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2018 World Cup


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Just now, downendcity said:

Love it when Brazil have games like this.

I imagine the commentators have been through their thesaurus for all the over the top adjectives with which to eulagise  Brazil's anticipated poetic and artistic performance, only to have some workmanlike team spoil the occasion.

P.S. Surely Coutinho is the man to take a free kick there.

Find that annoying Neymar has clearly been told he is on free kicks even though Coutinho is better. 

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1 minute ago, Super said:

Find that annoying Neymar has clearly been told he is on free kicks even though Coutinho is better. 

Neymar must be the lad who brings his ball to the match so gets to do what he wants.

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1 minute ago, Selred said:

What a World Cup this has been!

Let's hope the unpredictability is out of the way before we play.

On the other hand perhaps it would be unpredictable for England to perform well and get a good result in their first game - for a change!

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Just now, Midred said:

I'm sorry but if that was a push for the Swiss equaliser then some of those pundits need to spend a bit of time watching Championship football  next season!

....and how many games will feature all in wrestling at free kicks and corners without any punishment at all?

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1 minute ago, downendcity said:

....and how many games will feature all in wrestling at free kicks and corners without any punishment at all?

That does wind me up Downend. I would like to see a few penalties given for holding / wrestling and it would be sorted very quickly. 

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47 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Why do these top nations look so poor? Surely nothing to fear from what we have seen so far

Because the gap is closing all the time between the elite and the next tier IMO. As more and more money gets into the game it's the only real likely outcome. There's only so much you can improve the infrastructure of a nation from a football perspective, in terms of facilities and investment in coaching etc. Thus the best can't really get any better but the lower rungs can make rapid progress.

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10 minutes ago, Ska Junkie said:

That does wind me up Downend. I would like to see a few penalties given for holding / wrestling and it would be sorted very quickly. 

In fairness there was a penalty given ( yesterday or Friday) for a defender holding the striker at a corner, but in so many games it's still like a rugby scrum whenever the ball is played into the box from a corner or free kick.

A couple of seasons ago, English refs announced they would be clamping down on this problem and there was a flurry of penalties at the start of the premier league season. There was the expected criticism from players and managers, suggesting that there would be umpteen penalties a game and was that what they wanted, and then gradually, as I suppose was to be expected , the further died down and nothing much seems to have changed.

I agree that if penalties are awarded every time there is holding , even if it means umpteen penalties in a game , it would soon stop, but do the governing bodies and refs have the strength of will to persevere against the backlash that will surely come from players and managers? 

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20 minutes ago, downendcity said:

In fairness there was a penalty given ( yesterday or Friday) for a defender holding the striker at a corner, but in so many games it's still like a rugby scrum whenever the ball is played into the box from a corner or free kick.

A couple of seasons ago, English refs announced they would be clamping down on this problem and there was a flurry of penalties at the start of the premier league season. There was the expected criticism from players and managers, suggesting that there would be umpteen penalties a game and was that what they wanted, and then gradually, as I suppose was to be expected , the further died down and nothing much seems to have changed.

I agree that if penalties are awarded every time there is holding , even if it means umpteen penalties in a game , it would soon stop, but do the governing bodies and refs have the strength of will to persevere against the backlash that will surely come from players and managers? 

No.

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26 minutes ago, Red Right Hand said:

It`s only the countries that isolate themselves that look really poor like the Saudis or North Korea where none of their players play in top leagues overseas IMO. 

Agree.

Except for one team not named above.....England!, all of our players play in the same league, a league which personally I don’t think the way the football is played, ( excluding Man City and to an extent Arsenal) is conducive to International tournament football. 

Our players are insular, they only know how to play the Premier league way, it’s been the same for decades ( first division before the Prem) and that’s one of the main reasons we have constantly failed at the big tournaments.

All the top International teams in the world are made up of players who play in various leagues around Europe, the experience and variety of ways they play their football seems to help when they all come together in their International teams.

 

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2 minutes ago, Portland Bill said:

Agree.

Except for one team not named above.....England!, all of our players play in the same league, a league which personally I don’t think the way the football is played, ( excluding Man City and to an extent Arsenal) is conducive to International tournament football. 

Our players are insular, they only know how to play the Premier league way, it’s been the same for decades ( first division before the Prem) and that’s one of the main reasons we have constantly failed at the big tournaments.

All the top International teams in the world are made up of players who play in various leagues around Europe, the experience and variety of ways they play their football seems to help when they all come together in their International teams.

 

Maybe, but the 2006 Italy team only had 2 players playing outside of Italy at the time and they didnt do too badly!

 

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7 minutes ago, JamesBCFC said:

Maybe, but the 2006 Italy team only had 2 players playing outside of Italy at the time and they didnt do too badly!

 

I take your point, but the football played in Italy is far more akin to how football is played in big tournaments. 

Italy have constantly done well in major tournaments,  ( except this one!!!) whereas we are the opposite.

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4 hours ago, Portland Bill said:

I take your point, but the football played in Italy is far more akin to how football is played in big tournaments. 

Italy have constantly done well in major tournaments,  ( except this one!!!) whereas we are the opposite.

However, you could as equally argue that because the Premier League is made up of roughly 2/3rds foreign players the 'international' variety experience has come to our players at home meaning they would not gain much going overseas. 

In fact i would go further by saying each England player gains far more this way and far more quickly because in one season or even in one game he faces a multi national challenge.

I do not think you can pin lack of England players overseas as a reason for our historical failures. 

Conversely, the poor performances of the big teams so far might be the very same reason pundits give for our usual failure; league season fatigue, break in between or not. Be rather joyous if the one top league in Europe that does not take a break sees its national team win comfortably this evening.

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8 hours ago, Portland Bill said:

I take your point, but the football played in Italy is far more akin to how football is played in big tournaments. 

Italy have constantly done well in major tournaments,  ( except this one!!!) whereas we are the opposite.

Fair point.

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9 hours ago, downendcity said:

In fairness there was a penalty given ( yesterday or Friday) for a defender holding the striker at a corner, but in so many games it's still like a rugby scrum whenever the ball is played into the box from a corner or free kick.

A couple of seasons ago, English refs announced they would be clamping down on this problem and there was a flurry of penalties at the start of the premier league season. There was the expected criticism from players and managers, suggesting that there would be umpteen penalties a game and was that what they wanted, and then gradually, as I suppose was to be expected , the further died down and nothing much seems to have changed.

I agree that if penalties are awarded every time there is holding , even if it means umpteen penalties in a game , it would soon stop, but do the governing bodies and refs have the strength of will to persevere against the backlash that will surely come from players and managers? 

The couple of arguments against that I can think of are.. if we make a unilateral decision to clampdown on it, players won't how to deal with it on the European and international stage. 

Attackers do their own wrestling, but more to the point, some are very good at making it look like they are being manhandled, by trapping or linking arms with opposition players and then making it look like they are being impeded.

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10 hours ago, Red Right Hand said:

It`s only the countries that isolate themselves that look really poor like the Saudis or North Korea where none of their players play in top leagues overseas IMO. 

Which also explains our poor performances over the years. I am convinced we would be better if some of our top players played for European clubs.

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45 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

The couple of arguments against that I can think of are.. if we make a unilateral decision to clampdown on it, players won't how to deal with it on the European and international stage. 

Attackers do their own wrestling, but more to the point, some are very good at making it look like they are being manhandled, by trapping or linking arms with opposition players and then making it look like they are being impeded.

A lot of the time the holding can be 6 of one half a dozen of the other.

Perhaps an alternative is one warning when the graps happen, then a booking to every player who is grappling.

If someones already booked then off they ****.

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11 hours ago, Red Right Hand said:

It`s only the countries that isolate themselves that look really poor like the Saudis or North Korea where none of their players play in top leagues overseas IMO. 

 

10 hours ago, Portland Bill said:

Agree.

Except for one team not named above.....England!, all of our players play in the same league, a league which personally I don’t think the way the football is played, ( excluding Man City and to an extent Arsenal) is conducive to International tournament football. 

Our players are insular, they only know how to play the Premier league way, it’s been the same for decades ( first division before the Prem) and that’s one of the main reasons we have constantly failed at the big tournaments.

All the top International teams in the world are made up of players who play in various leagues around Europe, the experience and variety of ways they play their football seems to help when they all come together in their International teams.

 

Yet Brazil were always so much more attractive to watch, and successful, when they all played at home in the Brazilian way. Nowadays with the globalisation of the game all teams play in more or less the same way. It used to be so much more interesting and fun to watch in the early days when nations had their own individual ways of playing the game.

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I drew Mexico in the work sweepstake. Traditionally, they tend to get to the knockout stage and no further. 

Yesterday however, they had a game plan and executed it brilliantly, the only problem would be continuing that style of play over the next month.

I have mentioned it before on here, no defender, at any level, (whether that's Sunday League, the Championship, or the World Cup) likes playing against pace. When you have a forward line that's very quick and direct like Mexico have, they can cause even the best defenders issues. They targeted Germany's wing backs' space and their center backs were in panic mode.

Obviously now teams will simply sit back, it will be up to Mexico's coaching staff to try and figure out how to play through their opponents now. They looked very good going forward, just a shame they could not finish better.

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1 hour ago, Port Said Red said:

The couple of arguments against that I can think of are.. if we make a unilateral decision to clampdown on it, players won't how to deal with it on the European and international stage. 

Attackers do their own wrestling, but more to the point, some are very good at making it look like they are being manhandled, by trapping or linking arms with opposition players and then making it look like they are being impeded.

That's like saying that because plenty of players are good at diving , so making it hard to detect, we do nothing about addressing the problem.

At the moment Im not 100% sure of the scope of  VAR, but would have thought incidents in the penalty area, such as holding ( whether by attackers or defenders) would be the ideal issue for which to use technology.

As for a unilateral decision to clamp down, surely that is exactly what we did a couple of seasons ago. At the start of that season there was a concerted effort by referees to penalise players holding in the penalty area, but that initiative fizzled out, I think because of pressure from players and managers that there would be umpteen penalties in games - my opinion is that if it takes umpteen penalties in a game for players to get the message then do it!  

 

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1 hour ago, downendcity said:

That's like saying that because plenty of players are good at diving , so making it hard to detect, we do nothing about addressing the problem.

At the moment Im not 100% sure of the scope of  VAR, but would have thought incidents in the penalty area, such as holding ( whether by attackers or defenders) would be the ideal issue for which to use technology.

As for a unilateral decision to clamp down, surely that is exactly what we did a couple of seasons ago. At the start of that season there was a concerted effort by referees to penalise players holding in the penalty area, but that initiative fizzled out, I think because of pressure from players and managers that there would be umpteen penalties in games - my opinion is that if it takes umpteen penalties in a game for players to get the message then do it!  

 

I do see that. I would like to say that diving is easier to detect with VAR, but having seen Ronaldo get a penalty by dangling his leg in the general direction of a player trying to avoid making a challenge, I am not so sure. Especially when several pundits are adamant it was a clear penalty. ;)

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