Off Topic World Cup Thread

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There were some **** pens there..... Jorgensen couldn't hit the proverbial cows arse and it just about summed him up! <laugh>

Pity for Denmark, but would rather face Croatia. Just hope we get through to put it to the test.
 
Well, that's 'Old Football' well and truly dead. Early exits for Germany and Spain and Portugal and Argentina. Possession is dead, old slow players that pass sideways over and over again are history. Barcelona and Wenger's 'Barcelona-lite' are done.

It's all about athleticism, fast transitioning and having the balls to go for it, like France against Argentina and Mexico against Germany. Uruguay did the same to Portugal. Senegal were unlucky to go out and played very well in the new style.

It's great stuff and lucky us, we already have Uruguay v France, as well as a possible Belgium v Brazil to come. These could be classics. Great World Cup so far. I'm not breathing a word about the other half of the draw..............someone's always watching :bandit:
 
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Well, that's 'Old Football' well and truly dead. Early exits for Germany and Spain and Portugal and Argentina. Possession is dead, old slow players that pass sideways over and over again are history. Barcelona and Wenger's 'Barcelona-lite' are done.

It's all about athleticism, fast transitioning and having the balls to go for it, like France against Argentina and Mexico against Germany. Uruguay did the same to Portugal. Senegal were unlucky to go out and played very well in the new style.

It's great stuff and lucky us, we already have Uruguay v France, as well as a possible Belgium v Brazil to come. These could be classics. Great World Cup so far. I'm not breathing a word about the other half of the draw..............someone's always watching :bandit:
Might be Mexico v Japan, with a bit of luck:emoticon-0130-devil
 
Might be Mexico v Japan, with a bit of luck:emoticon-0130-devil

They've both got a chance but they're not getting anywhere close to attracting my money. Whoever comes out of that side of the draw to make the final is going to have to beat some very good teams. Personally, I want to see BelSpurs beat Brazil.
 
They've both got a chance but they're not getting anywhere close to attracting my money. Whoever comes out of that side of the draw to make the final is going to have to beat some very good teams. Personally, I want to see BelSpurs beat Brazil.
It's a funny old world cup. I dont expect Japan to get any further but I could see Mexico surprising Brazil.
 
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Schmeichel kvetching about Kramaric's stuttering run when he was at least a foot off his line was pretty amusing...
Well, that's 'Old Football' well and truly dead. Early exits for Germany and Spain and Portugal and Argentina. Possession is dead, old slow players that pass sideways over and over again are history. Barcelona and Wenger's 'Barcelona-lite' are done.
Errm, have you watched Uruguay in this World Cup? That's OLD Old Football
 
Schmeichel kvetching about Kramaric's stuttering run when he was at least a foot off his line was pretty amusing...

Errm, have you watched Uruguay in this World Cup? That's OLD Old Football

Yes, I've watched them and yes, you're right that it is a bit of a throwback but what I'm saying is it's not the slow stifling build up of Spain or Germany. It's not trying to retain possession above anything else and frightened to risk losing it by going and passing forward when possible, kind of 'Back to the Future', if you like.

It's also not mad dog pressing, Bielsa style, or Pep's Citeh either. However. if they had a chance to attack, they did it and did it at pace, rather than try and slowly smother the life out of teams, allowing them to get all 11 behind the ball. Uruguay aren't in the same camp as Germany or Spain.

The thing that they did against Portugal was, when they could get the ball forward to Suarez and Cavani, they really went for it, using the long ball on occasions and it's a different, faster counter-attacking style that's completely at odds with what Germany and Spain served up and what's been successful in recent World Cups. With those 2 up front and a really solid back four, why wouldn't you?

I think that Pochettino was referring to making changes to Spurs along these lines. We need to attack faster and pass much earlier and more incisively from deep midfield positions. I think that's where the likely sale of Mousa Dembele and rumours of Christian Eriksen dropping deeper come from and why we wanted Moura and now Martial/Zaha. It's good to see MP and his team changing what we do and how we do it.
 
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The thing that they did against Portugal was, when they could get the ball forward to Suarez and Cavani, they really went for it, using the long ball on occasions

That was smart, because with those two Uruguay
effectively made the opposition final third akin to a
player going to the opposition corners in the closing
minutes to eat up time.

So not only does the opposition not have the ball, but
they don't have it in a region of the pitch where there
is potential danger to them.
 
The weird thing I've noticed with Croatia, especially in the Nigeria and Denmark matches, is their approach reminds me a lot of like our opening game against Newcastle last season: there's periods where they press, there's periods where they kick it up a gear and start attacking, yet there's far longer periods where they sit back - which makes little sense to me because, while Modric, Rakitic,m Brozovic and Kovacic are all players who can retain the ball none of them are players who can break up play, which is what they need for the periods when they're sitting back as Nigeria and Denmark posed a lot of problems for them