2018 World Cup Thread

[pilight]

Originally Posted by TheMaus2

disappointed that Senegal didn't go through

It was not a good cup for the CAF sides

[ukhotstove]

England are in a stronger position now than they were before the start of the game, score is 0-0 but Belgium have 3 more yellow cards than England. Love to meet the FIFA idiots who think of these ideas.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by pilight

It was not a good cup for the CAF sides

It never is. They always get pummelled. No African team in the Round of 16. As usual?

How many times has an African team reached even the quarterfinals in World Cup history? Three times.

But, yeah, give them nine(?) spots for the 2026 World Cup. Bollocks.

[ukhotstove]

Actually it's the first time since 1982 an African team didn't go past the first group stages when Algeria were stopped by the "Disgrace in Gijon".

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Actually it's the first time since 1982 an African team didn't go past the first group stages when Algeria were stopped by the "Disgrace in Gijon".

1) I stand corrected, although more than one African team advanced only once from the first group stage (2014). Still, Cameroon '90, Senegal '02, Ghana '10. That's it. Three times in the quarterfinals.

Not that Asian teams are (much) better.

2) And there you also have the reason why it is an inherently bad idea to have any team idle on the final game day in its group. Which is a problem with 3-team groups, which come in '26.

If team A draws teams B and C both 1-1 during the first two games, it's fairly obvious what B and C have to do so that both will advance...

[Ragnar]

Originally Posted by Westheim

It never is. They always get pummelled. No African team in the Round of 16. As usual?

How many times has an African team reached even the quarterfinals in World Cup history? Three times.

But, yeah, give them nine(?) spots for the 2026 World Cup. Bollocks.

I hear they are going to expand to 48 teams? Hopefully the added 16 is by ranking. 9 is too many as it is. That said, that Cameroon team was no joke. I thought they were going to beat England. Not sure they would have beaten West Germany, but it was possible as they weren't any better than England. And Cameroon was certainly better than Argentina.

Originally Posted by Westheim

You miss the next game with any two yellows. It does not have to be in consecutive games.

But if they are not in the same game you don't get tossed for that game I believe.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Westheim

1) I stand corrected, although more than one African team advanced only once from the first group stage (2014). Still, Cameroon '90, Senegal '02, Ghana '10. That's it. Three times in the quarterfinals.

Not that Asian teams are (much) better.

2) And there you also have the reason why it is an inherently bad idea to have any team idle on the final game day in its group. Which is a problem with 3-team groups, which come in '26.

If team A draws teams B and C both 1-1 during the first two games, it's fairly obvious what B and C have to do so that both will advance...

There should have been 2 through this year, Nigeria and Senegal. Both were very naive. Nigeria should have slowed the game down 10 minutes from time, definitely 5 minutes from time but kept on playing the way they had all game. Senegal as soon as they found out Poland had scored they just switched off which helped Colombia score, everyone knows this so why don’t professional players and coaches not know it.

Should they be allowed in the World Cup of course it is a ‘World” Cup after all, it’ll never go back to the early World Cups when it was pretty much South America v Europe, with one or two token teams outside those continents.

Should it expand to 48 teams? 100% no but that’s down to corruption and money. I would like to add (tongue in cheek) should we have allowed Germany into this World Cup? As the holders of the last few World Cups have done worse than the African teams, France, Italy, Spain, Germany have not got past the group stages, only Brazil managing to do it in the last 6 World Cups.

[Westheim]

There were good reasons though why the early World Cups were indeed mostly Europe vs. South America. Then as now, there is a clear gap between those confederations and the others as far as the level of play and players is concerned.

Take FIFA's (notoriously flawed, but we don't have anything else) country rankings, which btw had Germany as #1 heading into the World Cup (cough, cough). The Top 20 heading into the tournament were, with one exception, ALL from Europe and South America. The exception of course is Mexico, which is also the only country from outside these two continents to have routinely not only qualified, but also made it out of the group stage. True, they haven't been to the quarterfinals since '86, but then again, who outside of Europe and South America has?

There were good reasons to give most World Cup berths to these two continents back in the 60s and 70s, when there were only 16 berths, even though that led to some spectacles, like all the African nations withdrawing in for the 1966 qualifications, because they had to share one berth with Asia *and* Oceania, which eventually fell to North Korea, of all places.

I think a 48-team World Cup would benefit more from, say, six extra teams from Europe, two extra from South America, and four less each from Africa and Asia.

But we can still discuss this ad nauseam eight years from now, while the Democratic Republic of Congo and St. Vincent and the Grenadines cluelessly shove the ball back and forth for a 0-0 draw, which still advances both of them over Laos.

[ukhotstove]

The thing is you would hope they would learn every World Cup but they don’t, most African players play in Europe but it’s as though they become headless chickens when they put there national kit on. I took notice of Victor Moses most, mainly because he’s ex Wigan Athletic, he doesn’t play like that for Chelsea he’s more stable, structured whatever you want to call it on the other hand with Nigeria he was very slack. You could say the same for Mané, his performances for Senegal and Liverpool were like chalk and cheese imo.

I think the African FAs need to look at bringing in better European coaches and maybe look at someone from there nation to be an assistant coach, Nigeria had Rohr as technical advisor but his cv isn’t good let alone great and Senegal had Cissé there ex under 23 coach. Yes you can point at Southgate but he played nearly more games each for Palace, Villa and Boro than Cissé did in his career and far more experienced at international tournament level. If I was an African team I’d be looking at someone like Paul Clement, decent coach, not a good manager (coach and manager aren’t the same) and could easily say yes if offered the job or someone like him.

[Ragnar]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

There should have been 2 through this year, Nigeria and Senegal. Both were very naive. Nigeria should have slowed the game down 10 minutes from time, definitely 5 minutes from time but kept on playing the way they had all game. Senegal as soon as they found out Poland had scored they just switched off which helped Colombia score, everyone knows this so why don’t professional players and coaches not know it.

Should they be allowed in the World Cup of course it is a ‘World” Cup after all, it’ll never go back to the early World Cups when it was pretty much South America v Europe, with one or two token teams outside those continents.

Should it expand to 48 teams? 100% no but that’s down to corruption and money. I would like to add (tongue in cheek) should we have allowed Germany into this World Cup? As the holders of the last few World Cups have done worse than the African teams, France, Italy, Spain, Germany have not got past the group stages, only Brazil managing to do it in the last 6 World Cups.

That is the exact reason I would want it to expand to 48. There is too much garbage already allowed into the world cup. It would bring in some better teams. And add nothing more from Asia and Africa. That said, I think it would be better if they expanded to 40, not 48.

[Westheim]

40 teams would have been an organizational nightmare, though. You either have ten groups of four, or eight groups of five teams. In the former case it takes five days to find out the six best second-place teams, and nobody's happy. In the latter case, you are adding two extra game days and an extra game for everybody to the tournament after the end of a grueling season, and nobody's happy.

Now at least the nations with the least foot-to-ball skills are happy. Bless them. At least we still have the European championships in the meantime...

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

That is the exact reason I would want it to expand to 48. There is too much garbage already allowed into the world cup. It would bring in some better teams. And add nothing more from Asia and Africa. That said, I think it would be better if they expanded to 40, not 48.

Not so sure you would get your wish, if the 48 was this World Cup these would be the extra 16 teams.

AFC
Syria
Uzbekistan
UAE

CAF 4
DR Congo
Burkina Faso
Uganda
Ivory Coast

CONCACAF 3
Honduras
Trinidad and Tobago
USA

CONMEBOL
Chile

OFC
New Zealand

UEFA 2
Holland
Slovakia

Plus 2 play off teams from a 6 team league consisting of a team each from AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL and OFC plus a member of the federation of the host country but that’s UEFA which in 2026 doesn’t get in this play off league so the 6th place goes to CONCACAF, anyway the 6 team league would have consisted of.

China PR
Zambia
Haiti
Paraguay
Tahiti
Canada

Going of FIFA rankings the 2 going through would have been Paraguay and China PR, so hardly an upgrade you’d have to admit.

[Ragnar]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Not so sure you would get your wish, if the 48 was this World Cup these would be the extra 16 teams.

AFC
Syria
Uzbekistan
UAE

CAF 4
DR Congo
Burkina Faso
Uganda
Ivory Coast

CONCACAF 3
Honduras
Trinidad and Tobago
USA

CONMEBOL
Chile

OFC
New Zealand

UEFA 2
Holland
Slovakia

Plus 2 play off teams from a 6 team league consisting of a team each from AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL and OFC plus a member of the federation of the host country but that’s UEFA which in 2026 doesn’t get in this play off league so the 6th place goes to CONCACAF, anyway the 6 team league would have consisted of.

China PR
Zambia
Haiti
Paraguay
Tahiti
Canada

Going of FIFA rankings the 2 going through would have been Paraguay and China PR, so hardly an upgrade you’d have to admit.

Adding anything from Asia and Africa would simply not make sense as they are already represented with too many teams that don't belong there as it is. Just go by ranking. If they happen to be there in the next 16 then so be it. But don't go looking for trouble.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

Adding anything from Asia and Africa would simply not make sense as they are already represented with too many teams that don't belong there as it is. Just go by ranking. If they happen to be there in the next 16 then so be it. But don't go looking for trouble.

But those are the extra places that FIFA have already agreed on, 3 extra from Asia, 4 from Africa and so on and with the play off league you could get another team from those confederations. Actually if it had been this year you'd have had 9 teams from the AFC, it makes sense to FIFA, expand the game make more money that's all there bothered about.

[Ragnar]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

But those are the extra places that FIFA have already agreed on, 3 extra from Asia, 4 from Africa and so on and with the play off league you could get another team from those confederations. Actually if it had been this year you'd have had 9 teams from the AFC, it makes sense to FIFA, expand the game make more money that's all there bothered about.

That would be a shame. If they did it this year and went by ranking you'd get one team from Africa and one from the middle east. And a lot of the other teams probably shouldn't be there either. Adding 16 is too much no matter how you slice it. But like you said, if they're just looking at it from the money angle...….

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

That would be a shame. If they did it this year and went by ranking you'd get one team from Africa and one from the middle east. And a lot of the other teams probably shouldn't be there either. Adding 16 is too much no matter how you slice it. But like you said, if they're just looking at it from the money angle...….

It goes back to Blatter his main aim was to bring more African, Asian and Middle East teams into it, nothing to do with the product on the field all to do with money that's why we have the Qatari mess. There maybe different people in charge but it's still the same dodgy dealings.

[Westheim]

"And ze 2022 Wörld Cup gos to... Qatarr...!"



Wait, what?

Yeah, like that. Remains to be seen how many players just drop dead at 120 degrees...

[ry1220]

Just got caught up, a few thoughts:

1) This really has been an excellent tournament thus far!

2) Portugal look like they've reverted to awfully boring. Cannot wait for them to try to take all these knockout rounds to penalties.

3) Love watching Spain play, but they're missing focus at the back. Pique looks disinterested in doing anything, Ramos has not been able to assault anyone, and why was Thiago deeper than Busquets? On the subject of Spain, Isco, for me, is the Man of the Tournament to this point. His movement, work rate, passing has been terrific -- literally everywhere on the pitch all three matches.

4) Croatia's got the most dominant midfield so far, and look threatening. As a Liverpool fan, I am still half-expecting Lovren to bottle it at some point though.

5) Maradona's double bird -- hilarious. Just as hilarious as Messi jumping on his savior's back. Boy, does this team look lost and tactically disorganized.

6) Germany's 2-2-6 formation didn't work this tournament?!? The six forwards didn't even seem bothered to try to make runs. It was as if Loew said to his players during team talks "Alright, stand by your markers, that will free up space for our center backs to push up and try to score..."

7) It's coming home...

[Ragnar]

WoW, Argentina was playing well for awhile there. That is until they sh!t the bed.

[ukhotstove]

Hope I'm wrong but don't think we'll get half a good a game tonight, scrappy game tonight imo.