2018 FIFA World Cup Megathread

[Baltenstein]

After recent events, the player behind the nation of Tinhampton would like to express his desire for Neymar Jr. and his merry band of men to give Belgium a right royal pasting in the quarterfinals. Or for Mbappe or Suarez to do so in the semifinals. Or for Kane or Shaqiri or one of the underdogs to do so in the final.

If that doesn't happen, I suppose I'll have to get a new telly on the grounds that my previous model was accidentally damaged.

Seems you really don't like Belgium.

I mean, they don't even like themselves.

[Esternial]

Seems you really don't like Belgium.

Nobody does.

The French bully them.

The Dutch hate them.

And the Germans invade them.

0% chill please staph.

Seems you really don't like Belgium.

It's an easy punching bag.

Punching down is easy but it's also really petty.

Don't tell Wallonia that, tho.

[Esternial]

Lukaku was so smooth damn boi

Fuck you ya wee bastard

Oioi m8 don't go all akka on me

[Risottia]

Seems you really don't like Belgium.

I mean, they don't even like themselves.

Standard European self-deprecation. The only Europeans who love themselves are the French.

[Risottia]

I like Belgium. As stated earlier, beer and moules frites (mussels and fries). Also pralines, carbonnade and waffles. What's not to love?

The fact that they had no ideas against the Japanese until they went full West Brom

Well, Belgium has about the same population of West Bromwich so you really can't blame them.

[Fartsniffage]

Nobody does.

The French bully them.

The Dutch hate them.

And the Germans invade them.

I like Belgium. As stated earlier, beer and moules frites (mussels and fries). Also pralines, carbonnade and waffles. What's not to love?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpIepzJg_aU

[The Blaatschapen]

I mean, they don't even like themselves.

Standard European self-deprecation. The only Europeans who love themselves are the French.

If there were a God, they'd have made the French an island.

[Esternial]

Standard European self-deprecation. The only Europeans who love themselves are the French.

If there were a God, they'd have made the French an island.

But that makes it more difficult to share their amazing Frenchness with their neighbours.

[The Blaatschapen]

If there were a God, they'd have made the French an island.

But that makes it more difficult to share their amazing Frenchness with their neighbours.

And I do like to french

[Yaana Noore]

I got let off of work early today so managed to catch the Brazil game in a bar and then got the train back in time for Belgium/Japan, and pretty lucky I did.

Brazil v Mexico was interesting. Wouldn't say thrilling, but it was a fascinating match that kept my interest. Mexico opened with a very high intensity and threatened even if they did not have many clear-cut chances. They looked threatening for a lot of that opening period but were often let down by the final pass, players picking out the wrong player or not being aware of teammates around them in good positions. A shame. Brazil took a while to get going but this was relatively comfortable all in all, except for that one shot (think it was by Vela?) and when Gallardo should have played in Lozano instead of shooting himself. Lozano was good again, you'd think some big clubs will be sniffing around him now after a strong showing in Russia. Ochoa was pretty good too but we've seen what he can do at World Cups before, particularly the last one. He's a strange one, he never fully inspires me with confidence but you know he has the ability to make some fantastic saves in his locker such as when he stopped William's drive.

On the other side, Alisson fails to convince me. Flaps all the time, doesn't command his area very well, and his distribution, it's hideously bad. Liverpool were linked with him for some serious money but the price can only have gone down after this. I was at Anfield for the friendly and a lot of people there wanted to see him in action as they thought he would be their new goalkeeper. They were... less than impressed. No point switching him now as you don't want to mess with your side unnecessarily but I think Ederson would suit them better, stronger goalkeeper and better at getting the ball forwards for quick attacks. Decent at shutting down teams getting behind a slow-ish defence too when he rushes out. The change Brazil should make is swapping Jesus for Firmino. Jesus doesn't hold the ball up or bring others into play anywhere near as well as Firmino does. Hinders their attack. Ultimately Brazil were good enough to win this relatively comfortably, they'll miss Casemiro in the next game. Neymar was good and Layun did stand on his ankle but those sort of theatrics and rolling around is embarrassing, deserves a retroactive booking for how bad it was. Sort yourself out man.

Belgium v Japan was a great spectacle and it was nice to see an underdog actually go for it and look to play an entertaining game rather than bore the life out of us and play for penalties. They played so well and I thought they edged the first half, then scored two really good goals in the second. Desperately unlucky to lose, conceding one wonder/flukey goal by Vertonghen, having the Belgians throw their extensive, highly furnished kitchen sink at them and then that deadly counter-attack to knock them out was just heartbreaking. Even when two up they played to their strengths and kept attacking, right until the last. You might say it cost them in the last seconds but I think they deserve all the credit they are getting.

I'm seeing Roberto Martinez get a lot of praise too for his subs but IMO he doesn't deserve it. Like France, Belgium have a strong squad but are held back by a poor coach. Despite a strong defence, the man just can't organise a defence to save his life, and they are normally pretty poor at defending set pieces. His subs were more just throwing guys onto the pitch and hoping some magic happened in the style of Roy Hodgson at Euro 2016 when he used to sub three strikers on and pray England scored. Fortunately for Martinez Fellaini and Chadli did score but this wasn't tactical genius, they had no gameplan except for 'we have to attack now' and it just about worked. The last goal was all down to the brilliance of De Bruyne and a nice flick by Lukaku who had otherwise had a poor game, missing some good chances. Looking forward to Friday, I'd expect Belgium/Brazil to have some goals in it considering the strength of the two attacks. Roll on tomorrow where I foresee... two games less exciting than most of the thrillers we have been treated to at this Second Round so far.

[Riemstagrad]

what a nailbiter...
This is the difference between Belgium-2014 and Belgium-2018. In 2014 (and even in 2016) Belgium would just have collapsed after those two Japanese goals. Belgium-2018 doesn't give up and fights back and even manages to pull it off.

What a great game from Japan though...
Before the game everyone was thinking Japan would be easy, but i only remember difficult games against an intense Japan.

[Conoga]

That was probably the best game so far, I think

[The Blaatschapen]

what a nailbiter...
This is the difference between Belgium-2014 and Belgium-2018. In 2014 (and even in 2016) Belgium would just have collapsed after those two Japanese goals. Belgium-2018 doesn't give up and fights back and even manages to pull it off.

What a great game from Japan though...
Before the game everyone was thinking Japan would be easy, but i only remember difficult games against an intense Japan.

Being able to win games while not playing good or being behind is a hallmark of a champion

No team in recent history managed to play all games well and win the WC.

[Riemstagrad]

Being able to win games while not playing good or being behind is a hallmark of a champion

No team in recent history managed to play all games well and win the WC.

Right before the game i read a collumn by Belgium commentator Filip Joos where he stated that Belgium can't win the world cup, because indeed, no team in recent history managed to play all games well and win the WC.

Then it was 0-2 and i didn't even want to have my traditional 2nd half beer anymore... (i took one after the 2-2 though) and after that 3-2 we finally have that requirement met.

If we have to start this wordl cup again, i'd mess up in the group stages against Tunisia, so that we don't have to do this against Japan again.

[Tinhampton]

After recent events...

Seems you really don't like Belgium.

The Belgian Golden Generation have defeated eleven teams at major tournaments. Let's see where FIFA ranked those lot all that time...

• At the start of the 2014 World Cup, Belgium were ranked 11th. Along the way, they defeated the 13th-ranked USA, 19th-ranked Russia, 22nd-ranked Algeria and 57th-ranked South Korea. The first time they faced an opponent higher-ranked than them, 5th-ranked Argentina defeated them.
• At the start of EURO 2016, Belgium were ranked 2nd. Having lost to 12th-ranked Italy, they managed to defeat 33rd-ranked Ireland, 35th-ranked Sweden and then 20th-ranked Hungary (never seen, admittedly, as a credible threat by anybody). In the quarterfinals, 26th-ranked Wales managed to take care of them.
• As of today, Belgium - now the 3rd best football team in the world - have won against 21st-ranked Tunisia, 55th-ranked Panama, joint-12th-ranked England Reserves, and 61st-ranked Japan (courtesy of Marco van Basten mk2 and sloppy multilateral defence). On Friday, they face 2nd-ranked Brazil.

Do you see the pattern here? Modern-day Belgium have never defeated a top-10 team in major competition (and, at most, four potentially dangerous team. The average victim of Belgian tactics is ranked 32nd in the world. Conclusion: Belgium will score four goals past Brazil.

[Forsher]

Well, usually in sports movies, you have a team that is undeniably villainous. They're either too arrogant, too much of troublemakers to properly play the game fairly, yet they get a good shake to their side because they're apparently in cahoots with somebody. I believe that, in TV Tropes, they call it something like East Germany, because they were... well, communists and a former war opponent. So it was either them or the Soviet Union that got the treatment. Switzerland has been pretty much... you know, the villains.

I see, thanks. However, I disagree somewhat. Switzerland were a large part of the reason I enjoyed watching them play Brazil... they were only villains in the sense they had Brazil's number the whole match.

Also, as to the too many UEFA teams issue... actually, it's the South American sides who are over-represented and the so called "excess" of European teams should, in theory, have been occupied by traditionally strong teams like Italy or the Netherlands. The issue here, naturally, is that you can either have a sporting event or you can foster development. If you want the former, you want to stack your competition with European and South American sides. If you want the latter, you be more proportional. If you want to be both... you expand the cup.

Why are you talking about this, though? Playing for a draw means you don't think you can win so you don't attack full bore. You know, how Russia approached the game against Spain. They set up with a defensive formation and played defensively, but when they had the opportunity to attack they still did so as well as they were able. And eventually they thought, "Hang on, tiki taka is still boring and now it's also ineffective, we might grab a goal here" so made some substitutions... but it ended up on penalties, which is what they were looking for when the match started.

Saudi Arabia wanted a draw from the game against Russia? I am not sure about that. But they were so bad in that match it's really quite fruitless to try and infer what Saudi Arabia wanted from it.

Russia wasn't looking to win on penalties when the match started. I think Akinfeev said that the tactic was employed after the 65th minute. Even if that's not the case, there's nothing wrong with defending, forcing the other team to attack, and hitting them with counterattacks.

We'll have to disagree about Russia's intentions. Teams in their situation rarely play to win and teams who field a back five with one at front are likewise rarely trying to win. (Of course, sometimes the back three is a back five... and most teams play one up front these days, I believe.)

No, there is not. Indeed, it might be said that counter-attacking soccer is more exciting than most alternatives... especially if it is practised by teams who aren't great at defending. But you haven't explained what was confusing

Saudi Arabia tried playing your average soccer game, but were just outclassed. As for being unable to imply what they did, Fartsniffage seems to have done that quite easily

Fartsniffage has indeed summed up Saudi Arabia's intentions, unfortunately Saudi Arabia were so bad it's really not possible to contradict other such summaries.

His subs were more just throwing guys onto the pitch and hoping some magic happened in the style of Roy Hodgson at Euro 2016 when he used to sub three strikers on and pray England scored. Fortunately for Martinez Fellaini and Chadli did score but this wasn't tactical genius, they had no gameplan except for 'we have to attack now' and it just about worked. The last goal was all down to the brilliance of De Bruyne and a nice flick by Lukaku who had otherwise had a poor game, missing some good chances. Looking forward to Friday, I'd expect Belgium/Brazil to have some goals in it considering the strength of the two attacks. Roll on tomorrow where I foresee... two games less exciting than most of the thrillers we have been treated to at this Second Round so far.

I disagree. I was watching this game and thinking, "The reason Belgium are losing is because they haven't got Fellaini on"... of course, this didn't require any degree of thought (hence, does not indicate tactical genius) but it does suggest that something more than "we have to attack now" was what was going on.

I was also surprised at Belgium's poor defending.

[Yaana Noore]

Seems you really don't like Belgium.

The Belgian Golden Generation have defeated eleven teams at major tournaments. Let's see where FIFA ranked those lot all that time...

• At the start of the 2014 World Cup, Belgium were ranked 11th. Along the way, they defeated the 13th-ranked USA, 19th-ranked Russia, 22nd-ranked Algeria and 57th-ranked South Korea. The first time they faced an opponent higher-ranked than them, 5th-ranked Argentina defeated them.
• At the start of EURO 2016, Belgium were ranked 2nd. Having lost to 12th-ranked Italy, they managed to defeat 33rd-ranked Ireland, 35th-ranked Sweden and then 20th-ranked Hungary (never seen, admittedly, as a credible threat by anybody). In the quarterfinals, 26th-ranked Wales managed to take care of them.
• As of today, Belgium - now the 3rd best football team in the world - have won against 21st-ranked Tunisia, 55th-ranked Panama, joint-12th-ranked England Reserves, and 61st-ranked Japan (courtesy of Marco van Basten mk2 and sloppy multilateral defence). On Friday, they face 2nd-ranked Brazil.

Do you see the pattern here? Modern-day Belgium have never defeated a top-10 team in major competition (and, at most, four potentially dangerous team. The average victim of Belgian tactics is ranked 32nd in the world. Conclusion: Belgium will score four goals past Brazil.

Eh, FIFA rankings aren't that good a measurement of these sort of things.

They matched expectations in 2014, losing to a better side and then were upset by a side much worse than them in 2016 (Wales). They don't deserve too much flack for losing to Italy as that Italian side under Conte was fantastic, I thought they deserved to win the thing.

So what we have there is really the Belgians matching expectations at the two World Cups and then one upset. That's not that damning of a record right now to be fair, even the best teams can have a bad game. I think if their golden generation had a better coach they would start to seriously challenge for some international titles but right now they're being wasted on Wilmots (who was rubbish) and Martinez (who is a bit of a meme manager and his greatest success is winning a cup while also getting relegated) unfortunately, a shame to see the talent not used properly. Happened to England as well, never had that good a coach during our golden years. Pre-2010 World Cup Fabio Capello was awesome and I remain convinced he was abducted and the FA had him replaced by a lookalike but otherwise we just never had the right coach for our talent. I see Belgium going the same way as England's golden generation did unless they get the right man in at the helm.

[Yaana Noore]

I disagree. I was watching this game and thinking, "The reason Belgium are losing is because they haven't got Fellaini on"... of course, this didn't require any degree of thought (hence, does not indicate tactical genius) but it does suggest that something more than "we have to attack now" was what was going on.

I was also surprised at Belgium's poor defending.

I'm not going to deny that subbing Fellaini on changed the game, I just don't think it was some masterstroke as I am seeing some people claim online. Not really here, but I'm seeing people raving about Martinez and how good his decisions were in my social media and my point was that it wasn't some genius-level decision, it was quite a basic 'bring a big lad on and see if he scores a header' tactic. It paid off because Belgium were frantically attacking.

As I probably made obvious in my previous post I don't really rate Roberto Martinez. So while I am not saying the decision was bad, I just don't think it deserves a great deal of praise when it's a pretty basic tactic that has been done for years by Moyes and Mourinho.

[Audioslavia]

Bold predictions:

* Australia score one goal or less over their three games and go out in the first round due to having zero options up front. Their manager, Bert Van Whatshisface, is rightly pilloried for not putting Jamie MacLaren (Australia's greatest ever footballer) in the squad.
* The ball will be criticized for being too round
* Even though it's 2018, someone will dab
* Spain matches are dogged by suspect refereeing, but nobody really notices until their second-round defeat to Russia.
* Iceland don't get out of their group, so all the Scots will have to revert to supporting Anyone But England
* England lose to the first big team they face, which will be Germany in the quarters.
* Mexico lose to Brazil in the second round, as is tradition
* There'll be 5+ goals in the Denmark vs Belgium semi-final
* There'll be zero goals in the France vs Germany semi-final
* VAR will cause chaos in both semi-finals.
* Germany win the World Cup again.

Not the greatest load of predictions so far, but I got Mexico < Brazil right.

[Purpelia]

Personally I am bummed out about Japan loosing. It would have been really cool to see an outsider like them go all the way.

[The Archregimancy]

Nobody does.

The French bully them.

The Dutch hate them.

And the Germans invade them.

I like Belgium. As stated earlier, beer and moules frites (mussels and fries). Also pralines, carbonnade and waffles. What's not to love?

I like Belgium too.

But that's likely because I spent a substantial part of my childhood living there.

Which is obviously what turned me into a card-carrying member of the globalist own-race-hating unpatriotic elite.

[Bombadil]

I like Belgium. As stated earlier, beer and moules frites (mussels and fries). Also pralines, carbonnade and waffles. What's not to love?

I like Belgium too.

But that's likely because I spent a substantial part of my childhood living there.

Which is obviously what turned me into a card-carrying member of the globalist own-race-hating unpatriotic elite.

We all remember how you introduced yourself when you joined these boards..

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

I have to say I worry about Belgium at the moment, they just seem a little clueless in terms of tactics.. I guess it speaks to a couple of things in this tournament..

1. Need for clear tactics - Spain.. Belgium.. France.. all have poor managers really despite great players.. Spain losing their manager two days before the tournament to be replaced by someone from the 2nd Division.. skills can't do everything..
2. Striker - not having a reliable striker is also an issue, you look at Germany's stats and they're actually pretty good, just no clear striker - I could say this for a few other teams that struggled to break through

Little has been made of midfields this tournament.

Ultimately I really worry for England for the above reasons.. Pekerman is a great manager unfairly vilified for his admittedly poor decision to remove strikers when 1-0 against Germany but that was still an excellent Argentina team and he's since created consistently good teams. And Colombia has a couple of options in strikers.

[Relikai]

Fellaini MK2 now that he got his contract renewal at Manchester United.

Some bloody good football but my sleeping pills were a little too strong and I woke up right after the match ended. Am glad that it didn't extend to extra time tho!

Current villains would be Neymar the Luggage Bag. Thought Pepe's fatal shoulder pat was bad, look at the literal glass cannon.

[MERIZoC]

Beautiful match, the Brazil train has no brakes.

I'm sure there's something here about not needing brakes if you're just going to go so slow as to draw with Switzerland.

I can't think of anything, though.

If you think the seleção hasn't gotten way better since the first game, you're nuts.

[Brod]

I watched Belgium's third goal again, and Lukaku pretty much set up the goal without even touching the ball imo. His movement drags a defender into the centre to create space for Meunier(?), and then draws another defender onto him by dummying which makes room for Chadli. Really impressive stuff from Belgium, although I'm not sure if they have the defensive stability/structure to go all the way.