Russia 2018 Finalists: International Friendlies (R)

What's wrong with Korea this year bro? Such poor results, they couldn't even beat lowly Bolivia B

 

Only 3 friendlies left

Belgium - Costa Rica
Japan - Paraguay
Poland - Lithuania

 

We lost a lot of key players to injury in the two months leading up to the WC, but other than that our manager is questionable still, using players that no one understands why they are even in the squad to leaving out players who should have been called and utilizing formations that don't work for us right now. He's been making excuses about Bolivia and Senegal saying they were a "trick" saying that he doesn't want his plans to get out to Sweden or Mexico since they are already better than us.

All Koreans want right now is for the team to play their hearts out not necessarily win since we know it's highly unlikely haha. But I'll still be in Russia cheering for them.

We have to go back to the mentality of 2002, where all we relied on good fitness and teamwork rather than skill, but that we only had because Hiddink begged KFA to let the clubs release players for a month before to hold training camp. We need to stop trying to play "pretty" football. Thankfully we have some kids that will be at the 2022 WC that have some potential, hopefully we have a competent manager who can lead us then though.

 

Before the last EUROs Belgium dominated France. The French didn't hold back and even two-footed Mertens. France lost the game despite getting plenty of help from the ref, quite a few poor calls in their favour. Belgium only played one other strong team before EURO 2016, an Italy side managed very well by Conte. Belgium also won that game, beating Italy 3-1. Doesn't mean much, still didn't get past the quarterfinals.

 

I still hope your nation can get through the group stage. Your national team has been the best performed Asian team over the last three years and they deserve some achievement to back this up. As I'm hoping for my nation to defend the Asian Cup, I would rather you got your achievement in the World Cup with a second round progression rather than an Asian Cup. I'm still hoping we get to play each other in a competitive match soon, we now have a young player in our squad of Iranian descent who wasn't even born when we last played.

 

True, that was 1 year before the tournament. In may 2016 Belgium played crap against Portugal, Norway and Switserland.
Now its a whole different situation with much better team play and individual efforts.
In June 2016 kdb was out of shape and tired, Hazard was not in great shape like now, Lukaku was less the player.
All in all this Belgium is better. BUT the 343 remains a big questions vs big teams..

 

True dadash, although that Jan Vertonghen header was onside so 5-1 actually
Like a said this team is much better than 2016 with more fluidity. But I hope we are tactically good to convert to a 4 man defence vs good teams.

Anyways good luck to Iran and Belgium!

 

So you saw I only needed to look back at our previous campaign to challenge his "never" claim with ease. Wilmots was still in charge then and there was, without exaggeration, no plan for how to attack (pretty much depending entirely on improvisation and individual performances, mainly from Hazard).

During the training camp ahead of EURO 2016, like in the past and in the current one, the focus is on the physical aspect in the beginning. Players have to deal with a heavy workload which shows in those friendlies, i.e. heavy, tired legs. During EURO 2016 I wouldn't exactly say Hazard was poor, quite the contrary, but I'd have to agree about Lukaku and KDB. Hazard is in even better form now. ATM he's looking more promising than ahead of the EUROs (our views on Hazard, then and now, probably don't differ much).

Also, we didn't play Portugal in May 2016 but in March, only a week after the deadliest act of terrorism in my country's history. Friendlies are hardly ever memorable and I couldn't care the least about that one.

 

Japan 4 Paraguay 2

 

This is a confusing result. Japan fielded a complete B-team (Kagawa isn't considered a starter anymore) yet they played much better than the A-team in the last 2 games. It is really difficult for me to predict who will start against Colombia!

 

Paraguay is not as good as Switzerland or Ghana, but yeah probably also a case of older players getting phased out for not being as good anymore.

 

Poland 4 Lithuania 0

Friendlies all done. Real deal comming up.

 

I've posted my World Rankings based on the formula I devised on this forum before. I've calculated a points per game for the pre WC friendlies of all the 32 teams based on my ranking formula. Teams like Colombia, Uruguay, and Argentina only played one friendly, while I believe South Korea played the most with 4. Most other teams played 2-3.

Here are the average points per game from the pre WC friendlies. I guess it could be looked at as a sort of pre WC form.

1. Brazil - 95 points per game
2. Denmark - 81 points per game
3. Belgium - 76 points per game
4. France - 74 points per game
5. England - 72 points per game
6. Switzerland - 67 points per game
7. Spain - 64 points per game
8. Portugal - 64 points per game
9. Argentina - 60 points per game
10. Australia - 59 points per game
11. Sweden - 59 points per game
12. Poland - 57 points per game
13. Peru - 56 points per game
14. Serbia - 54 points per game
15. Croatia - 52 points per game
16. Morocco - 50 points per game
17. Uruguay - 50 points per game
18. Colombia - 48 points per game
19. Tunisia - 47 points per game
20. Mexico - 40 points per game
21. Senegal - 39 points per game
22. Costa Rica - 39 points per game
23. Japan - 36 points per game
24. Egypt - 35 points per game
25. Nigeria - 28 points per game
26. Iceland - 28 points per game
27. South Korea - 28 points per game
28. Russia - 27 points per game
29. Saudi Arabia - 27 points per game
30. Germany - 25 points per game
31. Iran - 24 points per game
32. Panama - 24 points per game

 

And one goal for Poland was also disallowed thanks to VAR - it was a handball just before Krychowiak scored - so together there were three very important calls made using VAR.

 

I didn't agree with that penalty call. At first I thought obvious penalty, but on further look the Lithuanian defender simply put his hand up to defend his face. His hands were still in line with his body.