The Real Football Thread

[gunara]

Weird WC for Asian teams, lots of thrills, ups, and usual downs in the end. Still better than the previous four, though.

I'm afraid increasing numbers of qualified teams in 2026 will expose more gaps of class from Asian teams more than from other confederations (except if they give more than one to OFC, of course). Other than the usual five, I don't see any other Asian teams will add anything to the big stage. Some claustrophobic second-rated middle east teams (look at Qatar), probably North Korea, China, or Uzbekistan, with Vietnam and Thailand as long shots, are not exactly what you want to see against the big boys. Things about Asia has always been that it has the most selective WC qualifying round (double gruelling group stages for most teams, with preliminary round for weaker teams), so it always had the best possible qualifiers, and now it's about to change.

48 teams never sound like a good idea competition-wise after all.

 

[Red Rick]

I fear we're gonna play a low block 5 at the back and let Messi pick up the ball at 20m and do what he wants

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I fear we're gonna play a low block 5 at the back and let Messi pick up the ball at 20m and do what he wants

Well, the ref is gonna let Messi do what he wants even if it's have a lie down every 20 seconds if somebody comes near to him, and the commentators will wave it off as him being smart for saving his energy, then there's not much the Dutch can do. The refs these days seem to let a lot go in the name of 'protecting the stars', but just breathing near Messi seemed to earn Berghuis a yellow card.

And now we have a bench clearing brawl because Paredes punts the ball into the Dutch bench Danbury Trashers style.

 

[Tim Cahill]

****ing yes go on the Dutch

With my favourite as well, the passed free kick like Zanetti did against us in 1998

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Am only just now tuning in to the Netherlands - Argentina match, looks like they're going to be doing that OT penalty kick thingy.

I'm rooting for the Dutch because, well, just because!

 

[Red Rick]

Well, the ref is gonna let Messi do what he wants even if it's have a lie down every 20 seconds if somebody comes near to him, and the commentators will wave it off as him being smart for saving his energy, then there's not much the Dutch can do. The refs these days seem to let a lot go in the name of 'protecting the stars', but just breathing near Messi seemed to earn Berghuis a yellow card.

And now we have a bench clearing brawl because Paredes punts the ball into the Dutch bench Danbury Trashers style.

Yea I'm so *** fuming it's not even funny.

I hate this sport so much I get pulled back in every tournament

 

[Tim Cahill]

Argentina were on the ropes when they were up against some Dyche style Brexit ball towards the end, but The Dutch just looked knackered in extra time and looked happy to get it to pens.

Think Dumfries has just belted someone on the Argentina bench, unseemly scenes at the final whistle, the likes of which we all want to see. Makes me happy to know that the Italians are here in spirit.

Ref should never see another professional game.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yea I'm so *** fuming it's not even funny.

I hate this sport so much I get pulled back in every tournament

The Qataris paid a lot of money to have the stars come to their country, damned if they're gonna let the stars get outshone. You saw what happened in the Portugal-Switzerland game, with the fans baying for blood because of Ronaldo being dropped even though they won 6-1 and not really reacting to anything until he was sent out for warmups.

 

[gunara]

Look like some countries are just meant to win shootouts, and some are not.
It's almost too easy to predict the winners of the two matches as soon as it went to penalties.

 

[Red Rick]

The Qataris paid a lot of money to have the stars come to their country, damned if they're gonna let the stars get outshone. You saw what happened in the Portugal-Switzerland game, with the fans baying for blood because of Ronaldo being dropped even though they won 6-1 and not really reacting to anything until he was sent out for warmups.

I'm not gonna lie we were complete *** for 90% of the match, but the referee made it such a shitshow i feel stolen all the same.

Especially that sequence where he was giving yellows to everyone then Messi didn't get one for a blatant handbal and then they got a super light penalty as well.

The one thing I disagree with is that they want Ronaldo/Messi per se because the Mbappe is their golden boy.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Bummer, Netherlands. (Saw very little orange in the stadium, looked like most fans wore the colors of Argentina. )

Well, that's that and there's still that England - France match tomorrow, I'll try my best to catch the whole thing this time.

 

[BullsFan22]

Hopefully the French can kick out the arrogant English tomorrow and hoping for a Morocco miracle.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'm not gonna lie we were complete *** for 90% of the match, but the referee made it such a shitshow i feel stolen all the same.

Especially that sequence where he was giving yellows to everyone then Messi didn't get one for a blatant handbal and then they got a super light penalty as well.

The one thing I disagree with is that they want Ronaldo/Messi per se because the Mbappe is their golden boy.

The game was pretty crap for 3/4 of it. Think that soft penalty decision (and Dumfries' idiocy in leaving his leg in to allow it) woke the Dutch up from their slumber, but it's not even like Argentina are all that good. Messi has only really come into the games once they've got the other team having to push, and that's fine because it means that instead of being marked out of things he's getting more room to run or one on ones and we all know how deadly he is in that situation.

Sure Mbappe is the golden boy, but they want big star vs. big star. Messi, for everything he's achieved, doesn't really have a real World Cup moment in his record, either for better or for worse, and that's been one of the long-standing knocks against him, that it took him way too long to do for Argentina what he did week in week out for Barcelona. Tournament matches can make unlikely heroes (Eder springs to mind, no?), but Wout Weghorst isn't putting asses in seats. Argentina had a lot more fans in the stadium even without the neutrals who were overwhelmingly in favour of them, but a lot of the neutrals in Qatar and around aren't cheering Argentina against the Netherlands. They're here to cheer on Lionel Messi to have his Shawn Michaels swansong run. That's just how it is, how it's been for decades. But the cult of the superstar is cultivated big-time in these "new football markets".

Props to van Dijk for stepping up to take the first penalty, but hindsight's a wonderful thing and that was a bad, bad call. Maybe not worse than having Neymar take penalty #10 and thus become utterly superfluous earlier, mind.

 

[Red Rick]

The game was pretty crap for 3/4 of it. Think that soft penalty decision (and Dumfries' idiocy in leaving his leg in to allow it) woke the Dutch up from their slumber, but it's not even like Argentina are all that good. Messi has only really come into the games once they've got the other team having to push, and that's fine because it means that instead of being marked out of things he's getting more room to run or one on ones and we all know how deadly he is in that situation.

Sure Mbappe is the golden boy, but they want big star vs. big star. Messi, for everything he's achieved, doesn't really have a real World Cup moment in his record, either for better or for worse, and that's been one of the long-standing knocks against him, that it took him way too long to do for Argentina what he did week in week out for Barcelona. Tournament matches can make unlikely heroes (Eder springs to mind, no?), but Wout Weghorst isn't putting asses in seats. Argentina had a lot more fans in the stadium even without the neutrals who were overwhelmingly in favour of them, but a lot of the neutrals in Qatar and around aren't cheering Argentina against the Netherlands. They're here to cheer on Lionel Messi to have his Shawn Michaels swansong run. That's just how it is, how it's been for decades. But the cult of the superstar is cultivated big-time in these "new football markets".

Props to van Dijk for stepping up to take the first penalty, but hindsight's a wonderful thing and that was a bad, bad call. Maybe not worse than having Neymar take penalty #10 and thus become utterly superfluous earlier, mind.

Pretty much. Argentina didn't impress me at all. The religion that is Messi baffles me tbh. In tennis I've been annoyed at the religious behavior towards Federer at times, but Messi is another level.

 

[BigCoward]

The Argentinians behavior after they won was disgraceful. Now I'm 'anyone but Argentina', which is a shame because beforehand I wanted them to win, just because of how much Messi winning would piss of that greasy tosspot.

 

[Red Rick]

Was a weird WC for us. I don't think anyone had high expectations and people only started to get hyped before this QF. All this despite being undefeated under LvG, but we had also been playing some pretty dire football. To win these tournaments you either need to be the best or you need a huge amount of luck and clutch, and we never have the latter 2.

For me it's hard to say if it's the players lack of quality, especially the frontline, in comparison to the top teams, or if it's the system implemented by Van Gaal. I will say I highly rate van Gaal as a man manager, and the team spirit seems to have been really good.

And another annoying part about losing in penalties is that's the only subject we'll talk about now. Saying you practiced hard and that it's a lottery is a bit of a cop out to me.

The Argentinians behavior after they won was disgraceful. Now I'm 'anyone but Argentina', which is a shame because beforehand I wanted them to win, just because of how much Messi winning would piss of that greasy tosspot.

I'm on team "Ronaldo wins it on the bench" for the memes at this point.

 

[tobydawq]

For me it's hard to say if it's the players lack of quality, especially the frontline, in comparison to the top teams, or if it's the system implemented by Van Gaal. I will say I highly rate van Gaal as a man manager, and the team spirit seems to have been really good.

He should have made his team continue doing what they did when they got into extra time. I have never liked Messi, never will, and I think it's a pity they won yesterday. But at least the Dutch made one of the most memorable World Cup moments ever with that free kick combination 10 minutes into stoppage time. An actual 200 IQ move.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I wonder what Ronaldo's Dutch-Moroccan boyfriend thinks about this one...

 

[Põhja Konn]

One thing that has caught my attention during this tournament is the role psychology plays in the highest level of the game. How teams and players react to different twists in the game, and also how fear of making costly mistakes and becoming tactically too vulnerable makes coaches voluntarily forego their own sides strenghts in favour of additional solidity in defence. All those aspects have been prevalent to an extent in regular club football too for some time, but are much more pronounced in a tournament consisting of short group stage and several one game knock-out rounds and happening only once in four years.

 

[Ricco']

At least we had already guaranteed two more years of this tax evading national coach.

 

[Netserk]

Easy path to gold for France now.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Thought the lads were excellent, couldn't be more happy with the performance, to turn up at Ewood Park in -8 degrees and stick 4 past them is no easy task, it's really heating up between the Lancashire clubs at the top of the best league in the world (tm).

 

[BigCoward]

It was a terrible penalty, but if you step up with 5 mins to go in a world cup quarter finals, you can miss by as much as you want.

 

[Mayomaniac]

This WC Mbappe has a least delivered, during the last WC he was outperformed by his teammates Varane, Kante and mabye even Griezman, while Giroud wasn't far behind him, and still got all the media hype.

 

[BullsFan22]

Could be a rematch of the 2018 final…