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World Cup Musings


Jaggernaut
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Watching France vs. Australia last night, the Aussies reminded me of Thistle against Livingston. Needing to win, they moved forward, stopped, and played totally useless backwards or sideways passes, then usually resorted to a hopeless punt which lost them possession. And then, of course, the inevitable goal lost.

Hats off to Iceland. How do they manage it?

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1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

Watching France vs. Australia last night, the Aussies reminded me of Thistle against Livingston. Needing to win, they moved forward, stopped, and played totally useless backwards or sideways passes, then usually resorted to a hopeless punt which lost them possession. And then, of course, the inevitable goal lost.

Hats off to Iceland. How do they manage it?

Iceland reminded me of Livingston 

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1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

Watching France vs. Australia last night, the Aussies reminded me of Thistle against Livingston. Needing to win, they moved forward, stopped, and played totally useless backwards or sideways passes, then usually resorted to a hopeless punt which lost them possession. And then, of course, the inevitable goal lost.

One thing for certain France didn't remind me of Livingston. :)

There's nothing useless about backwards or sideway passes. Nothing wrong with keeping possession even if there's little forward motion. Saw so much football yesterday, so I may be doing Australia a disservice, but it was the lack of speed of passing in defence that was letting them down.  In that regards very similar to Thistle.  Play the ball about at the back with no real pace then the inevitable punt up the park follows. Move the ball about crisply you not only tire you're opponents but greatly increase your chances of wrong footing them on the break. 

Last season we were exceptionally slow on the ball. Cerny set the scene with his slow recycling and the whole defence/defensive midfield followed his example. Incidentally slowness moving the ball was my biggest criticism of Frans tho' he was certainly no worse in that department than Devine & Co.

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7 hours ago, Jaggernaut said:

The ref was as cool as anything.

Any views on the video replays? I think it's working well.

It looks to me that the refereeing has been of a standard you'd expect at the top level. It helps of course that the linesmen really are for once, assistant refs. Then again I might well be watching normal standard and just be so used to the deplorable officiating we have to suffer.

Not sure at all about the video stuff. The goal line thingy is fine as it's effectively instant. I'm far from sure about the retrospective decision making. We haven't had it yet but there's bound to be some instance occur during the time between the ref wrongly allowing play to go on (as he's instructed to do) and the game being stopped. That could be a reckless challenge on a counter attacking player, or even just a 2nd yellow getting picked up. In fact the way some of these teams rapidly counterattack a goal could even be scored. I know it's play to the whistle, same for both sides etc etc. I just sense all hell could break out in that interim period both on the pitch and off and emotions have not been taken into consideration.  Rugby is vastly different as it's all stop go anyway and don't need to use this "play on" business. I'm certainly not against VAR at this level but there might have to be a couple of rule changes to accommodate it.

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Thought Colombia looked fast and skillful;... not sure if Japan would have come out on top if it had been 11 vs. 11. Happy with the result though!

Next game up for Japan is Senegal, for whom I also have a huge soft spot, having lived there many moons ago. But it's gotta be Japan!

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4 hours ago, Jaggernaut said:

Is it only me who thinks so, or did Morocco outclass Portugal, except for the (partly chance) fact that they did not score?

Portugal: good for my predictions, but a poor team, especially without you know who.

No - on another day Morocco would have won that game with the same chances.

Rui Patricio's save from the header was outstanding.

Having said that, the two goals Morocco have lost date have been absolutely criminal from a defensive viewpoint. 

Is Danny Devine their defensive coach perchance?

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For me there are far too many average teams in it. I know that it would make it harder to qualify, but I think that they should be reducing the number of teams in the finals rather than increasing them. What is the point of Denmark v Australia or Morrocco v Iran in the finals. In 1978, Group 1 was Argentina, France, Italy and Hungary. That was a real test

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