The 2018 World Cup Superthread

Adamocovic

Quazzie wrote: »

You have to remember it was Tunisia... etc

Gbear added that statement to counter the initial "You have to remember it was Tunisia" comment in the post that he had replied to.

Anyway, Tunisia are being made out to be a far worse side than they actually are by many posters.

Currently they sit ranked 21st in the world. Were ranked as good as 14th only back in April. Highest ranked African side. In their build up to the WC they beat Costa Rica, drew with Portugal and only lost out against Spain due to a 85minute goal.

Tunisia don't play dominating football that will make you think they're a great side. What they do is get bodies back and frustrate opponents. I remember before the Portugal game a comment was made about how Portugal should win the game easily, thought the reply to this of "It's never easy against Tunisia" was spot on.

yourdeadwright

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Like, did ye actually watch the 90mins? Tunisia WERE awful.

Peru, South Korea, Egypt all looked substantially better than Tunisia did, to note some losing sides.

Tunisia are simply NOT an awful international team, There a decent one and know how not to get beat,
I think its very hard to tell who's going to win a world cup until the knockouts ,A lot of the group games are the big side playing against teams with 10 /11 men behind the ball, The game completely changes when you have two side willing to go after each other, 
Example of this is Spain v Portugal which is the only two top teams to have meet so far and it was ended to end,

Paully D

Probably mentioned numerous times on here last night, but the absolute state of that defending from the Tunisian defender in conceding the corner that led to England’s winner.

Horrific.

Nerdlingr

England played very well in the first 20 minutes, after that???
Lineker going on about an 'exceptional' perfomance. Rio saying other teams will be fearing them. ????
Tunisia controlled the ball for the first 20 minutes of the second half last night, but couldnt get out of their own half with it.
For me england just kept plugging away without creating one decent chance in the second half. Southgate kept to his 3-3-3-1 and never altered from it and got lucky with a break from a corner. That'll be the big question for england, they created nothing against a packed defence and werent able to alter their shape to change the game....will they be able to cope when they play a decent counter attacking team like Mexico and Portugal ??
Great win for them but didnt think the performance was anything special.

yourdeadwright

Paully D wrote: »

Probably mentioned numerous times on here last night, but the absolute state of that defending from the Tunisian defender in conceding the corner that led to England’s winner.

Horrific.

It was just sheer panic, The lad marking Kane went to try win a ball he had no chance of getting near and then it feel to Kane,
Inexperienced sides always end up doing silly things like that as they feel they must win the first header at all cost and get fixated on the ball

osarusan

I think we are seeing a lot of the 'weaker' teams being quite technically proficient and adept at quick, intricate passing, and more keen to retain possession, but having very little threat up front.

If anything, there is an over-emphasis on this intricate passing and ball retention, resulting in them losing the ball in dangerous areas when it should just have been cleared.

Definitely, those teams are better technically, and retain the ball more comfortably, than we used to see 20 years ago, but I think the lack of top quality opposition in qualifying means their attack is never fully tested.

osarusan

yourdeadwright wrote: »

It was just sheer panic, The lad marking Kane went to try win a ball he had no chance of getting near and then it feel to Kane,
Inexperienced sides always end up doing silly things like that as they feel they must win the first header at all cost and get fixated on the ball

I think he was talking about the defending before the corner - the lad had a clear chance to hoof it 50 yards down the pitch, but instead turned back towards his own endline and got trapped, conceding a corner completely needlessly.

Loafing Oaf

Nerdlingr wrote: »

For me england just kept plugging away without creating one decent chance in the second half. Southgate kept to his 3-3-3-1 and never altered from it and got lucky with a break from a corner. That'll be the big question for england, they created nothing against a packed defence and werent able to alter their shape to change the game....

Southgate's attitude is, I'm sticking to this formation, it's adaptable to any situation that arises in a game, working on any other system would only confuse the players. However, last night's experience suggests it may not work when you're chasing a game and trying to create chances.

Drumpot

Nerdlingr wrote: »

England played very well in the first 20 minutes, after that???
Lineker going on about an 'exceptional' perfomance. Rio saying other teams will be fearing them. ????
Tunisia controlled the ball for the first 20 minutes of the second half last night, but couldnt get out of their own half with it.
For me england just kept plugging away without creating one decent chance in the second half. Southgate kept to his 3-3-3-1 and never altered from it and got lucky with a break from a corner. That'll be the big question for england, they created nothing against a packed defence and werent able to alter their shape to change the game....will they be able to cope when they play a decent counter attacking team like Mexico and Portugal ??
Great win for them but didnt think the performance was anything special.

Had England won by 3 or 4 goals there wouldn’t of been many complaints. 2 fleet penos denied and multiple wasted chances by sterling (open goal) and others. When was the last time you remember an English team in a World Cup looking like they would beat any team by that margin?

In years gone by that game would of been 0-0 with the weight of expectation making England more defensive so less likely to concede but less likely to score...

gimli2112

Wasn't the Sterling miss offside or did he miss another one? Someone made the point yesterday that the second Kane penalty shout should have been a free out. I only saw it once but this was my thought too, it looked like he was pulling the defender down on top of himself.


England deserved to win by a lot but once it went to 1-1 all the old insecurities seemed to creep back in.

DvB

osarusan wrote: »

I think we are seeing a lot of the 'weaker' teams being quite technically proficient and adept at quick, intricate passing, and more keen to retain possession, but having very little threat up front.

If anything, there is an over-emphasis on this intricate passing and ball retention, resulting in them losing the ball in dangerous areas when it should just have been cleared.

Definitely, those teams are better technically, and retain the ball more comfortably, than we used to see 20 years ago, but I think the lack of top quality opposition in qualifying means their attack is never fully tested.

This. 100% this.

Back in the day the weaker teams seemed just happy to be there & got whipped by more professional outfits.
Nowadays every team is packed full of athletes that can run all day & night & are all technically decent & can pass the ball to death, but with little in the way of end product in terms of getting in behind teams & really hurting them.
They get decent world rankings due to the nature of the thing which means as long as they're beating far weaker local teams regularly they'll always be up in the rankings, whereas IMO theres no shortage of teams behind them in the rankings that would beat them in a head to head game. Tunisia may be 21st in the rankings but does anyone really feel they're the 21st best international side on the planet? I dont.

Adamocovic

DvB wrote: »

This. 100% this.

Back in the day the weaker teams seemed just happy to be there & got whipped by more professional outfits.
Nowadays every team is packed full of athletes that can run all day & night & are all technically decent & can pass the ball to death, but with little in the way of end product in terms of getting in behind teams & really hurting them.
They get decent world rankings due to the nature of the thing which means as long as they're beating far weaker local teams regularly they'll always be up in the rankings, whereas IMO theres no shortage of teams behind them in the rankings that would beat them in a head to head game. Tunisia may be 21st in the rankings but does anyone really feel they're the 21st best international side on the planet? I dont.

I agree. I don't think they are the 21st best team but the fact they have been able to make it to that point shows their structure, composure and gameplan is effective.

Like most have mentioned regarding their narrow loss to Spain, draw with Portugal, and beating of Costa Rica this year, they do not play exciting football but will always make it extremely difficult to break them down, leading to the success they have.

Exactly like you said about the so called weaker teams now being professional athletes playing a game set out to stop the better nations flow and attack. Some people tend to forget about these and think "Tunisia, sure they're ****e! England should be beating them 5-0 if they were any good." which is simply not the case. England played a tough defensive unit, and despite being robbed twice by the referring team came out with the win.

I've used this quote before here but like I saw in a match preview for Portugal, when people see Tunisia as the opponent they think it's an easy result, truth is it's never easy against a team like Tunisia.

rob316

The group I'm most looking forward to is today. Poland,Senegal, Colombia all capable of beating each other.

Adamocovic

rob316 wrote: »

The group I'm most looking forward to is today. Poland,Senegal, Colombia all capable of beating each other.

I'd throw Japan into that mix too. I know on paper low expectations but they actually have a decent squad, a lot of players in the German league.

I have this group finishing very closely on my world cup predictor got from stick for it. Had top 3 all level with points difference separating them :pac:

That would be interesting! But highly unlikely.

eagle eye

Fancy this first game today will be very one-sided. I've seen Japan a few times and they haven't looked great.
Colombia seem to have got back to at least where they were at the last World Cup in which they beat Japan 4-1. I can see something similar today as Japan's defense isn't great against a fast creative attacking side.

Adamocovic

eagle eye wrote: »

Fancy this first game today will be very one-sided. I've seen Japan a few times and they haven't looked great.
Colombia seem to have got back to at least where they were at the last World Cup in which they beat Japan 4-1. I can see something similar today as Japan's defense isn't great against a fast creative attacking side.

For my work predictions I need a 2-2 draw :pac:

Banking it all on Kagawa!

raiders11

Colombia squad fairly belting out their anthem...

Nerdlingr

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Southgate's attitude is, I'm sticking to this formation, it's adaptable to any situation that arises in a game, working on any other system would only confuse the players. However, last night's experience suggests it may not work when you're chasing a game and trying to create chances.

In their pre world cup game against nigeria, nigeria changed their formation at half time and got back into the game, scoring to make it 2-1. Southgate didnt know what to do and kept with the same formation despite the game going away from him. Also noticed last night he barely left the dug out, if at all.

As i said, a good win for england just a question over southgate's flexability as a coach.

Nerdlingr

Drumpot wrote: »

Had England won by 3 or 4 goals there wouldn’t of been many complaints. 2 fleet penos denied and multiple wasted chances by sterling (open goal) and others. When was the last time you remember an English team in a World Cup looking like they would beat any team by that margin?

In years gone by that game would of been 0-0 with the weight of expectation making England more defensive so less likely to concede but less likely to score...

They didn't win by 3 or 4 so that argument is null and void. Sterling was offside for his open goal too.
As I said, they played well for the first 15 minutes creating great chances but created nothing against a packed defence second half. Fair enough they kept on plugging away but I didn't think the win last night was as a result of any great performance on england's part. For all their possession, they won via two set piece goals.

eagle eye

Wtf is that, panic stations leads to a red card for handball and deservedly so.

sligeach

Definition of stupidity? The Colombian defender Sanchez. Take the punishment of a goal. You've 87 minutes to come back. Instead, they're down to 10 men and still conceded a goal.

fullstop

Glad to see him score that. I'm sick of this ****e of the defending team hanging around in the box and standing in front of the ball and the keeper not going back to try to put off the taker.

razorblunt

sligeach wrote: »

Definition of stupidity? The Colombian defender Sanchez. Take the punishment of a goal. You've 87 minutes to come back. Instead, they're down to 10 men and still conceded a goal.

100% agree. You'd say something if it was a Suarez scenario.

I'm also bitter as Colombia were the first team to win in a 9 team accumulator I had @ 11/1. The rest looked solid.

Adamocovic

Come on Japan. 2-2 draw. Let's not be greedy.

Will I Am Not

razorblunt wrote: »

100% agree. You'd say something if it was a Suarez scenario.

I'm also bitter as Colombia were the first team to win in a 9 team accumulator I had @ 11/1. The rest looked solid.

What bookie are you using? I got 9/1 on Colombia, Russia and Poland.

Father Hernandez

I thought they had done away with that triple punishment rule? Surely should only have been a yellow and a penalty?

osarusan

Father Hernandez wrote: »

I thought they had done away with that triple punishment rule? Surely should only have been a yellow and a penalty?

Only if the ref decides there is a genuine attempt to legally get the ball.


That really applies when a player is brought down, not for a handball like that.

razorblunt

Will I Am Not wrote: »

What bookie are you using? I got 9/1 on Colombia, Russia and Poland.

Betfair.
It was mostly bankers (Belgium, England, Portugal, Spain etc. for their next games). Colombia, Egypt (vs Saudi Arabia) seemed to push it up. It was 15/1 but I put the acca hedge on thankfully. If a leg fails and the rest win I get my stake back.

Couple of players staying down in the last few minutes. Referee ignored them.

Might keep a few of the players out there honest now re time wasting.

The Columbians will try and get every decision to ‘balance’ up affairs. Like the guy that stayed down holding his face for ages after the slightest touch from a Japanese hand.

Ultimate Seduction

Surprised with the England praise. Thought they were muck myself. Usual story, struggling to break down a (barley) organised defence.

raiders11

Surprised at that substitution

Boom_Bap

raiders11 wrote: »

Surprised at that substitution

looks like it was made so they can have 2 up front and a more rigid 3 man midfield.

Drumpot

Nerdlingr wrote: »

They didn't win by 3 or 4 so that argument is null and void. Sterling was offside for his open goal too.
As I said, they played well for the first 15 minutes creating great chances but created nothing against a packed defence second half. Fair enough they kept on plugging away but I didn't think the win last night was as a result of any great performance on england's part. For all their possession, they won via two set piece goals.

And don’t forget the 2 penos they didn’t get, the keeeprs saves, paricularly the defenders clearance off the line from Lingard or off the post (think it was Ali)... the chances created are valid point cause many top teams didn’t play aswell as England did and either scraped a win (VAR saved france) or didn’t win.

Perhaps you can answer the question everybody else seems to ignore. What was the last tournament performance by an English team that was better then last night? What was the last England game in tournament where they could of scored as many goals as they did last night? I can’t remember such an adventurous England team in a tournament in some time. They are normally more defensive and scared more so against weaker teams because of the expectation!!!

sky88

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

Surprised with the England praise. Thought they were muck myself. Usual story, struggling to break down a (barley) organised defence.

had a good 15 mins but after that were mundane to say the least.

LuckyGent88

Some amount of Colombian support.

Great deception with the free kick

raiders11

And just when I was about to praise that ref, he makes a poor call on that fee kick

sligeach

Japanese keeper was muck for that goal. I've seen faster moving glaciers.

5star02707

great goal crossed the line for sure.

Corholio

Japan very hard done by there. A dreadful free kick decision by the ref, should have been free to Japan.

Adamocovic

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

Surprised with the England praise. Thought they were muck myself. Usual story, struggling to break down a (barley) organised defence.

Different people view the match differently. Maybe it depends on expectations. I had England to win 2-1 (get in!) beforehand so it played out like I imagined. The first 20 minutes of England did shock me and get me worried that my prediction was not happening.

Personally think they showed enough promise and got the job done. This England team seems to be a faster paced side and Kane starting with 2 goals is great for them to have an effective point of attack. Could be wrong but has he now scored more goals in one WC game for England than Rooney in all his WC tournaments?

Again, they were all over and deserved the win. If it wasn't for terrible referring, which has made me question the VAR, they would have won comfortably.

For me the England of old would have became more frustrated, lacked belief, and seen out a 1-1 draw. This side to their credit kept mounting the pressure and in the last 10 minutes you could see them up the tempo a lot, quick throw-ins, free-kicks corners. Everything need to be done as quick as possible.

It's too early to tip them or write them off but it is a good start for them to this tournament. A last minute goal to win is more lifting most times than a 3-0 walk in the park.

Ferris_Bueller

7 penalties and 4 free kicks scored so far in this world cup and we aren't even through a full round of group games. Not sure how many have been scored from corners/crossed free kicks as well (Kane x2, Gimenez, Zuber.. any others?), but that is a lot of goals scored from set pieces. If a team is well organised defensively and can nick a goal from a set piece they really can achieve things in international football.

Nerdlingr

Drumpot wrote: »

And don’t forget the 2 penos they didn’t get, the keeeprs saves, paricularly the defenders clearance off the line from Lingard or off the post (think it was Ali)... the chances created are valid point cause many top teams didn’t play aswell as England did and either scraped a win (VAR saved france) or didn’t win.

Perhaps you can answer the question everybody else seems to ignore. What was the last tournament performance by an English team that was better then last night? What was the last England game in tournament where they could of scored as many goals as they did last night? I can’t remember such an adventurous England team in a tournament in some time. They are normally more defensive and scared more so against weaker teams because of the expectation!!!

you said "had they won by three or four there would have been no complaints' ... but they didnt, so saying they should have won by three or four means nothing. Fact is they didn't take their chances. Thats why the point is null and void, not their chances created.
What performance was better than last night? Beating sweden 3-2 in 2012 i would have said. They were 2-1 down in that game and playing much better team than last night.
Last night wasn't a great performance anyway imo. They got a get out of jail card in injury time against a poor African team who sat back. How many chances did they create second half?
My point is what did they do differently second half to break down Tunisia. Nothing. They plugged away and eventually got a break from a set piece. But if thats what exceptional football is these days then good luck!

Chardee MacDennis

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

If a team is well organised defensively and can nick a goal from a set piece they really can achieve things in international football.

See Greece 2004...

sligeach

Nice header there for Japan to take the lead again.

5star02707

well taken goal. Japanese jumped the highest there, wanted the ball

Nerdlingr

The amount of set piece goals in this WC already is crazy.

Adamocovic

Nerdlingr wrote: »

The amount of set piece goals in this WC already is crazy.

Wonder if with VAR now defenders are aware they will be done for holding and dragging down opponents, so end up being more cautious and allowing space, playing into the reason so many goals are coming from set pieces.

Well...not the Tunisian lads anyway! No wonder Smalling was left at home, he'd be a penalty waiting to happen every set piece.

osarusan

Japan did in the second half what they should have done in the first half, just move the ball from side to side and probe, and wear the 10 men out. Colombia's first half recovery cost a lot in energy too.

5star02707

come to think of it those Japan jersey looks sexy! Annnnd it's out of stock in Adidas.com :pac::pac::pac:

MD1990

World Cup has been intriguing & I have still enjoyed it.

But the quality has been poor.Top level Club football as expected is much better considering there train all year together.

Apart from some long range goals I can't think of barely any good passing movements that resulted in goals from open play or many good counter attacks.

Fitness levels seem lower too very little high pressing.