The World's Greatest Sporting Competition - The 2022 Qatar World Cup Thread

That midfield is not looking good.....It's not bad, there are some promising names but they are far from the established final product that Pogba and Kante were, Dechamps wouldn't know how to get the best out of them. When Rabiot is your most experienced midfielder, you know you're in for a tough time.

Maignan is also a big miss. Lloris has been very error prone recently.

Not much to say about their defenders and forwards, crazy depth.

 

He's basically gambling on Marseille's midfield coherency to cover up for their lack in skill.

 

Yeah but Guendouzi plays more advanced there, so it still not really making sense.

With what he picked I would play a 3-5-2, with Theo and Coman as wingbacks, Tchouameni partner Vertout, then Guendouzi RCAM, Mbappe LCAM and Benzema central.

A right CAM you can go more attacking with Demebele.

You can even partner Mbappe with Benzema and have Nkuku play behind them to link up.

 

Sancho as expected did not make the team. Nothing really surprising for England.

 

So far all of our current and former players selected. I included Fabinho who played for Castilla.

Gareth Bale
Alphonse Areola
Theo Hernandez
Varane
Caminvinga
Tchouameni
Benzema
Keylor Navas
Rudiger
Kubo
Courtios
Hazard
Hakimi.
Kovacic
Modric
Danilo
Vincicus Jr
Casemiro
Militao
Rodrygo
Fabinho

 

France play a 3-4-3 btw, so only 2 of those CM’s will be playing in any given game. I can see Camavinga at least getting minutes as a sub.

Would be great if he gets a start alongside Tchouameni.

 

Yeah they have to play that 3-4-3 with Theo and Coman as the outside mids (very similar to the 3-5-2 I brought up earlier).

As you and Nate said Camavinga should have a significant chance to make an impact.

 

Hope he gets to play with Tchouameni more…will be great for them to develop chemistry. We need them to.

 

I don't know about France. Brazil should use Rodrgyo and VJ together. Given that Brazil has less than two weeks before the WC Finals to build chemistry, the pair is more than already.

Having said that, Tite will start VJ, Neymar and Gabriel Jesus. I don't know about the right side.

 

Tite is likely to start Neymar, Vini/Raphinha and that clown Richarlison.

 

I don't know if you guys have seen this, but if you google any player it now has a new look, detailing player stats and related players, team details, transfermarkt etc. I guess they started this for the upcoming world cup, and I like it!

 

Yeah, France was my 2nd most likely contender to win it all before Kante and Pogba's injury. But with that thin midfield, I'm not sure. To be honest, even Brazil's midfield isn't as great. Most teams have very stacked offense or defenses. Only a few teams have a great midfield (Germany, England and Portugal so far). We all know that the midfield is the engine of the team. Watching KCM dominate for 7-8 years has taught us how valuable they are in a tournament .

If England wins the world cup, I can't imagine what the size of their egos will be (particularly the rowdy hooligans). England has won the FIFA women's world cup, the cricket world cup ODI, and now they would potentially win the Fifa world cup in Qatar AND the T20 Cricket world cup being held in Australia (where they are in the finals and heavy favorites).

They'll start going around calling themselves the "greatest sporting nation on Earth", which fortunately might be negated by the fact that USA has the most Olympics gold medals in history.

 

Man, quite the fall from grace for Ferland Mendy. When a dude who's basically not played in 2 months gets in over you, it's really a bad sign. It's really nobody's fault but his own. He has been really poor for a good chunk of this season and a good portion of the last season. When he first came, he was looking like gold dust. Then his flaws got exposed and he never improved. Hopefully this puts a fire beneath him to focus harder.

Here's a good article about Ferland's omission: https://therealchamps.com/2022/11/10/real-madrid-ferland-mendy-world-cup-good/

Then again, Deschamps left out Benzema last time and cannot be fired sooner to be replaced by Zizou. I think unless France wins it all (which is unlikely given the recent history of this tournament), he's a goner.

 

No Reus too (

 

This might be the entire list of our current and former players going to Qatar. I might have missed a few Castilla players.

Gareth Bale
Alphonse Areola
Theo Hernandez
Varane
Caminvinga
Tchouameni
Benzema
Keylor Navas
Rudiger
Kubo
Courtios
Hazard
Hakimi.
Kovacic
Modric
Danilo
Vincicus Jr
Casemiro
Militao
Rodrygo
Fabinho
Pepe
Ronaldo
Fede Valverde
Morata
Asensio
Marcos Llorente
Dani Cavajal
Pablo Sarabia
Di Maria
Luka Jovic

 

France playing a 3-4-3? That was my formation of choice during my PES Master League days. I never thought I'd actually see it used IRL.

 

France will play with 4 at the back in the big matchs.
No teams won a World cup with 3atb and Deschamps has been criticized lately by former teammates about this system.
France won in 98 and 2018 with a 4-3-3.

Rb: pavard Kounde.
Lb: Hernandez brothers.

I don't see them winning this World cup.

 

My mistake. I Heard Lizarazu few days ago talking about that he was mainly talking about the French teams that had success with 4 atb.
French team doesn't have cafu Roberto Carlos

 

Didn't Conte's Chelsea win the EPL with that

 

🎙️| Luis Enrique: “Asensio will play false 9 at the World Cup.” #rmalive

— Madrid Zone (@theMadridZone) November 11, 2022