FIFA World Cup

@MajorPom said in FIFA World Cup:

I’ve seen people contradict themselves from post to post, but rarely so clearly in the same post…

They shut the game down in a different ways.

One does it without the ball (Ghana), by setting up an effective defensive screen

The other does it with the ball (Spain); denying the other team possession.

Completely different strategies with the same end result, making it very difficult for the opponent to score.
Both could be considered boring, depending on your POV

Neither Ghana or Spain have conceded a goal in tournament yet.
Both going about it in totally different ways
And both still in the tournament.

NZ conceded 10 goals and are going home.
Their game plan didn't work.
They should probably take a look at what Ghana did.

@mohikamo

Keep going. One day you’ll figure out the one thing makes the other.

If the All Whites were parking the bus yesterday and hoping to snatch a goal, they were really bad at parking. It isn't just about putting men behind the ball, you have to work really hard to pressure the player on the ball and cut out their passing options. We gave Belgium so much time, they passed through us like we were traffic cones.

Ultimately we just need to get more players following the Eli Just path and playing at a higher level. Just is the only one who has enhanced their reputation I reckon - not sure he will make it to the biggest leagues but might be snapped up by Celtic or Rangers

@KiwiPie said in FIFA World Cup:

If the All Whites were parking the bus yesterday and hoping to snatch a goal, they were really bad at parking. It isn't just about putting men behind the ball, you have to work really hard to pressure the player on the ball and cut out their passing options. We gave Belgium so much time, they passed through us like we were traffic cones.

Ultimately we just need to get more players following the Eli Just path and playing at a higher level. Just is the only one who has enhanced their reputation I reckon - not sure he will make it to the biggest leagues but might be snapped up by Celtic or Rangers

Our defence of crosses and corners was so poor. I agree about Just, if he could get a move to one of the old firm teams that would be considered a great result

The Group Stage has lacked jeopardy this time.

Only Italy (14, who didn't qualify for the tournament) and Uruguay (18) of the world's top 20 ranked teams failed to make the round of 32 and the start of the knockouts.

Cape Verde are the only big surprise to be still in there.

Turkiye not qualifying was a surprise

Some very interesting match ups in the Round of 32

England need to go out to score goals or will be going home

@MajorPom said in FIFA World Cup:

Keep going. One day you’ll figure out the one thing makes the other.

Nope

Two completely different methods to achieve the same result (no goals)
And I think both provide a boring on field spectacle
But, it's the WC, and you do play to win the game, so you do what you can do.

The passing/possession style is worse IMO, because it's a double whamy.
Not only ensuring only one side can score; but also making it impossible for the other (you cant score without the ball).

Where as the defensive type set-up gives away the ball, and basically says to the opposition, show us what you got.
Which is a little better philosophically, IMO.

the interest being provided by the close margin on the scoreboard
goin down early against a euro big shot, is usually game over, and then everything is boring . . . change the channel

Paraguay style; completed only 8 passes in a half of football, but scored a goal and went on and won the game.

The All Whites aint the All Blacks so they should have played a Paraguay type style, more defensive.
They actually led a couple of games (I think), and had a pair of quite sharp strikers
If they'd played a style better suited to their skill set, they'd have had a better outcome.
Instead they were a bit naive, and leaked goals constantly
With the logical result, an early trip home

prefer the sub-saharan style (critiqued by Schweinsteiger recently) myself
But play like that against the euros, and there is usually only going to be one result
Only the South Americans seem to able to deal with the euros

@KiwiPie said in FIFA World Cup:

If the All Whites were parking the bus yesterday and hoping to snatch a goal, they were really bad at parking. It isn't just about putting men behind the ball, you have to work really hard to pressure the player on the ball and cut out their passing options. We gave Belgium so much time, they passed through us like we were traffic cones.

yeah
and defense is an effort and organisational thing; something NZ could easily have put more work into, and been a lot better at
all 48 teams can attack well tho, even Curaçao!

@MiketheSnow said in FIFA World Cup:

Turkiye not qualifying was a surprise

They never recovered from losing to Australia

@canefan

i thought iran, korea, scotland uruguay, panama were quite good, and woudn't look out of place in the 32

you could say only tunisia saudis qatar really bombed (and turkey)

the rest of the goin homes are not really unexpected

@MiketheSnow said in FIFA World Cup:

Turkiye not qualifying was a surprise

Turkey would've.

@MiketheSnow

england may have to go thru mexico brazil and argentina to get to the final
great effort if they can do that

france and germany; portugal and spain early collisions, maybe

maybe
france/spain semi
argentina/england or brazil semi

@canefan said in FIFA World Cup:

@MiketheSnow said in FIFA World Cup:

Turkiye not qualifying was a surprise

They never recovered from losing to Australia

Agreed

But coming into the tournament you would have backed them to advance

@MiketheSnow said in FIFA World Cup:

@canefan said in FIFA World Cup:

@MiketheSnow said in FIFA World Cup:

Turkiye not qualifying was a surprise

They never recovered from losing to Australia

Agreed

But coming into the tournament you would have backed them to advance

I was surprised

@mohikamo I get your point but we will have to agree to disagree.

Teams who just stack their penalty box leave the opposition not much choice but to pass it around

Well we were ahead against Iran and Egypt for significant periods of the game but in the end only manged a draw and a loss from being in a winning position both games.
Our parking of the bus seemed to consist of letting the other team have the ball and come at us, which seemed to have an air of inevitability about it.
It's also fair to say that our qualifying path for the WC now in no way prepares us for the WC, and unless we can get a diet of high class international friendlies or involvement in some kind of competition higher than beating the likes of PNG and Vanawatu it's going to be hard for the All Whites to do much better than what they are doing now.

Fucking brilliant

Paraguay through on penalties

That wasn't in the script - Germany losing on penalties.

The Netherland Morocco game is full on physicality wise. I was surprised to see there wasnt - or didn't seem to be a concussion protocol when the Nlands player copped a boot to the skull. The on field medic whipped out a stapler to repair the damage.

I haven't seen the stapler gun used on field since state of origin years ago

This is exciting - another penalty shoot out. Go Morocco!

Damn, I may have jinxed them.

Wow, awesome.

Damn

Germany and the Netherlands out. This is the risk of not attacking enough and having to negotiate the PK shootout

I love to give krauts shit as much as the rest of us but it’s hard to take it seriously after such an awful var decision. Properly robbed.

@MajorStokes

i get your point too

but those passing/possession teams need to be more direct

I note Spain (who are best at it) are much more direct this time around
what they did at the last WC was ridiculous (and tedious)
just shoot it/cross it
back yourself with a high press to get a turnover, with the defence now discombobulated
the primary aim to be getting a scoring opportunity, possession being secondary

that ticky tacky shit has had its day

@Windows97 said in FIFA World Cup:

Well we were ahead against Iran and Egypt for significant periods of the game but in the end only manged a draw and a loss from being in a winning position both games.
Our parking of the bus seemed to consist of letting the other team have the ball and come at us, which seemed to have an air of inevitability about it.
It's also fair to say that our qualifying path for the WC now in no way prepares us for the WC, and unless we can get a diet of high class international friendlies or involvement in some kind of competition higher than beating the likes of PNG and Vanawatu it's going to be hard for the All Whites to do much better than what they are doing now.

yeah
I thought they played it all wrong for a WC
what they did would have been fine when they were beating up on Oceania types

At first i was blaming the coach for the strategy
but it turns out the game plan was decided by the players
so that probably means Chris Wood, as the senior player
as an attacker (and a good one) that would mean an attacking strategy
and the attack was ok (4 goals, some teams got thru with less than that) and secured the lead in a couple of games
but the defence was terrible, badly neglected

all the other teams at the WC are good (so not Oceania types)
organising a decent defensive structure to deal with high class attacking teams, has to be a priority for next time

bit of a shame really, had two class strikers with the ability to snag some goals, and secure a couple of wins

@MajorStokes said in FIFA World Cup:

I love to give krauts shit as much as the rest of us but it’s hard to take it seriously after such an awful var decision. Properly robbed.

Haha

guna disagree again

as soon as I saw Anton had contacted and blocked the keeper I thought it was a foul
the only thing I wasn't sure about was whether VAR would intervene

all the players knew the ball had crossed over to the back post
seeing that, Anton then moved directly into an offside position, and into the keeper
his sole intention was clearly to take the keeper out of play, and he did
if he hadn't actually contacted the keeper, he might have got away with it

was a reassuring call by VAR, was beginning to think they were favoring "big teams" with their no calls

@MiketheSnow

go Paraguay
first germany,
france next!!

@mohikamo said in FIFA World Cup:

@MajorStokes said in FIFA World Cup:

I love to give krauts shit as much as the rest of us but it’s hard to take it seriously after such an awful var decision. Properly robbed.

Haha

guna disagree again

as soon as I saw Anton had contacted and blocked the keeper I thought it was a foul
the only thing I wasn't sure about was whether VAR would intervene

all the players knew the ball had crossed over to the back post
seeing that, Anton then moved directly into an offside position, and into the keeper
his sole intention was clearly to take the keeper out of play, and he did
if he hadn't actually contacted the keeper, he might have got away with it

was a reassuring call by VAR, was beginning to think they were favoring "big teams" with their no calls

You can’t be offside from a corner unless another player touches it. It all happened before the header.

The debate is whether he pushed him or not as he’s entitled to hold his ground.

I’m with Shearer, no way.

@MajorStokes

you have to call it, or the set piece just gets even more chaotic
cant have players running interference on the keeper (american football style)
so i'm ok with it

Shearer!
corse he's goin orf his head!

desperation play by anton, which is ok, but maybe he didn't even need to get involved

@mohikamo why is shearer of course going off his head? Poms and Krauts are sporting enemies! Schmeichal, arguably the goat keeper, also claims it was bullshit.

Anton allowed to stand his ground, no question.

Keeper runs into him and totally milks it. It’s bollocks and VAR isn’t in place for this.

Good game today between Norway and Ivory Coast. 3 really good goals of different types. Nusa was finally given some space and curled a beauty into the top corner, Amad with a brilliant individual goal after a 1-2 and then Haaland with the winner after a beautiful pass by Bobb.

And France looks ridiculously good. They battered Sweden up until the first goal and then picked them off after. Paraguay will park a better bus than Sweden but France has so many different ways to hurt you. First goal was great, Mbappe does the thing that Vini jnr is also good at - you delay the shot to avoid a defender's block but shoot immediately after before the keeper is really set. Olise is fantastic and could have had a hat-trick on another day - his side bicycle kick that hit the post would have been a World Cup highlight for decades if it had gone in.

@KiwiPie said in FIFA World Cup:

And France looks ridiculously good.

They have so many weapons.

Looking at the highlights there were some fantastic individual goals in today's games.