Apparently they set a new record: 62 shots at goal in 180 mns and no goal scored!
I mainly watch highlights, not entire games. Tonight it’s Holland, so I’ll be watching, but I don’t expect too much from this Orange team.
I read that France is now favorite to win the title, they took over the first spot from Spain in that aspect. Spain is now second, along with England:
France 7/2
Spain, England 5/1
Argentina 7/1
Portugal 8/1
Brazil 10/1
Germany 12/1
Holland 20/1
Morocco, Norway, USA 28/1
Belgium, Colombia, Mexico 40/1
Canada only 80/1, in spite of their historic 6-0 victory over … Qatar. That result shows exactly what’s wrong with this tournament and its 48 participants. What the hell are countries like Qatar, Haïti or Curaçao doing on a World Cup?
Those odds are about right. Though England’s odds are always shortened due to the huge volume of bets from casual fans.
Morocco outclassed Scotland in the first-half, yet after that early strike, they couldn’t finish; which will probably be their undoing against a better opponent later on. The Scots will need a point against Brazil, or at least avoid a heavy defeat. While it’s not exactly the Brazil of Zico, Dr. Socrates, Careca, Ronaldo, Rivaldo et al; there’s enough firepower to put 2 or 3 past Scotland.
Türkiye waited 24 years to play in the World Cup; only to get eliminated after two matches, courtesy of the head-to-head rule. Aside from a fine winning goal from Matías Galarza; the highlight of the match was the angry scene-stealing theatrics of referee señor Barton in sending off Paraguyan winger Miguel Almirón just before half-time: “After review! No. 10 Paraguay!! Cover his mouth!!! Decision is red card!!!”
The Netherlands were far too clinical for Sweden. You could argue that the Swedes shouldn’t even be in the World Cup after finishing rock bottom of their qualifying group. They’ll probably still advance to the next phase.
And then Curaçao get a point out of their game with Ecuador!
Ecuador is, by the way, one of the underachievers of this World Cup, almost on a par with Turkey: they ended second in the South-American qualification group, so you’d say they’re quite strong, but now they lose their game with Ivory Coast and can’t beat a selection of semi-professionals and recreational footballers! If the Germans do their duty - they’re already group winners if I’m not mistaken - they will no doubt be kicked out of the tournament.
I didn’t expect much from The Netherlands and they beat Sweden 5-1 in an attractive game of football, and I had higher hopes for Belgium and so far they have bored me to death in two consequetive games. 1-1 and 0-0 are poor, very poor results when the opponents were Egypt and Iran.
Maybe it’s not a good choice to put all your hopes on Lukaku while the guy is obviously not top fit. But apart from that, the team looks listless and incoherent, even Debruyne looks clueless.
As said Holland did well against Sweden, but I still don’t think they will get to the final stages of the tounament. They look too shaky in defense, Virgil van Dijk is over his peak and lacks speed and Van Hecke is not my favourite player, I don’t understand why Tottenham Hotspurs payed so much money for him.
Despite my earlier miserable rant I am (of course) still watching some highlights and parts of some games. It was inevitable.
I must say the Netherlands v Sweden game has lifted my spirits. Constant attacking from both teams. Everyone looking to pass the ball forward. Lots of goals but just as importantly lots of attempts on goal and a noticeable lack of sideways and backwards passing to no effect. Thoroughly enjoyed that one. More like that please.
Well, it was a good reason for me to call it a day and go to bed. The game was suspended and it was a lousy game anyway, France being much to strong for Iraq. If the French had done their best, it could have been a record score, but but they were just loafing around, trying out all sorts of weird heel flicks and combinations and things like that. The Iraqis contributed to the rather ridiculous spectacle by making the craziest mistakes.
1 from Europe (Turkey as negative surprise)
1 from Africa
1 from Asia
2 from North America
Some of the usual suspects had problems in one game, but they are all on the way to the 16 finals, only Belgium is in danger, but I assume they will make it too. No real surprises, and of course some of the underdogs performed well, which means they defended very well and had some luck.
But the big stars all scored some goals, they showed what they are able to do. And that’s something that happens not so often that they are all at its best from the beginning on.
Next week we can really start with this tournament.
Unfortunately the schedule seems to be unbalanced: we will probably get a Netherlands - Marocco or Brazil in the round of 32 and a France - Germany in the round of 16. Bad for the tournament: Both games should have been at least a quarter final. At the same time Belgium, if they end only second in their group (which would be a shame) will meet either Paraguay or Australia in the round of 32; they really were lucky at the draw.
Not sure about that. Morocco are a strong team and they have the best player of last year’s Dutch League, Ismael Saibari (who’s by the way going to Bayern Munchen).
But that’s not the reason why I would prefer to meet Brazil: there’s a large Moroccan community in Holland, and things aren’t going too well in our beloved multicultural society, to put it mildly. A Netherlands - Morocco game will cause a lot of trouble, before, during and after the match, whatever the outcome will be.
Well, as it turned out, Germany didn’t kick Ecuador out of the tournament. They tried - with that kick to the head! - but Ecuador were worthy winners. A dead rubber for Germany, but they’ll have to improve if they play France in the last 16.
In fact, this has been a successful group phase for the ‘lesser’ South American teams: with Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay all progressing to the knockout stages. Four-time world champions Uruguay will need a point against Spain; which may be enough, if they’re lucky. If La Celeste lose - then a point for Cabo Verde against Saudi Arabia (who can still qualify with a win), will clinch an unlikely second place. Although the shortcomings in the 48-team format evident in the Australia v Paraguay match, which ended in a dull draw that suited both teams.
Japan earned the privilege of meeting Brazil in the next round. The Netherlands now have a clear path to the quarter-final - Morocco, then the winner of Canada v South Africa.
Ecuador ended second in the South American qualification group, that is: above Uruguay, Colombia, Paraguay and .. even above Brazil, so it was clear that they were a decent team. I saw only some highlights of their first two games, so I don’t know what happened to them, but obviously they could do a lot better. And they did yesterday and deservedly won their game against Germany. I know Germany replaced some of their better players in the second half, they didn’t need a result, etc. But still…
I wonder what both team are still capable of in the rest of the tournament. Ecuador is not a serious contender for the title, but they can make things difficult for most opponents. And Germany? Well, they will meet France in the round of 16, unless some very odd things happen (France losing to a N°3 for instance - just imagine), and that will be the great test for Nagelsmann and his team.
Btw: Unbelievable that this German goal wasn’t disallowed, but that’s all academic now
Well, France may loose against Norway today, that’s possible, cause Norway is the outsider with the greatest potential, and then it would be them, but that’s not really better for Germany.
Actually my expectations for Germany were low, and they are lower now. They made already in the first half too much mistakes, and did so in the 2 games before. With so much bad passing they will be killed by either France or Norway easily.
And they are not anymore the tournament beasts they once had a reputation for.
With such low expectations they now can only surprise me, but I wouldn’t be surprised either if they lose already next Monday (most likely against Paraguay)
In my view we don’t know yet where this German team stands. Curaçao was no serious opponent, so those seven goals didn’t mean much, and yesterday there wasn’t much at stake for the team, so this defeat isn’t saying a lot either.
I don’t see them getting into serious trouble against Paraguay, most probably the weakest South-American team participating in this world cup. France or Norway will be different story, of course. France has the most talented group of players of all teams, in that aspect they’re even stronger than Spain, but football is a team sport. I saw their friendly game against Ivory Coast (1-2), they dominated nearly the entire game, but all those stars were playing for themselves, they were not playing like a team, and they looked very laconic. They showed the same shortcomings in their game against Iraq. Okay, they didn’t need to be concentrated against that opponent, but against Norway or Germany the attitude could cost them dearly.
The tournament average on goals is already under 3, and will usually go further down in the knock out - games
Of course football would be much more exciting with more goals, and would less depend on luck or happenstance.
That was originally different, in the early WCs the goal average was between 4 and 5, with the all time high of 5,38 goals in 1954. In the early days teams often played with 2 defenders and 5 forwards. The main purpose was to make goals, of course.
But in 1962 football had discovered that defending is a probable way not too lose. And the goal average sank to 2,78, and since then the average of most WCs lies between 2,6 and 2,8 goals per game. With the all time low of 2,27 in 2010.
But football never tried really to change the rules and/or the terms to return to an attractive 5 goal average.
In Ice Hockey the average lies about 7 per game (which is actually much more than I had assumed)
Like someone said in Belgium: Football has become a horizontal instead of a vertical game. In the past you hardly saw back passes, players played the ball forward (vertically) as quickly as possible to use the free space. But today there is no free space because most teams keep most of their players on their own half, so there is no reason to play the ball forward as quickly as possible, resulting in endless series of wide (horizontal) passes or - even worse - back passes. Most games therefore become slow and sleep-inducing, one team is defending, the other team is desperately trying to find an opening in the defensive fortress and is simply not able to find one. Spain - Capo Verde is a good example of what happens in those occasions. Well, virtually nothing happens actually, and we, football fans, doze off … zzzz
There were a couple of attractive games, Netherlands - Sweden, England - Croatia and - to some extent - Germany - Ecuador, because in those games there were TWO teams who tried to play football, two teams who tried to play the game vertically.
Well put, you only get attractive games in games with both teams on eye level.
The lesser teams are not able to make the game, but they have learned to bring perfection to the defending. And well, what else should they do? If they also try to play offensive they will be destroyed by players like Messi, Yamal, Mbappe, there is a certain logic behind that all.
Result: not much will happen until the quarter finals.
Solution: Make the goals bigger, so that the teams are forced to attack earlier.
Stil some of the favourites were able to score many goals, cause with 48 teams the quality gaps became bigger.
And actually checking the results of this WC and of the ones before, there should be more qualification possibilities for the European teams against other continents. If Italy had qualified they probably would have been belonged to the favourites. Not amongst the top 4, but easily amongst the top 10.
After 72 matches the group stage has finally concluded. As expected the top contenders all won their groups: so we have Germany, France and Spain in one half of the draw; then Brazil, England and Argentina in the other, more favourable half. Quite unbalanced too, as there are 10 European teams on one side, only 3 on the other. One would assume FIFA want a Europe v South America final, once again.
The full bracket schedule of the rest of the World Cup
The left ‘European’ half looks stronger than the right, ‘South-American’ half.
I call the left half European because the two great favourites France & Spain are in that half, and so are the main challengers, Germany, Netherlands and Portugal. The other half gets the label South-American because the two giants from that continent, Argentina and Brazil are part of it, and so are two other countries from that continent, Ecuador and Colombia. Looks like a South-American party overthere, but luckily there’s England that could spoil the fun.
Are there any dark horses, left or right? Most of us will think of Norway. And yes, it would be nice to have a completely ‘new’ team in the semi-finals, and the Vikings made a good impression (even their B-team against France). We’ll see. On the left Morocco might be the biggest thread to the usual suspects.
Congrats Canada, but the first match in this round of 32 was one to quickly forget. Fortunately, a goal was scored in added time, otherwise this torment would have lasted another half hour longer.
