World Cup 2022 Group B sub-forum

Not sure how there can be *advanced negotiations* with those FAs, when they are booked for September 2022:

COL has 2 friendlies in USA
PER has 1 friendly in USA, cannot travel to UEFA territory in same FIFA window
CHI has 2 friendlies in Spain and Austria
PAR has 1 friendly in USA, same travel restriction as PER

I guess when those negotiations do not materialize, we can blame the rest of the world instead of IRN FA officials who like to gaslight their fans.

 

As someone who has no dog in this fight my prediction as of right now is:

1. England
2. Wales
3. USA
4. Iran

England are favourites. Maybe not to win it outright but they can top the group and go on a deep run. Wales always outperforms expectations and they got in Bale someone who can single-handedly win you games. The USA have a higher ceiling than Wales but for some reason I see them cracking in the tournament.
Iran are overall a much less balanced side than in 2018. They have a notable forward line but more weak links in their line up and they have had a very subpar preparation.

 

Niche message boards like this one are in decline. Sites like Reddit blew them up, r/soccer has like three million subscribers and people of basically every nationality, it's crazy. Though you'll find more jokes and banter there than quality analysis posts.

 

From what I've seen here on BigSoccer, this is entirely in character with what I know of you.

I am not sure what to comment on this that would be appropriate for this particular forum. But since you brought up politics, I will give my view while trying my best to avoid getting too bogged down in some long discussion about the Islamic Republic, or the Shah, or 1953, or Donald Trump's foreign policy, etc.

I think it is fair to say that mistakes have been made on both sides. I will say that I am skeptical that better relations with the West would have much impact on internal reform within Iran as some apologists for the Islamic Republic like to suggest. That said, Iran's actual threat level to the West is quite negligible, for a variety of reasons.

I also don't really consider Iran a massive improvement on the Saudis to be honest as far as being a moderating force within the Islamic world, if anything MBS for all his faults is moving KSA faster in that direction. KSA is also a better candidate to be the primary representative for Islamic civilization on the world stage on account of being Arab and Sunni. This is not a knock on Iran, just a realistic assessment of the two countries' standing within the Islamic world and resultant popular legitimacy as civilizational leaders.

Iran's internal cultural and legal norms unfortunately regressed after the 1979 revolution, but this should be addressed organically within Iran. At the same time I also have no illusions about the likelihood of seeing significant reforms under the current regime anytime soon. This does not mean of course that the West should not try to cooperate with Iran on certain issues, or that they should not attempt to achieve a mutual understanding and respect with Iran and Islamic civilization more broadly.

More generally, the world I would like to see is one in which all peoples are free to live as they wish without outside interference, based on mutual intercivilizational and intercultural respect with open acknowledgement and acceptance of differences rather than foolhardy utopian attempts to impose one cultural or ideological vision or another on the whole world. The flourishing of true diversity, in the most meaningful and vivid sense of the word, lies in understanding that Iran and Syria should and will never become the Netherlands and France, and neither should the Netherlands and France ever try to become Iran and Syria as some on the multicultural left wish they would.

We should neither ignore our differences, nor attempt to erase them, but rather learn to come to terms with them and approach the world less ideologically and more pragmatically. Idealistic notions of One World Government or one Islamic caliphate must be abandoned, and replaced with a structure that allows for mutually agreed upon distance and self-determination to maintain all our respective ways of life as well as cooperation and collective purpose when necessary to address mutual challenges.

Unfortunately such nuance and realism is lacking in the halls of government, not to mention those of the media and cultural institutions, the world over, from Washington to Tehran to Berlin to Delhi. It is truly frustrating how so much of what is fed to us on a daily basis as being "common sense" is anything but.

Apologies for the rambling, but your post just got me thinking again about some of the issues that I have been pondering recently.

 

I see.

I think I'll still keep my rambling up for posterity though.

 

I suppose, without belaboring the point too much longer, that what I was really trying to say is that I share your goals if not your assessment of the situation. But as you said this is a football forum.

I hope that you will forgive my tendency to think out loud. I know that I have an odd habit of going on long tangents in response to some marginally related idea that someone has put out. I certainly did not mean to nitpick your statements.

 

Indeed, I suppose you could say that you set the tone for this forum.

 

I give Wales a chance because #1 US inconsistency (repeatedly uneven performances even if the results mostly stand up), the matchday schedule (Wales gets England last which will be a huge advantage if England collects 6 against Iran and the US), our injury track record since 2019 (an absolute litany of injury histories has repeatedly smashed our most integral and most talented players at every position save Striker), and the presence of Bale, even an older, falling off Bale.

That being said I think the US, when reasonably healthy, is orders of magnitude better than Wales, honestly I don't even think its close. But, we can be uneven (just in the last year we've played like crap in NL against Honduras, in all 3 games against El Salvador, @ Panama, @ Jamaica, @ Canada and @ Costa Rica, as well as uneven at best at home against Canada). That being said, we definitely appear to be rounding into form, they finished qualifying with a dominant performance at Mexico, and a defenestration of Panama w/all the marbles all the line before ----ing the bed at Costa Rica in a largely meaningless game that actually even showed a hopeful sign (the US dominated the first half, they NEVER dominate anything at Costa Rica, and only lost after repeated howler level stupidity from the keeper). In a pair of home friendlies against a strong Moroccan side, and a typically strong Uruguay side, the US bashed in Morocco good 3-0, and played Uruguay tough in a back and forth 0-0 draw, a damn good Uruguay at that.

After all this wrapped up, their U20's, defending two time regional champs, won a third consecutive Concacaf U20 crown despite bringing a mostly B side to the tournament, outscoring oopponents what, I think 31-2 while Mexico crashed out in the QF's, missing the U20 WC entirely. This was, for lack of a better word, huge, a signifyer of how much has changed the past decade plus. The seeds of the missed '18 cup could be seen in a collapse in quality of our U17/U20/U23 teams the previous decade (starting as early as '07 w/the U17's and '09 with the U20's), but the turn around began with 3 consecutive QF runs by the U20's in '15, '17 and '19 World Cups and additionally they just as mentioned earlier won their 3rd consecutive concacaf U20 championship. While they were doing this, apparently the U19 side played and defeated England's U19's 2-1 a few weeks before England won the UEFA U19 title last week. The reason this matters and is relevant is that about 1/3 of the talent on this senior squad made their bones with the U17 or U20 or both teams circa 2015-2019, and the signs continue to percolate suggesting that it's getting better and better, especially if we can stay healthy.

This is simply what is happening. It's just, happening. The much rumored possibilities for US soccer due to population base, and passion for the game are finally, happening. Will it be reflected at the WC? I do not know. This team is uneven in general, but playing on neutral ground, getting more and more reps together through qualifying and the June matches, the team is getting better and better at turning the theoretical into a reality in terms of generating chances and scoring goals. I don't see the same, at all from Wales, and Iran, I'm simply totally unsure of other than being impressed by their performances in '14 and '18 at the WC, and a reasonably solid return to form at the Asian Cup level, if they can clean up what went wrong in June, I would not be surprised at all if they finished ahead of Wales.

We'll see.

A US pratfall could happen, it's happened in '98 and '06, and could happen again, especially if Steffen is in goal, but I expect us to beat Wales, Iran and England are a much bigger concern to me, I hope I'm wrong about Iran and it's a walk over, but I just don't know. They're a bit of a mystery for me right now. Time will tell, hopefully we're ready to go and healthy come November, if so, it's gonna be a fun ride.

 

@grandinquisitor28

Just one small point to your post. The US U19's beat England's U17 team 2-1, not the U19 side that won the Euros.

The England team also played the last 40 minutes with ten men.

 

Southgate is getting increasing amounts of criticism, but one thing he won't do is underestimate the opposition in Group B, particularly after being beaten twice by Hungary recently.

 

Difficult to judge from the NL games. Those 4 games were definitely used as trials for a few players on the fringes of the squad and the only certain thing is that this WC is too early for most of them.

However the performances in all 4 games was poor, and the home game v Hungary was appalling. I think the one certain thing to have come from those games is That Southgate's cautious nature will have been reinforced. We now desperately need a fit left wing back for the tournament.

 

@Iranian Monitor , just curious to know if you know ANY Iranian Fan to get ticket for any Iran's game so far?
I have asked this question in Iranian soccer forum, even my nephew in Iran, NOBODY has got any ticket so far, what's going on?

 

Lol when I got the notification with your username I originally assumed you were Polish haha.

 

More is definitely not better, I would argue. 3 mil is way too much! Just turns every discussion into a shitstorm.

That said, BigSoccer's traffic is below ideal atm. Difficult to discuss things outside the most popular stories and leagues in the footballing world. And will probably only get lower unfortunately.