Group G now has the opportunity to do the funniest thing. Especially with Belgium having a player sent off.

Just need another 3 draws and the NZ/ Iran qualification quinella is all on.

CONMEBOL standard is crap these days.

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Group G now has the opportunity to do the funniest thing. Especially with Belgium having a player sent off.

Just need another 3 draws and the NZ/ Iran qualification quinella is all on.

NZ might win this. Egypt, like Salah, are past it

EDIT - This aged well.

Edited June 22Jun 22 by Malcador

Norway fans making a row in New York...

It turned into quite a day for the big name goal scorers.

Some interesting refereeing on show in the England v Ghana game. Can't help but think that if the shirt colours had been reversed Ghana would have been down to 10 and England would have had a penalty.

Especially the Pickford one, even England supporters seemed to think he was fairly lucky to still be on the field let alone not giving away a free kick. If it had been Kane vs [Ghanaian keeper]...

I enjoyed the England vs Ghana game but if you look at the stats it was obvious what the Ghana strategy was. They decided to just defend to ensure they progress and they not a push over team so it makes it very hard to score if that's the strategy. It does make the game dull. A draw means at least 1 point

England vs Ghana possession : 72% -20%

England vs Ghana attempts at goal : 19-2

So now Ghana has to just draw with Croatia to progress in group L?

https://www.fifa.com/en/match-centre/match/17/285023/289273/400021506

Edited June 24Jun 24 by BruceVC

There's been way too many of these high level professional players blasting the ball over the goal posts. I can understand Harry Kane doing it when he was catching the ball on a volley, but quite a few times the player has had plenty of time to line up a shot.

RSA through, not sure why people are saying it's an upset though. ROK is crap, they barely passed Czechia who are awful. ROK must have been having some labour action though, never seen players that seem to not care.

You'd have got very long odds on South Africa qualifying after that first match. Gone from absolute shambles to pretty decent.

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

You'd have got very long odds on South Africa qualifying after that first match. Gone from absolute shambles to pretty decent.

I didnt watch the game because it was too late, 3am

But we all woke up this morning to an unexpected victory and we will progress to the next stage for the first time

Well done to South Africa !!

Ecuador vs. German

Now that was a worthy World Cup match. It was physical and full of action from end to end. There was some controversy with the first goal, but overall decently ref'd. England will have their hands full if they end up facing Ecuador.

Edited Thursday at 11:18 PM5 days by rjshae

Germany is going to get wrecked hard in the knockouts. The American referee was poor, although was funny as the first quarter ran longer than typical.

Edited Thursday at 10:03 PM5 days by Malcador

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Germany is going to get wrecked hard in the knockouts. The American referee was poor, although was funny as the first quarter ran longer than typical.

I disagree on both counts.

Germany was playing at a lower intensity as they had nothing to gain, so they can turn it up a few notches as they advance. It wouldn't surprise me to see them make the quarter-finals as least.

I've watched the ref. in a couple of matches now and she does a pretty decent job of managing the players (even though she's dwared by them). She also allows a level of physical play, as is appropriate for a contest of this nature, but her calls were on target.

She somehow missed the high foot. She wasn't that great the first time, but the refereeing has been as usual I guess.

As for Germany, no, this being meaningless isn't an excuse and the weaknesses of the side and Nagelsmann's incompetence is on show. Sure they are missing Karl, Gnabry and Schlotterback but even so, midfield crumbled under a press and the attackers were toothless.

Paraguay may very well knock them out.

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

She somehow missed the high foot. She wasn't that great the first time, but the refereeing has been as usual I guess.

In this case it's possible she wasn't in a good spot to catch it; that can happen to anyone. The problem was with the VAR team not calling her back for a review of a dangerous kick. At any rate, I've seen some pretty bad ref-ing in this competition, but her team was tolerable.

At least Turkiye played much better and left with a win.

Oh great, Nederland playing Morocco

cities will be a warzone again, regardless of the outcome

6 hours ago, rjshae said:

I disagree on both counts.

Germany was playing at a lower intensity as they had nothing to gain, so they can turn it up a few notches as they advance. It wouldn't surprise me to see them make the quarter-finals as least.

Yes

I would typically be behind Germany but they already through so I also didnt mind Ecuador winning. And you could see difference and how Ecuador were very aggressive until they scored the second goal and then they wanted to slow things down. At the end Germany had most of the possession and goal attempts but I wanted Ecuador to win, the faces and tension of the fans was palpable

But I was mostly worried that the Ecuadorian coach was going to have a heart attack 🤪

This type of game and the energy is an example of the benefits of the 48 teams because now you have a 3rd place chance of progressing. Its great for fans

8 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Oh great, Nederland playing Morocco

cities will be a warzone again, regardless of the outcome

Shame some good teams have to go out so early. Argentina Uruguay would be fun, wish the stadium would get sucked into a black hole in that case.

Iran ROBBED

Well, have to be behind 2 players, was offside by two toes it seems. Shame they missed the header after. I hope they make it in to the next round, I think their most likely hope is Austria to beat Algeria

The new World Cup structure does allow for a lot more games, and some of them have been very enjoyable. However, now we have cases where teams with two losses (or no wins) can still go through. I'm expecting most of those to lose in the first stage of the elimination round, so not exactly an exciting prospect.

Well will be sensible when they make it 64 teams, and probably always hold it in the US

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cqx13p4q8wvo

Wow what drama. Hopefully Austria and Algeria get ruined next round though

Edited Sunday at 03:59 AM3 days by Malcador