All I am saying is there are other sports, and it's a reasonable view point. I am getting a great deal of pleasure from watching/having watched Wimbledon, the TdF, the Golf and so on, as well as the world cup.

Ah, it's top pro now - you've moved those ouch discussed goal posts

As for the rugby and NFL hoofers, you're forgetting no goalkeeper and not having to aim for a space about a foot square to take said keeper out of equation.

It's great you enjoy many sports - just avoid comparing them unless they're very similar.

Boxer Mike Tyson turned pro and won all of his first three dozen fights or so. He'd have slaughtered Manx a top pro if he'd fought them at 17, no problem. As I said, it's more often a money or age thing rather than an ability thing.

Extend the goalposts with two tall vertical posts and any set-piece specialist in football would hit them with at least the accuracy of any NFL special team. The two don't compare, again.


Ernie Els famously hit a triple bogey on the green the other day. Messi only missed that free-kick once, so clearly golfers are lazy and don't try hard and isn't snooker great?

Amateur golfers can beat professionals too. Justin Rose was two shots from being in the 1998 Open playoff as a 17 year old. There have been amateur ladies who have similarly gone close to winning golf Majors in recent times, Morgan Pressel for one.