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Well, Timmy is the reason I started following Everton and my favorite player, so Ill read it later.

HAHA! Good little snippet of social media going nuts...

But when you said Timmy and Everton i thought you meant Cahill W, lol

And ill chip in,

France will LOSE!

Well I wasn't expecting better from you, Mieschbuelher
What time will it be in your part of the world when the game will be played ? Will you be able to watch it ?

lol

Well i haven't missed a Germany, Switzerland or Australia game yet! (even that horrible 5-2 game )

And ive been doing my best to get up, the first game is on at midnight, the 2nd game at 3 or 4am and they are much tougher to work with, but i have just finished my studies for this half of the year so im mostly free for the next few games.

France V Germany will be a cracker, both teams haven't played a perfect game yet so i hopeful France will continue that

Ron Burgundy wrote:(even that horrible 5-2 game )

I don't know which game you're referring to because the only 5-2 game I've watched was stunning and jubilatory

Well it's easier here to watch the games. They are either at 6pm or 10pm. The France-Germany game will be at 6, 20 million frenchies will be watching it.

Both France and Germany are perfectible team yeah, now we'll see tomorrow which will rise their game up at the right time. The only two times France have risen out of the group stages the past 25 years was in 98 and 2006, and both times we ended up finalists. So I hope it bodes well for this World Cup. Lloris will stop everything, Matuidi will catch all the balls thanks to his 6 lungs which make him never out of breath, and Valbuena will make a few decisive passes to Benzema.

Forget about this World Cup nonsense. With Eugenie Bouchard heading to the Wimbledon finals and Milos Raonic hopefully right behind her, tennis is the sport us Canadians are suddenly pretending to care about. It's very cool to see two Canadians competing at such an elite level. And if Canadians keep getting drafted first overall in the NBA I might have to pretend to care about basketball in the future.

I know, how about that Canadian tennis program? Both men's semifinals should be interesting, as they feature youth vs. experience. Raonic has a shot against Federer, who is definitely showing the signs of age. And Dimitrov has already set himself up as the best male Bulgarian tennis player ever, and he's only 23... but he'll need to be on top of his game to take down Djokovic.

I'm rooting for Eugenie. Kvitova won Wimbledon three years ago and hasn't gotten to another GS final since. This is Bouchard's first, and I always root for the underdog. Plus, she's cuter.

W wrote:Well, Timmy is the reason I started following Everton and my favorite player, so Ill read it later.

And here I was thinking I was the only Everton fan on these boards!

I'm interested to know, considering how low the opinion of football has been for Americans for a very long time, if the viewpoint of it has started to change since this World Cup? Is it starting to rise? Will it get bigger? I'm not suggesting it will make it to the level of Basketball or Baseball, but is there a surge in interest now? Will it continue now the US are out, to the final and beyond?

These questions are largely raised from a personal interest as I wonder if, given Howard's position in American culture at the moment, he could be utilised to further the Everton brand and possibly be used, like Landon Donovan and Tim Cahill in the past, as a tool to gain more investment into the club. Everton are a fantastic team and club, but with little to no money they have for a long time been punching above their weight, and that I believe will continue until we can find some investment. Nothing seems to be happening in the immediate future on the stadium front which usually interests a Middle Eastern buyer, so I was wondering if perhaps some much needed publicity in the US could also benefit the club, with Howard spearheading this. Do you guys ever see Everton shirts in the US?

I think football in the US is a very interesting topic at the moment and I'd love to see the World Cup generate a lot more interest in the sport from grass roots upwards. There certainly seems to be a lot of enthusiasm towards it, and from people who generally are not interested in the sport, so will be interesting to see how it develops.

Shrykespeare wrote:Dimitrov has already set himself up as the best male Bulgarian tennis player ever

With all due respect to Bulgarian athletes, I'm not sure this says much. But he's a strong player I agree.

I don't see Everton shirts, but I do see shirts for other clubs. Man United and Barcelona are the most common where I'm from. Might see a swing with Howard's popularity though.

I don't think soccer is ever going to be more than a niche sport in the US, but its certainly grown over the last decade or so. The biggest problem for its mainstream success is that the best players don't play here. Even the best american players play in Europe. Americans, like anyone else, wants to watch the highest level of competition. If its not being played here, that makes it a lot more difficult. As exciting as most of these World Cup games have been, that is due to the fact that these are the best players in the world, competing for the most coveted championship in the entire sport. Compare that to an MLS game... When not played at the highest level, and soccer can be VERY boring. So while ratings are definitely up for the Premier league here in the states, I don't think it is feasible that soccer will become the 5th sport of a big 5 here in America, and it will always trail Football, basketball, baseball and hockey.

No matter what I don't see soccer becoming anything more than fifth in the 1. Football (American), 2-3. Basketball/Baseball, 4. Hockey order. The greatest athletes in the US play primarily in the first three (primarily in Football and Basketball mostly, actually) with a few exceptions (I'm talking the LeBrons, APs, and Trouts here) and if they play anything other than that, they focus on one of the three where they can make the most money. If we had those guys on the pitch, trading in AAU and Little League for the comparable Soccer league at a young age, I have no doubt in my mind we'd seriously compete with the Brazils and Argentinas of the world... If the non-Americans here don't know who they are, just youtube an Adrian Peterson or LeBron James or Bo Jackson highlight reel. The Derrick Rose/John Wall/Russell Westbrook types would probably make pretty damn good strikers.

Funny thing is, a reason they don't is because it's seen as the wealthy kids' game, just the opposite of most everywhere else in the world.

In the 19th century, soccer actually was the most popular sport in the US. Baseball and a feud being the two biggest federations in the US ended that.

As for it being the wealthy kids sport, I'd say that's more tennis or golf. Soccer actually seems quite middle class compared to those two (also, it is the most popular youth sport in the US).

Funny how here the favorite sports of the Americans are almost non-existent. Only basketball has some kind of visibility, although it's far behind football, rugby and tennis. American football and baseball are nowhere to be seen, and hockey is only popular once every four year when it's Olympics time.

I don't think the North American attitude about soccer will ever change among adults who didn't grow up with the sport. It'll always be seen as boring, with not enough offence, too many tie games, too many foreign players, tacky corporate logos on team uniforms, too many goals scored via penalty kicks, and way too much diving and whining to referees to get the aforementioned penalty kicks.

Its potential for growth will come from immigration and the kids who are growing up playing soccer today, but I still doubt the MLS will ever be as popular as any of the top 4 team sports in my lifetime. I suppose it's conceivable that it could get as popular as hockey, particularly in the southern states, but there'll have to be a Miracle On Ice type scenario or a homegrown player the calibre of Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky to get most folks on this side of the pond excited about soccer on a regular basis.

The World Cup is like the Olympics. People will watch fringe sports like luge or high jumping in the Olympics because it's the best in the world competing in an event with a lot of history, but once it's over it'll be four years before most people pay any attention to soccer.

Soccer boring? Maybe in the US, where they all suck at it

And baseball is entertaining or something? I think its like cricket where you have to follow the sport to know all the small things about it and then you can enjoy it.

And please someone tell me: why do they call it the World Series?