World Cup 2022 thread (football only)

[RUSSEL85]

If Serbia equalised, Switzerland and Cameroon would be equal on points, goal difference and goals for. It would have come down to fair play and that celebration would have blown it for Cameroon. Immaterial? Yes but would have been hilarious. 

[cidercity1987]

Loving the World Cup so far, much better spectacle than the Euros

Second round games look quite mundane though

 

[BigTone]

58 minutes ago, Harry said:

Interesting isn’t it. 
Only England, Netherlands and Morocco unbeaten so far. 

Dont think they can win the tournament but my dark horse for the semi finals is Morocco. They look a well drilled side.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

Interesting isn’t it. 
Only England, Netherlands and Morocco unbeaten so far. 

Unbeaten with 7 points, think Croatia got 5- 1 win and 2 draws.

Edit: USA too- as per Harry.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Harry]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

Interesting isn’t it. 
Only England, Netherlands and Morocco unbeaten so far. 

Oops. I note that Croatia and USA also unbeaten, but with 2 draws and only 1 win. 
Still. 

[Robbored]

Morocco have looked pretty useful in their games so far. They’re turning out to be the dark horses who’ll  go deep into the tournament.

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, RUSSEL85 said:

If Serbia equalised, Switzerland and Cameroon would be equal on points, goal difference and goals for. It would have come down to fair play and that celebration would have blown it for Cameroon. Immaterial? Yes but would have been hilarious. 

Wow...didn't realise that. That would have been even more of a talking point than the Japanese winter last night!

[italian dave]

7 hours ago, 2015 said:

Anyone else think that the Round of 16 should be drawn out of a hat, a bit like how it's done in Champions League and Europa League? It prevents teams from throwing games to get favourable 'paths' and makes things a lot less predictable

What...with FIFA's record???

[Open End Numb Legs]

I think the Portugal manager drinks too much coffee.

[Colombo Robin]

5 hours ago, italian dave said:

Wow...didn't realise that. That would have been even more of a talking point than the Japanese winter last night!

Indeed. Although Tokyo almost down to 6 degrees yesterday!! 

[CiderJar]

It's December now so we can start thinking about Christmas... err hmm... the World Cup (watch out for hidden Weimann)

 

[LoyalRed]

10 hours ago, cidercity1987 said:

Well done England for qualifying with the best record out of all 32 teams

My inclination is Brazil's half of the draw is incredibly weak and ours is much stronger

African nation winners “Senegal” will be our toughest opponents yet and could easily provide another shock in this tournament.  This upcoming fixture reminds me of when we played Cameroon in 1990.  

[Port Said Red]

1 minute ago, LoyalRed said:

African nation winners “Senegal” will be our toughest opponents yet and could easily provide another shock in this tournament.  This upcoming fixture reminds me of when we played Cameroon in 1990.  

I hate to say this but I have been imagining a Famara 95th minute winner since the fixture was confirmed. It's even more likely with the game being on ITV.

Just as well it's not JP doing the commentary because I think his head would explode if that happened!

[And Its Smith]

4 minutes ago, LoyalRed said:

African nation winners “Senegal” will be our toughest opponents yet and could easily provide another shock in this tournament.  This upcoming fixture reminds me of when we played Cameroon in 1990.  

England 2 v 0 “Senegal”

[MarcusX]

16 hours ago, 2015 said:

Anyone else think that the Round of 16 should be drawn out of a hat, a bit like how it's done in Champions League and Europa League? It prevents teams from throwing games to get favourable 'paths' and makes things a lot less predictable

Wouldn’t be possible, it’s all planned based on timings between games and fans need to know where the game may take place. If you think the groups finished yesterday and the first round of 16 game is today it’s just not feasible unless the tournament was longer.

Also, has any team really “thrown” a game to get a supposedly better game? It’s a huge risk more often than not

[MarcusX]

11 hours ago, cidercity1987 said:

Well done England for qualifying with the best record out of all 32 teams

My inclination is Brazil's half of the draw is incredibly weak and ours is much stronger

Let’s be fair, Spain, Brazil and France changed the majority of their starting 11s

[cidercity1987]

11 minutes ago, MarcusX said:

Let’s be fair, Spain, Brazil and France changed the majority of their starting 11s

True, however we changed 4 and smashed the Welsh for 3

[elhombrecito]

34 minutes ago, LoyalRed said:

African nation winners “Senegal” will be our toughest opponents yet and could easily provide another shock in this tournament.  This upcoming fixture reminds me of when we played Cameroon in 1990.  

Do you not believe that "Senegal" exists? 

[sh1t_ref_again]

Now have visions of the England team sat around watching old city games to research how Fam plays 

[Port Said Red]

14 minutes ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Now have visions of the England team sat around watching old city games to research how Fam plays 

Let's hope they watch his first and second seasons, not his last then.

[sh1t_ref_again]

9 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Let's hope they watch his first and second seasons, not his last then.

If they watch the last, they will not find much to worry them

[ExiledAjax]

16 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Let's hope they watch his first and second seasons, not his last then.

Also his third

He also still scored 10 goals in that final season. 20% of all his goals for us.

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by ExiledAjax

[The Bard]

11 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Rumour is that they are going to ditch the 3 team group idea 

Almost like they didn't think through the 48 team idea and were thinking solely about profit rather than practicalities.  

With a 3 team group, the last games would, more often than not, be ripe for collusion. Draws suiting both sides or a narrow win one way or the other. 

The drama this week has been because there have been 2 games going on and that 2 in each group are eliminated. Loads of jeopardy producing the best kind of football.

The format for the euros where most 3rd place teams qualify is dull.  36 group games that eliminate 8 teams from the tournament. At a WC, it would mean 72 group games to get rid of 16 teams.  Not enough jeopardy. If FIFA do that, the first 18 days of the wc will be terribly dull.  Lots of settling for draws.

We've started to see in the Euros that the standard has dropped off because there aren't 24 good European sides.  You get to the point where Scotland are involved. 

Similar question, are there 48 good teams in the world?  There have been 2 really bad sides in Wales and Qatar at this World Cup. I'd argue the others were up to standard.  

If this had been a 48 team world cup, we'd have probably seen Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria, Ukraine, Columbia, Sweden.  But we'd have also seen UAE, Panama and New Zealand. 

So, to summarise, by going for a 48 team wc, they are creating a tournament that is either going to be dull for 2 weeks with little jeopardy or is going to be likely to see some games resembling the last 5 minutes of that Coventry game in 1977.  

They need a different format.

[Port Said Red]

1 minute ago, The Bard said:

Almost like they didn't think through the 48 team idea and were thinking solely about profit rather than practicalities.  

With a 3 team group, the last games would, more often than not, be ripe for collusion. Draws suiting both sides or a narrow win one way or the other. 

The drama this week has been because there have been 2 games going on and that 2 in each group are eliminated. Loads of jeopardy producing the best kind of football.

The format for the euros where most 3rd place teams qualify is dull.  36 group games that eliminate 8 teams from the tournament. At a WC, it would mean 72 group games to get rid of 16 teams.  Not enough jeopardy. If FIFA do that, the first 18 days of the wc will be terribly dull.  Lots of settling for draws.

We've started to see in the Euros that the standard has dropped off because there aren't 24 good European sides.  You get to the point where Scotland are involved. 

Similar question, are there 48 good teams in the world?  There have been 2 really bad sides in Wales and Qatar at this World Cup. I'd argue the others were up to standard.  

If this had been a 48 team world cup, we'd have probably seen Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria, Ukraine, Columbia, Sweden.  But we'd have also seen UAE, Panama and New Zealand. 

So, to summarise, by going for a 48 team wc, they are creating a tournament that is either going to be dull for 2 weeks with little jeopardy or is going to be likely to see some games resembling the last 5 minutes of that Coventry game in 1977.  

They need a different format.

There would probably be enough spaces allocated for several European, Central and South American sides that are commonly at World Cups as well though.

Austria, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Peru for example. Also with any luck life might be back to some sort of normality and Russia might be brought back into the fold. The quality of the competition will only suffer if too many places are giving the lesser regions, and we end up with the likes of Fiji, Western Samoa or Nepal.

[BigTone]

On to today's games I think USA will beat Netherlands. 

Argentina vs Australia will be a close one but think Oz will win AET

[Open End Numb Legs]

So the end of the group stages. A refreshing look to the knock outs with a few teams and players I don't like already gone and the likes of South Korea, USA, Aus and Japan in the mix.

Ideally I wouldn't want Ronaldo or Argentina involved but I can't complain, this is a good mix of teams. Potential for some positive football, it will be interesting to see if the teams with less experience will dig in for wins or give it a lash.

[ExiledAjax]

Apparently this is the first time that all 5 of the main continental confederations (apologies to the OFC) have been represented, and is the first time that all 6 inhabited geographical continents (apologies to the British Antarctic Territory) have been represented. 

[Open End Numb Legs]

Suarez has complained about a lack of respect to Uruguay. Well, what do you expect? A history of nasty behaviour, diving, scuffing penalty spots, flapping arms and screaming at officials. Everything I hate about footballers.

VAR has a lot of problems but modern cameras and replays/reviews have cancelled out intimidating tactics by teams like this. It might work in South America but not in a stadium with hundreds of cameras.

[BigTone]

9 minutes ago, Open End Numb Legs said:

Suarez has complained about a lack of respect to Uruguay. Well, what do you expect? A history of nasty behaviour, diving, scuffing penalty spots, flapping arms and screaming at officials. Everything I hate about footballers.

VAR has a lot of problems but modern cameras and replays/reviews have cancelled out intimidating tactics by teams like this. It might work in South America but not in a stadium with hundreds of cameras.

Suarez could do with studying and understanding the meaning of respect.

[The Bard]

45 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

There would probably be enough spaces allocated for several European, Central and South American sides that are commonly at World Cups as well though.

Austria, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Peru for example. Also with any luck life might be back to some sort of normality and Russia might be brought back into the fold. The quality of the competition will only suffer if too many places are giving the lesser regions, and we end up with the likes of Fiji, Western Samoa or Nepal.

Greece are rubbish.  Surprised you mention  them.

Only one side would qualify from Oceania which is New Zealand (look at the qualifying results). 

Central American sides commonly at the world cup? Like Panama and Honduras you mean? 

Nepal is in the middle of Asia. If they qualify they deserve to be there. Only poor Asian side at this WC was Qatar who didn't qualify. All the others won at least 1 game. It's a stronger federation than people think.

PLaces for next wc - Europe 16, South America 6, Africa 9, Asia 8, Oceania 1, Central/North America 6.  Plus 2 qualifiers.  Don't think the lesser European sides can complain that countries like Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and Ivory Coast have a better chance of making a wc.