PBP Thread: Australia vs Peru, 26 June 2018 [R]

The Peruvian players will play and fight the best they have learned, not to go home from this WC with 0 points and no goals scored ... Australia probably need yet another penalty to get a result in this match ... prediction: 2-0 for Peru ...

 

This one isn't a bit easier now for Australia with Peru eliminated. Peru still didn't score. The Peruvians will play their game as always and look for compensation. I think this one was always and is Peru's best bet for a win. Peru will score a couple and win this.

 

that's if the Denmark doesn't also win or gets a draw, in which case no matter what Australia does, the aussies will not catch them on points.

At this point, it wouldn't surprise me, to see both France and Denmark, play with their bench players, a ping-pong match instead of football.

 

In.

 

So will Australia once again rely on their patented "other team handles the ball in the box" play?

 

I don't think France can rest either. They lose to Denmark, and they face Croatia in R16 and probably Spain in the quarters. France doesn't want that, particularly the latter.

 

It's not our fault other teams decide to play handball in the box. Interestingly that's 3 competitive games in a row we have received penalties for handball (also happened in the playoff against Honduras).

 

Can't say no to Jedinak scoring a PK.

 

This game depends a lot on the attitude of the Peruvian players and how they respond to being eliminated after two matches. The Australian team are still alive but need to win and hope France also wins, and even if that happens qualification will then depend on tie breakers. I'm not sure of the attitude of the Peru team. Did they expect to qualify and are now going through a major disappointment? Will they respond with a major effort to try to take at least third place, or will they still be flat from the disappointment. If they go all out we can expect an entertaining game, although the goal scoring prowess on show from both teams so far may mean lots of action in front of goal, without a lot of goals being scored. Good luck to both teams. The most likely result in my mind is that both teams finish their 2018 World Cup campaign once the full time whistle blows.

 

Yeah, Perú had high expectations to get out of the group. Unfortunately, the goals didn't come. But, in Peru and among peruvians, it feels sad, but it doesn't feel like a failure. The team gave it 100% and were never outplayed by teams with far greater resources. It was that one goal that needed to be scored that was the difference. Against Australia, the objective is to finish the tournament with a win, and they'll be trying very hard for that purpose.

 

That worries me too, Peru's style suits the extra freedom that they are now afforded with nothing to play for. This freedom plus the stronger technical skills possessed by the Peruvians might mean Maty Ryan will have a busy day. But hopefully there's not so much desperation in defence for Peru when the result doesn't matter. We might be in for a 7 goal thriller, goals being something this group has lacked due to it's tightness, lack of finishing and good danish goalkeeping.

 

I doubt there will be that many goals. I expect a 1-0 result, or possibly 1-1. The peru team is going into the last game looking for a win as a "thank you" to the fans, but Australia is going to fight for everything they're worth. It should be a close game.

Denmark, sad to say, will play their usual boring defensive game and will be happy to play for a 0-0 draw. I know I'm still feeling kind of upset, but, boy, if there's a team whose game/style does not deserve to go to the next round it's Denmark...and that is out of all the groups.

 

Actually the debate in Denmark is about the loss of our key defensive midfielder Kvist in the Peru game, which really hurt our usual attacking minded style of play because Delaney and Eriksen will leave most of the defensive work to Kvist, but now playing without an actual defensive midfielder it has (according to Delaney) forced him to think much more about the defensive work while Lasse Schöne is also not a defensive midfielder and has had trouble replacing Kvist, .. so you could actually say that we ironically now have two fairly attacking minded box-to-box midfielders trying to do the defensive work of Kvist, which then in reality only leave Eriksen to do most of the attacking, and this really has hurt the usual flow in central midfield, which has made the team look much more defensive minded without really being in control.

The Danish NT coach imply that he will do some changes against France, fielding a more genuine defensive midfielder .... or he could perhaps also let one of our many centre backs do the job of Kvist ...

 

I mean I get why you're upset. Peru has certainly deserved a better fate than this. But Denmark isn't defensive minded. You could have said anything about and I would probably agree with you. You could have said that Denmark sucked so far or that Denmark haven't been able to take control of the midfield or created much chances etc., but saying that Denmark is defensive is just factually wrong. Ask anyone Denmark has played against before: Poland, Mexico etc. Denmark usually does pretty poorly when they don't have ball control and their high pressure attempts don't work. That's like calling Brazil boring and defensive after they lose 7-1 to Germany. Sometimes you just get outmatched.

But yeah. Judging from the games so far. I feel like Peru would be a better asset to the tournament than Denmark or Australia. But I still have a hope that the Danish NT at one point is successfully is going to show how they actually can play.

 

Much as I would rather it was us with the best chance of going through there is no need to disparage Denmark's team. We both had our opportunities against them and didn't take them. Denmark emerged from the two games against us with 4 points. They did that by defending strongly and taking their chances. That's what good football teams do.

 

Denmark has played quite poorly and defensive minded in compare with the qualifiers and also in compare with the last friendly against Mexico ... You can blame the coach for not really bringing an actual defensive replacemet for Kvist, who suffered a rib injury and a punctured lung after only 30 minutes against Peru ... now he is back in Russia because the NT coach seem desperate to get him ready to play in the later stages if Denmark is able to progress ... but fact of the matter is that Denmark has looked quite terrible and headless in central midfield without Kvist, though most Danes will probably tell you that Kvist is both too slow and has little skills, while the NT coach and his team-mates will tell you that he is by far the most clever playing defensive player in the team and so he can not really be replaced .. still ... Denmark has managed to pick up 4 points playing poorly because Eriksen has saved the day anyway during a few minutes of excellent performance in both games ...

 

I'm only talking about the games I've seen in this world cup, for Denmark and for all the other teams. The World Cup, as it is, seems to be its own tournament where anything can happen. and that's great.

So far, in the whole tournament, I didn't see Denmark take the game with a passion that attracts a great response. Morocco had it. Nigeria had it. Switzerland had it. Granted, in the course of how the games went, the Danish team didn't need to do more than play it cleanly. But in the games coming up for them (against France, and likely Croatia) I can't see the strategy be much different than its two other world cup games, and they could very well leave the tournament without generating something to really remember. As a soccer fan, I would be disappointed if that were to happen. Just in personal preference, I've found their style rather boring, and so far it has been up to the other team to put life into the game, and I hope in these two games (or more) they can do something that changes my opinion that they're the most boring team going into the round of 16.

 

This isn't the qualifiers this is the world cup. You are now playing better teams than you did in the qualifiers. That makes it much harder to take control of a game and dominate. Denmark is not playing poorly, they are playing as good as they are capable of and getting the results.