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The FIFA 2018 World Cup Thread (pg. 2)
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by sensorium
I'm hoping Argentina come out as leader. :nervous: |
Haha, if Argentina and Iceland squeeze through in spite of the current Croatian lead, all I'll see is this:
:p
| quote: | Originally posted by sensorium
Brazil is still a young team. I don't see Neymar or Marcelo or Thiago leading this team into a championship. |
Sort of, yeah, I've got to agree with you there. I mean, age wise, they're older than the average WC team, but I do get what you mean - there's a lot from a recent crop, so to speak. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by sensorium
I'm hoping Argentina come out as leader. :nervous:
Brazil is still a young team. I don't see Neymar or Marcelo or Thiago leading this team into a championship. |
Argentina have struggled severely in qualifying. They almost failed to make it to the tournament. When Messi was out they won something like one in eight matches. As a team they simply aren't working very well together, so I've no idea why you're so optimistic.
Brazil, meanwhile, have improved dramatically since appointing their new manager. They're a totally different proposition to the e from 2014 with Fred and Hulk up front. And Neymar is one of those players who generally gets even better when playing for his country.
If Spain hadn't sacked their manager I would probably make them joint favourites with Germany, Brazil being slightly behind. Spain are another team who've improved dramatically in the space of two years, but the man who inspired that form has just been fired. |
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| Midlothian |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Fred and Hulk up front. And Neymar |
Was reading something in Dutch sports media today with an expert scout stating that this is basically the first time since Romario and Ronaldo they're having proper strikers who are actually able to score lots of goals. Not sure whether that's correct though. Except for the guy who was drinking too much?
I don't see why being a young team is going to make too much of a negative difference this tournament - aren't most of them experienced players with soms of the most successful clubs. I'm mostly curious to see if Germany will manage to make it to the finals again |
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| Jon_Snow |
| Messi would do alright in american football :disbelief |
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| sensorium |
It's a weird struggle. Argentina have received a lot of criticism for making it to finals but just not winning it. Then the poor organization and leadership of the AFA was also a factor. The other is just that the rest of the South American teams are getting better and better and know how to play against Argentina.
My optimism is because this is the last real chance for a generation who has played together a lot and has won in the younger Argentina teams. This time around they have zero excuses. This is a new tournament and regardless of how they got here, they have a solid team full of talented players and one of the most gifted players to ever play the game. They were struggling as a team four years ago and also managed to get to the finals. They are always a candidate to be in the last four.
Again, I'm not yet concerned. Argentina played a good game against a team which was on their half most of the match. It does suck that Messi had a bad day missing a PK but they can still come back from this. |
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| Lira |
| Like I said, something's off about this German team. Must be a great day to be Mexican though :D |
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| sensorium |
| I don't want to jinx it :p |
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| SYSTEM-J |
Brazil are looking good so far. I'm impressed by how early and aggressive some of their forward passing has been. Good balance to their midfield as well, with Casemiro doing the spade work in there.
I didn't catch the Germany game, but that is the first time they've lost the opening game for about 40 years, which is remarkable in itself. |
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| Trance-M |
Great games to watch today. I guess Switzerland had a difficult start against a very good starting Brazil. I wrote this before the 1-1..
Lozana was top scorer of PSV Eindhoven this season and won the title, I guess after this WC he'll leave us for clubs who can pay a lot more than ours.
Would be nice to have some positive surprises this WC. It's not unlikely there is gonna be one or two. Last year Germany beat Mexico easily at the Confederations Cup with 4-1, so I bet this was a tough one to lose.
| quote: | | A Dutchman is sitting in a cafe. In a normal good joke there also would be a Belgian, a Frenchman and a German in that cafe, but they are at the World Cup. |
It's so nice to have Belgian colleagues :) |
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| Lira |
| Wait, why didn't the VAR team do anything about the goal? |
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| Trance-M |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Wait, why didn't the VAR team do anything about the goal? |
Correction, not really a clean goal, saw it better after zoom-in.
Don't know if this works outside our country, but you can watch fragments from different camera angles, pretty nice: https://nos.nl/wk2018/nos360/
According to a Dutch referee Brazil was ed twice this match. |
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