World Cup Thread - Page 2

lol what are you talkinga about, Maradona is an addict who nearly OD's on cocaine that day, he isn't playing 3D chess lol.

Yeah, but he can stay at home, rather he goes on every big tournament with the team and makes noise before/during it.

?? He s an ex football legend and the ex coach of the team, of course that he s going to be at every big tournament...

Yep, but why the noise? He's not stupid, you really underestimate Maradona.

On June 28 2018 13:13 Expiate wrote: Yep, but why the noise? He's not stupid, you really underestimate Maradona.

lol he has always been a ridiculous attention whore and an embarassment.


Do you think he was like "hey I'm going to OD and put myself into a quasi comatose state with cocaine to reduce the media attention to the team's bad performance" lol

Why not when you already decided to OD rofl? His main goal is Argentina to go further after all and enhance the OD effect.

Ok, let's make some predictions:

Uruguay < Portugal

France > Argentina

Brazil < Mexico

Belgium > Japan

Spain > Russia

Croatia > Denmark

Sweden > Switzerland

Colombia < England

Maradona is just a guy who was super talented at football, I'm not sure why anyone thinks highly of his opinions on the world, he is a moron

and he was a shitty coach, 0 tactical knowledge, he was just there becuase of his name

I am thinking whether such fouls like the one in the 115' vs Croatia should be punished with a penalty without a goalkeeper. It would have been brutal if Croatia lost with basically been stripped a clear goal.

For example the rule could be that in case of a foul in the penalty area when there is no obstacle/player between the striker and the goal line, and the striker's natural movement direction crosses the goal line, the followed up penalty should be without the presence of a goalkeeper.

This is way more logical than yellow/red card plus normal penalty.

it's a clear red card fault, wtf the referee was doing ?
not that would make much difference since the match was finishing

By the rules its a yellow since he attempted to play the ball, but missed. Direct red is if he has no chance to hit the ball at all and just smashes the legs of the opponent on purpose.

But it doesn't really matter in such situation for the particular match whether he gets a card at all or not. What matters is that the opposing team has a chance to miss the followed up penalty while if no foul was committed a goal is 99,9% sure. Just as a penalty without a goal keeper would be. So the rules really favor unfair play in such cases.

there was a rule that you get red card if you are the last defender and make a foul or deny a clear goal scoring opportunity ( 2010 Luiz Suarez on 2010 world cup when he saved with the hand )

but from what I read FIFA changed this rule 2 years ago, rule still working in Brazil

On July 02 2018 14:55 drone666 wrote: there was a rule that you get red card if you are the last defender and make a fault or deny a clear goal scoring opportunity ( 2010 Luiz Suarez on 2010 world cup when he saved with the hand ) but from what I read FIFA changed this rule 2 years ago, rule still working in Brazil

yeah apparently they changed that which is fucking absurd, not giving a red card for that foul in a 10000% goal for Croatia is just dumb, they should either receive a red card or a goal by default there


anyways after Spain lost I said that Croatia will reach the finals as their bottom half of the bracket is absurdly bad ... England is the best team there outside of them which is just LULZ so I hope I'm right

england is certainly better than denmark and croatia needed penalties to beat them. this england team is fairly legit.

lesson so far from this world cup (or actually, from most world cups, not just this one) is that a huge favorite on paper will frequently lose to a worse side. Out of all remaining games I think belgium-japan is the most lopsided, and even there Japan should have a 15-20% chance at advancing.

brazil going for the 6th title hohohohoho

Brazil showed class today and Neymar is playing better with each match, but they still have a long way to go. The hard tests are to come.

On July 02 2018 16:16 Liquid`Drone wrote: england is certainly better than denmark and croatia needed penalties to beat them. this england team is fairly legit. .

You're not looking at this objectively. First Croatia didn't need penalties to beat them, that was a 10000% goal there on the end which resulted in the missed penalty by Modric and a yellow card only for the defender plus "baby" Schmeichel had a huuuuge game. Also Croatia doesn't play well against teams that defend themselves well, but from here on they won't meet such teams. You saw what happened against Argentina when they tried to battle for the mid-field.

Perhaps I'm wrong though, as Columbia vs England is a very tough match for both teams, and whoever gets out of Sweden/Switzerland will be evenly matched against the latter as well, Sweden and Switzerland both have an insanely good defense and will cause a lot of trouble for anyone. That being said, I feel like Croatia are the biggest favorites for the final from that half of the bracket. England hasn't gone past 1/4 finals since 30 years with much, much better players e.g. the squad with Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Neville, Ferdinand and so on (there were like 15 super stars) didn't manage to do it so I doubt these guys will

Also England isn't certainly better than anyone half decent, as they haven't had a real test yet, they won against the 2 weakest teams in the World Cup and the match with Belgium was just pure meh for both teams. I'm fairly certain England would have extremely tough matches against any team that is in the 1/8th finals except Russia, which are just a terrible team on a sick heater

France and Brazil are looking like superpowers and on a different level than the rest, I think we will have a premature final in the semis. Didnt feel the same vibe with Belgium vs Japan or with Uruguay vs Portugal or even with Croatia vs Denmark. Im waiting for England to show their class and outmatch Colombia hopefully they dont dissapoint, although my heart is with the colochos. Sweden is a weird one, I think they have the potential but I think they lack some confidence, expecting them to beat the swiss.

Argentina has made their opposition look really good due to their terrible defense. Croatia looked pretty good vs them but came back to reality with a close game vs a weak denmark. I def dont think they are favorites to win their side of the bracket but its close.

France looked okish in group stage but then once again argentina made them look amazing and mbappe is the new pele. In this case i worry argentina has awaken the beast as france has amazing players.

There is some amazing defensive teams with good counters that can go deep like uruguay and sweden. Also looking forward to see how good England actually is they do seem good this time around.

Brazil seems to be slowly peaking which is nice.

So far fun world cup.