[Tsundoku]

champ, on 03 December 2022 - 12:20 PM, said:

Argentina beat Poland, not the other way around.

Doh, yes that's right.
I meant to say the scoreline still kept Mexico out even though they won. Just not by enough.
I believe if Argentina put another goal on, Mexico would have been in. Not sure, there was a LOT of maths being thrown around in the last couple of days.

I dunno. At the very least, the results sure were interesting/

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 03 December 2022 - 12:30 PM

[champ]

Tsundoku, on 03 December 2022 - 12:30 PM, said:

champ, on 03 December 2022 - 12:20 PM, said:

Argentina beat Poland, not the other way around.

Doh, yes that's right.
I meant to say the scoreline still kept Mexico out even though they won. Just not by enough.
I believe if Argentina put another goal on, Mexico would have been in. Not sure, there was a LOT of maths being thrown around in the last couple of days.

I dunno. At the very least, the results sure were interesting/

Oh I won't argue there, very interesting and unexpected. It's made for some great viewing. Japan topping a group with Germany and Spain has to be the biggest surprise.


Taking the Spain/Germany/Costa Rica/Japan group as an example, on the final day of fixtures every team was in a position to qualify at a point during the games, top two kept on changing throughout the 90 minutes. That was exciting to watch.


A lot of the groups were like that actually thinking now.


Hopefully we get more shocks in the knock-outs...


Edit


The draw:


Saturday, Dec. 3
Netherlands vs. United States
Argentina vs. Australia


Sunday, Dec. 4
France vs. Poland
England vs. Senegal


Monday, Dec. 5
Japan vs. Croatia
Brazil vs. South Korea


Tuesday, Dec. 6
Morocco vs. Spain
Portugal vs. Switzerland


The teams that win on each day play each other in the quarters, so winners of Saturdays games for example play each other in quarter-final.

This post has been edited by champ: 03 December 2022 - 01:01 PM

[Gorefest]

USA - Netherlands will be a boring 1-0 win for the US. Happy to see us bowing out of this tournament in ignonimity. We'll focus on 2024 European cup under Ronald Koeman with a proper goalkeeper in goal (Jasper Cillessen) and a proper winger (Danjuma). Good luck to the USA. This Dutch team is pedestrian, just painful to watch.

[amphibian]

Gorefest, on 03 December 2022 - 02:44 PM, said:

USA - Netherlands will be a boring 1-0 win for the US. Happy to see us bowing out of this tournament in ignonimity. We'll focus on 2024 European cup under Ronald Koeman with a proper goalkeeper in goal (Jasper Cillessen) and a proper winger (Danjuma). Good luck to the USA. This Dutch team is pedestrian, just painful to watch.

You're watching a very different team than I am. Gakpo is flaming hot and the Dutch team is patient + athletic enough to deal with the immensely short training period everyone had. Taking care of business vs the US looked downright easy for them.

[HoosierDaddy]

The Dutch goals were all just beautiful. Get a chance? Beautiful strike on goal with little chance for the keeper. USA had chances, but ultimately their class showed out. Still excited about the future of this squad.

US need a legit striker and an athletic, rangy CB. Everywhere else, looks pretty decent!

[Mentalist]

Tsundoku, on 03 December 2022 - 11:31 AM, said:

So the inevitable conspiracy theories have started circulating regarding a number of big name teams that had already qualified for the round of 16 tanking that last match in order to make sure other big name teams didn't make it, or possibly line up against a team they preferred to play in an eliminator (a bit of a stretch, surely). I mean, France losing to Tunisia, Argentina losing to Poland, Spain losing to Japan, Portugal losing to South Korea and Brazil losing to Cameroon? All in the same last round, when they had already qualified?
Sure, they may have been running their "B" teams to give them some game time and at a world cup final tournament after getting this far, any team can stun any others. And Poland, South Korea, Japan and Cameroon aren't exactly shit teams. But geez ...

Hell, I didn't expect Australia to beat Denmark, even though the Danes hadn't been playing like the World #10 team. But Denmark didn't have anything to gain unless there were some godawful massive bribes floating around to make it worth it.

Thoughts?

The upsets in the 1st round (Saudis v Argentina and Japan v Germany opened up a lot of groups when "favourites" failed to secure their 3 points, and expected runners up (Mexico, URU, DEN) settled for draws. Belgium dropping a W to Morocco, and Costa Rica bouncing back from that 7:0 thrashing from Spain to beat Japan also made it anyone's game in those groups- as did Iran's win over Wales..

France, Portugal and Brazil picked up their 6 points in first 2 games and were guaranteed progression. So France played their B squad- and even then, they put Griezman on as sub, who scored an equalizer in OT, but it was disallowed due to offside earlier in the play. The only way the Tunisian win made a difference would've been if Australia didn't win- which they did, so everything else is academic.


In terms of Mexico-KSA and POL-ARG, Saudis had everything to play for, because a win gave them 6 points and a spot through. So they fought to the end and messed up Mexico's GD even further with that OT 2:1 last ditch counter. Argentina could've gone for 3+ goals against Poland, but once they got the 2nd they were in no threat of not making it, and they could rest their players- especially since poles made no effort to get any goals back. And Sczesny WAS on fire. So that group, Poland did the bare minimum to get their 4 points. Mexico's 1st round draw was their biggest setback.

Japan-Spain wasn't a fixture either, since at one point, when CR got 2 back against Germany, BOTH Spain and Germany were on their way out. The Japanese just fought hard, and they kept their lead, after scoring some fantastic goals.

Brazil taking a dive to prevent the "powerhouse" of Serbia from making it is.... I mean, you gotta be Serbian (or Russian, since they've been directed to cheer for their fellow mutant eagle lovers) to believe that. And in any case, it was another academic issue, b/c the Swiss scored a bunch of beauty textbook goals to keep their lead. And the only way the Brazilian loss mattered to the swiss would've been if they could overcome a 3 goal diff to take 1st.

The only group where this is halfway plausible is in case of Uruguay. Both Korea and Uruguay needed a win to get 4 points, And Korea was objectively in a better situation (GD of -1, as opposed to -2, and having scored 2, while URU had 0). I ddn't see the POR-KOR game, but I'm guessing Portugal was resting their "A" squad, since the only way their top spot could've been threatened was if Ghana won by A LOT of goals.

So, in short, it's pretty BS.

Gorefest, on 03 December 2022 - 02:44 PM, said:

USA - Netherlands will be a boring 1-0 win for the US. Happy to see us bowing out of this tournament in ignonimity. We'll focus on 2024 European cup under Ronald Koeman with a proper goalkeeper in goal (Jasper Cillessen) and a proper winger (Danjuma). Good luck to the USA. This Dutch team is pedestrian, just painful to watch.

Dutch have a fairly solid D, and scored textbook goals on the counter. They're looking progressively stronger.

Welp, the Aussies certainly made a fight of it.

And now we get to see a rematch of the 2014 semifinal

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 03 December 2022 - 08:50 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

I know I'm not watching this and I suppose I have no skin in the game but I really don't want Argentina to win the whole thing

[Tsundoku]

Matt Ryan (GK) - just one mistake but it costs you.

I blame Behich losing his cool like an under 16.

Ah well, way better than expected, so I guess that's a positive. You can't help but wonder "What if ...?" though.

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This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 03 December 2022 - 09:00 PM

[Mezla PigDog]

Tiste Simeon, on 03 December 2022 - 08:55 PM, said:

I know I'm not watching this and I suppose I have no skin in the game but I really don't want Argentina to win the whole thing

As an English person it is a requirement to not only want Argentina not to win anything, but to want them not to win in the most painful way possible. Mr PigDog was just saying Messi deserves a World Cup and I'm like "Messi has got enough, matey".

Bad luck, Sombra! I was rooting for you guys. Keepers error was hard to watch.

[Tsundoku]

Cheers guys.

In other news, apparently Pele is in a bad way in hospital? Hopefully it's just a beat-up.

https://www.news.com...3c8bdc06a9dfd0f

Switching alliegances to Poland, England, Japan, South Korea, Morocco and Switzerland.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 03 December 2022 - 09:27 PM

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

Tsundoku, on 03 December 2022 - 09:20 PM, said:

Cheers guys.

In other news, apparently Pele is in a bad way in hospital? Hopefully it's just a beat-up.

https://www.news.com...3c8bdc06a9dfd0f

He's on end-of-life treatment. Sorry, nothing more to do.

[Gorefest]

That was a bit better, I guess. Still rather sluggish, but at least we scored when it mattered and dictated the pace. Don't like us leaving so much possession to our opponents though. I thought the US played very fresh and spirited, just unlucky with some of their finishing and a bit naive for this stage of the tournament. There are some really promising youngsters in that squad. I'd suggest that if the US wants to really step up to the big leagues, which I imagine is a big desire with the 2026 WC hosting looming, to get yourselves a better coach who understands tactics at top level.

Next stop Argentina. I had Argentina pegged as tournament winners before the tournament, but just like us they haven't really got going yet. Should be an interesting game on Friday. I assume we will get kicked out, but Argentina do look a lot less scary than I had given them credit for. So we may have a chance if we manage to retain some more possession and lock Messi out of the game.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 03 December 2022 - 11:26 PM

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

Gorefest, on 03 December 2022 - 11:25 PM, said:

That was a bit better, I guess. Still rather sluggish, but at least we scored when it mattered and dictated the pace. Don't like us leaving so much possession to our opponents though. I thought the US played very fresh and spirited, just unlucky with some of their finishing and a bit naive for this stage of the tournament. There are some really promising youngsters in that squad. I'd suggest that if the US wants to really step up to the big leagues, which I imagine is a big desire with the 2026 WC hosting looming, to get yourselves a better coach who understands tactics at top level.

Next stop Argentina. I had Argentina pegged as tournament winners before the tournament, but just like us they haven't really got going yet. Should be an interesting game on Friday. I assume we will get kicked out, but Argentina do look a lot less scary than I had given them credit for. So we may have a chance if we manage to retain some more possession and lock Messi out of the game.

After two final defeats (1974, 1978) and the biggest robbery in World Cup history (2010, seriously fuck Spain) I really want you guys to finally win your maiden World Cup.

[Gorefest]

2010 (and semi final 2014 as well) were rough, but we're used to having very flashy spectacular teams and still almost always (apart from Euro '88) falling apart in the end.

Traditionally, for Dutch fans winning isn't good enough, the football needs to be attractive. We rather lose in style than win ugly. In that respect we have always been the polar opposite of Germany, who won everything there was to win with often very dogged but efficient football versus our pretty but ultimately futile efforts. Interestingly, there has been a seismic shift over the last 6-8 years where the German team (who I used to hate growing up in the late 80ies, with a.o. the Rijkaard-Voller spit incident, but I now really like a lot) have switched to at times gorgeous football but the results have started to flag, whereas the Dutch (partially due to a sudden surge in good defenders but mediocre forwards) have gone the opposite way. We look awful, but we get the job done all of a sudden. And it is taking Dutch fans time to adjust to this new reality. We don't like this Dutch team, but we cannot deny that we are punching above our current form due to a better team ethos and workrate. I still think we don't stand a chance against Argentina though with our poor possession stats and lack of dominance.

The USA have the problem that they have a lot of runners, a lot of athleticism, but they don't really have quality playmakers. Players like a Messi, a De Jong, a Modric, who can dictate pace and who can switch play to other parts of the pitch. Athletic ability seems to be overly hyped in US sports over tactical intelligence. There are a few exceptions (Pulisic, Reyna), but in football you need more creative depth in the squad and better tactical coaching if you want to really start being a player at the world stage. There is a lot of quality, but the player profiling and squad make-up is lacking. You can run around all you like, but if opponents (like us yesterday) just sit back and let you run holes in your own formation, you will pay for it. I don't understand for instance why the USA didn't put way more pressure on our left flank, where we have one of the oldest and slowest players at the tournament (Daley Blind). Most Dutch fans think Blind is past his prime and should be benched for e.g. Malacia, but the USA just left him in peace and he ends the game with a goal and an assist. Madness. The US could have run circles around him with guys like Weah, but they didn't. Everything went over the other flank through Pulisic. It is tactically naive, to state it mildly. We just gave the US back line the ball, sat back, then cut off supply lines from the defence into Adams, and suddenly the US had no clue what to do anymore in possession.

[amphibian]

The US does not have a player who can get through a settled defense beyond Pulisic. The switch over to go up the right with Dest only works on people Dest and the others can outrun. The Dutch team took that away easily because Dest was told to try and attack a bunch, made Dest pay on defense often (with one of the goals being his blown cover), and the trailing people were wide open.

Berhalter is definitely tactically out of his depth even in a short training world cup. He did get the team to play hard, although hard doesn't mean success necessarily.

I went back to watch Spain Japan. Spain did not purposely try to throw that game - the two goals for Japan came during a 10 minute period where Busquets and Rodrigo were playing abysmally and several other players in the back were too lackadaisical with moving ball out of the box. It was really odd to see how quickly things collapsed for Spain during that run of bad play.

[amphibian]

Players like Messi and Modric are so rare. They are several levels better than world class professionals and have been in talks for best player in the world for many years. It makes no sense to rely on them coming along.

What is desired is for teams to have a player who can dribble past a challenge and make a vertical pass to really crack a settled defense. Spain had this long ago with Iniesta, France uses Griezmann and Mbappe as this player with Dembele often adding something similar.

The vertical pass ability is really rare, but it's integral to the success of teams at the highest levels of play because after the teams with shitty defenses are knocked out, what's left are decently competent defenses and slowly cohering offenses.

[Tiste Simeon]

What every team actually needs is a Zlatan.

[Macros]

What every team needs is a Southgate, man's a genius, footballs coming home, Senegal? Senewho more like it!

[Gorefest]

Lovely to see how after years of playing at the highest level for insane sums of money, Ronaldo is actually going to do one final stint for the love of football and to solidify his name as one of the all-time greats and ambassador for the sport blatantly cash in somewhere in Saudi Arabia for a stupid amount of money (200,000,000 euro per year).

Dear gods, how the great ones have fallen.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 05 December 2022 - 12:18 PM

[Tsundoku]

Into king-sized beds made out of money.