I was hoping someone new would sneak in but nope! I just don’t see how it’s going to be anyone but France. Gotta play the games, but the strongest side.
Seriously - they have like two full teams. That front three is ridiculous: Mbappe, Olise, Dembele. Game Over.
this will irritate me everytime I see it or it is brought up https://www.reddit.com/r/soccercirclejerk/comments/1uuajbt/its_been_11_hours_and_34_minutes_since_sørloth/ Sørloth explained how he saw the situation after the match: https://www.vg.no/sport/i/Wv8e5K/misbrukte-mulighet-det-er-tungt
I don’t think enough credit goes to the defender there. Sorloth being left footed makes the defender’s job easier—he gets back quickly enough to take away the left footed shot and carefully positions himself to make the pass degree of difficulty high enough to make it a not immediately attractive option. This is classic “delay” and it allows other defenders to get back by the time the cut inside happens. Attacking quickly to the right and then either taking the right footed shot or then cutting back with the pass was what the defender gave up. Sorloth should have trusted his right or gone aggressively at the defender and executed a higher degree difficulty pass or shot with his left. There’s a reason the coach was shouting at you “Delay!” Sometimes it’s the right move.
Don't watch this video then. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldcup/comments/1uu5gih/this_angle_of_alexander_sørloth_not_passing_the/
where did I comment that I had a problem with what he said, I put how he explained what he saw, nothing more nothing less. the play irritated me but nowhere did I judge his comments
I am sorry. I was rooting for Norway as well. If your point was the pass was there to Haaland if he had made it earlier, I agree completely.
no worries, I felt the pass was there and the other angle that Hav77 posted makes it look far worse but that is us as fans backseat playing, it just looks like he panicked and put himself in a no win situation
Meta-level reference- Took me a while to figure that one out. (Why do we have both “a while” and “awhile”? I know the former is a noun phrase and the latter an adverb, but wouldn’t it be easier to just merge into one version to use henceforth? Life is difficult enough - let’s simplify!)
These are the numbers after the quarters - surely rigged for France? Team - Fouls - Yellow cards - Number of fouls per yellow card France - 59 - 4 - 14.8 Spain - 68 - 5 - 13.6 Argentina - 73 - 6 - 12.2
Counting cards (or yellows) is not an accurate way to assess bias. # of cards is influenced by sooo many factors: quicker players tend to foul less often and are fouled more often more skilled, better coordinated players tend to foul less often and are fouled more often teams in possession foul less often than teams trying to win possession. pressing teams foul more than non-pressing teams If you put these (and other) factors together you will find that better teams with better players foul less. The only way I know to fairly argue bias is to have a non-interested party look at individual calls and non-calls, looking for patterns. Unfortunately fans/haters can’t be the arbiters because of inevitable bias. This is especially an issue in soccer where so many potential fouls require non-obvious judgement calls on the part of the ref. Also the yellow card stats you show have laughably tiny sample sizes. Give France just 1 more yellow and they suddenly have the fewest # of fouls per yellow and are “the least favored” of the three teams you showed.
It took me a while and reading the follow-up posts to realize that everyone knew the op was wrong. LAA's post about TIblisi being the capital was great and the real tip off. Atalanta is a Series A team from Bergamo.
Not watching the game, but I just saw the stats. I too was not expecting that at all. Might as well give it to Argentina. Not dismissing Spain, but France looked the most consistently strong team in the tournament. Spain absolutely grew in to tournament like an MLS side peaking in October.
once Saliba was subbed out due to injury, the whole team collapsed, these last few games have not been exciting