World Cup 2018 Thread
- Thread starter edd_jedi
- Start date
Been off on holiday for a week so had to watch the sweden and croatia games in a bar in greece.
Straight off, fair play to England. That was a "good" WC for them. As (I think/hope) I said before it all started they should have got out of that group, and the way the draw was set up they had a very winnable second round game against a team from probably the weakest group in the tournament. After that it was a lottery. Sure enough, they got out of their group, won their second round game and then got lucky with the teams they faced. I think it's fair to say they will never get an easier path to a WC final, but at the same time, that is also the weakest squad they have had in 20+ years, so 'lucky' and 'unlucky' at the same time. All in all, I don't think anyone can have any complaints about how they did. Fair play to Southgate and the team.
As for Sterling, he just has this habit of picking the wrong option almost every time. It's infuriating, and that's coming from a Liverpool fan who doesn't particularly like him (and his agent). He is effective in that England system though as his pace does cause teams problems. The issue is once he has the ball all too often he ****s it up and England get it back 5 minutes later from the other team. Top sides know to channel him away from goal and watch him run it up his hole.
As far as England and the Croatia game go. It was disappointing. You/England should have had it won at HT. If you had gone in 3-0 it wouldn't have been a massively unfair reflection on the game. The problem was Croatia are too streetwise to be that bad for 90 mins. Once their coach switched to push their wingers up England were snookered. High wingers pushed back your wing backs (one of the weaknesses of 3/5 at the back) leaving Henderson out numbered in CM, that meant Ali and Lingard had to drop deeper to help him and starved England of any creative momentum. From that point on it was game over, or penalties at best.
That's not a dig as Southgate, he has FA in the way of realistic options from the bench. England have NO creative midfielders and the strikers were all a step down from Kane, so Southgate had no more cards to play. The wingbacks system is Southgate's way of countering the fact you don't have the creative midfield talent of yesteryear. The closest you have is Lalanna and he wasn't fit all season so there was no real way he could have gone to the WC.
I do agree Deli Ali was poor for quite a few games. He seemed to play like that for most of last season though. Hot one week then cold for two or three games. Saying that he, and 90% of that England team, will learn a lot from that tournament and come back stronger.
Also, I do worry that France would have embarrassed you in the final. France haven't been great, no one has in the WC, but they just have too much class for that England team IMO. Maybe better to get there and lose than to not be there, or vice versa, but that's irrelevant now.
All in all I think England did very well. In the end they were very close to a WC final, and may not get a better chance, but with the squad they had the semi finals in an overachievement. So fair play, and well done.
Now, back to my broken record, I watched the England Sweden, Russia Croatia and England Croatia games on French tv. In all three games the french channel spent HT discussing the game in hand. Not once did they cut away from the studio for a "quick" 10 minute interview with some French player or Deschamps. They had this weird idea that the viewers would want to hear about the game in hand and not see some bland run of the mill interview with a French player. In all three cases they would have been justified in doing it as France were still in and played a few days before or after, but no. They stuck with the game in hand. AND this from a country where all their domestic audience would have been cheering for France.
BBC AND ITV TAKE ****ING NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Straight off, fair play to England. That was a "good" WC for them. As (I think/hope) I said before it all started they should have got out of that group, and the way the draw was set up they had a very winnable second round game against a team from probably the weakest group in the tournament. After that it was a lottery. Sure enough, they got out of their group, won their second round game and then got lucky with the teams they faced. I think it's fair to say they will never get an easier path to a WC final, but at the same time, that is also the weakest squad they have had in 20+ years, so 'lucky' and 'unlucky' at the same time. All in all, I don't think anyone can have any complaints about how they did. Fair play to Southgate and the team.
As for Sterling, he just has this habit of picking the wrong option almost every time. It's infuriating, and that's coming from a Liverpool fan who doesn't particularly like him (and his agent). He is effective in that England system though as his pace does cause teams problems. The issue is once he has the ball all too often he ****s it up and England get it back 5 minutes later from the other team. Top sides know to channel him away from goal and watch him run it up his hole.
As far as England and the Croatia game go. It was disappointing. You/England should have had it won at HT. If you had gone in 3-0 it wouldn't have been a massively unfair reflection on the game. The problem was Croatia are too streetwise to be that bad for 90 mins. Once their coach switched to push their wingers up England were snookered. High wingers pushed back your wing backs (one of the weaknesses of 3/5 at the back) leaving Henderson out numbered in CM, that meant Ali and Lingard had to drop deeper to help him and starved England of any creative momentum. From that point on it was game over, or penalties at best.
That's not a dig as Southgate, he has FA in the way of realistic options from the bench. England have NO creative midfielders and the strikers were all a step down from Kane, so Southgate had no more cards to play. The wingbacks system is Southgate's way of countering the fact you don't have the creative midfield talent of yesteryear. The closest you have is Lalanna and he wasn't fit all season so there was no real way he could have gone to the WC.
I do agree Deli Ali was poor for quite a few games. He seemed to play like that for most of last season though. Hot one week then cold for two or three games. Saying that he, and 90% of that England team, will learn a lot from that tournament and come back stronger.
Also, I do worry that France would have embarrassed you in the final. France haven't been great, no one has in the WC, but they just have too much class for that England team IMO. Maybe better to get there and lose than to not be there, or vice versa, but that's irrelevant now.
All in all I think England did very well. In the end they were very close to a WC final, and may not get a better chance, but with the squad they had the semi finals in an overachievement. So fair play, and well done.
Now, back to my broken record, I watched the England Sweden, Russia Croatia and England Croatia games on French tv. In all three games the french channel spent HT discussing the game in hand. Not once did they cut away from the studio for a "quick" 10 minute interview with some French player or Deschamps. They had this weird idea that the viewers would want to hear about the game in hand and not see some bland run of the mill interview with a French player. In all three cases they would have been justified in doing it as France were still in and played a few days before or after, but no. They stuck with the game in hand. AND this from a country where all their domestic audience would have been cheering for France.
BBC AND ITV TAKE ****ING NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was a great final, very entertaining. I think France deserved it.
I agree with England being both lucky/unlucky. Were they the best team in the tournament? Absolutely not, but luck plays a massive part in football and there are shock results every single week in the league, knock out competitions are no different. We should have finished Croatia off in the second half, and I can't help but see this as a missed opportunity as we will never have an 'easier' run again. Would have been great to be in a final and have even a 10% chance of winning it.
Small consolation is that Kane won the golden boot. I'm not sure how because he was a holding midfielder in almost every game. I do not see how Southgate can justify putting Sterling as the top striker, he was ****ing useless in EVERY game. I'm all for supporting your players through a bad patch and allowing for mistakes, but Sterling wasn't just having a bad day or tournament, he shouldn't have been there. He's like the Kyle Walker of strikers, who gives a **** if you can run fast if you can't do anything with the ball at the end of your run. As Weasel says above he made the wrong decision EVERY time he got the ball.
I also agree on Alli, he was average last season and poor for the majority of the world cup. Too much of an ego I think after one good season in 16-17.
I agree with England being both lucky/unlucky. Were they the best team in the tournament? Absolutely not, but luck plays a massive part in football and there are shock results every single week in the league, knock out competitions are no different. We should have finished Croatia off in the second half, and I can't help but see this as a missed opportunity as we will never have an 'easier' run again. Would have been great to be in a final and have even a 10% chance of winning it.
Small consolation is that Kane won the golden boot. I'm not sure how because he was a holding midfielder in almost every game. I do not see how Southgate can justify putting Sterling as the top striker, he was ****ing useless in EVERY game. I'm all for supporting your players through a bad patch and allowing for mistakes, but Sterling wasn't just having a bad day or tournament, he shouldn't have been there. He's like the Kyle Walker of strikers, who gives a **** if you can run fast if you can't do anything with the ball at the end of your run. As Weasel says above he made the wrong decision EVERY time he got the ball.
I also agree on Alli, he was average last season and poor for the majority of the world cup. Too much of an ego I think after one good season in 16-17.
I was close to turning the final off at HT. The referee handed the game to France on a massive plate with ribbons on it.
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised to see him given a Legion d'honneur later this year for "services to French football".
The free kick for the first goal was not a foul. There wasn't even contact. If anything it should have been a yellow to the greasy fella (Greismann, spelling). I get maybe the ref had a bad angle etc but ehhh VAR didn't. If that wasn't a clear and obvious error, it lead to a ****ing goal, I dunno what is. Even at that, it was on the linesman's side so he should have been looking straight at it. Granted, Croatia didn't defend it well, but they shouldn't have needed to defend it at all.
After that France get the most ridiculous penalty you'll ever see. Yes, it hit his hand, but it deflects off the head of the French boy in front of him. No human alive can react THAT quickly and move their hand to block the ball. None. It's physically impossible. Add to that the fact that replays make things look more deliberate than they are and how any sane person gave that I will never know. It was that bad a decision even Alan Shearer could see it was wrong.
No team is going to come back from having two goals handed to the other team in a WC final. Yes, France went on to score two more but that's irrelevant. France scored two more by catching Croatia on the break cos the latter had to push on more to try and score to stay in the game. Had those goals not been given they wouldn't have needed to press up so high.
All in Croatia were absolutely robbed blind IMO.
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised to see him given a Legion d'honneur later this year for "services to French football".
The free kick for the first goal was not a foul. There wasn't even contact. If anything it should have been a yellow to the greasy fella (Greismann, spelling). I get maybe the ref had a bad angle etc but ehhh VAR didn't. If that wasn't a clear and obvious error, it lead to a ****ing goal, I dunno what is. Even at that, it was on the linesman's side so he should have been looking straight at it. Granted, Croatia didn't defend it well, but they shouldn't have needed to defend it at all.
After that France get the most ridiculous penalty you'll ever see. Yes, it hit his hand, but it deflects off the head of the French boy in front of him. No human alive can react THAT quickly and move their hand to block the ball. None. It's physically impossible. Add to that the fact that replays make things look more deliberate than they are and how any sane person gave that I will never know. It was that bad a decision even Alan Shearer could see it was wrong.
No team is going to come back from having two goals handed to the other team in a WC final. Yes, France went on to score two more but that's irrelevant. France scored two more by catching Croatia on the break cos the latter had to push on more to try and score to stay in the game. Had those goals not been given they wouldn't have needed to press up so high.
All in Croatia were absolutely robbed blind IMO.
Section 8
Sith Lord
This was the worst world cup I've ever seen for quality of football, worsened by the shear amount of cheating going on. VAR now meant that diving wasn't a booking offence so it was 10 times worse.
I watched every full game (Some on fast forward of course) and England were one of the worst at times and I don't think they have progressed at all, despite the media hype and 4th place. They did look good at the start of a few games but for 70 minutes of every match were very average at best and think they got the help of some crazy defending and giving away stupid penalties.
Any decent team would have wandered to the final in our side of the group of which Croatia deserved it, and perhaps deserved more in the final after some shocking decisions cost them two goals.
England Played 7 Won 3 Drawn 1 Lost 3
Beat Panama, Sweden, Tunisia.
Draw Columbia
Lost Belgium x 2, Croatia
I don't see that as a success, nor progress.
I watched every full game (Some on fast forward of course) and England were one of the worst at times and I don't think they have progressed at all, despite the media hype and 4th place. They did look good at the start of a few games but for 70 minutes of every match were very average at best and think they got the help of some crazy defending and giving away stupid penalties.
Any decent team would have wandered to the final in our side of the group of which Croatia deserved it, and perhaps deserved more in the final after some shocking decisions cost them two goals.
England Played 7 Won 3 Drawn 1 Lost 3
Beat Panama, Sweden, Tunisia.
Draw Columbia
Lost Belgium x 2, Croatia
I don't see that as a success, nor progress.
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I agree with England and when I speak to anyone that asks in a positive way 'what about England then?' I point out that record, as soon as we played anyone half descent we did not have enough and the way the draw opened up we got as far as you would expect nothing more. Yes we played well but we did not out perform our ability in any way.
France won it without playing Spain, Portugal, Brazil or Germany. Says it all really.
France won it without playing Spain, Portugal, Brazil or Germany. Says it all really.
