Yes I watched the match, it was even aired on italian tv and I remember that the pretty good performance was totally ruined by those OGs.
- Portugal (cuz Blatter wants CR7) and they will stop soon as usual. - France - Romania (gtfo boring defensive overrated Greece) - Croatia (Iceland is the same team defeated by Japan B months ago?)
Why did they put Portugal against Sweden? Don't make sense. It should be either team facing either of Greece-Romania.
No definitely Croatia over Iceland any day. WC is a festival of football. If possible wanna see the best teams in the world. Croatia has a good team. So wanna see them no matter the neighbor status they have here which is similar to the South Korea vs Japan one. To compare it would be same as if you would want to see Thailand instead of South Korea in WC I mean sure you wish all the best to the smaller countries of football like Thailand but for the good of WC 2014 you wanna see SK
Meh, no. We're still talking about a team that beat Slovenia once in the qualifiers, drew with Switzerland, beat Norway... Thailand didn't even reach the final round...
They won when we were shit. They are not a bad team, do not misunderstand me. But Croatia is a lot better and it will show in those two matches. Naturally this is football and anyone can win, but still Croatia will be the better team I am willing to bet on that btw Croatia has a new coach. Niko Kovač one of the possible candidates was also Matjaž Kek but in the end they decided to go with "local" guy
Well, yes, Croatia's players are just stronger, on paper. Yet they lost to Scotland recently... maybe it was just an incident since they didn't have anything to play anymore. I heard the manager resigned too?
they were playing badly in recent matches. Coach was under fire for a while so in the end he resigned himself. Personally I think Belgium was better and they got lost on that account and didnt take the games as they should in general. I never like the on paper talks about strengths because there were plenty teams who were strong on paper but sucked when they played and this Belgium team was one of those until recently and the new manager Croatian team as it is is very strong when they play like they are supposed to but they have one problem and that is that they are often over confident. Confidence can be good on some occasions but you have to know where the border. Is. It was not that long ago that they called themselves little Spain (because of the way they play and their strength) well they stopped doing that now hah
How far do you think Japan's squad is from Switzerland? And do you think Switzerland is on the same level as Netherlands, Chile, Colombia, etc.
No way. Was WC 2002 any worse just because Netherlands didnt qualify at the expense of Ireland ( who btw was one of the more colourful teams in that tournament both on and off the pitch) ? Did WC 2010 become better because France qualified instead of Ireland after that big fuzz? Remember, France finished dead last in their group with just 1 point and 1 goal scored, and certainly didnt add anything outside the field either ( which Ireland always does with their fantastic fans). The teams that qualify are the teams that deserve to be there. U may not like Iceland, but they'be beaten and / or played even with 3 teams that all have ambitions of being a regular figure at World Cups. What did Croatia do that makes them so much more worthy than for example Iceland ? Losing both home and away to the "giants" from Scotland? Getting extremely marginal wins both at home and away vs "powerhouses" like FYR Macedonia and Wales? And not to mention that they scored only 12 goals in 10 games, and were constantly involved in low-scoring and from an objective point of view rather boring games. But sure, they do got some fancy names and big players, but if that's the point, u're better off watching club football instead. Its most of the time the smaller clubs that makes the best stories and most memorable moments from big tournaments like World Cups ( like Croatia did in 1998 or South Korea in 2002 etc). We might get stripped of some big clashes between international powerhouses, but more often than not those matches are a a big anti-climax anyway with neither of the teams willing to take any chances.
way to ruin your post (and no, I have nothing against SK, but in that world cup... lol . "Memorable" is a good definition for that, but not in your sense )
nippon to tell you the truth it was Because even if the big teams fail, for me that in itself is also funny and enjoying. So actually I was enjoying it France getting their asses wooped
Nah, there's 2 sides to that story But it's been discussed back and forth on both this forum and others many times before, and the conspiracy theoreticists and the other ones will never agree anyway. So it's best to just agree to disagree
I think most ppl who aren't French did, but I still don't see why Croatia will necessarily bring anything extra to a World Cup than what Iceland will, except for maybe "bigger" stars. Either way, both countries are rather small, and have certainly been punching above their weightclass for some time, so in that way they are both underdogs. Hopefully the best team among them will qualify.