Suddenly Ghana, USA, and Algeria look a lot better

Discussion in 'World Cup 2014: General' started by Distorted Humor, Jul 8, 2014.

  1. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    <looks at this post>
    <looks at thread title>
    <re-reads original post>
    <scratches head>
     
  2. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    4 losses were in full international games.
    2 at U20 levels and 2 at U17 levels. We are now in a post-MRI era and throwing around age accusations is yesterday's news. Here's the last meeting between USA and Ghana at U20 level - featuring none other than your own future of American soccer Yedlin. Enjoy:

     
  3. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Scratch that head some more. Pretend you don't understand. 3 World Cup games - 2 Ghana wins, 1 USA win; Ghana made the 1/4 final once during that period.
     
  4. M

    M Member+

    Feb 18, 2000
    Via Ventisette
    Let's see what I responded to:

    An individual mistake led to England conceding the winner against Uruguay, but even the England captain admits that it was the naivety of the team that led to the defeat. So my response directly responded to your claim that European countries are somehow treated differently.

    Ah so now the goalpost has moved from the original claim of labeling Africans' "tactical naivety of the entire team" to a generalization of all coaches from a country being naive. Keep digging.

    As long as you try to play the race card.
     
  5. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I actually sort of agree with this. But you know what else? I, personally, perceive a fair amount of condescension in terms of over optimistic assessment of Africa soccer as well. Look all over bigsoccer, and notice how often a European or South American poster thinks that FIFA should take slots away from CONCACAF, and how rarely they say that about Africa. Then look at the actual records of the two confederations.

    To me, the record since the Cup went to 32 is very, very clear, that CONCACAF gets what they deserve, no more and no less. As the 2002 blip fades, it has become very obvious that Asia soccer is terrible, and terribly overrepresented in the World Cup. But you know what? Africa is obviously overrepresented, too. Except for condescension, there's no reason for them to get 5 slots. There's no sporting reason for it. They probably "deserve" 3 but should get a 4th because this is the World's game. (The same reason Asia probably "deserves" 2 slots on sporting merit but should get more to try to grow the game in Asia.

    We've been waiting for the African breakthrough for 4 cups now, and it keeps not happening.
     
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  6. DZfennec

    DZfennec Member

    Jun 5, 2014
    It's a tough question to answer. In the past, when African teams were made up of majority players playing in Africa, tactical naivety would be an accurate description. I'm not sure that's an excuse now though. For the 5 teams that played at this World Cup, the majority of players play in Europe, and some at a very high level, so tactically they know what needs to be done. But I really don't know what happens to result in Yaya Toure turning from one of the best midfielders in the world to then stupidly shooting instead of running the ball into the corner flag to win the game. We can no longer use the excuse of tactical naivety, because he plays at one of the biggest clubs in the world, and he knows what needs to be done on the pitch to win a game.

    For me, it mainly comes down to two issues. One is the managers and coaching staff. Lamouchi was never good enough for the Ivory Coast. Stephen Keshi I'm still not at all convinced about as a manager despite his good results. Finke seems useless, and again I'm not convinced with Appiah. So while in the past, you could give african teams the best manager in the world, and he'd still struggle to organise them well because the players weren't used to playing at a high level and dealing with the tactical nature of the game, nowadays it seems like the players can but the managers aren't up to standard.

    The second point is pride in playing for your country. When you have Ghanian players retiring from international football and only coming back just before a world cup, you know there's a real issue. Add to that the bonus issues, and I wonder if some of the African players even understand the responsibility of putting that shirt on and playing for your country. And if match fixing is ever proven against Cameroon, that would be the ultimate proof of this point.

    Algeria were the best African team at this World Cup because they didn't have problems with the two points above. Vahid Halillhodzic is a very good manager and he had an excellent coaching staff with him at Algeria. You could tell that was the case with how well drilled we were at times. And for the second point, Algeria gets a lot of criticism for apparently being a "French B team". I think the effort and commitment they put into their matches, and the joy they showed when making Algerian history by being the first Algerian team to get to the last 16 of a world cup, shows the pride these group of players have in playing for their country. That is not to be underestimated.

    It's a real pity because there's real talent in Africa. Apart from Cameroon who were woeful, the others all had the ingredients to get out of the group. We could have seen 4 in the last 16 instead of 2 (Ivory coast and Ghana both massively underachieved. On paper they are both better than Greece and the USA who got in ahead of them, and this highlights that the problem isn't on paper i.e the players' talent), but I feel that the outcome was good so as to not gloss over the problems. The African federations need to carefully consider the managers they are appointing and the motivation of the players they are calling up, for African football to then advance. The talent is there and will always be there (yes, there could be an improvement on this point, but the other points must be given priority).
     
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  7. M

    M Member+

    Feb 18, 2000
    Via Ventisette
    I still remember the claims of an "African breakthrough" prior to the 1990 World Cup. So we've actually been waiting a quarter of a century for it.
     
  8. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Honestly. I feel like I'm explaining basic logic to a 5 year old...
    No, it didn't. It was a singular non-generalised comment.

    Logical fail. Once again. Yes, keep digging. You own argumentational grave.
    And by the way: Your the one constantly moving the goalposts. Throwing together absolutely non-correlating arguments and making some weird amalgamate argument which would get you expelled from a logics class.

    The initial comment was regarding an individual mistake being discussed as 'tactical naivety' of the entire team. The English captain explained what was tactically naive about their singular game. Two utterly different situations.

    The entire issue is that singular actions, individuals, teams, occurences are used to stereotype an entire country or continent, predominantly along purely racial lines. Nothing like that occured with Hodgson, who was individually lambasted as a poor coach. No generalisation was made.

    OK. You're adamant that if you say something racist you will deny it and claim that 'I'm playing the race card'. The logical equivalent of stealing my wallet and when I shout at you "Hey, give that back" you say: "Don't point that finger at me".
     
  9. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Actually I see quite a lot of 'take slots away from CAF' comments about Africa. And you did yourselves a world of good at this World Cup and basically all such talk will stop for at least the next 4 years.
     
  10. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    He was just talking about Welbeck and Stirling.

    If you know what I mean.
     
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  11. DZfennec

    DZfennec Member

    Jun 5, 2014
    Based on the most recent world cups, I don't know how I, or anyone for that matter, could disagree with you. However, there definitely is talent in Africa. Put it this way, if we could give all African teams a good manager to organise them well, and have them all giving their all for their country when they put on their shirt, there's a chance 5 won't be enough. In Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon (yes even them), Nigeria, Senegal and Morocco there's real talent. Not to mention other decent teams like Egypt and Mali.

    For me personally, Africa needs to perform well at the World Cup first. We need to get 3/4 into last 16, 2 teams into quarter final and one into the semi's all in one World Cup. Once we do that regularly, I think then we'll need to review the qualification format, because there's so much strength in depth in Africa, that confederations like Asia and especially Concacaf don't have.

    Will it happen? Maybe, we'll see, but I totally understand people's skepticism. It's disappointing to see Africa struggle every time at a world cup. But one thing I'm certain of is Mexico and USA would struggle to qualify every time from Africa, like they do in Concacaf. That's obviously another discussion, but it's just to highlight that getting to the World Cup is so tough in Africa, that it is perceived as a big achievement for pretty much every nation so a lot of effort is put into this process. Compared with Concacaf where USA and Mexico pretty much know they will qualify (ok Mexico did struggle this time around), so even during qualification, their focus is on the world cup, already organising friendlies against top European teams etc. The African teams aren't afforded this luxury, to as big a degree, until they qualify.
     
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  12. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Examples of borderline racist comments on this thread alone:

    I don't want to overuse stereotypes, but what happened to Ghana is symptomatic of African teams. No discipline under some stress. (raviept)

    My explanation, and that of many, is that they lack the tactical maturity to excel. (raviept)

    Ghana has really good players that I dont denie but with this kind of quality players and athlets you have to reach more then they reached 2010 and 2014 and I can you tell why they dont reach more...because they dont take football serious, they arent a team, tactical they are miles behind the world class. ---> followed by --->
    Every world cup I hear since 1990, this time a Africa (...) (mefistor)


    An example of a non-racist comment questioning Ghana's tactical setup:
    Here's one thing: Ghana was outcoached. The strategy to disallow Ghana the middle of the field, yield possession to a better counter-attacking team, and make them play unthreatening crosses from the wings was all very deliberate, and resulted in a well-earned USA win. (paulalanr)
     
  13. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    #138 zahzah, Jul 10, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2014
    Short summary:
    Cameroon (Finke) - poorly coached, internal indiscipline, tactical mess
    Ghana (Appiah) - well coached, good selection, tactically strong, although a few selection glitches from the coach, poor center of defence due to injuries, external issues and indiscipline of a select few players also impacted results, above all: tough group (managed to exit a group of death twice, failed the third time)
    Nigeria (Keshi) - perfect motivator, great tactical setup, great tactical sense of starting XI (well... most of them), not enough work on setpieces (Achilles heel), poorly drilled team in attacking third, overall questionable player selection, exposed when the referee allowed their best player to be hacked out of the game without an ensuing red card, still a better team than France and were cheated out of 1/4 final
    Algeria (Halihodzic)- well coached, well drilled, good tactical mobility, capacity of players taken to its limits
    Cote d'Ivoire (Lamouchi) - questionable player selection (no Doumbia), but still great team, limited tactical nuance, mentally weak team, but the pivotal problem were the poor tactical choices made by coach, especially in the final game (taking off Drogba, introducing inexperienced Sio instead of another defensive player), that said Lamouchi had a great tactical game vs Japan
     
  14. DZfennec

    DZfennec Member

    Jun 5, 2014
    Take Algeria for example. We didn't play a World Cup quality team prior to the tournament at all since the start of the qualification campaign (all the way back in 2012, and I don't think we'd even played such a team since the World Cup in 2010 anyway). The exception being Bosnia in 2012 (which was destroyed as a test/spectacle because of the weather) and the only reason that was organised was to celebrate our 50th anniversary. Apart from that, all our friendlies were against African opposition to specifically prepare for our qualification matches or the africa cup of nations. We just aren't used to playing other teams from around the world, especially top level teams. Hence, just prior to the World Cup, we played 3 european teams (Slovenia, Armenia and Romania), with the idea being to slowly transition our team into getting used to playing European teams, but without the luxury of playing a top team because that would be too big a step and one that could destroy confidence just prior to a world cup, especially considering the young squad we have.

    For me, the africa cup of nations should be changed to once every 4 years, instead of 2. As a fan, I'd hate that because I love the tournament, and the more often it's held the more likely it is for me to see my country win it. But it just means African teams spend too much of their time playing each other (qualification for cup of nations, qualification for world cup, friendlies to prepare these qualification matches). The top African teams need to start playing top European teams, South American teams and the US and Mexico regularly. Thats the only way African football will improve, and therefore, for me, the nations cup being held every two years is halting progression.
     
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  15. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Moving to odd years was a step in the right direction though. No more last minute changes of coaches.
     
  16. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    1. Asia is getting a lot of slack for this years showing and deservedly so. But this was a blip. Japan, South Korea and Australia are consistent performers and limiting them to 2 slots is absurd. They had 2 teams out in 2010 and one poor showing does not justify a loss of spots for them. This was obviously a down year in Asian football. Consistently the problem has been the 4th Asian team (Saudi Arabia, North Korea), but whenever Iran makes the competition they do pretty well.

    2. Africa cut down to 3 would mean what? That 1 of Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana or Algeria would have not made this World Cup. Not progressing aside, obviously all World Cup quality teams. Cameroon was a flop, but Africa has better teams at home (Morocco, Egypt, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso) who could easily have supplanted them in a better qualifying system. The argument especially makes no sense given 2 CAF teams progressed, so at minimum they proved they deserve 4 slots at this World Cup. Africa also have depth, albeit inconsistent: 6 different countries from Africa have made the knockout stages compared to 3 from Asia and North America.

    3. Prior to 2002 CONCACAF was also sending just 1 team through the group phase. And prior to 2010 CONCACAF wasn't exactly outperforming CAF sides. Prior to this World Cup CAF had as many 1/4 final appearances as CONCACAF in modern-era football (taking pre-war World Cups would be disingenous given Africa was a colonised continent).

    Asia, Africa and North America are underrepresented (exactly because of them not being top confederations) as it is and you still want to take slots away from two of them? They reason AFC or CAF get 4,5-5 slots is because this is the WORLD CUP. And they are receiving the bare minimum as it is. If they weren't underperforming they would already have more slots.

    Aside from the fact that CAF won't be losing slots, especially after sending through 2 teams to the 1/8 final, your whole argument is false. Even if CAF teams don't progress they almost always show good football (Cameroon 2014 the odd man out). Asian teams similarly prove to be strong contenders, even if not elite.

    There are only so many elite teams in the world (ca 10). And the rest of slots need to be open for teams all over the world to show themselves.
     
  17. LastBoyscout

    LastBoyscout Member+

    Mar 6, 2013
    Algeria had countless counter attacks that would have been very dangerous if it wasn't for Neuer. They could have trashed us just he same if they only had "a little luck". :rolleyes:
     
  18. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Apart from the fact that Ghana actually scored twice, had more shots on goal than Germany and was in the lead... sure. Algeria and Ghana were equally impressive...
     
  19. M

    M Member+

    Feb 18, 2000
    Via Ventisette
    Over the last three World Cups , the 12 AFC entrants have been in last place in their groups 8 times, with 2 progressing to the round of 16. Really, that's a poor record that in no way justifies their current spots.
     
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  20. LastBoyscout

    LastBoyscout Member+

    Mar 6, 2013
    That is how football journalism in the world cup works. Ever seen an English post match analysis of a Germany game? It's always "ruthless, organized, efficient" you will never hear words like "creative, technical, individual skill". I think it's just easier for most commentators to resort to the same old phrases over and over because either they don't have the skill to deliver a in depth analysis or people don't want to hear it. National and continental stereotyping is always part of the world cup. If someone does well it's positive stereotypes associated with the country or continent, if they ******** up the negative stereotypes come out. I don't think it's a conspiracy against Africa in particular.
     
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  21. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Over the last 4 World Cups the 16 AFC entrants have been in the round of 16 4 times. Omitting that one is disingenious.

    4 of those 8 last placed finishes were in this World Cup, which skews the stat. Asia has had one terrible World Cup in 2014, but they had a good 2010 World Cup (as good as CONCACAF). Also the fact that Japan and Australia were in 1 group in 2006 additionally skews the picture (they did progress).

    The access of Australia to CONCACAF post-2010 significantly increased the confeds overall strength level.

    All in all Asia has had 1 terrible tournament, but even then Iran and Australia came out with their head held high. They obviously need to bounce back come 2018. Else claiming they should lose spots is just baseless. If you perform poorly twice in a row - sure (vide UEFA's below average performance in the group phase).
     
  22. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    I never said differently. Its not a conspiracy. That doesn't mean one should just shut up and accept it. Call a spade a spade.
     
  23. Mephistor

    Mephistor Member

    Mar 26, 2004
    Essen
    Club:
    FC Schalke 04
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    It's funny, here we have few users not important what you say but when its a negative post about an African team the post isnt intelligent or discriminating/racism or whatelse but never is telling the truth or the facts...

    I was hearing before World Cup that Cameroon players were talking about money for success in the world cup. They are right, they are doing something for the country, spending their time there and give all for their country so the country should pay for them when they have success. But is it clever or intelligent to do it this way and at this time? I mean you can talk about it earlier for example or stopping to talk to press or give pressure in other way...But to stop practice, to take later flight and so...with this you are taking your own optinions to reach something big in the world cup. This happened to other African teams before and I think to Nigeria this world cup too. Cameroon was playing good in game before World Cup against Germany and I thought maybe they are strong enough to reach place two in group but they didnt and I think one reason was this....

    About talking Ghana and that they are tacticaly naive isnt racism too. Brasil was tacticaly naive maybe hole tournament too only the other teams couldnt use it because of different reasons. I said Algeria (African team) played tacticaly good against Germany, they played the way they had to play....so I think is nothing racism to say to a team that it is tacticaly naive only because is African....When somebody is an idiot Im telling him that he is an idiot not important if he is white, asian, latin, african or whatelse...and when somebody is good Im telling him too not important which colour he/she/it has.

    To play the card, all are against us that is not fair never gives you sympathy. You should look first in your own house whats going wrong before attacking other...one example again...Brasil complained about the foul against Neymar from Colombia...but they didnt say one word about the fact that they played unfair hole game too....why many countries everytime something is going wrong or not like they wanted are complaining about things....I mean accept that you lost and try to be better.....

    By this way, I think in this thread all is said. You are not going better because loosing maybe against the next world champion. It helps to feel little bit better for your ego to loose against the next world cup champion but finally you lost and has to wait 4 years to make it better.
     
  24. M

    M Member+

    Feb 18, 2000
    Via Ventisette
    There's nothing disingenuous about omitting a World Cup 12 years ago - it's ancient history now. In fact, FIFA itself only used the results of the three prior World Cups when it used a seeding system based on performances in prior WCs.

    AFC had two terrible tournaments:- 2006 and 2014. In 2006 they progressed 0 teams and had 3 last place finishers. In 2014 they progressed 0 teams and had 4 last place finishers.
     
  25. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    But in 2006 Australia progressed, which is now an AFC member. Not sure how to count that one, but it happened.
     

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