Official Football Thread

The phantom of 2004 is all over the place. A small country with granite defence that cunt be beaten, again, Ronaldo is crying, again. Well deserved so far for Morocco, very passionate team.
 
On purpose! Since there's the ghost of 2004 mentioned, and that ghost is Greek obviously.

I had a strong feeling of 2004 deja vu, even before Ronaldo cries. It reminded me Greece so much. As soon as they scored, I knew it was over for Portuguese. English or French will have an extremely difficult job to beating them.
 
Good luck to France if the play like this with Morocco. Both coming matches will be super exciting and NOT to be taken for granted.
 

Qatar 2022 top assisters: 4 France vs 2 Croatia​


Antoine Griezmann (3) -FRA

Bruno Fernandes (3) -POR
Harry Kane (3) -ENG

Theo Hernandez (2) -FRA
Kylian Mbappe (2) -FRA
Ousmane Dembele (2) -FRA
Mislav Orsic (2) -CRO
Ivan Perisic (2) -CRO

Raphael Guerreiro (2) -POR
Jordi Alba (2) -SPA
Diogo Dalot (2) -POR
Denzel Dumfries (2) -NET
Joao Felix (2) -POR
Phil Foden (2) -ENG
Davy Klaassen (2) -NET
Christian Pulisic (2) -USA
Dusan Tadic (2) -SER
Vinicius Junior (2) -BRA
Andrija Zivkovic (2) -SER

Sad to see Portugal with 4 top assisters go.
On the list also 2 England, 2 Netherlands, 2 Serbia (kudos), 1 USA, 1 Spain, 1 Brazil.

Source, with top assisters since 1966

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Perun said:
Brazil-Croatia and Spain-Portugal in Quarter finals. Semi-finals Brazil-Argentina and Spain-France. Final Brazil-Spain, Brazil will take their sixth world cup title. France will take the third place playoff.
Click to expand...

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I am very pleased with who is gonna play in the final. First time since 1986 that I follow World Cup I support both teams and will be happy whoever wins it.
My first choice is Argentina since France won it last time, plus Messi factor. But I'll be almost equally happy should France wins =first back to back in decades, Didier Deschamps, Antoine Griezmann, a team with no big egos, plus I just love the country.
 
Nice video about the battle of brands Nike vs Adidas and how Nike took over Adidas since and largely due to 1994 World Cup.

 
It all went perfect for the Qataris. Best World Cup Final ever, with the 2 mega-stars belonging to the same, Qatari-owned team, and both delivered a great deal of football in the tournament and during the game.

Scaloni did a genius tactical move to start with Di Maria on the left side and exploit the weakest of 2 French sides. Deschamps risked by having both Giroud & Dembele in the starting squad. The fact that he subbed them before the half break shows, in my opinion that he was considering this move right from the start.

From then on, Deschamps threw inside everything he had, even going as far as to sub Griezmann and Hernandez and left France spineless at 4-2-4 and without experienced players in the shoutout.

On the other hand Scaloni did the mega mistake to sub Di Maria something that immediately weaken the Argentine agility and penetration. A terrible decision that he almost payed with a loss.

Thankfully for the Argentines they had Emile Martinez a penalty magician, who realised that no.2 & 3 takers were young and unexperienced and he physiologically bullied them; Note how he was standing in front of Coman (taker No.2) and how he threw the ball so Tchouameni (taker No.3) to go and pick it up. They both lost their penalties.
*And let's not forget the last moment save he did at 120+3' unbelievable!
In contrast France's Lloris was a disaster failing to stop at least one of 2 bad penalties (Messi, Dybala) or that one of Paredes.

Argentine deserved to win. They totally dominated the match for 80' and they demolished French in the centre by most of the time. And if Scaloni hadn't subbed Di Maria maybe we would be seeing a 3-0 final score instead.

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Has this ever happened before? Parade bus in the host country with such an ambience!! Wonderful celebrations! Lucky Messi! I've never seen craziest parade!

 
____no5 said:
Thankfully for the Argentines they had Emile Martinez a penalty magician, who realised that no.2 & 3 takers were young and unexperienced and he physiologically bullied them; Note how he was standing in front of Coman (taker No.2) and how he threw the ball so Tchouameni (taker No.3) to go and pick it up. They both lost their penalties.
Click to expand...

Expanding more on the above here's what Emile Martinez's (goalkeeping) coach in Aston Villa has to say about that --> 7:10.

 
Nice video exploring Final's tactics, correctly pointing out the mistake of subbing Di Maria something that the usual pundits I follow (Lineker, Ferdinand etc) didn't mentioned much if at all.
Scaloni has been proven a great tactician but did some crucial mistakes that nearly costed him the World Cup; both Netherlands & France taking it to penalties from 0-2, is not a coincidence. Hopefully the trophy will boost his confidence and winning strategy.


I have now downloaded all Argentina's matches in order to re-watch them and spot the analysis I've gone through on the internet.
 
____no5 said:
Nice video exploring Final's tactics, correctly pointing out the mistake of subbing Di Maria something that the usual pundits I follow (Lineker, Ferdinand etc) didn't mentioned much if at all.
Scaloni has been proven a great tactician but did some crucial mistakes that nearly costed him the World Cup; both Netherlands & France taking it to penalties from 0-2, is not a coincidence. Hopefully the trophy will boost his confidence and winning strategy.


I have now downloaded all Argentina's matches in order to re-watch them and spot the analysis I've gone through on the internet.
Click to expand...
Yes, Scaloni made mistakes. However, they were nowhere close to Deschamps' 2 man midfield at the beginning of the final. What the hell was he thinking... And afterwards, he was just subbing on players to see if something sticks.

But yeah, Scaloni is a great tactician.
 
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