This is why the teams with most chemistry are the ones who many have players who play at the same club namely Germany and Bayern 2014 and Spain and Barcelona 2010. Most fluid teams to win it. France was well formed but it was built over time. Players peaking and younger players adjusting and maturing quickly allows for that. Deschamps was rocked by the most injuries to key players before this World Cup, including Nkunku, Benzema. Pogba and Kante were already out prior.
WOW japan Just score twice in a few minutes, totally upending the group. And the last goal was millimeters from being disallowed for being over the byline. 50 mins to go though. Hang on to you hats.
Surely this group stage has been the best in years. Any team can pull a suprise. Can it continue to KO stages? I hope so!
Germany fighting for its life, gets an equalizer, which does Spain a huge favor. What a fvcking group finale!
First it was Budweiser. Now Belgium and Germany have also been eliminated from Qatar. Just a shocking World Cup showing for beer.
As a result of Japan going through top, the top half of the bracket is looking very light. Smooth sailing for Argentina, Brazil, maybe even USA
in one paragraph, you're saying he "may have just needed a boost in confidence" and, in another, you're acknowledging the importance of a good keeper needing "to be both cocky and confident", which was it for szczesny in your mind? and, if you think szczesny needed "a boost in confidence", i need to know if we were following the same player because dude had bendtner-tier confidence and cockiness. (fabianski, in contrast, was perpetually one mistake away from mentally breaking down and in my opinion, with good reason, because his leash always seemed far, far shorter than szczesny's.) szczesny had the same self-belief and confidence as mustafi that, any goal conceded was surely someone else's fault. you could see it on literally every single goal we gave up because he was immediately up and looking for someone to point fingers at. same as mustafi. you aren't developing any further at that point. sure, playing with and being around gigi buffon could possibly be good for your development but so could have playing with and being around . . . petr cech. until and unless you know you have things to learn need to continue developing, you aren't getting any better, as we have seen from bendtner,pennant, and what's-his-name that was there at the same time as pennant. 100% agree that a keeper need that same cockiness and confidence as an american football cornerback or a basketball shooter who needs to have that zero short-term memory to succeed. they need that ability to look at the last goal or pass conceded and go, "next one is mine." (and why, sadly, fabianski has a ceiling.) smoking in and of itself, as you said, is an addiction and not an indication of someone who thinks they're great. smoking and giving zero fucks about instructions or consequences as gallas and szczesny did said i know better, the hell with what the coach/manager says.
Apparently the excitement and drama of match day 3 in the group stage is giving FIFA second thoughts about 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...der-ditching-three-team-group-format-for-2026 The main motivation for the 48 team format with 16 groups of 3 was that it increases the total number of matches from 64 (in 48 TV windows since the current format involves playing matches at the same time to avoid collusion) up to 80 matches, none of which need to happen simultaneously. This new proposal in this article would be 104 (!) matches, so of course they will consider it because more TV = more money. I'd keep the current format, but if they insist on going to 48, it would be better if they stuck with 2 advancing out of each group to get to 24 in the knockouts and give a bye to the 8 best finishers. That would give someone like Brazil or France this year, who won their first 2 matches and were guaranteed to advance, motivation to get a result in the 3rd match to earn the bye.
What’s your beef with it? There has to be some act to bring the player back into play. A square/back pass from an onside player seems as appropriate as anything else.
Well... since you ask, here are some posts I made about it in another thread, where we had been previously debating the offside law a bit: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2022-world-cup-usa-iran.2123682/page-46#post-41003040 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2022-world-cup-usa-iran.2123682/page-47#post-41004601 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2022-world-cup-usa-iran.2123682/page-47#post-41004675
Belgium have some talent, but its not "golden generation" talent which they have absolutely squandered here. 2018 was their year to win the WC but Martinez just isn't a good enough manager. With the list they had in 2018 and even this year, to bomb the group stages is a massive bottle-job. Australia, Morocco, Japan, Senegal, Poland, USA are all teams that overall lack the talent that Belgium have but have failed to progress because those teams have either got a better manager that utilises their team better, or managers that come up with better counter plans to the specific teams in their group. Plus bad kicking is bad football. Japan and Australia have had limited chances in matches and take them. Belgium should have beaten Croatia at LEAST 3-0 and that sees them progress.
Agreed In most sports you get back onside in broken play by tracking back, or waiting for play to go past you - otherwise how can you ever get back in the game
I was trying to point out, apparently not very effectively, that I don’t think it was a “jolt of rejection” that kickstarted his development, just the natural maturation and development of a relatively young keeper that benefitted from the boost in confidence of being the undisputed #1 at Roma, a luxury he didn’t have in his last season at Arsenal, where he split time with Ospina.
I like to think the best thing that ever happened to Szczesny was 2 seasons of shadowing Gigi at Juventus before taking over when he retired.
I agree that Szczesny probably benefitted from training with Buffon, but initially it was only one season and they split time in that season, with Buffon starting 21 League games and Szczesny starting 17, before Buffon retired to PSG the next year. When Buffon returned to Juventus after one year at PSG, Szczesny was the starting keeper. As an aside, at 44 Buffon still isn’t retired, he is currently playing for Parma in Serie B.