FIFA World Cup

MiketheSnow

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!

@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

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

MajorStokes

@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

Windows97

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.

MiketheSnow

Fucking brilliant

Paraguay through on penalties

Bovidae

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

allblacksfan2

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.

canefan

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

allblacksfan2

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

allblacksfan2

Damn, I may have jinxed them.

canefan

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

MajorStokes

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

MajorStokes

@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

MajorStokes

@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.

KiwiPie

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.

KiwiPie

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.

Bovidae

@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.

KiwiPie

@Bovidae said in FIFA World Cup:

@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.

All 6 goals were pretty good in the first 2 games, Amad's was probably the pick but it was a high bar.

MajorStokes

France look unreal.

MiketheSnow

Difficult to assess because of the opponent - but they did qualify for the R32 by beating Germany - but Mexico could have scored 10 last night

They look formidable

@MajorStokes

anton and nagelsmann clearly didn't bother to read the memo

shearer is going off his head because he's in the strikers club
i'd be checkin on his health if he said anything else

noticed everyone steering clear of the keeper at SP today

a tremendous amount of BS goes on in the penalty area at set piece, almost like a rugby ruck, with no ball!
the refs cant handle it
only seem to really intervene when the GK gets caught up in it

i'm thinking the ref should be able to award free kicks in the penalty area while the ball is still dead at SP
that'd clean it up a fair bit pretty quickly IMO

the thing is, anton probably didn't need to get involved
it was a good header
anton fucked up, and the krauts are out

MajorStokes

@mohikamo said in FIFA World Cup:

@MajorStokes

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anton and nagelsmann clearly didn't bother to read the memo

shearer is going off his head because he's in the strikers club
i'd be checkin on his health if he said anything else

No comment on Schmeichel?

anton fucked up, and the krauts are out

The keeper conned is the overall point. Var and ref should be above that.

FIFA / Collina have to back the ref given what would occur if they said he got it wrong.