FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby sussexpob » Wed Jul 11, 2018 10:54 pm

yuppie wrote:you know who would have fixed that, Loftus cheek.


Why? 3-4-2-1 only works if you attack or control the ball, or if your central midfielders press sidewards and pressure the byline.

We did neither. Watch how many time Croatia have a simple pass to within 25 yards of goal on the channels because our wing backs are tucked in and all three players in the centre are instructed to stand up rather than pressure the ball

Rubbish tacitcs. We let them off the hangman's noose by taking them down from the rope and offering them dinner.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby sussexpob » Wed Jul 11, 2018 10:56 pm

But great. We beat Tunisia, Panama and Sweden...

I look forward to this tactical *modded* having his job for 20 years
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby yuppie » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:20 pm

England are an average team, have been for years. This year they got an easy run and for once made the most it. There are no world beaters in this team. Kane had the chance today and failed twice to show how world class he is.

We are all armchair critics. For me Loftus cheeck would have offered a more physical presence and not given the ball away as often. Ali was poor through out this world cup, but everyone celebrated how great he was because he managed to get on the end of a great ball from lingard.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby Alviro Patterson » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:38 pm

sussexpob wrote:Sack Southgate......

Tactically rubbish. Needs to go


Too much safety play, didn't pot enough balls and required snookers in the end
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby sussexpob » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:44 pm

yuppie wrote:England are an average team, have been for years. This year they got an easy run and for once made the most it.


9 of the England team started a champions league quarter final or above in the tournament.....Croatia had 4

Average team or no, we lost to an average team.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby sussexpob » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:46 pm

sussexpob wrote:
yuppie wrote:England are an average team, have been for years. This year they got an easy run and for once made the most it.


9 of the England team started a champions league quarter final or above in the tournament.....Croatia had 4

Average team or no, we lost to an average team.


And before you say modric and rakitic, I'll ask you how Brian Lara and shiv chanderpaul did all those years together.

Two world beaters don't make a team.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby bigfluffylemon » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:51 pm

So I've had two consolatory cups of tea, and some pep talk from BFL junior (he joined me on the sofa after Croatia scored, bless him. He's too young to understand much, but when I told him England were losing he said 'is that because they didn't put the ball in the net? Don't worry Dad, they will now.'. Lad's got a future as a pundit, I reckon. Better than the commentary we get here...). Was tempted by something stronger, but it's a work day, and I had to get BFL junior ready to go to daycare.

Now we await the most pointless game in football. Why do they bother with a third place playoff? No-one gives a stuff about it, even the players. Especially the players, in fact. After a loss in a semi-final, I'd imagine all anyone wants to do is go home and see their families, and have a rest. Instead they have to stay in Russia for three more days for a game most people won't even remember ever got played. Still, at least Kane will get the consolatory golden boot - it'll take a hat trick from Lukaku to deny him.

I can't imagine there will be too much criticism when the dust has settled. England competed for 45 minutes against a team with some of the best midfielders in the world, but they just couldn't keep up the intensity needed to nullify them for 90 minutes. Sometimes you're just beaten by a better team.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby Alviro Patterson » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:57 pm

Perhaps it would have been a different ball game if the referee got his cards out to some rather dubious Croatian fouling. It makes a mockery of FIFAs "My game is fair play" motto.

At least three teams (did not watch the Panama game) came with the intention of roughing England up and the referee was slow to issue punishments. Maybe Harry Kane has run out of steam after being wrestled to the ground for much of the camapign.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby yuppie » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:04 am

sussexpob wrote:
yuppie wrote:England are an average team, have been for years. This year they got an easy run and for once made the most it.


9 of the England team started a champions league quarter final or above in the tournament.....Croatia had 4

Average team or no, we lost to an average team.



Two average teams fight it out to get to a world cup final?

How many England players in this team have won a champions league medal? How many Croatians started today have won a champions league Medal?

4 Croatian players, how many English players starting today have won a champions league medal...........
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby bigfluffylemon » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:18 am

yuppie wrote:
sussexpob wrote:
yuppie wrote:England are an average team, have been for years. This year they got an easy run and for once made the most it.


9 of the England team started a champions league quarter final or above in the tournament.....Croatia had 4

Average team or no, we lost to an average team.



Two average teams fight it out to get to a world cup final?

How many England players in this team have won a champions league medal? How many Croatians started today have won a champions league Medal?

4 Croatian players, how many English players starting today have won a champions league medal...........


Hell, how many of them have won a premiership medal? Not that many - Walker, Stones, Sterling and Delph for Man City this season, Cahill for Chelsea (technically Loftus-Cheek too, but he played 5 games for Chelsea in their winning season, as a sub each time), and Vardy for Leicester. And half of those weren't even in the England starting line-up.

To be honest, this England team doesn't have a huge amount of out-and-out quality. They're pretty average. Yet the way they've played, the system they've used and the tactics employed have got them further than anyone was expecting pre-tournament. That's got to count for something.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby yuppie » Thu Jul 12, 2018 5:53 am

bigfluffylemon wrote:
yuppie wrote:
sussexpob wrote:
yuppie wrote:England are an average team, have been for years. This year they got an easy run and for once made the most it.


9 of the England team started a champions league quarter final or above in the tournament.....Croatia had 4

Average team or no, we lost to an average team.



Two average teams fight it out to get to a world cup final?

How many England players in this team have won a champions league medal? How many Croatians started today have won a champions league Medal?

4 Croatian players, how many English players starting today have won a champions league medal...........


Hell, how many of them have won a premiership medal? Not that many - Walker, Stones, Sterling and Delph for Man City this season, Cahill for Chelsea (technically Loftus-Cheek too, but he played 5 games for Chelsea in their winning season, as a sub each time), and Vardy for Leicester. And half of those weren't even in the England starting line-up.

To be honest, this England team doesn't have a huge amount of out-and-out quality. They're pretty average. Yet the way they've played, the system they've used and the tactics employed have got them further than anyone was expecting pre-tournament. That's got to count for something.



I think England have had a great tournament, one that has exceed expectations. I think Southgate has done a great job of bringing these players together and has created a team that the English public has enjoyed following.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby budgetmeansbudget » Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:27 am

1990 hurt alot more, manner of the defeat and the knowledge before the game started that a poor Argentina team were waiting in the final.

I'd much rather lose to Croatia in the semi than France in the final.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby sussexpob » Thu Jul 12, 2018 11:52 am

yuppie wrote:I think England have had a great tournament, one that has exceed expectations. I think Southgate has done a great job of bringing these players together and has created a team that the English public has enjoyed following.


Such a statement might be true if you were to take the pre-tournament expectations of all outcomes, and filter everything through that. Had you said a few weeks ago England would make the semis, Id probably have assumed we'd have beaten one world class team to get there. Id have been happy.

In the end, expectations were exceeded because the draw fell into place as perfectly as it probably could. We lost to Belgium in a game we did little, which actually did us a favour! If you told me at the same time that England would face Colombia without their best player, a team that had largely been outplayed by Senegal and Japan, Id have expected to win. If you told me in the Quarter Finals that we'd face Sweden, Id have expected to win. If you told me the semis was vs a Croatia team who had not beaten Denmark or Russia apart from on penalties, and who were looking to be the first team ever to win a match after too punishing 120 minute extra time performances, Id have expected to win. So did we exceed expectations when adding actual context into it? I am not sure that you can say that. I am inclined to rather harshly reflect on the fact we lost to the easiest Semi-Final opponents you could ever hope for, and became the first team to lose against a team in a major tournament asked to play that much football in so little time. And we lost in extra time, which makes it worse.

I think to reflect and re-enforce this point, I like a flutter with a bookies and currently use a Belgian one..... England were favourites with the neutral bookie in all matches. Colombia were 3/1 underdogs. Sweden the same. Croatia were 21/10 underdogs. So objectively, have we even once in this tournament beaten a team (considering penalty wins are really draws) where other neutral nations, looking at the game without bias, would expect us to lose? No.... we were underdogs v Belgium and lost. Were massive favourites in the other group games. We were favourites to beat Croatia and lost.

Can we point to any instances where we exceeded expectations in this tournament, when taking every outcome in isolation? I dont think we can.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby sussexpob » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:03 pm

As for Southgate, the cult of personality about him since we beat Colombia has been nice for him, but I will put it plainly; England will not win a major tournament with a manager who watched the second half yesterday and made no tactical changes until the very end, no matter how nice he is, no matter what waistcoats he wears, and no matter how much he brings a team together. Against Colombia, they did nothing. Then we sat back and let them play football for 5 minutes, and conceded.

That mistake was replicated yesterday over and over again. In the second half, we have three midfielders in central positions with no one pressing the playmaker. Modric strolled around with space, and as the wing backs sucked back to the edge of the box, we gave arguably the best midfielder in the world a simple out ball to dangerous crossing positions every time he wanted it. None of our central midfielders spread wider to cover it, and our full backs formed a defensive 5 line. I still cant really believe that this continued for 75 minutes of the match. Dont press the midfield maestro, dont press the man he is looking to pass to,dont mark or put anyone into zones he is distributing into, then what do you expect?

We were outclassed and lucky to make the extra time. Alli was knackered by the 50th minute, yet could Gareth not see that? He didnt have the legs to even close the man on his left side down, which gave them a two pass unchallenged situation to pump the ball in the box. We kept on pumping the ball long, and just fed it back to Modric.

Is that classic case of just pressing the "defending button" and not really understanding what you are doing. Everyone goes back 20 yards and thats the strategy. Well in the first half we looked sharp, and should have finished them off. So why did we need to do that? When we were positive, they struggled to deal with us. We let them off the hook and let them do everything they could have hoped we'd do. Thats unforgivable.

Was it Caesar (and later Napoleon) who said that only a General who is a fool regards defense as a passive situation? Well I certainly agree, and Southgate is a fool.

If we actually want to win something we should have the balls to sack him. His tactics nearly cost us the Colombia game, and they did cost us the Croatia match.
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Re: FIFA World Cup 2018 chat thread

Postby bigfluffylemon » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:33 pm

We beat all but one of the sides we should have beaten. We haven't even been able to say that for 12 years. By my reckoning, that's progress right there. Forget beating world class sides, we have failed to beat Costa Rica, Iceland, USA, Algeria, Russia, Slovakia in our last four major tournaments.

Frankly, not being a laughing stock is a major improvement.
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