2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

Black Wizard said:
I was expecting Spain-Holland to be a snore-fest because of Spain. :p Italy-England does have potential though. With traditional Italian tactics and Roy Hodgson.

Greece are playing tomorrow though. :yawn:
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Against Colombia, though. If Colombia breaks free from the Greek defense early, it'll be a fun game.
 
So Chile beat Australia 3-1. Probably means the Aussies are going to get nothing from this World Cup except a nice trip to Brazil.

First up today: Colombia vs Greece.
 
Thank you Netherlands, that was a beautiful thing :notworthy:

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"Please stop this :("
"ONE MORE!"
 
Before the match, I said Spain's style was like Barcelona without the flair of Messi. Looking back at the game I'll say this: I was wrong. They tried several things we're not used to see from them..
  • Shots from a distance. Spain usually don't try their luck from outside the box, but yesterday they did so several times.
  • Runs behind the defense. They tried this a lot more than they usually do - maybe because they wanted to utilize Diego Costa's speed. It didn't really work that well. They created a couple of chances, but it didn't seem like a weapon they had been trained in using.
  • Their defending: Usually, when they lose the ball, they are quick to press and try to win it back. Yesterday they were that little bit too slow in this phase, several times, allowing the Dutch to start one lethal counterattack after another.
So, Spain's desire to try something new, combined with the fact they didn't win the ball back as quickly as they usually do, gave Holland the chance to punish them. A chance the Dutch ruthlessly took. The result was that Spain got spanked - or what do you say @Night Prowler?
 
Stunning stuff yesterday! That goal by Van Persie (and also that pass by Daley Blind!) was so wonderful. First he did as if he was going to take the ball on his chest. Everyone thought that. Also Casillas.

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Spain underestimated the Dutch. Casillas can be blamed for all 5 goals they conceded. Pique/Ramos are overrated as fuck. Both have their moments, but when they fuck up, they fuck up royally. Also, Van Gaal's new formation worked wonders. Three center backs + De Jong and two full backs allowed Sneijder, RVP and Robben to focus only on attacking.
 
Another thing: United should get Daley Blind, not Luke Shaw. That was a superb performance yesterday. He has more experience and he'd cost less than an overrated English player :P (Shaw has potential, but he isn't worth 25m or whatever they offered)
 
Blind gave some excellent passes indeed. Both the first and the second goal. And he played the most matches for Holland last season. A very stable and talented value as his father was once for Ajax.

Lots of football specialists on TV can change their tone now. Van Gaal's system got so much criticism. Still..... as awesome as it was, it's just one match. I hope the players will get out the clouds soon and land on the ground again, with both feet. Chile is said to be stronger than Spain and Australia plays very different from Spain.
 
Spain play a defensive game. I've been saying this for years. Ball possession doesn't necessarily mean you're playing an offensive game. Spain do not dictate the ball to create chances, they do it to avoid giving up chances. They play on a very slow tempo. That's foolish at this point. Elite counter attacking football defeats tiki-taka, it's been shown time and time again. Last year Bayern annihilated Barcelona, Brazil annihilated Spain, and this year Real annihilated Bayern, Netherlands annihilated Spain (even a significantly weaker Dortmund have dominated Bayern on two occasions this season). Spain have very quick and talented players, it's a damn shame that they're wasting their potential. When you have guys like Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, David Silva on your team, you should not play defensive football, EVER.

Netherlands obviously learned their lesson from watching the past games where tiki taka failed. They applied high pressure on every part of the pitch (not just strikers or midfielders but the whole team) and counter attacked without wasting any time.

There are just a handful of teams who can beat Spain by using the high pressure/counter attacking system, because the amount of teams who can play that style on an elite level is very low. Netherlands was one of them due to their well conditioned team and fast, skilled attackers. Germany, Brazil and Netherlands, to me, are the only national teams who can dominate Spain like this, but there are some teams who can give some hard time to Spain on a lesser level. And their upcoming opponent, Chile, is one of them. They're also a well conditioned team with quick attackers (Alexis Sanchez).
 
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Well conditioned. That's something that showed yesterday: The Dutch were more fit. Van Gaal has been hammering on that for two years.

EDIT:
A tactical thing Van Gaal wanted to see from his team and on which was trained specifically: "pass a station" in the attack.
So, far balls, not to a midfielder or to the next player. No, the pass should pass a station and reach someone further.
 
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Definitely. Football is a much more athletic sport nowadays, and high pressure/counter attack football is the best one if you can do it on an elite level. It almost fully depends on being well conditioned. When you take a look at the distance numbers of the teams that beat tiki-taka, you'll see amazing stuff.

Because they're the first team to expose weaknesses of tiki-taka to elite high pressure football, I'll use Bayern as an example again. Bayern München ran like crazy last year with Heynckes and they stopped that system to play more under control and on a slower pace with Guardiola. Results were obvious.

Forostar said:
Well conditioned. That's something that showed yesterday: The Dutch were more fit. Van Gaal has been hammering on that for two years.

EDIT:
A tactical thing Van Gaal wanted to see from his team and on which was trained specifically: "pass a station" in the attack.
So, far balls, not to a midfielder or to the next player. No, the pass should pass a station and reach someone further.
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That's a great strategy, especially when you're using counter-attacking. And Netherlands ran that to perfection yesterday. (e.g. Daley Blind's assists and Wesley Sneijder's assist on the 5th goal)
 
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Have to agree on that analysis. The tiki-taka style is well suited to control the game against opposition of weaker quality. But on the top, top level, the style has been found out. Teams that have the physical ability to press high at the pace required will be able to break down a tiki-taka team. But of course: That pressure is very demanding physically. You cannot expect any team to do that for 90 minutes.
 
After this I'll stop being euphoric (who knows if they fuck up next match), but "the last in line", the defense. For every one of them: their first big tournament. They hardly gave anything away. Lots of compliments in their direction!
 
I think the fact that three of those defenders play for the same team (Feyenoord) plays a major role in their adaptation to the big scene.
 
By the way: Aftenposten, one of Norway's biggest newspapers, managed a royal fuckup on their front page today. In the lower left corner we could read "Nederland knuste Tyskland 5-1". Knuste simply means smashed, and I think you can all guess that Tyskland is not the Norwegian name for Spain :D

It's Germany. Maybe they have already started thinking about possible headlines for the final?
 
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