[Daser]

No Italy , No Dutch, Spain in second seed layer.........WTF is going on!

[Malankazooie]

No USA and no Chile also. Really weird World Cup. Possible interference by the Russians.

[Tsundoku]

Malankazooie, on 02 December 2017 - 11:13 AM, said:

Possible interference by the Russians.

Ya think? 'Twould be consistent, at least.

What are the odds of them also having three relatively easy-beat teams in their group as well? Methinks some of those tokens used for the draw were either too hot and/or too cold.

[Tiste Simeon]

So instead of getting humiliated by Iceland we get to be humiliated by Panama. Sweet.

[Macros]

looking at those groups theres really some shit teams at the world cup in 18

theres very few groups I wouldnt confidently pick the 2 to qualify from.

Russias potential syumbling block is egypt, who, if salah is on song, can bag a goal

i would say serbia and korea have the toughest groups

[Malankazooie]

Was listening to analysis by Alexi Lalas, and he says his "group of death" is Group H (Poland, Senegal, Colombia & Japan). His definition of "group of death" being the difficulty of predicting even one team to advance out. He thinks with all the other groups there is at least one obvious team that will advance.

[Gorefest]

To me a group of death is when you know beforehand that there will be at least one shock elimination. None of the current groups offer this. Probably this is because the Nehterlands is not participating, because we traditionally are part of any group of death.

[HoosierDaddy]

Gorefest, on 02 December 2017 - 09:37 PM, said:

To me a group of death is when you know beforehand that there will be at least one shock elimination. None of the current groups offer this. Probably this is because the Nehterlands is not participating, because we traditionally are part of any group of death.

Concur. It has historically been a group where 3 teams would have been probable to advance and one obviously won't due to draw.

I'd say Group F as well, with E as second toughest. Maybe flopped. Costa Rica will surprise and Korea is always a tough out with their disciplined style. Sweden has the one man wrecking crew in Ibrahimovic (if he's still on the SNT and why not?).

Hoping for some 2002 style upsets by the teams who are being overlooked.

[Macros]

I would call a group of death a group where there's three teams who should advance and one whipping boy

[Tattersail_]

Macros, on 02 December 2017 - 06:32 PM, said:

looking at those groups theres really some shit teams at the world cup in 18

theres very few groups I wouldnt confidently pick the 2 to qualify from.

Russias potential syumbling block is egypt, who, if salah is on song, can bag a goal

i would say serbia and korea have the toughest groups

I disagree, I've been following the qualifiers with much interest and there is not a team there that doesn't deserve it. Including Panama who had to win against the USA and hope Mexico and Costa Rica lost to Honduras and Trinidad and Tobago. Which seemed impossible at the time. Panama had lost the previous 4 on the bounce. USA had players like Pulisic who is hot property. That win was epic.

Other than that, you look at Argentina nearly missing out and Peru being very strong against all those sides.

Africa, has knock-out round 1, knock out round 2, just to enter the group stages. If you get through those two round, you go into 5 groups of 4, and only the top team qualifies. That's tough. Teams missing out that are decent, Algeria, Cameroon, D.R Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana

Going back to South America, its been that close that 3 or 4 teams who didn't qualify could have qualified going into the final game. Biggest names missing there are Chile and Paraguay.

It's been awesome, and i'm looking forward to the World Cup.

If England win the group then they face Brazil in the quarters, if they come second in the group then they face Germany in the quarters, most probably anyway. There may be upsets.

[Tattersail_]

Tsundoku, on 02 December 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 02 December 2017 - 11:13 AM, said:

Possible interference by the Russians.

Ya think? 'Twould be consistent, at least.

What are the odds of them also having three relatively easy-beat teams in their group as well? Methinks some of those tokens used for the draw were either too hot and/or too cold.

Russia won't qualify from that group. I predict Uruguay first and Egypt second. Russia then Saudi Arabia.

[Macros]

Interesting read about city

[Morgoth]

Tattersail_, on 04 December 2017 - 08:46 AM, said:

Macros, on 02 December 2017 - 06:32 PM, said:

looking at those groups theres really some shit teams at the world cup in 18

theres very few groups I wouldnt confidently pick the 2 to qualify from.

Russias potential syumbling block is egypt, who, if salah is on song, can bag a goal

i would say serbia and korea have the toughest groups

If England win the group then they face Brazil in the quarters, if they come second in the group then they face Germany in the quarters, most probably anyway. There may be upsets.

BAhahahaahahah

[Malankazooie]

Harry Kane though. Amirite?

[Macros]

He's a one calendar year wonder

[Morgoth]

Sure gave me a lot of fantasy points though.

[Tsundoku]

Raheem Sterling has worst miss of the year so far, wow!

Then again he's part of the reason MC are so far ahead they can afford not to worry about dropping 2 pts at this stage, so I think he's built up some credit.

EDIT: just had a look at the table - bloody hell the entire bottom half could be considered to be in relegation danger! It's really illustrated the gap between the top 6 and everyone else.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 04 February 2018 - 06:55 AM

[Tsundoku]

Damn, the ladder is even more starkly divided now.

MC ahead by miles (seriously, only ONE loss so far, with 11 games in hand????)

Daylight

Next 5

The top 6 are the only ones with positive goal differences. Yeesh!

Then ... the rest. From 7 to 20 the points difference is "only" 17. Taking West Brom out means the difference from 7 to 19 is 11.
If any of those teams have a purple patch (or conversely a brown patch) anything can happen.

I'm only reasonably confident calling West Brom's season done at the moment though.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 24 February 2018 - 11:14 PM

[Tsundoku]

So ... think there's anything to this or it's just a lot of BS to maybe get the Qataris to stump up more bribe money?

http://www.news.com....c811d2746fa77f0

I mean, let's face it - if they let Russia go ahead and host this year's WC they'll be making a mockery of any claims they've made to attempting to clean up corruption.

(Of course it IS from The Sun, so take that with a pinch of salt.)

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 25 February 2018 - 05:24 AM

[Malankazooie]

Wow, The World Cup starts 100 days from now. How time flies.