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WORLD CUP 2018 - Matchday Thread


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England  6-1  Panama ... Don't wish to pick holes in a 6-1 win, but maybe it's easier to assess games when you're a neutral

                                        It was hot out there. A win was all that mattered. At 5-0 it was no longer a contest, blah blah. Fair enough

                                        But that 2nd half was dreadful IMO - I'm sorry, it's no good me having a go at the French and then saying that was okay

                                        Statistically, Panama might prove to be the weakest side in the competition, for about 30mins I reckon we made 'em look good

 

Japan  2-2  Senegal ...  By contrast, this was a game that remained competitive for the whole 90+ minutes

                                      It was good to watch and generally played in a good spirit throughout

                                      There's a good chance we might play one of them in the next round but that's okay, we're up against Belgium before then

 

Poland  0-3  Colombia ... With so much at stake, I was amazed just how scrappy this one started out. Niggly fouls, phantom injuries

                                        But then Colombia scored and the longer it went on the more it became clear Poland had no answer

                                        3-0 wasn't flattering in the end, because Poland were so poor

                                        So how about Colombia in the next round? Hope not.

                                       Too much like Panama, except with skill and experience that actually know what they're doing

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For me Southgate has done the first part of his job he’s made watching England enjoyable and given us hope . Going forward we need to cut out the sloppiness we’re great going forward but we create problems for ourselves, I’d bring rose in for young and Rashford for sterling but I suspect he won’t the only change I can see for the second round is alli coming back but I’m still hopeful we can get to the quarterfinals and have a chance of going further due to our attacking threat 

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On to the final round of group games then

I'm still sticking with seven out of ten for the tournament so far

 

This isn't a prediction by the way, more like a guarantee ...

 

Saudi  v  Egypt

Spain  v  Morocco

Denmark  v  France

Iceland  v  Croatia

*S Korea  v  Germany

Switzerland  v  Costa Rica

*Japan  v  Poland

Panama  v  Tunisia

 

... will all be highly entertaining, action-packed thrillers filled with goals, incident and controversy

That's because I'll be watching the other games

 

* might involve channel hopping  :rolleyes:

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As the old saying goes, you can only beat what's put in front of you, and if we're honest it was like Accrington lining up against manachester City. 

The first half we were solid, professional and did what we needed to do and did it well. 

The second half, well this is where we were lacking, the good sides keep pushing and finish the job to the 90th minute, we didn't do that we took the foot off the pedal and instead of completely brushing them aside, we let them play and drew 1-1. Winners ARE RUTHLESS! and for me it's part of our game we do need to improve on, we nearly fluffed our lines against Tunisia becouse we didn't finish our early chances. 

All in all though, can't knock them too much, but room for improvement, which is going to be needed starting with Belgium Thursday, let's see what they're really made of. 

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I would always assume there's an advantage in topping the group

We had a golden opportunity to ensure we went into the Belgium game with a superior goal difference

 

We held our discipline, and that's good because some of the stuff that went off (particularly in the 1st half) was disgraceful and went largely unpunished

I'm also guessing we came through the game relatively unscathed, injury wise, with no thanks to yet another weak referee ... it's okay to award two penalties, but why allow them to delay each kick for about two minutes or more?

But our lack of ambition/invention in those last twenty minutes or so was beyond disappointing IMO

We didn't need to bust a gut second half, just maintain a six-goal lead

 

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"What I always find a little uncomfortable is that the German organization, discipline and teamwork we're familiar with - "ants in a colony" - is a legacy of the Nazi period.

 

Although The Nazis were defeated, that mentality lived on.

 

Paradoxically, as a nation we used to be much more like that in character, but then had the sixties revolution - "let it all hang out" - and we're where we are.

 

I'm no imperialist, and we were right to withdraw from empire, but clearly we couldn't now govern half the world's population.

 

We can scarcely govern ourselves these days."

 

 

 

We've got very little to sell to the world and we can't just sail around taking anything we want now just by planting our flag there.

 

All we've got is call centres...and some of the poorest countries in the world are even better at that than us.

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38 minutes ago, HIGHERSTATE said:

 

Paradoxically, as a nation we used to be much more like that in character, but then had the sixties revolution - "let it all hang out" - and we're where we are.

 

I'm fairly sure the 60s revolution affected the rest of the continent too - especially Germany, France etc

I'd also argue that that ol' British Bulldog spirit is still pretty much in evidence today, it's just that maybe we've become more tolerant as a nation

 

... and perhaps that's because all our 60s peaceniks/revolutionaries are now running Westminster, Whitehall etc  :biggrin:

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On 24/06/2018 at 07:27, Ethel The Tree said:

I have no doubt teams reflect their national identity - they're there to represent their nation after all

 

In our case, that's what makes losing so hard to swallow (imo) - especially when defeat so often comes down to individual errors, curious referee

decisions, having our star players sent off or screwing up in a penalty shoot-out - we generally like to see things done fair and square

 

Never been to Germany (missus has) and apparently, they're big on efficiency and organization - their tournament record is quite amazing

But there's no denying they were under pressure to succeed last night and the cracks were starting to show

 

I don't think elimination would see them metaphorically shipped off to secret camps

... just as I wouldn't expect the Russian squad to wind up in a salt mine, the Egyptians to make a start on that new pyramid, or the Saudi to take up new

posts as eunuchs in a royal palace somewhere ...

But they would get hammered in the national press, just like us

 

The difference being - we're well used to it by now

I have been to Berlin and to say everything runs to the second would be an understatement, when you see the complete clusterfuck that is our public transport network you look at their and it runs spot on and at my time there (3 years ago) only 4 euro for full days travel in Berlin and the last subway train runs till 3am spot on - Not to mention the Beers and the birds were not bad and most spoke better English that all of us there. 

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Uruguay  3-0  Russia ... No, that's not the sound of Russia's balloon bursting. Probably have to wait until Sunday for that

                                      But Suarez & co always seemed like a reliable bet to pee on their barbecue

                                      They didn't get the breaks - wicked deflection for the second goal, down to 10 men before half time

                                      But they wasted their own chances and looked second best from the start, meanwhile ...

 

Saudi  2-1  Egypt ... Saudi level in 1st half injury time and then win it in the 95th minute

                                Not enough perhaps to restore national pride, but it's sure to earn their players some local anaesthetic  :dry:

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Russia have done such an amazing job with this World Cup havent' they?

Trump's right to be mates with them instead of going to war with them like all those other world leaders who benefit financially from selling arms etc

Loving this world cup - it's the best in living memory

 


Owlstalk Shop

 

 

 

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