Who will win this group?

The bookies had them as one of the favourites... nobody expected Greece or Denmark to win the Euros and nobody expected Portugal to win this time ..

 

Sorry, but three advancements to the knock-out rounds beats one advancement all day long. Learn to count!

 

Difference is that now we also had chile winning copa america and zambia winning can in the same years range. Along usa italia holland ghana missing the tournament.
The favorites don't have the margin they had before.

 

World cup top 3 dude in less than 20 years. After 2 other semi finals under former yugoslavian republic.

Reach world cup semi finals at least once and come back to me ^^

 

We shall see .. the others are catching up but there's still a noticeable gap imho

Desire , commitment and organisation only takes you so far

 

I see. Cherry picking as usual. All that counts according to you is reaching a semi-final. Bulgaria reached a semi-final. So their World Cup history is more storied then say, Mexico, according to your tortured logic.

As for the Yugoslavia results, different country altogether, with Serb players, Slovenians, Montenegrins, etc. Can't throw that onto the pile just cause you feel like it.

We're derailing the thread again, so you can have the last word, which I know you'll take.

 

Serbia, barring a miracle, is out.

 

Well Croatia alone with a young republic participated to more world cups than Danemark in the last 20 years, had a better highest performance reaching top 3, got already wins against Argentina Italia, Germany and Holland in world cup history and gives more football skilled players to the best european clubs year after year while you are bunkering against Australia and Peru and rely on luck

Kisses ^^

 

I don't know if that's right. Bookmakers had France as second favourutes right after Brazil to win the World Cup in 1998. Some found that odd but France prevailed in the end.

 

News from Argentina camp: 99% sure that Caballero will not start again and that the team will switch back to 4-2-3-1. Player selection... to be seen tomorrow.

 

That's good news for Argies.

 

Word on the street is there's a full-blown mutiny, even the AFA president wants him gone because he no longer has control over players.

I'm sure Sampaoli won't be heading Argentina after this WC, but sacking him before the big game might be even worse than him staying. There's still a chance for Argentina to go through, but they need to collect themselves. Instead, it seems defeatism crept in.

 

He won't be sacked before the game, that's only sensationalist bs.

I do think however that he won't be the coach anymore after this competition.

 

this croatia reminds me of 1998. i honesty think they have what it takes to win the whole thing. the bigger teams are not performing up to par. croatia has a really balanced team. i just hope they wont throw it all away like they played against portugal in euro 16.

 

Yes the big teams are not playing up to par which is why I think it's very possible we could see a new winner.

Croatia ? Portugal ? Belgium ?

 

portugal got lucky once, they wont be able to do it again. i thought about belgium, but i am not sure how strong their defense is when tested against stronger teams. they do a good job at beating up on the smaller/medium strength teams, but i think they will run into trouble against the big boys. but croatia seems to be more balanced and pragmatic, with an amazing midfield. i think of the big teams, germany or brazil or france would win it. otherwise croatia. i cant see any other team taking the whole thing.

 

First rumors of starting XI for Argentina:
Armani; Salvio, Mercado, Otamendi, Tagliafico; Pérez, Mascherano, Banega; Messi, Di María, Agüero (or maybe Higuain).

I don't want Di María or Higuaín anywhere near the starting XI, but whatever, let them have their last testimonial match with the national team...

 

I truly honestly curious:
Why would anyone persist with the ultra slow Perez + Mascherano midfield? Banega is fine and should do well, but I have no idea why those other two are still in midfield when you have Lo Celso.

And what soccer gods did Salvio bribe to remain as a right back? Utterly terrible in that position. Or is this not a 4-2-3-1? Because I see only one CB in that line-up: Otamendi.

Also - I know I repeat this before every game and Nigeria is smaller than Croatia or Iceland and lacks in set piece delivery: how can you play with two outfield players over 180 cm and the tallest of those is 183 cm?

 

when i saw nigeria won, that too against a european team, i thought that zahzah was in heaven lol.

the 2 african teams are doing well: nigeria and senegal. the 3 north african teams all flopped. i prefer senegal though, they are nice to watch.

 

Mercado is a CB naturally, but his best years were as RB for River. In Sevilla he plays both positions depending of the day. Anyway, some other journalists say he could play RB and Rojo back in as CB.

I actually thought Pérez was our less-worse player against Croatia, I'm fine with him keeping his place but I would prefer Pavón as starter to have more dynamic and attack threat.

Anyway, this is just a journalist rumor. We have to wait for tomorrow to have an actual training session and see a team.

 

We can go far in the tournament but to win it we will need luck when we will have the super tight game going to extra time or pks...if we survive the game that will take us there we will be a serious threat.

 

What was the biggest change for Nigeria between the first and second match? The second match showed the true Nigeria in my regard.

 

Formation change from 433 to 352

When we played you in that friendly that was the first time we tested 352

Also Ighalo was dropped and Iheanacho and Musa brought on up top.

Iwobi was also dropped but IMO Iwobi is actually our most creative player when played centrally. He was played out wide vs Croatia.

Mikel played a deeper role.

But mainly we actually began to ATTACK. We did not attack against Croatia or even in the first half against Iceland. Nico777 claims Croatia made us look poor. Absolute rubbish because we looked just as poor in the first half against Iceland. 2nd half against Iceland you saw the real Nigeria, and that is really only a fraction of what we are capable of.

We can't play conservative or defensive, those are typically European tactics. When we play the Nigerian way then we will damage teams.

I hope we play smart against you but not DEFENSIVE, because that may hand you guys the match. We cannot play like we did in the first 3 halves of this WC. So far we have only played one good half of football. The other 3 weren't bad but they were just timid and unimaginative.

 

I claim that if you would have attacked us like you say we would have toyed with you as our midfielders would have had more spaces in your backs....
You can repeat 100 times the same things and i will repeat 100 times the same things as well...
We just have more weapons than you...from a close game without spaces we are more pragmatic and can score from set pieces situations something you can't.

From an open game we got the organisation and players to find spaces in your backs we just love it.

Your 2 goals against iceland came from fast counter attacks not from organized build up play....wake up.

Our team is the most complete in the group.

 

Did your 2 goals against us come from organized build up play, or were they just 1)a giftwrapped present and 2) pure luck ?

Your so called weapons did not create one good scoring chance on us all game. Well maybe one at the very end when we were already 2 down and pouring forward (a fast counter attack)

We will never know how an open game would have panned out. I really don't think it would have been any worse than losing by 2 goals. I saw Senegal play an open game with you guys in your very own backyard and they should have beaten you soundly if they had their finishing boots.