I'm just glad that I can now take a break from John Stone and Andres Cantor. Stone is a nice enough guy who doesn't know when to shut up. Who wants every corner kick to be an opportunity for a history lesson? And the pollyannish pronouncement about the human family or whatever the hell he was on about at kickoff was embarrassing. Cantor is a joyless know-it-all.
somewhere, someone on BS is penning ....."omgz, Mbappe and Green arent even the same player, they dont even play in the same position, and arent even in the same class of talent" in total sincerity.
That probably is going straight up to the "Gringos Wall of Shame" because our Mexican pals have no sense of self-effacing humor.
Just got back from the match... that was not just one massive tick off the bucket list, but literally a dream come true - to attend a World Cup Final. Have been watching World Cups religiously since 1986, so to actually be there felt surreal. Was a pretty good game, albeit over just after the hour. Anyway, here's the goals I got: 1st goal - Mandukic's first: Perisic equalizer: Griezmann penalty Pogba's Goal: Honestly, I'm wondering if the Croatian goalkeeper was still injured. I remember he hurt his right thigh in the quarter final against Russia, and he seemed to have real problems diving to his right. All of the goals conceded were that way. At the penalty, he immediately dived left.
absolutely, I envy your experience. I bet it was a bunch of fun. Once in a lifetime experience for sure. I honest to god had my bags ready to go for this, except for one tiny, tiny little problem that developed last fall. It was gonna be my first cup. I honestly should have went despite that.
This, except I don't regret not going at all. Used some of the money to go to Costa Rica last month with a buddy and I'll save the rest for 2026 (I won't set foot in Qatar unless I have to). Sucks, because this was the first year I had both the time and money to go to the Cup, and would've been my first as well (other than the Italy-Norway game at the Meadowlands my dad took me to when I was 10). Literally just graduated business school in May, got a signing bonus, and don't start my new job until this week...would've been perfect. Oh well.
yeah, leave was the primary handicap to me. I would have been golden to go until i got a nasty sequence of strep throat and a fever in March that just destroyed my accumulated leave....... Even if we did qualify i would have had to beg my boss to let me go in the negative for my leave balance. Ive done Moscow and St Pete already, Id love to have gone to St Pete again, and Sochi for outdoors, Kazan and volgograd for culture and history. Moscow would have been fun for the party, and id love to have done the Raddison river cruise again. I hope you were able to get down on some Georgian food, that stuff is life........ and its budget friendly and yeah, I will never, ever go to Qatar again.........that place is the land that god forgot. I landed there end of August, and it was 135 degrees........at 4 a.m. Never again. You couldnt pay me enough to travel to that part of the world again. Thats why i desperately hope its moved to England. Ill entertain a journey then.
Active duty? My pre-deployment leave lined up perfectly with the first round in 2010 but didn't have the cash to make the trip, then 2014 I could've afforded it but was at DLI so no chance of going. I've been to Kuwait in December/January, the weather was actually pretty pleasant at that time of the year--70s in daytime which was a relief traveling each way between 7000 feet in eastern Afghanistan and the northeastern US in winter. The 2022 WC would've been much less of an utter joke if they'd a) made it a joint bid with the UAE and Kuwait and b) actually built the enclosed stadiums they promised to so that they could play it in summer. Still would have the whole slave labor, executing gay people, alcohol ban, financing terrorism, burqas, etc.
Contractor, was makin that Merc money. was in talks with college friends for South Africa, but i could not afford that one either, thank goodness i didnt because their hotel got robbed of pretty much everything of value. Thankfully they were smart enough to carry their passports on their person. I was interested in South Africa for vacation, until what happened to them. I have the travel bug, and i like to travel, but South Africa and Brazil have been blacklisted by primary sources i put high esteem in (brazil a 6'7 navy dude who says do not walk 3 blocks inland from a beach in brazil or you are in real danger). Russia, i had no problems, so i would have for sure gone (only travel issues ive ever had was in Istanbul, last year......that was the first time that i really felt someone was truly on my six at all times, and it was true. At least Russia had the dignity of leaving my room neat when i left the hotel room if they tried to get into my laptop)
Hey guys if you loved this World Cup, you should check out the video I put out today of the best goals and skills. I promise it won't disappoint, I spent 20+ hours on it. Would love for your support!
Great WC. It's a shame France got goals from a dive and VAR. Croatia never quit. Maybe someday the USNT will display that attribute again.
Yup. It is easy to not quit when you have veteran players who start regularly for clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, etc. People who say Croatia is this little engine that could with a lot of heart and no quit... ... are missing the point about how you win in the modern game.
But the old perseverance could have at least gotten us there. Regardless of a team's talent, perseverance is a virtue, and indeed a requirement.
A friend told me about this and I found it kind of interesting in a TIL/random trivia sort of way. This was apparently an exciting World Cup final for the small city of Biloxi, MS, which has relatively large communities of Americans with French and Croatian ancestry that are concentrated in the same neighborhood (their local cultural organizations are two blocks away). It's not generally considered a "soccer town", but for demographic reasons the final generated some interest and the Croatian organization held a watch party for a few hundred people. https://mississippitoday.org/2018/07/15/world-cup-croatian-flags-fly-proudly-in-biloxi/
I think the part of your sentence I emboldened really needs to be taken into account when it comes to VAR reviews. More so than when they see a play unfold on the pitch, it seems like when the ref goes to video he turns off the part of his brain that allows him to consider anything other than the letter-of-the-law aspect of what he's reviewing. I'm not even sure if Perisic's handball is a great example of this, but let's just say the replay shows clearly that there were three Croatian defenders lined up, not moving and through which the ball absolutely could not have passed through to an attacking player. In that case, what is the handball preventing? Another Croatian from clearing the ball, most likely (though most likely probably isn't a high enough threshold for such a judgment). A better example is the incorrect handball called after VAR that gave Iran a penalty against Portugal. The ball touched Cedric's arm and fell to Pepe, who cleared it. Had it not grazed Cedric's arm, what happens? The exact same result. The ball was either landing where it did after touching the arm or landing one foot closer to Pepe, getting cleared by him either way. It's like when a dribbler barely beats the defender to the ball, not even trying to control it, just trying to touch it so they can get the foul/penalty, but kicking it way too hard to chase down had they kept their feet. All the foul did was prevent a goal kick, yet a penalty kick is given.
I think some love needs to be passed Stu Holden’s way... I think he really cemented himself as a legitimate announcer over the course of the tournament. Another former USMNTer, who I enjoy is Twellman’s analysis but he missed the cup. Lalas and Wright had horrible chemistry.
The conservative estimate is about 300k Croatians poured out into the streets of Zagreb to welcome their team home today in a party that was overwhelmingly celebratory. Over 7 matches, they showed the world some style and some fortitude.
Croatia are the European Uruguay. Both have a problem with depth. There's a lesson there. We do not have room in the 23 for surplus "faves" or we will be in the same position, even with 100X the population.
The Perisic hand ball is a good example of why the pre-var game was a little better. The ref could see obvious examples of handballs that had zero chance of affecting the score and let it go. b.t.w., I didn't know this but they said that refs don't watch VAR in slo-mo. It bothers me when broadcast slows the picture down to where the broadcasters can see it and they go "oh, c'mon you have to give that". In the case of the Perisic hand ball, slowing it down mite have shown the ball grazing the head of the French player in front of Perisic. They never said if that happened or not. But should the VAR be slowed down for that purpose? Slo mo or no slo mo, that is the question.
There's an online debate going about the Worst Continental Confederation (outside OFC), and it's between CAF & CONCACAF this time around (it's usually AFC vs. C-CAF, but not this time). Anyway, CONCACAF not only had the oldest squads in Russia, but it's also the confederation that ended with the least points per game: South America: 5 teams, 21 games played, 36 points obtained = 1.71 points per game. Europe: 14 teams, 66 games played, 110 points obtained = 1.67 points per game. Asia: 5 teams, 16 games played, 15 points obtained = 0.94 points per game. Africa: 5 teams, 15 games played, 11 points obtained = 0.73 points per game. North America: 3 teams, 10 games played, 7 points obtained = 0.70 points per game. The gap between the big two and the rest remains as big as ever. In a bad world cup for them, the 5 C-BOL countries won more games than the AFC/CAF/CONCACAF combined: 11 vs. 9. CONCACAF only had two wins and a tie, plus seven losses. CAF had three wins and two ties, plus 10 losses. From Africa, Senegal, Tunisia and Nigeria tasted victory. From Asia, the Saudis, Iran, South Korea and Japan. From North America, only Mexico did.
I read today that they can use slo-mo to determine ball-to-hand/arm contact, but that's it. It's silly to place such arbitrary limitations on VAR, though, when watching a video replay from umpteen angles is already going to play with the ref's head. I just want common sense to win out when it should, but I also think that requires tweaks to the system and even tweaks to how certain fouls are called on the pitch. Overall, I was very surprised by how well the video reviews did work, but we were still left with bad calls that somehow didn't go to video review (Boateng foul/penalty vs. Sweden that was ignored), an incomprehensibly bad handball penalty given to Iran after a video review that never should've taken place (at least IFAB admitted the ref got that wrong), close calls that were debatable (Poulsen handball vs. Australia), etc. And that's not taking into account how one rugby tackle on a corner might be a PK while the next wouldn't even merit a video review. And when video replay is introduced it just opens the door for everyone to wonder why play X, Y or Z wasn't reviewed, or why it can't be reviewed (such as the obvious foul not awarded vs. the obvious dive that turns into a game-altering free kick). I just don't think FIFA really knew what it was getting into with the implementation of VAR and I'm not confident that FIFA will take all it learned about the tool over the past month and make improvements that will make the system any more reliable than the ref on the field.
And in the end, umpteen angles doesn't include the one from the players' point of view. but the dive is a good example of one thing refs should start considering: let's say there's a questionable handball - do they then look at all the plays in the box to see if there is a single push/hold/other foul? How about if there was a hold upfield on the play in transition just before the handball? Why is the handball so sacred, especially when it might not even have affected the chance of a goal at all. It's possible that in the future the VAR system will allow the ref to call a handball as clearly immaterial in terms of scoring and overlook it. Otherwise, why not just aim balls at cb's hands/arms when there's no shot on goal?