2018 FIFA World Cup XXI

[AlexNYC]

It looked like a penalty, but the replay shows that Kane falls on his own and Sanchez trips over him while trying to follow.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Shocked that England managed to win a penalty shoot-out, it wasn't a pretty game , but we take the win.

Really surprised by Colombia, I've enjoyed watching them play over the past few years, but tonight they were thugs. The headbutt towards Henderson, one of their coaches elbowing Sterling at half-time and their players scuffing the penalty spot while some of the other players were protesting. They got what they deserved by such horrible tactics.

For me, it was a penalty, you simply shouldn't have your arms all over another player in the box, you leave the ref no choice.

 

[del1962]

Colombia came to stop England playing, lots of cynical fouls, surrounding the referee, England are no saints, but Colombia where a disgrace, the World Cup will not miss such a cynical team

Nice to see the penalty hoodoo buried as well

 

[Flamin]

Horrible game. Diving, play-acting, dirty fouls, constant whining to the ref. That late equalizer from Mina was a blow for the neutral fan since it meant another 30 minutes of cr*p.

Colombia was unrecognizable. A totally different team from the one I saw play against Poland. For sure they were the instigators but disappointing that England joined the party.

 

[ice&fire]

Suarez and Neymar out. What a great day for football!

 

[DBotero]

Great win for Belgium.Lukaku is an amazing player,he showed his class in every game at this WC.

 

[Scott SoCal]

Great win for Belgium.Lukaku is an amazing player,he showed his class in every game at this WC.

Agreed. Belgium’s counter attack in the first half was deadly.

 

[Brullnux]

Casemiro is so important for brazil/real. I've never really rated him but seeing fernandinho in his position today makes me realise how essential he is. Fernandinho was horrific today, he let hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku get past him so easily.

France v Belgium is going to be interesting, both teams have leaky defences and play on the counter, but France seem to have a stronger midfield and I imagine Mbappe (or even dembele) will seriously hurt the Belgian defence with their pace

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Re:

Casemiro is so important for brazil/real. I've never really rated him but seeing fernandinho in his position today makes me realise how essential he is. Fernandinho was horrific today, he let hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku get past him so easily.

France v Belgium is going to be interesting, both teams have leaky defences and play on the counter, but France seem to have a stronger midfield and I imagine Mbappe (or even dembele) will seriously hurt the Belgian defence with their pace

Despite what the scoreline of the Argentina game might suggest, France's defence isn't leaky. By a lot of metrics, it's actually the best in the tournament. Argentina could only really create three chances and they did a good job of converting each and every one of those but conceding three chances to a team with the firepower of Argentina isn't bad. The other games, the defence has been dominant. Varane and Umtiti are by far the best centre-back pair left in the tournament and they have finally started to gel. Hernandez has been outstanding at left-back and Pavard started out pretty shaky but has really grown in confidence as the tournament progressed. Even Lloris looks good at the moment.

The interesting part is that France defence has been great at shutting down the number one weapon of the other team (for example Suarez today didn't get a shot off or even a touch inside the french box) but Belgium is much more multi-dimensional than the teams France has played to date. We'll see if they can adjust.

On the other hand, Belgium has left tons of gaps and has given up a bunch of goals without the excuse that their opponents are converting their chances at an unsustainable rate. They really are that bad. Meunier is their only good option as a fullback and he won't play. After seeing Douglas Costa tear open the left side of their defence, I have no idea who's going to stop Mbappé.

The real difference though is in midfield. France has looked far more organized in their pressing and has a big edge in term of physicality in the middle of the pitch (this is actually the one defining feature of that French team). Kanté, Pogba and Matuidi can run any team into the ground (Giroud and Griezmann have very high work rates too). While Belgium deserves a ton of credit for getting their creators to buy into their defensive scheme they just don't compare in term of ability to cover ground. Expect them to start to really tire around the hour mark. If Belgium can't get an early goal, they are going to be in a lot of trouble.

On the other side, Croatia is a much better unit than Russia but they often seem to play like less than the sum of their parts in the knockout stage. They have a lot of old legs and the extra time against Denmark will have done them no favour. Still, they are a class above Russia and should advance as I don't see them play with the same passive gameplan as Spain.

Sweden is fresher (no extra time) and a very bad matchup for England. They defend set pieces incredibly well (as long as it's not a direct freekick from Kroos) which will force England to make the difference in open play where they have looked toothless so far. Sweden will probably manage a scrappy goal and should be enough to see them through.

Sweden/Croatia should a tight game that could go either way but I'd rather see Croatia in the final as I like Modric's and Mandzukic's games a lot. By that point, I don't think they'll be able to muster enough energy to trouble the team from the top of the bracket but world cup finals never play out as you expect.

 

[The Hitch]

Belgium again so lucky. Can back with a fluky goal against Japan, Japanese commited harakiri to stop extra time (which Belgium would have won but been tired). Then against Brazil so many times did rickeshades in the area just happen to fall a bit to high or out of the way of a brazil player plus a lucky own goal.

Dont like France either but if we have to have a parade in ten days, I'd much rather it be in Paris than Brussels since France already won one and at least they might stop talking about 1998

 

[DBotero]

Belgium again so lucky. Can back with a fluky goal against Japan, Japanese commited harakiri to stop extra time (which Belgium would have won but been tired). Then against Brazil so many times did rickeshades in the area just happen to fall a bit to high or out of the way of a brazil player plus a lucky own goal.

Dont like France either but if we have to have a parade in ten days, I'd much rather it be in Paris than Brussels since France already won one and at least they might stop talking about 1998

I don't think Belgium were lucky.Hazard could have closed the game on the 60' and they had a lot of counters were they just didn't concentrate enough to make them count.Brazil goal was a great one but they showed too little to say they deserved more from this game.
Japan was the better team but their tactical approach was hilarious considering they had the game in the bag when leading 2-0 and ending with that corner

 

[python]

Re: Re:

EvansIsTheBest wrote

On the other side, Croatia is a much better unit than Russia but they often seem to play like less than the sum of their parts in the knockout stage. They have a lot of old legs and the extra time against Denmark will have done them no favour. Still, they are a class above Russia and should advance as I don't see them play with the same passive gameplan as Spain.

agree with the bolded, but there is the invisible or imperceptible home factor. though, THAT can go either way overburdening the host. i also observed the physical stamina in some russian strikers to bet them run fresher at the end. my sense is the croatian game will be to own the space and the russians not objecting...

Sweden is fresher (no extra time) and a very bad matchup for England. They defend set pieces incredibly well (as long as it's not a direct freekick from Kroos) which will force England to make the difference in open play where they have looked toothless so far. Sweden will probably manage a scrappy goal and should be enough to see them through.

agree again. i also feel sweden will bet on their '2nd floor' advantage. the swedes also have shown a remarkable disciple and i doubt will gift the english their cherished set piece kicks.

 

[Brullnux]

@evans is the best, France have a leaky defence. They gave up opportunities to both Australia and Peru and in their previous matches their defence also didn't look amazing when the game was stretched. Better than Belgium's, but a level below Uruguay and Brazil (until they lost casemiro)

 

[Flamin]

Agree with Hitch that Belgium was lucky. Also let's not forget Kompany's clear foul on Jesus was somehow not a penalty. On the other hand, this team is much more mature than 4 or even 2 years ago. Luck isn't random. The best teams have more 'luck' than minor teams. Therefore they would have never gotten this kind of fortune back then.

@Brullnux
Fernandinho was indeed bad, though I don't know if anyone can stop Belgium on the counterattack when you move forward as much as Brazil did.

As for Brazil vs France defence. France has more pace at the back, which is of course very important against Lukaku, Hazard, KDB. I'd definitely fancy the French to handle them better than Brazil did.

@DBotero
Ehm, Belgium was just sloppy at times in 2nd half, messing up multiple 3v4 or even 4v4 situations. That's not an argument to say they weren't lucky. Their level dropped.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

@evans is the best, France have a leaky defence. They gave up opportunities to both Australia and Peru and in their previous matches their defence also didn't look amazing when the game was stretched. Better than Belgium's, but a level below Uruguay and Brazil (until they lost casemiro)

I'm not saying France is playing like Italy '06 at the back but leaky is just going too far. Apart from a moment of madness from Umtiti with the penalty he conceded against Australia, they completely shut down the teams in their group. Argentina got a great finish from Di Maria, a fluky deflection of Mercado and a well-worked goal from Aguero. But at the end of the day, that's a game where France only made two mistakes defensively (not closing out faster on Di Maria and giving Aguero too much space on his header) which isn't terrible against such a talented team. Uruguay created one good scoring opportunity in the entire game. I mean those are not the number of a leaky defense :

Opponent Shots against / Shots on target against / Expected Goals against
Uruguay 11 / 5 / 0.7
Argentina 10 / 4 / 1
Denmark 5 / 2 / 0.1
Peru 10 / 2 / 0.3
Australia 6 / 1 / 0.2 (+ 1 penalty)

Those, on the other seem a lot more problematic :
Opponent Shots against / Shots on target against / Expected Goals against
Brazil 27 / 9 / 2.5
Japan 11 / 4 / 0.8
England 11 / 2 / 0.6
Tunisia 16 / 5 / 1.1
Panama 7 / 2 / 0.5

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Yes!! Marvellous England in semifinal!
And The Final Countdown..... France against England...... next Sunday...... just after Roubaix stage........ epic.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Excellent. A few thousands of Britons singing......

 

[Brullnux]

Solid win by England. Sweden poor but England decent apart from the few goal scoring chances.

 

[del1962]

So England play Croatia or Russia, I prefer Croatian as even though they have better players, Russia in Moscow would be very difficult

 

[del1962]

Re:

Excellent. A few thousands of Britons singing......

How many where Scotsmen

 

[Hayabusa]

Really happy that England have made it through but I still feel the winner will come from the France/Belgium game. Kudos to Sweden for getting so far and playing in the right spirit of the game (unlike Colombia!).

 

[ferryman]

Re:

Excellent. A few thousands of Britons singing......

How many where Scotsmen

don't think many were watching.................those that were would have been gutted

after cheering on sweden...................LOL

Mark L

Ah, the classic Anglo/Saxon conquered English perception of the Scots and Welsh who still relish our unique Celtic Briton heritage. And btw I think you'll find at least 2 million Scots Rangers fans would have been right behind you. And well done by the way. Good luck against Croatia but no chance

 

[python]

bot sky, are you into a post count with 1-2 word posts 1 min apart ? cant you condense those one-worders into 1 post ?

watch out for a yellow or red card if you cant

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re:

bot sky, are you into a post count with 1-2 word posts 1 min apart ? cant you condense those one-worders into 1 post ?

watch out for a yellow or red card if you cant

Oh, yes, you right, but now it doesn't matter, believe me..................

 

[python]

i could care less, but it may matter to you, what's the word, kurv...?, if yo get a red card ?