You do if you're English. Or Dutch. Glorious failure is what we do best. That 1974 Dutch team changed the game forever btw.
Think I got pretty much everything wrong this year except that England wouldn't reach semis and one of Brazil n Argies would win it. Though even then I leaned towards Brazil more. Been a crazy tournament.
I know there's been a lot of 'best tournament ever' rhetoric, but that's the quality of football alone, not the host or venues. I prefer to see full grounds myself, not that it all appears to be played out in the Etihad for a City home game. Yes, the semi's (probably) and final were full, but the rest weren't. Also prefer to see genuine atmosphere round the grounds, in actual (affordable) cities. This had none of that. They aren't cities, there were no host country fans involved, and there was **** all but manufactured 'atmosphere'. Was a TV world cup, and in that respect the product was great. The rest was gash tbph.
I'm not sure about this. I've heard the atmosphere there was brilliant. The main reason being that it was all held in one city with grounds close to each other. You could walk from one end of the main street (forget the name) and go from one nation's groups of fans to another to another and so on. Add to that every few days, fans would leave/stay and a new group of fans from all the countries involved would arrive in the city/area to see games so there was a constant turnover from all nations in one location which kept the atmosphere going.
Yeah same, a friend of a friend etc got a number of tickets to games including paying £1700+ to go back for the final, said it was an amazing experience out there and the Qatari's were brilliant in welcoming fans. Some of the South American and African fans looked to be having a great time too and really brought the atmosphere at their games, the Argies especially made it seem like the tournament was over there with the amount they brought to their matches. The only minor negative I've heard is that the air conditioning (or lack of) in the tents were awful and in that sort of climate that must have been a proper ****ter. Didn't seem to be any trouble too, which probably ties in to a couple things: No Russians Restricted alcohol There's gonna be debates and criticisms on non-footballing matters with Qatar but as for the tournament itself it seemed a brilliant one.
who they own, was their main ambassador and scored 85% of his goals from soft penalties. nothing to see here.
Tbph mate, I don't know about you, but I can never remember England winning the World Cup, I've merely been brainwashed about it over the last five and a half decades. It's probably not helped that my parents were not into football. It was my mate that made the dreaded mistake of introducing me to it, it was at that point I realised it was West Ham that won us the World Cup. All we've had since is false hope, time and time again. Even my own club is back where they started from and if there's a parallel universe on auto repeat, ground hog day can fook off.
Lol......let it go fella......Messi is a living legend and your delusion is not gonna change the fact
It's character building mate. Learning to lose with dignity, stiff upper lip, all that old bollocks. Although this was the first World Cup since Italia 90, that I thought we were good enough to win given a bit of luck. Which, of course, we never ****ing get
To counter that, I know a few who went out to Wales games (and attended some as neutrals) who said that, while obviously well organised, the atmosphere was sterile, corporate and forced, the accomodation options were extortionate or non exsistent, having to base in Dubai and fly in, there was very little local interraction in that neutral fans didn't take up spare tickets, so there were always swathes of empty seats (that's not even hearsay, it can be seen on TV). Attendences were low and Qatar got 50% of its expected visitors. I've no argument that there was an undoubted safe and happy atmposhere, that much was clear, but it wasn't the usual charged and heavy atmosphere that a well attended world cup taking part in major cites will have. You can view that as a plus or a negative of course, depends where you sit. As for arrests, no doubt having limited alcohol and no Russians, no pissed up English fans, were contributing to that, but then so are the other factors mentioned above. (most commented that Euro 16 in France was a 100% better atmosphere and experience, with equally limited trouble) I'm sure the final was a great experience, but having to pay £2k for it doesn't really sell it to normal fans I'd say.
Russia also put on a safe, well organised World Cup, and got all sorts of praise for it. So who's next, North Korea?
FIFA are never going to say their host were anything other than brilliant, are they? Saudia Arabia probably, eight years time!
Gun toting racist America I think waiting for protests and boycotting of these things that we are against as a society
I think the only negative thought I had about the world cup was the absence of Russia. I heard the FIFA president make comment as the wc drew to a close, that politics had no place during the games itself, hence his speech that caught media attention before the competition - but I'd have a simple question for him, regardless of what the other nations thought within the competition, why was Russia banned, surely that undermines the basis of where the President was coming from in his vocality. Afterall our argument is supposedly not with Russian citizens, so it left me somewhat baffled. So do FIFA only care about selective discrimination, did he not feel as though he wanted to be Russian on the day of his grand gesture. Food for thought, that's all.
