Sure there are entire boards on Big Soccer dedicated to International matches and the world cup, but I don't care what other people on Big Soccer think about the world cup. I care about what YOU guys think! The idea to create a thread came to me when I realized that Haaland and obviously our own Odegaard would be missing out on the festivities. I wondered how that might impact them for the 2nd half of the season. With this one off winter world cup falling smack in the middle of most leagues that matter, the talk has mostly been about how it will impact player fatigue post-world cup. Below is my attempt to name the players in our squad that will miss out on the world cup, getting some much needed (but possibly too much?) rest in November / December: Players for nations that did not qualify: Odegaard - Norway Tierney - Scotland Zinchenko - Ukraine Elneny - Egypt Players that won't make their squads: Holding - England - Not good enough Smith Rowe - England - still injured, hopefully he'll be fresh as a daisy come January. we'll need him. Vieira - Portugal - Captain of the u23 team, but zero caps with the grown ups Lokonga - Belgium - only 1 cap, still young Marquinhos - Brazil - still young Martinelli - Brazil - Way too many attacking attacking options for Brazil Reiss Nelson - England - Not good enough Nketiah - England - still young Honestly, I don't follow International teams well enough to say which of our players will start for their teams, or which teams are likely to go deep into the tournament. But injuries and fatigue aside, the biggest story no one seems to be talking about is that I think this mid-season World Cup could be the most exciting World Cup ever, from a quality of play perspective. I mean, these guys should be in peak playing condition right now, not exhausted from enduring 9+ months of league play like every other World Cup.
Good thread. I'll take a shot at the rest of the roster. I'd expect Tomiyasu (Japan), Partey (Ghana) and Xhaka (Switzerland) to go and play a lot of minutes. Japan are in a tough group with Spain and Germany so may come home early. Ghana are also underdogs with Portugal and Uruguay. Swiss have the best odds of playing in the knockout rounds. Gabriel (Brazil) was left out of their most recent squad but most expect him to get the callup. He hasn't actually been capped yet, so I wouldn't expect him to play much, but he could be in Qatar until the finals. Jesus (Brazil) was also left out but everyone expects him to make it. I wouldn't be shocked if he starts and plays a lot, but coming off the bench seems more likely to me. Ramsdale (England) should be called up but good chance he doesn't play. Turner (USA) has a chance to be the starter, I hope he does as it would be a good experience for him. Saka (England) will play and they might go deep until they inevitably lose in a PK shootout. But for Saka's sake, I hope he takes one of those PK's and converts. White (England) was on the outside looking in a few weeks ago but injuries seemed to have opened the path for him to make the squad. No idea if that means he will actually play or not. That leaves Saliba (France). I saw a projected squad that left him out for Lenglet (lol), that seems like a huge mistake. I don't see how Deschamps could leave him out on current form.
Saka might not play much is Southgate uses his 3 at the back white might not even be in the squad good for arsenal shit for England a lot of our first 11 will be playing
When I put my post together, the biggest revelation for me was how glad I was that our captain will be both rested AND hungry to play and lead and finish the season strong for Arsenal. On the flip side, I thing the biggest downer was how it might potentially impact 3 of our other most important players: Xhaka, Partey, and Saka. We rely so heavily on these 3 players (along with MO8), and while I think Jesus, Ramsdale, and Saliba are just as important, we have solid backups for each, should any of them miss time. On paper, Xhaka and Saka look most likely to play deep into the tournament, whereas Partey, with his injury past, and the fact Ghana is going to give 200% to try and advance out of a very difficult group, might return to Arsenal as a shadow of himself at best, injured at worst.
Excellent idea Jake! Couldn't agree more. Thanks. I will no doubt get into the tournament and into the player/team minutiae in this thread. But first, having just written another post related to the bad idea which is KSA buying NUFC, I'd like to pick up on the bigger picture about Qatar. I still think WC'22 embodies the worst part about football politics, or big money's corrupt influence on the game, regardless of what is otherwise in the best interests of the clubs, players, fans, etc. My hunch is that this tournament will be less predictable and perhaps (physically) riskier to the players, and thus in turn for the clubs that own them. Can't say I really expect it to be more exciting, higher quality... the latter being a little hard to judge anyway no? But I CAN say that I doubt I'll be capable of boycotting it, i.e. not watching the games, starting with the ones that USA are in. Pavlov will rule?
I have a good friend here who's a huge West Ham supporter (born in that area of London before moving to the States as a teenager) and a huge England National team supporter. During the last WC, he always had a bunch of people over for England matches with a great backyard patio TV set up. He's refusing to watch this WC because of its location and all the deaths and forced labor associated with constructing the stadiums. Like you, I doubt I'll be that strident about it.
Looking at the World Cup schedule, it looks like group stage games for the first 2 rounds will kickoff daily at (Eastern US time zone) 5:00am, 8:00am, 11:00am and 2:00pm. Then the tournament will switch to 10:00am and 2:00pm kickoff times for the final group stage games, and will continue that way thru the knockout rounds, with the final being played on December 18th at 10:00am.
Sounds like your motivated to figure all this out in advance. Once thing I've been wondering is if all games will be on FOX's various terrestrial/cable TV channels or just certain "curated" ones? (I'm assuming that all USA games will be!)
Just trying to front load the forum with pertinent information. I'm not going to pretend to know what daytime TV shows Fox considers to be "untouchable" in their daytime lineup. But I would imagine that between Fox, Fox Sports 1 and the occasional Fox Sports 2 filling in, the majority of games--if not all--would air in these 3 channels.
I really want to avoid this WC at all costs Only thing I ask for is Mexico not advancing further than the US Because 90% of my friends are Mexican, being from LA
I won't be watching. Can't support a world cup bought with bribe money, held in a country that hasn't earned the right to host a world cup, with a team who hasn't ever qualified for one under their own merit, in a country with such horrendous human rights violations who oppress women, people of color and people of lifestyles they don't agree with due to a sky monster. I'll read the post match scores, and thats about it. I will just be wanting 2 things, Australia not to embarrass themselves and Arsenal players not to suffer injuries.
seems Qatar is already doing damage control for low interest due to "unprecedented" campaigns. Qatar faced unprecedented criticism over hosting World Cup, emir says | Reuters Personally, I have little interest and excitement for this WC. In large part that's due to it now being in the middle of season. Second, we're doing really well and I'm more vested in THE Arsenal than any other team/club. Regardless of timing and loyalty, the human rights issues have been on my mind since Qatar was announced and the slave labor to build the stadiums and infrastructure clearly documented. Brazil 2014's cost over-runs due to governmental collusion were really bad, but this is way worse, imo. I watched a few games that were on TV in the US from WC '90 in Italy, recorded almost every game from '94 and '98 on VCR, and DVR'd or live-watched most matches from '02 on. I don't plan to set my DVR for any matches. Frankly, I don't really care who wins this WC. Which is weird. Even if the US makes a deep run, it will be hard for me to be excited.
Glancing at their schedule, the 2 early games are typically FS1 and late-morning/afternoon games are Fox. Knockouts are almost all Fox. Some Saturday/Sunday matches move to FS1, I'm guessing conflicts with college football and NFL. I'm not that principled, I'll watch the matches that interest me. And probably some that don't if I'm bored and there is nothing else on.
Those are good principled decisions. I honestly hope you can follow through with your planned mini-boycotts. I contemplated doing that for Russia '18 or the Olympics in China, but in each case the sports addict in me gets sucked in. Just OOC, if you feel anything similar towards KSA that you do about Qatar, do either of you avoid watching NUFC matches, including when they play AFC?
I shared my reasons for not being as interested in this WC, but I don't have a "universal" framework for individuals and organizations and businesses I do/don't support. There's a lot of personal preference involved, but in the big picture it's simply not a good use of time to do the research and verify everything and everyone a company supports and sells before making a purchase of time or money. It would be crippling to begin to attempt to do so. And if I did find a "good" brand/store/etc. they can and will change without notice. In general, I avoid the "bad" companies, and just accept that no company is or will ever be "perfect" and aligned with all my views. For example, Kanye has said some crazy stuff about Jews the last few weeks. Adidas decided to drop him today, but what if Adidas had kept ties with him - would any of us stop buying Adidas Arsenal kits or wearing the Adidas gear we already own?
All good questions. I’ll take that as a no… you still watch NUFC. PS. My wife sells fair trade jewelry and clothing, and yet still buys slave-labor stuff from Old Navy. Life is full of “inconsistencies“ like that. Edit: fixed confusing typo: MUFC shoulda been NUFC
In case this is of interest to any of you... On today's Arsecast there was a discussion with Philippe Auclair, who's a bit of a wind bag but who I find hard to hate. One of his projects is with Josimar, a Norweigian football magazine which AFAIK is all about exposés, the latest is related to Qatar'22 and migrant worker abuses. Instead of profiling the 32 teams playing in the cup, they profiled 32 migrant workers. I think Philippe said that the entire article would be available online, and Andrew provided this link: http://josimarfootball.com/editorial-josimar-international-edition/. But when I went there it seemed to be only a summary, which I skimmed.
He used to be my favorite Arsecast guest in the Wenger years. But as the French influence at the club has waned, I don't think he has the same access and insight.
i wish Andrew still did the "old man at the bar" bit, I used to listen to every episode back in the day..
Apparently, he lets Wenger win by letting him “spin” his men… Hard to say what I’d say about that if I ever had the chance.
On the Handbrake Off podcast, season ticket holder Amy Lawrence gave an example of how f-ed up this winter WC concept is: Yesterday Oct 30th, she was talking to her seatmates who only tend to (or can) go to weekend league matches (not midweek cups) and at the end of yesterday's match they said "OK see you on Boxing Day" and then another said "Oh, I never can do Boxing Day, so see you next year I guess". This anecdote crystallized the impending 2 month gap for home league matches, smack in the middle of the season. Excellent!
In looking at Arsenal's post WC league schedule, there are only 3 weekday league games scheduled, one of which is Boxing Day, which happens to be a Monday this year. But, they still haven't rescheduled the City game, which will likely end up being a mid week game. I'm really interested to see how and when they reschedule this fixture. Both teams should be involved in deep runs in the domestic cups, as well as European football. The Arsenal at City match is already slated for late April. I could see a situation where we are forced to host the City at Arsenal fixture in the April/May timeframe as well.
Yeah! They may do that thing that they did before (last season?) where they held off rescheduling a postponed NLD, adding it to the end of the season, presumably at least partly so as to increase the demand for this match, assuming we'd be going head to head vying for top-4. This season, gods willing, we could end up being in an even bigger race, with Citeh. In which case they might have more incentive to reschedule our QE2-postponed match with them until April/May as you suggest, just for the added drama and eyeballs.