World Cup General Discussion Thread - 2030 The Jokes On You

F*cking hell, another heartbreak. Our defense was piss poor today and against Cameroon. Xhaka and Shaqiri provoking as usual.

I got used to disappointments so I'm not really surprised sadly. Hopefully we'll play better next time

 

True. We played extremelly well in qualifying, we don't know what happened... We had some major injury problems before the tournament so maybe that played a part too...

The other part, I hate when people mix politics and sport. No matter what anyone thinks about our situation (re Kosovo & Metohija), there is no reason for anyone to provoke opponents like that. They did it 2 or 3 times during the match...

 

Just ran out of steam in the second half it seemed to me today, was hoping you would equalise at the end and at least take the Albanians I mean Swiss out with you!! Its a shame your players fell into Xhakas *********ry plans near the end, quite shocked VAR didnt send one or two off for what looked like clear headbutts if not full on headbutts

 

Souness fills my Big Ron void and I don’t want him taken away. Nobody care what the pundits say so leave my antiquated comfort blanket alone.

 

Yeah, our players seemed unfit in all three matches. We ran out of steam in the second half of all three matches. We played ultra high pressing for full 100 minutes or so in our recent big games against Portugal, Sweden and Norway, and never looked tired. I believe injuries to key players like Mitrovic, Vlahovic, Kostic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Lukic, etc played some part in it.

Switzerland deserved the win, our defence was poor and they could have scored even more goals if not for another stellar performance from Vanja Milinkovic-Savic. But what Xhaka and Shaqiri did again is disgraceful. If they're so partiotic why don't they play for Albania? They constantly provoked our players today and four years ago. Shameful stuff from them.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...d23d7a-6da0-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html No provocation from Serbia then

 

I wouldn't normally comment on political topics but I will this time. Kosovo isn't recognize by the UN and more than 50% of countries in the world including several big countries like Spain, Brazil, China, India, etc.

That flag shows the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, that according to international law is still part of Serbia with a sign that says "No surrender" , as a sign of support for our remaining population in Kosovo & Metohija.

I wouldn't have done that, it was a bit careless, but there isn't much wrong with the flag itself. Assuming you are English, how would you feel if Scotland left UK, how would spanish people feel if Catalonia left them.

There are many good albanian people and there are many bad albanian people too, same as with serbian people, or uk, american, etc. I have no problems with albanians whatsoever. Politics and wars are always bad and they really don't have any place in sport either.

Only people from here and from Albania really know what happened and what is happening here, and I'm going to ask you to please don't talk about it when you don't know the full story (regardless who's right and wrong in the conflict).

I appologize to the mods if I said something that's not permitted here and I promise I won't talk politics in the non-politics part of the forum ever again. I just got really anoyed this particular time

 

It’s the first time I’ve watched Serbia properly due to the match times and I was disappointed for you. There’s such talent in the side and they looked good going forwards but I don’t think they have fulfilled their potential here. Unfortunately the back line does seem to be brittle and the early second half goal seemed to really destroy their confidence. Then the strange substitutions and players starting to lose their heads made the second half a non event.

I just feel like it wasn’t meant to be for Serbia - if they’d managed to get something from the game, I always felt like there’d be some late drama in the other match to screw them over anyway. Starting against Brazil put you on the back foot from the start. I hope the team is able to stay together for future tournaments, and maybe learn some lessons from this.

incidentally I thought Shaqiri showed restraint when he scored - no eagle etc - disappointing if that changed later in the game.

 

Fair assessment of our team. We always looked great in attack with Stojkovic as our coach (well apart from the Brazil game) and oir defence was always our biggest problem (although we looked great in defence too against Portugal in the seconfld game, as well as against Sweden and Norway(I'm not counting games like friendlies against Qatar for example where we of course looked good defensively as well) and were even against Brazil in the first half we looked quite good in defenfe). As I said, Switzerland deserved to win/go through they were the better team.

Re: Shaqiri, he did, but there was a scrap in the second half, a few minutes after Mitrovic dived, a scrap he and Xhaka started and pretty much full teams of both countries got involved. I have no problems with them as players, I think they're both very good players, but there's really no need for them to provoke our players everytime we play them. Politics have no place on a football pitch.

 

The question that no-one seems to ask is why do we need co-commentators? Back in the Coleman/Davis/Motson days we didn’t have them and it was fine because the commentators knew their stuff and I think mostly they still do now. Co-commentators rarely bring any insight, tactical or otherwise, with the exception being Emma Hayes who is the best I’ve heard.

Meanwhile, the studio based pundit panel has evolved (or not) from the original ITV idea at the 1970 World Cup. The problem with it is the depth with which they feel they need to analyse, as though the average viewer knows nothing about the game, even though most of them are really not very good at it and are there just because they are ‘big names’. The worst thing about MotD for instance is that the edits of the games are greatly curtailed to fit in all the drivel.

 

Agree - if the pundits just chatted like blokes in the pub rather than pretending to be experts would be far better

 

I think this is why some youtube football channels are popular.

Micah Richards, Wrighty and Keano are my favourite pundits and Andros Townsend was quite interesting to listen to during some games, still in the game so more insight, nice bit of banter with the guy he was paired with too.

I usually cant stand the ones that take it all far too seriously, like Neville and **** knows how Carragher is still on the tv as he is crap anyway and the spitting incident, clown.

 

I'm going to end my self-imposed world Cup boycott tomorrow just to watch Sarr turn Maguire inside out for 90 minutes. Senegal 3 England 1. Southgate is proud of the team and feels he is "really building something."

 

And will finally be gone. Can’t wait.

 

They’re just kids. Anything we get out of these finals will be a bonus. We’ll be absolutely at our peak for the next one. Just like the last 6 or so competitions.

 

Martin Keown demonstrating why he isn't a fixture on the after dinner speaking circuit.

 

USA played some nice stuff, but ultimately it wasn't enough. Pulisic should have buried his chance at the start of the match and maybe it would have been a different game. Fereira was absolutely dreadful, one of the worst striker displays I've seen in this WC. Decent game overall, comisserations to US Watford fans!

 

Triple heart bypass operation in 92 after being diagnosed with coronary heart disease. Stent fitted in 2006 as another artery was blocked. Heart attack in 2016. It's a ticking/non-ticking time bomb. Obviously, Spain imploding and the VAR issue moved him a step closer to the big one.

 

The frustration of knowing you've got one of the fastest players in world football who choses to pass backwards most the time, rather than take on some no-mark full back

 

Kyle Walker is fit and best equipped to look after Sarr and if we get through that he will likely have Mbappe to look after.
That said, I hope Sarr has a good game. I'm expecting a similar game as England had all those years ago v Cameroon.

 

I used to coach the wife of one of his Arsenal colleagues.

He was not known for his intellect shall we say!

 

I was chatting to him in a pub in Oxford a few years ago, he came over to congratulate my mate on getting married (we were in there after his wedding) and he gave me a bit of banter as I was the best man.

Nice bloke but yeah…. I think he may have headed a few too many footballs.

I asked him who was the best player he played while he was at Leicester and instead of going for one of the good players we had that season like David Connolly, Joey Gudjonsson, Dion Dublin or Gareth Williams he went for Scott Gemmill, who was about 40, crap and barely played.

 

Anyone else getting a faint whiff of an upset tonight?

 

Na, think it’ll still sink in the end.

 

More Messi Jizzery to contend with during HT.

 

Plenty of teams who won't win the tournament but could quite easily stop one of the other teams winning it.

 

You mean from BBC pundits reporting live at The Official Messi World Cup 22?

 

Can see the Dutch doing the Argies

 

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...orld-cup-final-conspiracy-refereeing-50-years from own own Simon Burnton no less.

"Then came the quarter-finals. Uruguay had their captain, Horacio Troche, sent off for kicking Lothar Emmerich in the stomach in the 49th minute – he slapped Uwe Seeler in the face on his way off – and Héctor Silva followed five minutes later for another foul. “They appear to have no idea how to tackle properly,” said Schon. “They lose their heads and their regard for the rules.” Julio Cortés, Uruguay’s No7, kicked the referee on his way off the pitch at the end of the game, earning a six-match ban.

Even more controversial was the game between England and Argentina at Wembley, described by the Observer’s Hugh McIlvanney as “not so much a football match as an international incident”, in which the Argentina captain, Antonio Rattín, was sent off after 35 minutes for dissent and refused to leave, delaying the game for nine minutes, and Geoff Hurst scored the only goal with 12 minutes to play. “It was clear,” Rattín later said, “that the referee played with an England shirt on”.

But it was only after the final whistle that it all, so to speak, kicked off. Alf Ramsey stopped George Cohen from swapping shirts with an Argentinian player, shouting: “George, you are not changing shirts with that animal.” Argentina’s Roberto Ferrero attacked the referee and the forward Ermindo Onega spat in the face of the Fifa vice-president, Harry Cavan, both earning three-match international bans. An Argentinian player urinated in the tunnel and a chair was thrown into the England dressing room. The Argentinian squad then attacked the England bus and, when someone tried to stop them, he had half an orange squeezed in his face."