Biggest disappointment of the world cup

Discussion in 'World Cup 2022 - Qatar' started by RonaldoHexa, Dec 4, 2022.

  1. RonaldoHexa

    RonaldoHexa Member

    Bahia
    Brazil
    Feb 26, 2018
    Self-explanatory. To me, Denmark's performance was the most disappointing, followed by Germany, Serbia, Uruguay, Belgium, and Mexico.
     
  2. diegomaradona1010

    Sep 16, 2017
    Denmark and Belgium to a lesser extent.

    Denmark had a solid Euro and was in a relatively easy group.

    Belgium are no longer an elite team but it seems they didn’t want to be at this WC.

    Mexico were poor in qualifiers so they weren’t a disappointment. This is there worst team in decades.

    Serbia are always crap in Euros and the WC. They were never finishing top 2 in that group.
     
  3. r0adrunner

    r0adrunner Member+

    Jun 4, 2011
    London, UK
    Club:
    AS Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Remarkably Serbia have never qualified for the Euros since the days of Yugoslavia (last appearance was at euro2000).
     
  4. Nani_17

    Nani_17 Member+

    Nov 3, 2011
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Denmark and Serbia. I'm convinced Denmark is better than they showed.

    Serbia I truly believe is the strangest national team in the world. Doesn't matter who's in charge, the team generally performs below the sum of their parts. Successful youth teams that never seem to translate to the senior game as well. Very strange team.
     
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  5. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    Denmark, Belgium, Serbia
     
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  6. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    And yet another example of many that TOPPING WCQ groups means absolutely nothing when the tournament starts.

    Besides Portugal this time around, Serbia also topped a group with Spain in 2006 only to finish bottom of their WC group.

    They've always had talented squads but as you say must be the worst team in the world for being less collectively than the sum of their individual parts.
     
  7. persianfootball

    persianfootball Member+

    Aug 5, 2004
    outside your realm
    #7 persianfootball, Dec 4, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2022
    I fully agree with the above. In addition to the above, Iran, Qatar, and Costa Rica:

    Iran missed the round of 16 by a thread and finished 3rd in the group, which is status quo or even slightly above status quo for a team like Iran, so result-wise and on paper we did not underperform, however, I consider it to be underperforming largely due to the gap between what could have happened and what ended up happening, mostly due to horrible coaching (horrible line ups for all 3 games, particularly playing USA game with 10 men the first half, injured out of form Azmoun up front to chase shadows.. long balls against a speedy and physical USA side, by the time CQ found out this tactical blunder there was too little time to equalize/advance out of the group). We could have easily finished 2nd and advanced but we didn't so this was underperforming.

    Qatar played good in Asian cup 2019 and were decent in friendlies, so I expected them to put in a respectable performance and get 1-2 points, but they got 0 and lost by multiple goals. So this is underperforming.

    Costa Rica were weaker than expected.
     
  8. dna77054

    dna77054 Member+

    Jun 28, 2003
    houston
    VAR has been the biggest disappointment for me. From some refs refusing to have a look when told they probably should, to seemingly random PK calls/non-calls with no consistency from one game to the next. I have seen offsides for the tip of the shoulder when later the ball being played of that same part is a hand-ball. If you cannot play the ball from that part of the arm, then that part cannot make a player offsides. FIFA needs to get this shit straight. Also this new computer line drawing tech should not have been implemented at the WC. Let players get used to it first. Something that was "never" called offsides before is now offsides. Talk about screwing up player's timing.
     
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  9. rougou

    rougou Member+

    Dec 7, 2003
    Hyogo
    Club:
    AS Roma
    Yeh, some of the PK calls have been idiotic and wouldn't be a foul anywhere else on the pitch. But because some goon in the backroom called the ref, he is now somehow obligated to give the PK. The ref needs to be able to wave off minor contact, especially when it doesn't prevent a goal-scoring chance (both PKs for Argentina, for example).
     
  10. thewitness

    thewitness Member

    Melbourne Victory, Derby County
    Australia
    Jul 10, 2013
    Club:
    Derby County FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Australia
    I was working on a list of disappointments and teams exceeding expectations as they get knocked out.
    So far I had Qatar as the biggest disappointment, to perform so poorly at home on debut. Maybe they peaked too early in their long term plan with the 2019 Asian Cup win.
    Next most disappointing was Denmark, Belgium and then I think Canada. I expected more from Canada, they qualified well but maybe Concacaf are on a lower ebb right now.
     
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  11. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    Canada just had a murderous group.

    Easily the toughest group overall. But their defence did let them down. I think they could have qualified from a number of other groups.
     
  12. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    The first, and by far, biggest disappointment of the World Cup for me, until the first games were played, was the overt and unabashed politicization of football. Most of you who aren't fans of teams at the receiving end of this behavior, which FIFA's president to his great credit resisted, might neither appreciate or may even wish to justify. But while great damage from all this was done to the two teams at its receiving end, namely Qatar and Iran, it was somewhat just desserts that two federations (Germany and Canada, the latter albeit under duress and direct political interference) that had arguably succumbed to this the most, also had disastrous World Cups. Some sides clearly benefitted from it, but I have to at least credit both Southgate and Berhalter along with the players for the USMNT in particular, for trying to steer their teams from the circus atmosphere certain interest groups and the media had created before football eventually began to take over from the nonsense.

    On the pitch, the biggest disappointments in this tournament (as far as the teams playing, compared to my expectations), was Serbia. And the biggest surprises for me were Australia and Cameroon. The performance of the rest, good or poor, was within the range of the margin of error of my expectations.
     
  13. Hexa

    Hexa Member+

    May 21, 2010
    Club:
    Vasco da Gama Rio Janeiro
    Qatar is hosting a good WC; infrastructure is great and there was a good number of upsets to make this memorable. However, this WC should have never happened in the first place. It is my biggest disappointment.

    You can not host a global sporting event on a country with poor human and labor rights. It is simple as that. It seems that UN is pressuring FIFA to do better in the future.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/un-agency-seeks-fifa-deal-for-world-cup-labor-rights-role/6862366.html

    https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/pre...and-fifa-presidents-discuss-close-cooperation
     
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  14. Hexa

    Hexa Member+

    May 21, 2010
    Club:
    Vasco da Gama Rio Janeiro
    VAR initiate a review IF there is an error; You can NOT request a review, it has to come from the VAR team... The ref call what he sees if there was a mistake VAR intervenes. If there isn't a VAR review it is because VAR team didn't see any problem with it.

    It is the rule. VAR is simply implementing the rules of the game. You don't have a problem with VAR you (are unaware of the rules and) have a problem with the rules of the game...
     
  15. argentine soccer fan

    Staff Member

    Jan 18, 2001
    San Francisco Bay Area
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Spain was the biggest disappointment to me. I expected them to win their group and be a top contender. They confirmed my thoughts by scoring seven against Costa Rica, and then it was all downhill. Obviously they were not who I thought they were. In the final game, they couldn't score even one, in regular time, extra time, and penalties. How much lower can it get?
     
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  16. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    Since Spain won the World Cup in 2010, their WC record in the last 3 editions hasn't been great.

    3 worldcups and they only have wins against

    Australia, Iran, and Costa Rica.

    That says it all really.
     
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  17. persianfootball

    persianfootball Member+

    Aug 5, 2004
    outside your realm
    #17 persianfootball, Dec 9, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2022
    It is very inconsistently applied. For example Iran were robbed against USA according to VARs ridiculous recent outcomes in other games that are regardless factual historical precedents and personally I didn't see them as penalties but what matters is according to recent VAR precedent however soft they were they would have been given as penalties if referred to VAR, Taremi's semi-dive would have easily been referred to VAR by another ref, but the ref of the day was a no nonsense ref and didn't even refer it to VAR. Had it been another ref it would have gone to VAR, then they would have given it. They have given similarly soft penalties. Same thing with a handball the US player did, again soft call and if I was personally the ref I wouldn't give it either, but technically there was contact to hand in the box and similarly soft calls were given in the past, and most other refs would have gone to VAR and that would have resulted in a VAR given penalty, but the ref didn't even refer it to VAR. Too much inconsistency. My point is that there is too much inconsistency.

    The point of VAR was to help out the ref, but what it has resulted in is some refs not using VAR at all (so kills the entire purpose of VAR), then those that do typically end up giving super soft calls. So what even if the point of VAR? It goes back to the ref initially deciding to give it or not.
     
  18. persianfootball

    persianfootball Member+

    Aug 5, 2004
    outside your realm
    Why was Spain be a big disappointment? Their finishing was never good this edition, scoring 7-0 against a weak team with the floodgates opened has no bearing on scoring against a much more organized defense.
     
  19. persianfootball

    persianfootball Member+

    Aug 5, 2004
    outside your realm
    No they wouldn't have. Your anti-Europe bias is blinding you, and you cannot think outside binary extremes. Canada was in a tough group, but this doesn't automatically/necessarily mean they were perfect or that they would automatically qualified out of any other group. Playing a weak Concacaf with an all time weak Mexico and even traditional occasional cycle based decent teams like Panama and T&T and Costa Rica all being poor, Canada did well in qualifiers but WC is a different beast. Canada played decent football in the WC but they were poorly coached and inexperienced and had difficulty finishing and had a leaky defense, and no matter how they played, they would have been unlikely to ultimately finish in the top 2 of the vast majority of groups this WC. Don't forget Saudi played beautiful barcelona'esque tiki-taka against Russia in 2018, but they lost 5-0.
     
  20. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    What on earth are you even talking about.

    Saying Canada had a murderous group is now "anti-uefa bias"

    If anything I'm giving credit to both Belgium and Croatia.

    You just seem to be rambling.
     
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  21. bigsoccertst1

    bigsoccertst1 Member+

    United States
    Sep 22, 2017
    BRA takes the cake on this one, not even got to semifinals.
     
  22. argentine soccer fan

    Staff Member

    Jan 18, 2001
    San Francisco Bay Area
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    That’s very disrespectful to Costa Rica on your part. They beat Asian power Japan and they played Germany tough. Plus they tied the US in points in Concacaf qualifiers. I don’t diss Costa Rica, I give credit to Spain on that one. After that, yes, Spain was disappointing, very disappointing.
     
  23. persianfootball

    persianfootball Member+

    Aug 5, 2004
    outside your realm
    Yea but in the WC Costa Rica were not good. They got outplayed by Japan too, and also lost badly against a relatively weak German side. My point was that 7-0 against a weak team with early goals and open floodgates means nothing when you go up against a stronger team in another match.
     
  24. Kamtedrejt

    Kamtedrejt Member+

    Internazionale Milano
    Albania
    Mar 14, 2017
    Hamburg
    Club:
    FC Internazionale Milano
    Nat'l Team:
    Albania
    For me personally it's a big disappointment that none of the two most probable new winners in Netherlands and Portugal reached the semi-finals.

    I thought both had the best showing in the Nations League and entered with a decent shot at winning the trophy.

    This World Cup was very tough to predict since with a new competition in the calendar (the Nations League) there was an big asterix. I took it quite seriously. Maybe a tad bit too serious.

    With Croatia there is a semi-finalist that came off the back of a strong Nations League campaign but I felt their campaign was slightly less impressive than that of the Dutch and Portugese. And then there is France of course who came close to get relegated who is now imo in pole position to win another World Cup.
     
  25. guri

    guri Member+

    Apr 10, 2002
    Just thinking about the usual “mantra” being repeated around these boards that South America is Argentina and Brasil.
    Let’s see… the last four World Cups… who were the best team from South America?

    2010 - Uruguay
    2014 - Argentina
    2018 - Uruguay
    2022 - Argentina

    hmmm… maybe we should start looking at facts for a change :)
     

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