Off Topic International Break Thread

Hungary at home demands a no nonsense, typically English style performance.
Move the ball quickly, get it wide, crosses into the box.
There was even an argument for two centre forwards.
They aren't good enough to deal with that.

 

They can't even deal with players kneeling before kickoff...

 

In more good news, CONMEBOL are looking to rearrange the Brazil/Argentina match that was suspended in farcical circumstances

What're the odds that they schedule the rearranged fixture for when La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 are all on their winter breaks...or, as we know it, that glut of league and cup fixtures at the start of January?

 

The stats say otherwise.

In contrast to the flawed analogy you made, football
physiology science shows there are no serious disparities
or variance between populations over recent ages
(player height / weight / max running speed etc) .

 

Your memory of the home international obviously differs a bit from mine. Whilst England won these matches frequently, they were extremely competitive matches (as they are now whenever we play these teams), they were certainly not comparable with qualifiers against San Marino, and or Andorra. Yes Luxembourg was and remains an easy international fixture, but we were not playing upwards of 6 such fixtures every 2 seasons as is the case in qualifying competitions now.

 

But changes in balls, boots, and kits, players not drinking and smoking and being in generally better condition in terms of both fitness and nutrition along with better pitches must all have had an impact on performance.

 

I'd say that the worse teams back then were even worse than they are now.
Scotland were a far superior team to the current side though or any from the past few decades.

 

1. So for a goalscorer, should all of the above have increased performance
(total goals, strike rate) compared to those of each preceding decade ??

2. Or in an "arms race" , have defenders similarly improved to maintain/
decrease the goal stats ??

I contend that the answers to both are yes.
Which means that doing a stats analysis of pairings of Greaves/Lineker,
Lineker/Kane etc is valid.

However I accept there are limits to which decade pairings are sound
(comparing the stats of a 2010s striker to those of a 1910s peer etc) .

 

So it turns out that the plan to host a World Cup every other year, which Arsene Wenger is in favour of in spite it meaning he does a public 180 on his stance of international tournaments when it affected him, is dodgier than we assumed

Why is it dodgier than we assumed? Well from FIFA's standpoint it's because they look enviously at UEFA having their own money-spinner in the Champions league and want to get a slice of that cake, but since the only money-spinner they have is the World Cup hosting twice as many of those increases the revenue while also just so happening to put the screws to the Euros, Copa America, Asian Cup and ACoN (oh, and the Olympics...)

However, the idea wasn't one of FIFA's quote-unquote brilliant ideas, instead it was a notion put forward by the Saudi FA (is that the sound of alarm bells I hear?) whose argument is that the World Cup is a closed shop for European and South American teams so therefore having twice as many will help Asian and African teams win the thing, which is why the AFC and CAF are both firmly behind it

...except their official reason is patently bollocks, because playing twice as many World Cups won't magically make Japan or South Korea or Ghana or Algeria or anyone else in either of those federations world champions, instead the reasoning is far more childish and self-interested: starting with the 2026 World Cup each tournament will feature 48 teams instead of the current 36, so by having twice as many World Cups that means that twice as many nations will bid to host a tournament, and by complete coincidence guess which country which has a remarkably childish attitude towards Qatar to the point they set up a pirate network called BeOUTQ to **** with the Qatari-based BeIN Sports is suddenly interested in hosting a World Cup so they can say to Qatar "Our World Cup is bigger than your World Cup"?

That's right, Arsene Wenger has willingly made himself the face of an international dick-measuring contest. How utterly pathetic

 

Is this thread closed for a while now?
I’m glad to have club football back - despite the nervousness and lack of expectation.
International football is often tedious. It has its place but I don’t want overkill.
Players can’t play a full club season and be at their best for increasingly more international tournaments. Players pulling out through “injury” or retiring early are examples of the lack of esteem in which many games are held.
Fewer, more competitive internationals would raise their stock. And mean that players would be fitter and fresher for them.

 

Don't be silly! Mexico face Ecuador in 11 days, for some unknown reason.
The next international break is in less than a month. England host Albania on November 12th.

 

This season is going to be very rough for clubs with
significant international representation, given the compressed
fixture schedules needed to complete the WC qualifiers.

Similarly, international managers have a "duty of care"
to balance getting qualification done ASAP while also
not increasing the chances of fatigue injuries to players
later in the club season.

 

And we don't know when that Brazil/Argentina match will be rescheduled for...

 

Getting of the league cup and reduce the league size down to 18 teams would help too.

Also not having 2 legs for knockout ties in European football would be a good idea.

Problem is more games equals more money and that’s why there is too many games

 

They'd just jam more games in to fill the gap or clubs would pay friendlies in distant countries for cash.

 

There are far too many pointless international qualifiers too, the likes of Germany, France, England, Spain routinely having to play the likes of San Marino, Andorra & Gibralter is a waste of time. If the Nations league is to have a purpose it should be as a qualifying tournament for World Cups and Euros qualifying so that these can go back to maximum of 5 countries per group and 8 more meaningful matches per campaign.

 

Yeah they often spoke of pre qualification for the likes of Andorra and San Marino. It can’t be good for them to routinely get hammered by teams either. At least if they were all in a group together then it would make the games more competitive and save the big teams wasting their time playing them so much

 

If the FA had any integrity they would withdraw from the next World Cup. There are several reasons which you all know, but I would argue any one should result in boycott.

> The whole voting system is corrupt, so we cannot trust the original vote.
> Even the original vote was not for a winter world cup. They had the vote then changed the entire format of the competition, so nobody actually voted for the competition we have got (even those that were paid off to do so!)
> The fact that workers on the stadiums being built for the competition are at best treated disgracefully and at worst actually dying should be a black flag. We protest about a lot of things, and (without wanting to sound controversial) all lives matter. Yes, even foreign workers.

 

Nations League games, as World Cup qualifiers are FIFA matches.