WC 2018 Group F: Germany, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea

Discussion in 'GROUP F: Germany, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea' started by Jtsmith1, Dec 1, 2017.

  1. HomietheClown

    HomietheClown Member+

    Dusselheim FC 1971
    Sep 4, 2010
    Club:
    --other--
    When you compare it to the cycle before when Mexico could not defeat Janaica, Honduras, Costa Rica or USA in the Hex at Azteca then what Osorio has accomplished is a breath of fresh air.
    I agree with what Alexi Lalas said on Fox Sports when he said Osorio may be too good for the Mexican media and the fans who want his head every time a freak result happens. When he leaves things could get much worse before they get much better.
    Unless they pony up the money and get an experienced tactician. I don't know if they will.
     
  2. Californian81

    Californian81 Member

    Chivas
    Mexico
    Oct 26, 2017

    Don't worry about Mexico. They're lining up Antonio Mohamed. Great coach.

    I agree with your premise though, Osorio has done well, and overreactions should be toned down in spite of the Chile and Germany matches.
     
  3. HomietheClown

    HomietheClown Member+

    Dusselheim FC 1971
    Sep 4, 2010
    Club:
    --other--
    I liked Mohamed as a player going back to his Toros Neza days. I have sorta liked him as a manager too but he seems to be a bit too emotional and temperamental.
    I also don't know how he will do a a National team manage since he too has only been a Club manager, but it would be interesting to see how that would play out.
     
  4. killaorca

    killaorca Member+

    AFC Ajax
    May 11, 2010
    Pacific Ocean
    Club:
    RSC Anderlecht
    Can someone tell me Sweden's expected starting XI?
     
  5. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark
  6. Thezzaruz

    Thezzaruz Member+

    Jun 20, 2011
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Sweden
    Albin Ekdal is likely to replace Jakob Johansson, both due to injury and because of tactical dispositions. That position could also be filled by Seb Larsson which would likely mean Jimmie Durmaz comes in to fill Larsson's usual position in right midfield.

    Most of the other starting spots are fairly set, Martin Olsson at LB might be an option though.
     
  7. Paul Calixte

    Paul Calixte Moderator
    Staff Member

    Orlando City SC
    Apr 30, 2009
    Miami, FL
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Still convinced that JC Osorio is not a tournament coach. In WCQ, where teams face each other under similar conditions of internal unfamiliarity, his tinkering + Mexico's talent can give them an edge. But in tournaments, while other teams start coalescing around their preferred formation and style of play, Osorio's rotations leave Mexico just as internally bewildered as when they began, leading them to get worse as the tournament goes on (see: 2016 Copa América, 2017 Confed Cup, 2017 Gold Cup - yeah, he sat out the latter, but the coaching staff continued to follow his orders).
     
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  8. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    I don't see South Korea getting much out of this group. Before the draw, I had said Mexico might do well in Russia and get passed the Round of 16. But with this group, I see it likelier than not that they will not advance. That will also be a first for them since 1986 but it doesn't look good for Mexico or Concacaf this time around as I pick Germany and Sweden to advance from this group.
     
  9. Big balls

    Big balls Member

    May 22, 2006
    Sweden
    You ended up with a team that made Italy miss their first world cup since 1958 and Italy is a team that's "in it to win it" every WC so ok, if you don't find that noteworthy then what can I say.

    The road that got Sweden to the World Cup (France, Holland , Italy) was A LOT more difficult than Mexico and South Korea. Would I be surprised if Mexico beats Sweden ?. No, that's football. I have respect for the Mexican team and it's gonna be a fun game to watch, not sure if Sweden has ever played Mexico!?
     
  10. Big balls

    Big balls Member

    May 22, 2006
    Sweden
    I told my co-worker the day before the draw.....ANY team but Germany. Coming out of this solid qualifying campaign, spirits are high but the German machine cannot be beat. Later I added....ok lets not have Brazil as well but absolutely NOT Germany!. So it was pretty obvious we were gonna get Germany :( , the only upside is that Mexico, South Korea get them as well but Sweden has the capacity of beating great teams that I don't believe South Korea can beat. The German machine however is not a team where Sweden can push through
     
  11. Kung

    Kung Member

    Nov 3, 2014
    Club:
    Hammarby IF
    Nat'l Team:
    Sweden
    Never forget ^^

     
  12. HomietheClown

    HomietheClown Member+

    Dusselheim FC 1971
    Sep 4, 2010
    Club:
    --other--
    “We are not only aiming for the quarterfinals. We don’t want to set a limit on our ambitions. We want to aim as high as we can because we know we have the potential" he said.. "Every team in the World Cup has a chance and we want to do our best ever, to get to the final and even win the World Cup.”
    http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/chic...l-and-even-win-the/1qd9vx9brww5f1c77sk0nftbph

    Gotta like Chicharito's confidence.
     
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  13. Paul Calixte

    Paul Calixte Moderator
    Staff Member

    Orlando City SC
    Apr 30, 2009
    Miami, FL
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Eh...massive hill to climb to reach the quarterfinals this time around, unless they punk Germany and manage to win this group.
     
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  14. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark

    Watch out for Serbia sneaking past Brazil and winning Group E, especially if they win their first two matches and can play for the draw against Brazil in the third match. Mexico would then play Serbia instead of Brazil in R16. Setting up, of course, an amazing R16 match between Brazil and Germany!
     
  15. White/Blue_since1860

    Orange14 is gay
    Jan 4, 2007
    Bum zua City
    Club:
    TSV 1860 München
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
  16. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    @HansWorldCup - this would be a good thread for you to post your views on Sweden, who I rate because they are the only side that I have seen defeat Iran since World Cup 2014. Against Iran, we had trouble containing Ibra but I am wondering how Sweden has coped without Ibra? I know they didn't qualify to World Cup 2014 even with Ibra and now have qualified to World Cup 2018 without him, but more generally, how much have Sweden lost (if any) due to not having Ibra anymore and what are Sweden's strengths and weaknesses in your mind.

    Incidentally, I have picked Germany and Sweden to advance from this group. Which means Mexico's record of advancing out of the group (something they have done each time since 1986) may come to an end in Russia. We will see as Mexico will clearly be the next favorite to advance from this group. South Korea can trouble some of the teams in this group too, but I don't give them a realistic shot at earning more than a point or 2 in this group.
     
  17. Paul Calixte

    Paul Calixte Moderator
    Staff Member

    Orlando City SC
    Apr 30, 2009
    Miami, FL
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Technically - they didn't do it in 1990, but that's because Henry Kissinger made sure they didn't get the chance.
     
  18. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    Yeah, but Mexico's true record actually starts in my mind with World Cup 1998. Until then, Mexico had only advanced either at home or near home (Wc94, USA). Otherwise, before Wc98 there were great doubts about Meixco, with Mexico often a punching bag and had a lot more losses than wins at the World Cup. But Wc98 was turning point for Mexico. They opened with a somewhat fortunate win against S.Korea in that they were trailing 1:0 when S.Korea were reduced to 10 men, with Mexico then winning the game 3:1. Then they drew Belgium 2:2 with Blanco and Hernandez shining and ended up somehow also drawing Holland 2:2 as well. The draw against Holland was particularly impressive as the Dutch side in 1998 was one of the best teams in that tournament. Anyway, World Cup 1998 was the first time Mexico really did well outside of its home turf and was a milestone for them. Before then, if the World Cup wasn't in Mexico (or the US, which to me is like being in Mexico), you could count on Mexico doing poorly. Indeed, the only win Mexico had outside of Mexico/USA was in the 1962 World Cup, which was in Chile. Otherwise, Mexico used to be a side that would consistently qualify to the World cup and often come back pointless and its record was part of what gave Concacaf its nickname Concalaugh.
     
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  19. Kung

    Kung Member

    Nov 3, 2014
    Club:
    Hammarby IF
    Nat'l Team:
    Sweden
    I know you didn’t ask me but this is my take on Sweden

    We’ve been very unlucky with draws. In order to qualify for the 2014 world cup, we had to either top a group against Germany or beat Portugal in playoff.

    If people would look at Sweden’s football history you would realise that Ibras involvement in the national team has been one of our weakest periods. Partly because the Swedish system doesn’t benefit from an individual player like Ibra. We do know that we can’t produce players like the top squads so a lot of focus is on a good team. With Zlatan the other players got weaker and hoped that he would solve most of the matches. The biggest benefit for us was however that the former incompetent coach finally quit and a competent one took over.


    We’ll play 4-4-2 as always. Our strength should lay on the defence, hoping for counters and set pieces against the stronger teams while we’ll try to be more offensive against South Korea.

    We do have good central defenders in Granqvist and Lindelöf, weaker full-backs and goalkeeper.
    Stronger midfield with Forsberg, Ekdal and Larsson. A key factor for Sweden in this world cup could be that Albin Ekdal for once isn’t injured. If you wonder what difference he makes just look at how much weaker we were against Italy after his injury in the first match.
    Toivonen and Berg work well together as strikers. The problem is that if one of them get suspended or is injured we have very weak alternatives on the bench. At the moment it’s Guidetti who’s bad in La liga and do poorly in the national team or Thelin who doesn’t preform when he gets the chance. People do hope Mikael ishak that does well in Bundesliga 2 will get some friendlies with the NT and hopefully get picked into the squad over one of Guidetti or Thelin.

    The thing with Sweden is that we can play bad against poorer teams and very good when we face better nations. I wouldn’t be surprised if we for example would lose against South Korea, drew Germany and beat Mexico.
     
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  20. HansWorldCup

    HansWorldCup Member

    Roma
    Sweden
    Jan 10, 2018
    Ahh saw this now, thanks but couldnt said it better than Kung did.
    But i must add Berg and Toivonen, if one of them get injured or something take out the other one too. They have played with each other since they was 14-15 something. So they are good together so if they gonna play both must play or no one imo. But i am hoping for two other forwards but that is the problem, i dont know anyone i want hehe. John Guidette no. Alexander Isak, Mainz have him on loan now from Dortmund but he is 18 and havent played alot this season. I hope he get time now in Mainz.
    The problem with Ibra was he got to much power in the national team the last six years with Erik Hamren as coach. I dont like him at all. So it was Ibras team. The other players was scared to do mistake
    Swedens strength is we are a team now and everyone know what they are gonna do. The players know we can beat the best teams. We was in a pretty hard qualify group with France, Netherland and Bulgaria (Luxenburg too) and we won over France home and won over Italy in play-off, 1-0 home, the away match we played on a result and i was not so nervous against Italy. We won over Portugal in Maderia, Just a friendly.
     
  21. Xylophone

    Xylophone Member

    Fiorentina
    Jan 30, 2018
    Hey, I'm new here and would like to give an overview of what kind of squad we can expect from Sweden in summer. Naturally, the vast majority will consist of the players who participated in the qualification. Altogether, our coach Janne Andersson called up 38 players for competitive games between September 2016 and December 2017.

    Note that the numbers below don't represent shirt numbers. Also note that the "DM" and "AM" position descriptions aren't entirely accurate, but I want an easy way to distinguish between defense-minded midfielders vs the more attacking equivalents.

    In total, Sweden played 12 games (10 in Group A + 2 in Play-Off). "Start" obviously means how many games they played from start. "Subs" shows how many games they began at the bench, but got playing time later in the game. "Bench", in this case, means those who were part of the bench, albeit as unused substitutes.

    [​IMG]

    Considering that 38 minus 23 = 15, this means that several contributors towards our World Cup ticket will be omitted. If you look closely, you'll see that two names are in italics. This is for those who, for whatever reason, is likely to miss the World Cup. Wendt quit the NT at some point, I think it was towards the end of 2016 after the first game against France or something.

    Johansson's injury against Italy at San Siro means that he might not make it. So, now we're at 13. Which ones will make the final squad? Well, if we speculate using a standard squad template with a back-up for each position (that is, 3 goalkeepers, 4 centre backs, 4 fullbacks, 4 defensive/central midfielders, 4 attacking midfielders/wingers & 4 forwards), then it could look something like this:

    [​IMG]

    Plus another goalkeeper, of course!

    But wait, aren't there any viable candidates among those who didn't participate in the qualification? Well, I'd love a few surprise squad inclusions but I honestly can't think of any good ones. Okay, other posters brought up Mikael Ishak & Alexander Isak (I swear, I thought they were the same person in the beginning, lol); those two would actually be decent bets. Especially considering the overall quality of our forwards...

    What else do we got? Panathinaikos' Guillermo Molins is an option that's at least getting playing time in a decent league, even if his club isn't in good shape atm. His teammate Mattias Johansson is a right back who hasn't been anywhere near the national team. Johannes Hopf is a starter gk in Süper Lig, but doesn't seem to be rated by Andersson. Alexander Kacaniklic & Branimir Hrgota play for fairly good teams (Nantes & Frankfurt), but aren't more than bench players. On the other hand, one who does seem to get playing time in the league is Robin Quaison at Mainz.

    You can probably tell that you'd have to really scrape the bottom of the barrel that is top-level football in hopes of finding enough Swedish players to compete for those elusive 23 spots. What about returnees? Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Rasmus Elm & Pontus Wernbloom are arguably the two best players retired from the NT that are still active at club level. I wouldn't mind getting the latter one back, given his versatility (can play upfront at CSKA), experience, and familiarity with host country.

    Lastly, there are probably a few Allsvenskan-based players from the annual non-FIFA scheduled January games that are on the NT staff's radar.
     
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  22. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark
    Welcome to Big Soccer, Xylophone. Nice summary of the Swedish team. I like your graphics. Also, great user name.

    Question for you. Every once in a while I see some speculation about Zlatan coming back to the team for the World Cup. You think there is any chance of that?
     
  23. HansWorldCup

    HansWorldCup Member

    Roma
    Sweden
    Jan 10, 2018
    Guidetti was good against Barcelona.
    Yes nice summary!
    Hej hej :)
     
  24. Xylophone

    Xylophone Member

    Fiorentina
    Jan 30, 2018
    #49 Xylophone, Feb 1, 2018
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2018
    Thanks, Hayaka. I'd say the chances of Zlatan going to the World Cup are less than 10% at this point in time. Any discussion about Zlatan & the national team is bound to be divisive, but the general consensus seems to be that the Swedish fans don't him back again. In addition, Janne Andersson sounded annoyed when asked about Zlatan at a press conference shortly after knocking Italy out. There are 4 main factors that come into play here:

    1. His personality tends to rub people the wrong way, and the gap of quality between him and his team mates yielded him more power and authority than he should have had during the Hamrén era.

    2. From a tactical point-of-view, including him in the squad may have an effect on the style of play that Sweden uses. Should we really adapt our new team to the qualities that Zlatan possesses? Ideally, it could be the other way around, with him being a super-sub during moments where we're desperate for a goal. I'll get back to this part later.

    3. I think even the most fervent Zlatan supporters can't deny the fact that he is quite old now and way past his prime. Had this taken place a few years ago, the likelihood of him returning would have been a lot higher. Granted, there is a good reason why he (unlike most of his contemporaries) is still playing at a top club like Manchester United, but unless he scores a ton of goals in PL & CL, I don't see Andersson going out of his way to bring him back a 36-year old man.

    4. This isn't necessarily about him, but many people have a problem with players who retire from the national team, abstain from the qualifying games, only to conveniently return just in time for the tournament. This is different from someone never appearing during the qualifiers due to not being good enough, but being in form during the spring and getting a surprising call-up. One who did retire and return, twice (!), is Henrik Larsson (Euro 2004 & Euro 2008) and only got away with it because of his likeability and for being a genuine team player with tons of experience.

    To round up this long post, I'll get back to what I brought up about Zlatan being a super-sub. In my opinion, him being in the final squad but starting on the bench would be a win-win scenario for all parties involved. Sweden gets an experienced player (on average, our current players have only made about 20 caps in total) that could make an impact when things aren't going well, without making him the focal point of the team. Our opponents will feel intimidated with such a big name on the field. Zlatan will get a last chance of getting a medal with the NT.

    I truly believe that people only are spoilt when others allow them to. If a person wants something bad enough, they are bound to want to oblige those who are in a position of giving that person exactly that. The question is: Does Zlatan want this bad enough? Or has he closed that chapter of his life for good?
     
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  25. Xylophone

    Xylophone Member

    Fiorentina
    Jan 30, 2018
    Hej, Hans! It's nice to hear that Guidetti is starting off well at his new club.

    If I'm not mistaken, he has already scored as many goals for Alavés as he has for the national team.:D
     

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