PBP Thread: Match #14, Tunisia vs England, 18 June 2018 [R]

I bet the Tunisian coach is asking why none of his players weren’t able to rugby tackle him like they did previously.

 

Uruguay did play their game

Don't expect them to win by huge scores, as they usually never do. To them a 1 -0 final score, means "job done", and against Egypt it was a 1 - 0 final result.

Anyhow, Egypt played well that match and can perfectly surprise the host team.

 

It's not over yet, and most UEFA teams have not impressed either. Denmark won while being completely dominated, it's not going to happen again, Sweden were also extremely lucky to get a soft penalty to win. England just won in added time after a defensive mistake against CAF"s worst team. I agree that Senegal has a strong chance to advance, and don't yet rule out Egypt (with Salah they may beat Russia) and Nigeria, especially if Argentina beats Croatia and Nigeria beats Iceland. I wouldn't even give up on Morocco yet, they have the quality to get results.

NIgeria however will need to vastly improve on their game the rest of the tournament.

 

Besides the six you mention, I think either Iran or Morocco makes it out of the group and possibly one of Peru, Egypt, Nigeria or Australia. At best nine UEFA nations advance to the round of 16.

 

UEFA have really had lady luck on their side. No matter but apart from Mexico beating Germany, they have won each game apart from the two draws which were like wins for Switzerland and Iceland. It's not like CONMEBOL, AFC or CONCACAF are highflying either.

CAF meanwhile really hasn't. Morocco lost off of a freak own goal, Egypt was hit by the Salah injury.

Nigeria and Tunisia deserved to lose though, even if their losses were a bit unlucky.

 

Well... the margins of them qualifying were pretty thin though. Apart from Egypt, who looked good for the group win from early on.

Cote d'Ivoire threw away their qualifying losing at home to Gabon, despite being in full control of the group. While Congo were well on their way to progressing ahead of Tunisia when they were 2:0 up (that said Congo actually has a decently invested league with two relatively big teams).

 

Morocco have not been a "massive disappoint". They have attacked for the whole 90 minutes, much like England have done. They have just been unlucky with converting the many chances.they've had. That can happen to anyone, on any given day, but this being the WC those misses weight even more than in a normal game. Oh, and the goal they've conceded... pure bad luck again. For me, Morocco was the team deserving to win, Iran have played nothing.

Even so, I think Morocco will beat either Spain or Portugal. I can't say which one, but I see it coming

 

I have no fear that Egypt will beat both Russia and KSA. Cuper has knowledgeably and willingly left Salah on the bench in Egypt's toughest game as to not risk injuring him and not being able to play him in the last 2 games.

Which means that Cuper actually believes that he can get 2 wins from the last 2 games, and if the coach believes in the victory the players will, too.

Salah will most likely start tonight (I can hardly wait to see him play), and I predict here and now that Egypt will win 1-0 (I could also see a 2-1 victory but I'll go with 1-0 instead)

 

good f..cking points!

 

yep

 

I will keep this post in mind and come back to you in few days ^^

 

You're perfectly right at some extent.
The problem is that even with stronger and better organized local leagues the African countries won't stop being players exporting countries. If it's on keeping their talents at home, it will fail. Because this goes beyond football. It's on economics. Look at the number of Conmebol-NT players still playing at home. The World Champion teams of Brazil 1994 and 2002 had still more than the half of the players in the local league. In the last WCs it's about only 3 or 4 out of 23 still playing in Brazil. And I wouldn't say Brazil stopped producing talents. Nor Argentina nor Uruguay, where you see the same trend.
There's an interesting balance between football talent and economics. Even countries that are not economically that strong finish importing players from others, when talent is missing. And economically strong countries can also export players when talent is abundant.
But we could still ask how a huge country like Egypt can't still cope with a dwarf like Uruguay. It's perhaps about football culture, more than just investment and lack of corruption. And this takes time.
Things are changing always faster and faster. And even if 20 years ago people were already previewing that about these days African countries would already be fighting for the title and it's still a chimera, I'm sure this will happen in the future. African football will probably still be unorganized and corrupt, the leagues will still be weak, all the best players will be in Europe but a stronger football culture will exist - also due to the pressure of money - generating more and more talented kids. And as I understand, football culture is not about the major leagues, but about the district and suburban football grounds. And I imagine this will gradually be organized as people discover that Africa can generate talents ... and big money.

 

1008804020335644672 is not a valid tweet id

 

Was at the game last night and finally got to where there's some decent Wifi to upload the 3 goals if you want to see from the crowd's perspective:

Kane's Opener:



Sassi penalty:



Kane's Winner:



Was actually a fun game to be at with all the drama, although the penalty looked very dubious. In the end the best team won I think it's fair to say.

 

Not unlucky we outplayed tunisia and could have won 5 or 6..and they arent africas worst team..theyre the highest ranked african nation..get your facts right

 

Any team lost in stoppage time of course considered as unlucky.
Could won 5 or 6 its pure fantasy, the final result is 2-1 with an injury time winner by Kane proven to be it was a tough game for England.

 

And Poland is ranked 8th in the World.
Tunisia is Africa's highest FIFA ranked team, but heading into the competition were considered Africa's worst representative and weaker than teams that stayed in Africa like Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Zambia, Mali, Burkina Faso. They run the system, hence their high ranking.

And the moment you started Sterling you have no right to speak of winning by 5 or 6 goals. It's a self-defeating argument.

 

I don't see Tunisia as being 'unlucky' but rather as 'lucky', lucky that they only lost by one goal, lets be honest here I think the English team had something like 17 shots on goal. Of course it was 'tough' there are no 'easy' games at a world cup.

 

If you play Sterling and have 2 goals from 17 shots on goal, it's not 'unlucky'. It's normal.

 

If you have 17 shots on goal more often than not you are going to win the game, the reality is that Tunisia were given a VERY dubious penalty for an equaliser they didn't really deserve and then they tried to 'hang on' for the whole of the second half, I would suggest they were lucky not to lose by more than one goal.

 

Go to the referee forum. Not one had a single doubt it was a good call.

As to the rest: Honestly - you play Sterling and you're bound to be profiglate in front of goal. It's a given.

 

Lucky? It was an absolute miracle and almost injustice the score was tied at halftime. England should have been 3 or 4 goals to the good. The stats kind of agree to 60-40% possession, 17-6 shots, 7-1 on goal. Sorry but England were by far the better team and deserved the victory. Tunisia defended heroically but at the end of the day, the result was very flattering to them. It was bunker-ball if there every was. This was not Australia vs France.

 

This isn't true, most people thought it was not a penalty, basically the Tunisian guy ran into him and 'play acted', they 'play acted' quite a lot, there again as a fan of rugby it always amuses me how football players react like they have been shot every time they are tackled!

 

I think the problem was also consistency. The ref was letting a lot of things go... including fouls in the box on England. So to call that penalty was a bit uncharacteristic. Also it's a common tactic, Jamie Vardy uses it a lot, run into the defender and fall over and look at the ref for your penalty.