World Cup 2022

[Wombatz]

to the neutral, argentina vs croatia will be tough watching

[Wombatz]

ahaha, i spoke too soon.

"Pep" Gvardiol the player of the tournament (at least on the defensive side) for me. Will be the best CB in the world in a year or two. What a player.

he wasn't that remarkably good with rats when i saw him, though the talent is clear ... i think he partly even plays leftback(?) and will generally have less freedom to just do his thing

[DarkAttraktor]

What can I say they are just the real Mentality Monsters. Amazing what a privilege to be a supporter of this team.

exactly, the mental fortitude of this CRO team is just something else.

congrats surf !

[surfer]

to the neutral, argentina vs croatia will be tough watching

Croatia is a bit like eai in many ways, an acquired taste. Most neutral listeners will find the "inertia", "lack of development", "monotony" a bit boring and "anti-music", which is silly of course. (I'm not saying that's what you are saying Lutz, just setting up a strawman to make my metaphor clear.) A lot music fans can only recognize and enjoy music that has melody, harmony, catchy hooks, big beats you can dance to. EAI is not music to them. I can appreciate both types of music, as I can appreciate what Brazil do, and what Croatia do, although the tag that Croatia somehow park the bus and are 100% negative is ridiculous, I thought they were the better team in the first half and created more chances, they just werent suicidally stupid like South Korea. To create the music Croatia and eai you need high levels of concentration, focus, control, technical musical ability, patience, and stamina. And you cant dance to it. But it is beautiful in its own way. And I do pity football fans who can only appreciate the spectacle of Brazil, as I pity music fans whose tastes are very narrowly focused on conventional pop melody, harmony, and rhythm.

[DarkAttraktor]

CRO is definitely not anti-football.

beside the Neymar goal probably the most breathtaking piece of football was that Petkovic dribble in the first overtime on the counter attack between two Brazillian defenders to set up Brozovic with a opportunity.

CRO simply has everything that it takes

[surfer]

CRO is definitely not anti-football.

beside the Neymar goal probably the most breathtaking piece of football was that Petkovic dribble in the first overtime on the counter attack between two Brazillian defenders to set up Brozovic with a opportunity.

CRO simply has everything that it takes

Agreed, that was fun.

[Wombatz]

oh i'll root for croatia ... i don't mind a little shithousery, but argentina were really hateful ... so i'll prepare for a battle of the attitudes

[DarkAttraktor]

i needed like a week to properly process serbia's WC campaign but i can say now we're having an awesome WC

they even stopped with the bullshit VAR calls they had at the beginning

[Wombatz]

so great from morocco. another set of mentality monsters, though of a very different mentality. it just seems highly unlikely they can keep this up with their injury list. england i think were overhyped by the commentators still during the game. yes, lloris made a couple of great saves, but they did not score from open play, and even the penalty situations would not have led to goals, the second especially was pure defensive stupidity from the french. the only efficient english game plan was saka running into people successfully drawing fouls, and taking him off extinguished all hope.

unfortunately i still believe messi will get his world cup though i'm very much against it. in a way i'd want morocco to play argentina because i was super impressed by the way they handled the portuguese flopping and childish attempts at dark arts, they would rather allow the attacker to waste a chance than do a reckless tackle (the two yellows were super harsh but then the ref didn't know what he was doing ... actually i think this hurt the portuguese karma-wise, if there'd been some early yellow cards against them and they'd focused on the football they'd probably have been better). is croatia sufficiently immune to provocation (somehow this seems hard to believe, or am i just racist ). if we're talking just the football they should be able to handle things. i'm afraid the other semi will be a rather one-sided affair. france always have something happen even if they don't get their shit together. in a way they don't seem to take this very seriously at all.

rooting for croatia-morocco like everybody else.

yes, very good tournament, quite a number of teams more tactically astute than one would have suspected considering the lack of preparation. probably players are more awake in mid-season? injuries do seem on the high side, both before and during the tournament (but i'm too lazy to look up actual statistics).

[Wombatz]

ahaha that's incredible



(for those who can see the embed. for those who can't, it's the harry kane penalty vid.)

[surfer]

ahaha that's incredible

(for those who can see the embed. for those who can't, it's the harry kane penalty vid.)

Who's insanely bad idea was this promo?

postscript: I wonder how much that miss will affect the rest of his club season? for a while, quite a bit I imagine, not something you can just compartmentalize easily or immediately I would imagine.

[Wombatz]

you lot strangely lack an edge ...

[surfer]

Yeah and it was bound to catch up with us sooner or later. Sadly, the most disappointing Croatian player for me this tournament has been Perišić who just seems to have lost a step and run out of ideas from the wing. Which tracks with his trajectory with Spurs. Late summer he looked quite a signing and one of our best players, but recently has just been banal. Worst player on the pitch for us today. None of our strikers are worth a damn and at best, Kramarić can provide a little link up play and some nifty movement but its so edge-less.

Rough one today, bit of a mirror image of the 3-0 at the last WC when a keeper incident for the first goal led to a momentum shift that tilted the match. After the first 30 minutes, I thought to myself this is going precisely according to plan. Then the penalty. (I found it surprising how many people online seem to think it wasnt a penalty - having to do with Livaković coming out and standing his ground while Alvarez gets the shot away and initiates the out-of-control contact. Not sure I buy it. If it was Martinez on Kovačić I would have been baying for blood). But doubtless the penalty really shifted the energy level of the Argentines, and the second goal was a comedy of errors.

Gvardiol had an outstanding tournament, getting spun 1:1 with Messi is no shame, he needed some end line help. Lovren was fine overall, Juranović, who reminds me a bit of Luke Shaw, was a nice surprise and will get better. Sosa was a mixed bag. Brozović has at least one more WC cycle (set a WC record for most ground covered - over 16km - in a match, breaking his own record), Kovačić was excellent, probably the best most direct line breaking offensive player we had all tournament. Livaković was also one of the keepers of the tournament, excited to see him over the years. and Modrić well he was good but not as great as in 2018, but his telepathy with the other two midfielders is preternatural.

I know most people dont take it seriously, but I hope they really go for the third place match, would be nice. Same goes for the Nations League in June, which they can win, would be lovely to really try to win it for Luka even if its a tin trophy.

[Wombatz]

so. i went with messi before the tournament and i still fear argentina will win, but by now i really hate him/them and am rooting very much for the french. probably the latters' chances are best if they continue to apparently take things less seriously than they should. with any level of nerves, judging from their utterly stupid defending against england, they'll fall victim to the shithousing and end the game with 9 players against 10 (seriously the ref might decide this game). they'll also have to play and not wait for something to happen. and mbappe will finally have to really do something, i don't expect giroud to get any looks. the denmark game suggested they have another level available if it matters, but then that was against denmark. i have no clue but this shoud be fun. lloris' endearing air of totally in-the-zone befuddlement after nearly fucking up for the win!

[Wombatz]

so far exactly like expected, first an attempt to take lloris out (by his own spurs mate), then an utterly stupid penalty (di maria already falling before being clipped at the heels) ... if france continue that naively, the have no chance

[Wombatz]

well deserved ... why didn't the french just play on in extra time ... great in-game management from deschamp, but at the cost of good penalty takers left on the field ... unfortunately one can't argue with the result. stupid world cup

[DarkAttraktor]

absolutely well deserved. whatever they did to bring their opponents back into it, ARG simply couldn't lose tonight. as if led by a divine hand.

[surfer]

One of the best international matches I can remember, but maybe not even the best Fra-Arg match. The 4-3 in '18 was better? Better goals there but higher drama here. Yes Deschamps switch to 4-2-3-1 helped solidify the midfield, as well as move Mbappe more centrally. Also the "divine hand" of illness probably kept the French energy levels below where the Argentines were at for most of the match. But quite unexpectedly, the match sprung to life in ET where it usually peters out as both teams settle for penalties and dont want to make a catastrophic error, so they go all conservative. Both teams just threw caution to the wind. The strike by Muani was perfect, not sure he could have hit it any better, on the volley, dipping into the corner with pace, but somehow Martinez made the save of the tournament. That would have been an incredible golden goal to end the tournament at the death, but Messi's hagiography was written in the stars.

[surfer]

Goals of the tournament? Off the top of my head in no particular order:

1. Goncalo Ramos roofs the near post strike, no idea how that even went in, looked like it went through the post.
2. Netherlands Rube Goldberg set piece
3. Perisic's header from 16m out
4. Argentina's counterattack in the Final
5. Richarlison's scissor kick
6. Asano plucks it out of the sky
7. Hakimi's panenka
8. Mbappe's scissor kick (more difficult than Richarlison imo)
9. Neymar against Croatia
10. Gavi outside of the boot volley

Hon mention to Aboubakar, but no way he thought ball was live so partial credit

[DarkAttraktor]

One of the best international matches I can remember, but maybe not even the best Fra-Arg match. The 4-3 in '18 was better? Better goals there but higher drama here. Yes Deschamps switch to 4-2-3-1 helped solidify the midfield, as well as move Mbappe more centrally. Also the "divine hand" of illness probably kept the French energy levels below where the Argentines were at for most of the match. But quite unexpectedly, the match sprung to life in ET where it usually peters out as both teams settle for penalties and dont want to make a catastrophic error, so they go all conservative. Both teams just threw caution to the wind. The strike by Muani was perfect, not sure he could have hit it any better, on the volley, dipping into the corner with pace, but somehow Martinez made the save of the tournament. That would have been an incredible golden goal to end the tournament at the death, but Messi's hagiography was written in the stars.

it's not that Martinez somehow made the save - he, in his brilliance actually egged on Kolo Muani to shoot it there by leaving so much space a split second earlier - only to deny this space by pouncing right in there in the next moment. it was a trick above anything and it's fascinating to think how much he was locked in mentally to pull it off.

i find it hard to buy the illness argument because from the 82 minute mark and by the end of the 2nd extended period FRA looked like a team who could score 5 goals if they wanted to. it's like they flipped a switch, Mbappe was in full PES mode, but they simply somehow didn't score. ARG was consistently a better team yesterday but FRA had a bigger and more awe-striking peak. they sleepwalked until the penalty and then all hell broke loose.