They should get a head start on preparing Les Champs-Élysées. Croatia cannot be given enough kudos for how they have just kept fighting in the knock-outs. I'm glad England did not win today, but I hope Southgate stays on as they are a young squad and can get better. I wish they didn't abandon so much of their Premier League DNA though.
At the height of England's rise in '98 and '02 they had a wealth of dominant game controlling mids... Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes, even Beckham.. they don't have that anymore, but unlike those teams, they have a legit GK in Pickford, tough defense and dynamic attack, instead of the likes of Heskey, Bent, Cole, etc. Give England a young Lamps or Stevie G and they run Croatia riot, but thats not how footy works. They need to prey that Pep, Mou, Klopp, Pocchetino discovers the next great English CM.
I wonder if some are coming through the ranks. I know very little about their youth setup, but they did win the most recent U20 and U17 World Cups. When they subbed Sterling out they lost a long ball outlet they could of used when they lost control of the midfield (as you pointed out). As was pointed out to me, Sterling also drew a lot of fouls. Rashford wasn't as effective. Funny how a player who seems so wasteful can actually help under the right circumstances.
Rafinha is a bit taller, yes. He is much more experienced as well. He is older and slower (than before). However, he should have received the call before Fagner. I think there was enough evidence that Fagner is extremely poor. For example, the match against the Argies in 2017 showed how terrible he is. If I were to choose, I would have chosen Marquinhos in that position (as I said even before the tournament). Heck, even Alex Sandro. There was no sense in getting a bad "specialist."
Chicago has a rich Croatian community, and taking the wife out to party with them tonight. Parts of this city going crazy. One of the best, if not the best match of the tournament. Congrats ! But let me tell you, I have never seen such stamina in some of these Croatian players - they keep going at full pace for 120 minutes. Some friends think there’s definitely some PED usage.
If you go to every forum you will see the posters saying the same thing ... damn this WC was easy, we could have won it if not for _______ . Germans - Low is now clueless but we have the talent ... everybody sucks and they could have beaten everyone Argentinos - Sampaoli is an idiot, look at players in our bench Spanish - Federation fired the coach days before WC (even if most were saying team was on auto drive and wouldn't feel it) Portuguese - If Ronaldo had only scored that PK they'd be on the easy side of the bracket and beat everyone. You could probably find some Italians thinking the WC was set for them to win !!! I say we had a great chance, but I might be biased I will be honest about F. Luis and Marcelo thing, that wasn't really a factor in the game. I guess Marcelo could have covered the shot better in the 2nd goal, but he was trying to cover the pass wide as well. Can't say F. Luis wouldn't have done the same thing. So his lack of defending didn't influence the result IMO.
England's youth development has improved and was overhauled after their last debacle. They introduced the EPL U23 to further development.. But they're players are also not settling for EPL.. And moving abroad earlier. Sancho at Dortmund, Lookman at RB Leipzig, Dier grew up in Sporting Lisboa iirc. They got with the times I guess?
We probably win with Casemiro but Tite can’t do anything about Coutinho and Renato Augusto missing chances and Gabriel Jesus not getting a pen.
Well you don't need to agree with me but let face it, tite did blow this world cup by taking injured players into this cup and kept playing with gabriel jesus even when he didn't score a single goal in 5 games and I personally never liked fernandinho playing for the national team.
With regards to injured players, do we think we had better options that could have made a big difference ? As for GJ, perhaps there is a point there. But I am not convinced Firmino would have fared that much better given he never did that well for us.
Tempted to take the wife and kid to Paris tomorrow. One of my favorite cities in the world, catch the final at FIFA Fan Fest, and then celebrate at the champs elysees which is going to be fuking nuts after France wins. Wait a minute !! Nothing is certain in Futebol. Bastidores got their predictions all wrong on this one, and some people in Vegas making big bucks.
Firmino did score in this world cup but I was always unsettled by Fernandinho and Marcelo playing for us and if tite gave those two chances why not David Luis since he's a tall player or just use Marquinhos? We have a generation midgets playing for Brazil now.