France likes to see the giant Orange caterpillar move across the country Everybody wants to see it, the French love it. The same as in the WC 1998!!
I seem to remember in a previous tournament someone telling me that they did not want to give an advantage to certain teams who would play 3 games in the same cities get settled in hotels and training places while others would have to move around all the times. Also it is a marketing ploy to get the big teams in all cities and help ticket sales.
The most likely last 16 match-ups at the #FIFAWWC according to @Gracenotelive simulations:🇩🇪Germany v 🏴Scotland🇳🇴Norway v 🇦🇺Australia🏴England v 🇳🇿New Zealand🇫🇷France v 🇧🇷Brazil🇪🇸Spain v 🇺🇸United States🇸🇪Sweden v 🇳🇱Netherlands🇮🇹Italy v 🇨🇳China PR🇨🇦Canada v 🇯🇵Japan— Simon Gleave (@SimonGleave) June 17, 2019
VAR and the goal line technology are different. The latter is a piece of black and white tech that nobody really argues with. The ball is either over or not and the machine can make the decision essentially flawlessly with no interruption to the game. VAR exists to help refs make judgement calls where their position on the field may not have allowed them to make a fair judgement. Good in theory, but wonky and inconsistent in application so far. It may be that they need to further constrict the situation where VAR applies and be more transparent about the guidelines refs are following.
Um, this may be a slight exaggeration of the circumstance we’re facing...tho I’d agree with you the calls on goalkeepers leaving the line have been frustrating. Did the Nigerian keeper leaving the line CAUSE Reynard to jerk that shot wide? The post-call keeper is essentially a sitting duck.
Seen some chatter over the past few days that the 24-team format, which lets four 3rd-place teams into the knockout round, might have been a bad decision because some weak teams are getting in (to both the KO round and to the tournament overall). So here's a bit of an experiment: what would France 2019 look like if it had the same country allocation as Germany 2011 did? AFC: Japan, Australia, China (out: S.Korea, Thailand - probably a good cut) CAF: Nigeria, S.Africa (out: Cameroon - TBD) C'CAF: USA, Canada (playoff for Jamaica, who would then most definitely get cut by whoever UEFA sent to the playoff, so probably a good cut) C'BOL: Brazil, Chile (out: Argentina - probably NOT a good cut) OFC: New Zealand (no change) UEFA: with four spots and a playoff spot, I'm not sure how the groups might have been, but if we go just by FIFA ranking, you'd get: Germany, England, Netherlands, and Sweden, plus Norway through playoffs and a host slot for France, meaning Italy, Scotland, and Spain would all be out - not good for Italy or Spain, but maybe deserved for Scotland (and this is even after teams like Switzerland and Denmark were already not making 2019) With those 16 teams, your four pots would look like this: 1 - France, USA, Germany, England 2 - Canada, Australia, Japan, Netherlands 3 - Sweden, Brazil, Norway, China 4 - New Zealand, Chile, Nigeria, S.Africa No *really* weak teams in pot 4, which is kinda nice. For the draw, Chile can't be placed with Brazil, Canada can't be placed with USA, and China can't be paired with Australia or Japan, so your groups could look like: A - France, Japan, Norway, Nigeria B - Germany, Australia, Brazil, S.Africa C - USA, Netherlands, Sweden, Chile D - England, Canada, China, New Zealand In this setup, almost every pot 3 team is "good enough" to make the QFs, so you'd have a lot of tough cuts, which (along with losing Argentina, Italy, and Spain outright) is probably why they felt the expansion of the tournament was justified. The problem, of course, is that after the top 12 or 16 or so, the quality does drop off. Also - as with the MWC - the "world" nature of the cup means that some moderately good UEFA teams are getting dropped in favor of weaker teams from other regions, but you'll have that problem no matter how big or small the tournament is unless you skew the distribution of slots even more toward UEFA than it already is.
It will be good to compare this analysis with a similar analysis after the men's WC in 2026. I suspect there will be far fewer tough cuts in the men's WC. What they did right with this tournament is expand where it made sense - 3 of the 7 additional spots going to UEFA. Even 2 additional spots for AFC is fair IMO when you consider how AFC teams fared in previous WCs.
Eh. Just having more European teams made going to 24 worth it. Sidenote: I don't think we should assume China would've made it over South Korea if AFC had been cut to three slots. The format of qualifying would've been different and there's no way they would've placed Australia/Japan/South Korea in one group and China "by itself" (with Philippines, Thailand and Jordan in another)
24 teams are needed. Unfortunately, can't go from 16 to 20. So 24 it is. I think all four third-placed teams this time will be deserving. It should end up being China, Brazil(already in) plus Nigeria & Cameroon(or New Zealand, whoever wins that match). Argentina vs. Scotland may end up in a scoreless draw as neither team has looked impressive. No way Chile scores enough goals vs. Thailand to advance. Even on the men's side, there's always a few weak teams. The 2026 World Cup will be a disaster with 48 teams. They should have just expanded to 40.
Maybe nit-picking, but if you can do a 40 team cup, you can do a 20 team cup. And neither are a good idea at all unless you play a second group phase or have a tiered KO entry. Because if you have 5 (10) groups of 4, then you either don't include 2 (4) second-place teams [aiming at 8/20 (16/40)] or you include all third-place teams and 1 (2) fourth-place teams [aiming at 16/20 (32/40)].
Oh, I totally agree that going to 24 was worth it. Not necessarily because of the UEFA boost, but I think the game worldwide has grown overall that the scope of the tournament needed to grow. As toad pointed out, there will always be weak teams, and I wasn't meaning to criticize that. I was just playing with the idea about some of the complaints that have been raised earlier. Personally, I don't like that the 16-team tournament I posted would have "expected" to eliminate Norway, China, Brazil, and Sweden from the KO phase (well, okay, I'd be okay with Sweden eliminated, but than I'd like to add someone like Spain or Italy).
In the referee forum, I think the majority are actually against VAR, at least as its currently operating. And the referee on the field can reject the VAR's recommendation, but the implication when the VAR suggests something to the referee is that "you've made an error. Let me show you how." Most referees are then looking for that error, and it biases them to see it. Also there was a referee who rejected the VAR's recommendation in the 2018 MWC, but the referee was wrong. And he didn't referee again in the tournament. There's a lot of pressure in that moment. Actually I wonder if there has been some specific instruction on this for this WWC because "trifling" has always been in the laws, and most referees would still say that it is trifling. But these referees at this tournament may have received different instruction.
FIFA came with a backing up of Makkelie with the remark that before the WC started refs and VARs were specifically instructed to be strict in this goal toe infractions.
Dunno if it's interesting for here, so tell me yes or no: Orange Lionesses ratings by Voetbal International match vs: NZ= New Zealand and Cam = Cameroun. ==================== NZ -=- Cam. Sari van Veenendaal ===== 7 -=- 5 Desiree van Lunteren ==== 7 -=- 6 Dominique Bloodworth === 5 -=- 7 Stefanie van der Gragt === 6.5 -=- 5 Anouk Dekker -=- 6.5 Kika van Es============= 5 -=- 5 Sherida Spitse=========== 5 -=- 6.5 Daniëlle van de Donk====== 5 -=- 5 Jackie Groenen ==========5 -=- 7 1 Shanice van de Sanden ====5 -=- 6.5 Vivianne Miedema =======6.5 -=- 8 Lieke Martens ============6.5 -=- 6 Lineth Beerensteyn -=- Jill Roord -=- Merel van Dongen -=-
Now that we’re into the end of the group stages and games are being played at the same time, the chance of hearing spoilers of the other games is going up and it sucks I wish they wouldn’t mention the other games result.
Since the players themselves are often warned about the current result in the other match and play accordingly, I guess the only way fo you to avoid this kind of info is to completely mute the comment.
I was thinking I may have to mute the commentators if I really don’t want to know a result, but I do love commentary. On that note, how are we feeling about the commentary?? Being in Canada we get 3 different people I believe, 2 Brit men and a Brit woman. One for each game. I prefer the woman, and actually I’m finding the men to be rather boring now (I’ve watched all games). I’m thinking of taping a few games of my only other option which is the American tv station. I watched a few mins of the American comm and I didn’t love it obviously but I might need to spice things up!
I'm used to having running commentary through the entirety of a sports broadcast, which I know some posters think is annoying and excessive, but I'm used to it and like whatever tidbits I sometimes catch from the commentary team. I'm used to the American commentary in particular, which used to be kinda boring for both the MWC and WWC (and sometimes obviously wrong) but I've enjoyed how, in recent years, commentary teams have taken on ex-players, ex-coaches, and ex-refs far more than they used to do. Those individuals clearly bring more energy to the commentary than the traditional talking heads would, and they reduce the number of times something obviously wrong is said too.
Why wouldnt you want to know the result from the other game? This is what creates tension in the first place isnt it? Knowing your team has to score a goal or they go home. Thats useless information after the game is over.
Because I’m watching all games, so I’m not just watching my team. I do agree about the tension sometimes but I prefer to watch the games later without knowing the result.
We get Bixente Lizarazu and Gregoire Margotton on TF1 the same guys who were doing the MWC 18, so it is quite good for us Frenchies.