...::[The Footy Desk]::... (Part 2)

[Cordohen]

That Group C qualifying was intense... for Mexico. So close to get that 2nd place, they needed to score 1 more goal. They deserved a lot more than Poland. We could have had the same scenario as in 2018 with Japan winning over Senegal thanks to Fair-play (less yellow cards) lmao. Poland against Argentina was ridiculous, they didn't even attempt to score. They qualified without playing football. If I was Mexican I would be so angry rn.

 

At least France isn't going against Argentina again in the round of 16, so that's a welcoming change, lol. Would have preferred to play against Mexico, cause Poland is probably just gonna defend with their 11 men inside the box, which is gonna be horrible to watch. Now I just hope Poland won't Switzerland us like in 2021 by going through the penalty kicks. Szczęsny is a far better GK (especially in penalties) than Lloris. This is where I regret Maignan's injury...

 

Also Denmark is already out and Australia got through... that's a surprise.

 

Won't even comment on that France-Tunisia game. I think this is a game that should be erased from our memory. Our subs were mediocre, Deschamps went wild with his line-up (only Varane and Tchouameni from our A-team on the field, I didn't expect that much change). Thankfully that game (and that late canceled goal by Griezmann which was kinda controversial) didn't have any effect on the qualifying whatsoever.

[yoječ]

16 minutes ago, Cordohen said:

Poland against Argentina was ridiculous, they didn't even attempt to score. They qualified without playing football. If I was Mexican I would be so angry rn.

As a Pole I can only say that I felt... indifferent about our advance to next round. Having watched most of our pre-cup matches with current coach, I can assure you that they play like this every. single. f*cking. match. This is just plain unwatchable to anybody. I feel no attachment to the national team with their loser mentality (prior to World Cup they've straight up stated that they won't win against Argentina).

 

I gave up, I haven't watched our matches at WC even for a minute. This would be unthinkable for me to say a year ago. This is not football, I don't care anymore.

 

The worst part is (apparently) by advancing to the next round, the coach's contract has now been automatically extended to the end of Euro 2024 qualifications. 🤮

Edited December 1, 2022 by yoječ

[Cordohen]

14 minutes ago, yoječ said:

As a Pole I can only say that I felt... indifferent about our advance to next round. Having watched most of our pre-cup matches with current coach, I can assure you that they play like this every. single. f*cking. match. This is just plain unwatchable to anybody. I feel no attachment to the national team with their loser mentality (prior to World Cup they've straight up stated that they won't win against Argentina).

 

I gave up, I haven't watched our matches at WC even for a minute. This would be unthinkable for me to say a year ago. This is not football, I don't care anymore.

 

The worst part is (apparently) by advancing to the next round, the coach's contract has now been automatically extended to the end of Euro 2024 qualifications. 🤮

I can feel your pain, brother.

 

At least, even if Poland doesn't really impress that much today, it's not the French 2010 WC scenario fiasco which was infuriating for us back at the time. Made me stop watching my national team for 3 years until Deschamps became manager and fixed most of the broken things.

 

Some players like Szczęsny, Lewy or Zielinski deserve better though. I'm happy for them to qualify. But as a team, yeah Poland is a pain to watch lol. I hope the situation will change though, Poland should be more than this. Feels like they wasted a lot of those past few years.

[Jason]

Not sure I agree that we saw a good Argentina last night. We saw an extremely poor Poland side, they didn't do anything and they didn't try to do anything, they rolled over and let Argentina keep the ball for 90 minutes which is begging for defeat against any time.

 

So not sure anyone will be fearing them in the latter stages on that form.

[yoječ]

24 minutes ago, Cordohen said:

Some players like Szczęsny, Lewy or Zielinski deserve better though.

Yeah, that's my main gripe with this situation. Not that our style (if there even is any) is extremely bad, but given our players by all acounts it SHOULDN'T be this bad and we shouldn't settle for this. And most of all, it looks to be deliberate.

 

This just hurts to watch. For a brief moment that Paolo Sousa coached us in previous year it really looked way, WAY better. We've played a more offense-oriented, open footbal. Even when we lost, you still felt as if we at least gave a shot, which made the whole experience much more enjoyable. Right now it looks like our players don't even care. Granted, I have to admit that with Sousa the results weren't really there and I'm not wishing for the guy to come back (i think Flamengo fans can relate), but my point is that we really should look for a coach with a similar profile. Instead of... whatever we have now. It's absurd that in my lifetime we had only one proper national team coach with lots of experience (Leo Beenhakker).

 

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's bad that Poland advanced to the next round and I'm not wishing them the worst. It just doesn't really matter to me anymore. Not gonna watch the match versus France.

Edited December 1, 2022 by yoječ

[Cordohen]

 

I think this pic summarizes Poland quite well  

[TheSantader25]

6 hours ago, Cordohen said:

 

I think this pic summarizes Poland quite well  

The bus should be depicted as broken/burnt with only the driver (Szczesny) surviving.

Edited December 1, 2022 by TheSantader25

[Donald Lov]

5 hours ago, Cordohen said:

Szczęsny is a far better GK (especially in penalties) than Lloris. This is where I regret Maignan's injury...

 

As a regular Serie A viewer, trust me, that's not the case Szczęsny has been dreadful for Juve the last couple of seasons. Not sure how good or bad Lloris is(maybe @Lonely-Martin can tell us), but Juve fans are not happy with their goalkeeper most of the time, let's put it that way

Idk, maybe Szczęsny is one of those who tends to be much better at national team football that club football. Ochoa is an extreme example of that. The guy turns into a freak of nature whenever there is a World Cup, but then the season starts, and he is benched at Malaga or hanging out at Ajacco in Ligue 1's relegation battle or something.

[TheSantader25]

Wtf is going on in group E?

[yoječ]

 

2 hours ago, Donald Lov said:

dk, maybe Szczęsny is one of those who tends to be much better at national team football that club football.

Szczęsny's performance is just really uneven, both in league and in national team. He can save you a game just to embarass himself the very next match. I think he made a mess in pretty much every euro/world cup he's been in, apart from this one. As far as the Polish team goes, the public opinion is split whether he should be the first goalie - although after Fabiański left, our other options are not quite up to par. Personally, I don't mind him that much, we've got much bigger problems to sort out elsewhere.

[Karl11]

Auf wiedersehen Deutschland! 😋

[Jason]

And here I was not being fussed over the evening games cause I figured they were a formality.

 

Both of them going out was incredibly unlikely but it does bring a smile on my face to see the old enemy going out in the groups. Japan's celebrations were amazing as well, that's exactly what the WC is about.

[Cordohen]

f*cking hell CR and Japan were topping the Group for a couple minutes lmao. What an evening yet again.

 

Now Spain is in France, England and possibly Portugal's part of the board. This is going to be tough for us europeans lol. But Spain gonna have to watch out for Morocco, especially after that defeat against Japan.

[Ari Gold]

Stoked for the Japanese to make it through - always loved watching them play.

 

And as a Serbian-Aussie, needless to say I am ecstatic about the Socceroos going through as well! On paper this is possibly the worst squad out of all that have qualified since 2006 (to the point where, when they qualified against Peru, you probably have 1/10th the reaction compared to the 2005 qualifying win over Uruguay... a lot of people didn't even notice ), yet the heart and tenacity that they play with, and their tactical cohesion (props to Graham Arnold) should be a template for any team that isn't in the top 15 in the World on how to play in a major tournament (especially Serbia 👀).

[Shyabang Shyabang]

 

[cactus.]

5 hours ago, Ari Gold said:

And as a Serbian-Aussie, needless to say I am ecstatic about the Socceroos going through as well! On paper this is possibly the worst squad out of all that have qualified since 2006 (to the point where, when they qualified against Peru, you probably have 1/10th the reaction compared to the 2005 qualifying win over Uruguay... a lot of people didn't even notice ), yet the heart and tenacity that they play with, and their tactical cohesion (props to Graham Arnold) should be a template for any team that isn't in the top 15 in the World on how to play in a major tournament (especially Serbia 👀).

 

absolutely. I was not expecting much at all from Australia this time around and am kind of shocked by their performance so far! I was expecting more from Serbia, too! they have some nice attacking power up front. I hope they get through tomorrow and then find some good form from there.

 

This tournament has been great so far. By chance, the groups happen to be very balanced and the fact that it goes down to the final minutes of the final game with any of the four teams still able to advance shows that. I hope the knockout rounds will live up to the hype!

[Timsalabimbo]

Japan's coach has such strange tactics. Always starts the better players (aside from Kamada) on the bench -> finds out it doesn't work -> brings on Mitoma, Doan, Tomiyasu -> Japan turns the game around. Why not give them starts?¿? Especially Mitoma. He rips up flanks for fun.

[Karl11]

Korea in, Uruguay out, great game from Koreans as well & yeah 2 goals to Ghana weren't enough for Uruguayans to go onward. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Karl11
Adding a bit more context

[Jason]

We're seeing a few teams who are absolutely at the end of their current cycle and are transitioning to a new one but are being managed by coaches who are clinging onto the old guard like their life depends on it and are getting f*cked by it.

 

Belgium is the big one, but Uruguay too. Should have been using the tournament to get experience for the next team but instead their past it old guard got humiliated. Germany's problems are a bit more complicated I think but not entirely dissimilar.

[TheSantader25]

Uruguay had a sh*tty penalty decision against them against Portugal and today as well I think they deserved a Pen. Kinda unfair to them. But congrats to Korea nonetheless.

 

Uruguay are a nation of 3 million people. It's difficult to replace their old players with new ones since it's hard to produce top players like those again from a nation that small. But their coach made a sh*tty line up choice in the first two games. He chose the right line up today but just like Germany they were punished because of sh*tty performance in their first games. Too late.

 

Also say goodbye to group stage fun like this since next world cup we have disastrous 3 team groups where one team doesn't even get to play in each matchday. FIFA and UEFA are sucking every bit of fun out of this sport step by step by their decisions to change competitions for the worse.

Edited December 2, 2022 by TheSantader25

[Donald Lov]

8 hours ago, Timsalabimbo said:

Japan's coach has such strange tactics. Always starts the better players (aside from Kamada) on the bench -> finds out it doesn't work -> brings on Mitoma, Doan, Tomiyasu -> Japan turns the game around. Why not give them starts?¿? Especially Mitoma. He rips up flanks for fun.

Yeah, definitely the most esoteric manager of the tourney. 

[Cordohen]

This has been one hell of a WC Group Stage. Probably one of the best out of the last 20 years. I'm gonna miss 32-nations World Cups.

 

5 hours ago, TheSantader25 said:

next world cup we have disastrous 3 team groups where one team doesn't even get to play in each matchday.

I agree this 3-team groups thing is bullsh*t. I'd rather have the current Euro system with the best third-placed teams even tho it's pretty sh*tty aswell. The thing is that we don't really have a perfect formula with 48 teams. f*ck FIFA, there were no need to add 16 nations to the tournament... except $$$

[Shyabang Shyabang]

 

[cactus.]

Another crazy end to Uruguay / Ghana and their group today. It got so heated at the end there.  This has to be one of the best group stages I can recall seeing. God I love the world cup.

 

I think everyone's banking on an England / France quarterfinal. On paper you'd think this will become a classic but won't be surprised if it goes down as a 0-0 sh*tfest lol

 

I'm definitely picking Australia to top Argentina in my pool because f*ck it why not at this point

[Shyabang Shyabang]

 

[Donald Lov]

Should be a smooth sailing to semi-finals for Brazil where, hopefully, Argentina awaits, and Messi and Neymar fighting it off for eternal glory. The other side is a bit more intriguing, anything can happen.

[Eutyphro]

If this Argentina can barely defeat Australia then we (the Dutch) definitely have a chance, though we don't play well either.

[TheSantader25]

I think it's 50-50. Both teams seem to have problems. Argentina were pretty dominant until that lucky Australia goal. Martinez has acquired the Higuain curse Argentina should stick to Alvarez as the starter.

Edited December 3, 2022 by TheSantader25

[Eutyphro]

I'll take it, cause the other big team in our half Brazil often struggles against us, so that gives us good odds for the tournament. I will pick the South American favorites as opponents over the big European teams any day, though I still pick Argentina as favorite against us and think we will lose, but I do think our draw is a favorable draw.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Eutyphro

[Ari Gold]

For what it's worth, I think this morning's (our time it's morning lol) game was more a reflection of Australian tenacity and grit vs a clearly technically superior Argentinean team, rather than a weak Argentine performance.

 

No one here was actually expecting Australia to win, but I think everyone will be proud of how they played and fought right until the end. Even though the match was 6am here, all the public squares in each major city (plus the main soccer stadium in Melbourne) were completely packed with supporters which, given our status as a "non-footballing" nation, is fantastic to see. Really hope that, like in 2006, this re-ignites more lay-man passion for the game here, and more focus on our league/domestic structure (which is in deeeeeesperate need of an overhaul).

 

Also I'm not even going to comment on Serbia because they frankly break my heart so often that I'm borderline ready to give up on them lol. Similar to what @yoječ described about Poland, I'm past the point of even being frustrated at seeing them not give a sh*t anymore. It feels like when no one's paying attention to the national team (or when they're having to play at their best at club level) they're excellent, talented players... but then as soon as there's a bit of attention on them/they beat one big team, they start peacocking around as if they've won the whole tournament. Then you have one disappointing match where everyone realises that they're basically a 79-rated team on FIFA who still need to work hard to win games, rather than just waltzing in and expecting it to happen, and then they just give up under the pressure because hey, the earlier they leave the earlier they can go to Mykonos for a holiday (Qatar WC timing aside lol) ... It happens every single tournament and it's just getting boring.

 

(I said I wasn't going to comment but couldn't help it!!!!)