World Cup Bold Predictions

Discussion in 'World Cup 2018 - Russia' started by NickK, Dec 2, 2017.

  1. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    That's how you do it, your turn. Prove your hypothesis right
     
  2. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    #77 ragnars, Jul 2, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2018
    I predicted Brasil 3:1 Mexico.



    I observed that workrates between the teams is roughly even. I think Mexico made a small tactical error. Although it was a good idea to go for the early lead, as the 33 degree temperatures would make it very difficult to do later on, they ran themselves out of this match and in the second half they fizzled out fast.

    In any case, I anticipated that Brasil's class would simply be too much for Mexico.

    I will say that Japan loses to Belgium on penalties today. These are two technical teams that are not overly physical. Japan showed against Senegal that they can overcome physical teams. And I think they would still have gotten a result against Colombia even if the two teams were at full strength, because Japan was putting a lot of pressure on Colombia early on and Colombia scored their only goal in somewhat fortunate circumstances as the goalkeeper was found napping.

    I think Japan will be hungrier for victory today as they have some veterans who have been mainstays of their programme who will play their last match. Hasebe, Honda (when he comes on), Nagatomo and Kagawa will play their hearts out today. I expect Okazaki to start because of his ability to defend from the front and his general scrappiness. They will try to deny service to Lukaku. Japan will have peaked for today's match as they know that they probably will not make it past the next round. and will find that Belgium's technical play will suit them, because Japan like to play the possession style of football. They showed against Senegal that they learned to snuff out counterattacks pretty effectively, and even though the goalkeeper had a howler, they still managed to claw themselves into this match. They are more resilient than past World Cup sides. I think they will also have learned some lessons from past failures against physical sides like Cote d'Ivoire, and I don't expect them to lose the physical battle today. I think Japan will also be trying to prove that their decision to sack Halihodzic shortly before the tournament was a good one, even though I think they've largely vindicated this decision already.

    I think in terms of workrate these teams are roughly equal. Although Belgium has a big advantage in class, I'm not convinced with Belgium's defending in general. Japan's defense is also not very strong, so it seems that this match will have at least two goals. We all saw what a scrappy yet technically inferior side such as Wales were able to do in Euros against Belgium. Martinez' attack-minded mentality might make Belgium very susceptible to counterattacks, which Japan are not bad at. Sometimes Hazard does a disappearing act, and he doesn't seem to be in his best form in this World Cup. Lukaku also shows inconsistency so if Japan can nullify these guys, they have a chance.

    In any case, I predict a close, entertaining match.

    EDIT: I see that Okazaki will not be starting today, which I think is a tactical mistake. So this may give Belgium more chances of winning today.
     
    Kamtedrejt repped this.
  3. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    My prediction of Belgium 2:2 Japan was not too bad, but of course Belgium will always be dangerous if they are putting crosses into the box for Fellaini and Lukaku.

    [​IMG]

    It's hard to believe I didn't get any points for this match.
     
    Iranian Monitor repped this.
  4. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Nice, you were pretty close actually. You didnt quite predict the way in which things would happen and prediction is closer than it shoudl have been due to Belgiums sloppiness rather than Japans quality, but back to the point...
    I still see no connection in the way you make your predictions around work players put in.. and it seems completely arbitrary of who you think is working hard and who doesnt.

    How is Belgium as hard working as Japan? Belgium is staistically one of the worst team in terms of kilometers ran and deBruyne and Witsel are, visibly, lazy as ******** in the roles they shouldnt be like that.
    On the other hand Japan is obviously hard working team.
     
  5. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    What should the result have been? Did you predict a rout? That would have been a rather unperceptive prediction considering Japan's recent form of easily beating Paraguay and Colombia and drawing Senegal, even with at least two or three goalscoring errors leading to goals. Japan also showed some sloppiness in the first and third goals. Most other goalkeepers would have parried that but Kawashima is not the most mobile. And there were mental lapses Japan made due to exhaustion. So the sloppiness score is roughly equal overall, but Japan made sloppy mistakes at more crucial points in the match, and this is why they couldn't win or take the match to extra time. But I anticipated such late collapses, as Japan tends to be susceptible to direct approaches especially aerial balls. It is disappointing that their number 1 goalkeeper is so poor with aerial threats and is so prone to costly errors.

    I anticipated that Japan would play with more at least a bit more determination to win, because of the reasons I mentioned when I made the prediction. They also would have wanted to show a better performance than past World Cups, especially with so much experience and talent relative to the past Japan sides.

    However, Japan had some key obstacles to overcome. They played their last group match in 36 degree (40 degrees on field) temperatures, and even though they largely played keep away unchallenged for the last 15 minutes or so, the fact is that it took much more energy to play 80 minutes hard in 36 degree temperatures than it took to play 90+ minutes a rather moderate effort against England, because both teams had motivations to lose while not wanting to make it overtly appear that they are trying not to win. Japan also had much more difficult matches against Colombia, Senegal and Poland, who are all more challenging opposition than Panama or Tunisia.

    So this is the reason I predicted that the workrates of these teams in this match would be roughly equal. Japan would try at least as hard or harder, but their workrate would be diminished by less rest as I saw it.

    The sloppiness of the Belgiums were largely forced on them by Japan's greater tenacity and better tactical discipline. While it cannot be denied that some Belgium players underperformed, even De Bruyne would have a difficult time being marked in numbers every time he received the ball. It seemed that most of the times he tried to turn, Shibasaki and other players were there to stifle him before he could create anything. I think most impatial observers would say that Nishino came prepared with excellent tactics while Martinez was forced to go to Plan B as he didn't have any good Plan A. But of course there are not many Asian sides apart from possibly Iran that can cope with Belgium's direct approach, and the direct threat of Fellaini and Chadli was story of the game. Yoshida is the only Japanese player that could somewhat deal with a Lukaku, so if you add Fellaini, then there will only be one winner.

    The statistics on distance covered need a lot of interpretation. If a team like Belgium finds themselves in the lead early and are clearly superior in terms of offensive threat than Panama and Tunisia, then of course any wise tactician would try to expend as little energy as necessary to make sure they qualify to the knockout rounds. In the last match against England, both teams could afford to play with much less intensity than the normal match, so this would also explain relatively low expenditure of energy.

    It is harsh to say that DeBruyne is a lazy player. In terms of distance covered, he, Erikssen and Henderson are probably the hardest working midfielders in the Premiership.

    The statistics showed that the distance covered was roughly equal between these two sides. But the difference is that the Japanese worked more on being in the right positions on the pitch whereas the Belgians depended more on explosive attacks and defending efficiently, which they largely failed to do.
     
  6. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    This time, England will finally win a knockout round match, and rather easily I predict. They are actually a fit side, which they haven't been in the past tournaments. And this will be the key to their success this time.
     
  7. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    By the way, on the field the temperature was reported to be 29 degrees in the match between Belgium and Japan. Considering this, Japan and Belgium covered far more than most teams do in such conditions, as they covered 108 and 109 km respectively. Deffinitely both teams put in a shift, but there were moments in the match that they failed to fulfill their roles, as would be expected.
     
  8. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    What do you mean they are in form? They got lucky with early red card and penalty vs Colombia, still had troubles winning the match, somehow they drew with Senegal and they lost to Poland (which was the worst European team in WC by far), in a game that was of a crucial importance to them, but of no importance to Poland whatsoever. Japan should have never got to KO.

    What late colapses? First 35 minutes of the match was the most one sided football i have seen whole tournament, Belgium should have scored like 3, 4 goals in that period, they were all over Japan.
    Japan did score goals in second half due to Belgium's formation/tactical problems, which btw, i also predicted, still Belgium had to score more than 3 goals in last 30 minutes. They had obvious height advantage and they should have capitilized on that easily.

    If Belgium doesnt change their 3-4-3 formation, Brazil will absolutely destroy them.

    England had troubles and they ran much much more than Colombia and yet they didnt dominated anything, which clearly puts a huge question mark over your theory.
    Explain!

    Football is not about degrees and humidity or any of that stuff, its about tactics, talent and motivation (aka hardwork).. fitness doesnt have nearly as much influence as you are saying it does. Talent (motivated talent) is a winner 80% of a time, imo.
     
  9. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    I think you have a very biased view of Japan's performances. Japan pressured Colombia early on and this is what provoked the hand ball by the Colombian defender. Are you suggesting that Japan didn't deserve to be in the knockout rounds? Why is Poland the worst team in the World Cup? Are they worse than Panama, Tunisia, or Saudi Arabia? None of these sides would have earned any points in this group in my opinion if they had taken Poland's place. Poland didn't play badly against a very dangerous Senegal side, and they almost got a result.

    It is true that Poland failed to meet expectations, but did you actually predict they would be the worst side in the WC if that is what you think now? Who deserved to advance to the KO round ahead of Japan?

    I think Japan would have had a good chance to beat England today, because England's technique was failing them in the second half and extra time.

    So why does a side that almost draws Belgium and probably would have at least drawn England not deserve to be in the KO? You can't simply assume they would have lost against Colombia because there is no data on what they would have done to Japan while playing full strength other than those first few minutes where Japan clearly dominated Colombia.
     
  10. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark
    lol, you too still going at it? The two of you have written the last 40 posts on this thread.:rolleyes:
     
  11. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Because its a silly mistake by carlos sanchez that cost them game. If they were 11 v11 they are losing cuze 11v10 they were struggling the way they shoudlnt have in 11v10 game.. and i have eyes and football knowledge, they play bad defensively, really, really bad.

    Learn how to read. I said the worst European side, which is unquestionable. Tunis, panama aint from europe.

    I am not responding to that topic anymore.. get to the point, why England, team that outran Colombia and is, talent wise, more stacked team, drew 1-1 when your infinite prediction capabilities predicted an easy win for Engkand?
    Why?

    We are almost there.. i am engaging him until his logic fails him completely and backfires. It already began but he somehow ignores it.
     
  12. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    #87 ragnars, Jul 4, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2018
    So if Belgium end up winning the final, could you say they didn't deserve to win because of the difficulties they had against Japan, which in your opinion didn't deserve to be in the KO?

    Belgium's first goal was also extremely lucky and Vertongen said after the match that he only wanted to put the ball in the area in front of the goal.

    Do you imagine that only teams that have never benefitted from luck or penalties to opponents deserve to win anything?

    Does any team that wins in part by benefitting from a red card, whether that red card is fair, not deserve to go to the KO?

    Show me the team that has won the World Cup without any luck or cards given to their opponents.

    You cannot simply say Japan would have lost against Colombia 11 v 11. They won against Colombia with a lot of time to spare. Sometimes it takes time to make the advantage count, and Nishino said that Japan were able to tire out their forward players and this was the key to their victory. Your conclusion that they would have certainly lost against Colombia if they played 11 v 11 is not supported by any good arguments. Belgium didn't have any red cards, but Japan were close to winning or at least drawing. Japan scored two good goals, and Belgium scored a lucky goal and one that was due to a mental lapse.
     
  13. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    #88 ragnars, Jul 4, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2018
    I don't know whether it is fair to say that Poland is the worst European team by far in this World Cup. Germany only managed to beat Sweden because of a clear non-call on an clear penalty, so it is rather close.

    France didn't deserve to win over Australia. Do they also not deserve to go to KO?

    In my opinion, Poland wasn't worse than Serbia.
     
  14. ragnars

    ragnars Red Card

    PSV Eindhoven
    Iceland
    Jun 28, 2018
    You are making a straw man argument here. I never said that outrunning one's opponents is the only indicator that matters. It is only a single indicator that requires a lot of analysis and interpretation. Outrunning is not one and the same as outworking, although it can be an important one. In this case, England's defenders didn't outwork Colombia on the corner kick leading to Colombia's goal, and they weren't able to distribute their work evenly through the entire match.

    It would not have been unfair for England to have been awarded another penalty, because Lingard was tripped in the penalty area. It would also not have been unfair for Barrios to have been given a second yellow card, because he made three or four fouls after his first yellow card.

    But even if you don't agree with me, it is clear that Colombia benefitted from rather slack defending in the last few minutes of regulation time. Of course such events are not easy to predict.

    Anyway, you claimed you would be laughing at my predictions. But you only wait until after the matches are finished to start laughing. You even bring up a red herring by saying that the team that I predicted to play a close match against Belgium didn't deserve to play this match. But is that really relevant?
     
  15. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    If Belgium doesnt make any changes in their approach, they wont win WC, i guarantee you that.. in fact they will be trashed by Brazil today if they make no changes in their game.
    They are lucky Japan was too afraid of them to attack from the first minute, only in the second half manager recognized opportunity he has and he tweaked his team a little bit to exploit it, which resulted in 2 quick goals. Later on, again, Japan unconsciously started to defend and in that scenario they lose everytime against phyiscally superior Belgium players.

    If they were up against Mexico's pressure that Brazil had to encounter, Belgium would be torn apart in that game. It has nothing to do with outworking oppoistion, it's strictically tactical nature. That 3-4-3 possesion based, mild pressure, football that Martinez is trying to implement is complete bullshit. It doesnt work and i am telling you if he doesnt make few ajdustments, you can be damn sure that Brazil will know how to punish it. Brazil will score 4 goals, at least, in such scenario.

    How am i not going to make a strawman argument when you are changing what defines "outworking" with every next prediction.

    You went from:
    Work always beats talent

    To:
    Brazil was just too talented

    To:
    Its hard to predict because there are other variables.

    Its funny because as long as your predictions are correct you are pretty clear on what defines work and outworking, but the moment they turn out to be incorrect predictions, you are starting to intodruce much more variables into story (where was that complexity when your prediction was correct after short elaboration? In those cases other variables didnt matter? It only matters when you are wrong?)

    That's textbook confirmation bias. You are taking those rare moments of when you are correct as an indicator that your beliefs are correct, while its probably something completely indenpendent that influenced the score and made your prediction correct
    When you are wrong you rationalize to yourself that it was impossible to predict in first place so again your beliefs remain intact.
    Its a funny deal, whatever happens you win and your beliefs are correct.

    And wtf are you talking about here? How does one team outwork another at corner kicks? What does that even mean? Do you hear yourself? That's rationalization at its best.
     
  16. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Yeah i wait after the match so that reality can slap in your face. There is nothing that i can say thats as powerful as reality check given by, well, reality.

    Ive never claimed to always be correct with my predictions. You are the one who started with "work always beats talent" theory.. i absolutely disagree with that and i stand by my opinion of football being absolutely unpredictable sport. There are just too many variables to take into consideration to predict correct score, but i am a firm believer that you can roughly predict how things will be played out on the pitch if you know about tactics and mentality of both teams, but predicting correct score is impossible! That means that even when i precited a cirrect score that still doesnt mean i figured things out, it means i was lucky to predict it.

    You obviously dont get that.
     
    Kamtedrejt repped this.
  17. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark


    Belgium did play a 3-4-3, so it looks like you got that one wrong.

    I'm sure your BFF Ragnars would be here to tell you so, if he wasn't already red-carded. :p
     
  18. SF19

    SF19 Member+

    Jun 8, 2013
    In all fairness, Brazil could have had four goals, maybe more. They were the superior team, but Belgium proved tactically superior and had enough quality to make Brazil pay. The difficulty for Brazil was Courtois' size and quality, which forced the Brazilians to aim for the corners, so it was going to take a high quality goal to beat him. They understood that and the goal Brazil scored was a goal that beat Courtois at full stretch. That's how Japan got past Courtois, that's how Brazil needed to get past Courtois (which they almost did). That for me was the camel that broke Brazil's back.

    Brazil also pressed really hard for a goal and that took a lot of energy out of their game. It meant they couldn't press Belgium to greater effect in the latter stages of the game and took a lot of the Brazilian bite out by the 70th minute.

    I felt Brazil over-committed themselves on the attack, which gave Belgium all sorts of space on the counter, and I think they did this in part to bury the demons of the 2014 World Cup. I think Brazil really wanted to show the world they were the best team, that they could beat Belgium 4-0 maybe more. They wanted to beat Belgium by a large margin. If not for Martinez getting his team to play a lot more defensively, recognizing Brazil were superior, I think Belgium might have lost and Brazil would instead have found large swaths of space to punish them.

    I expect Belgium to take a similarly defensive approach against France, but with Martinez he's a clever coach who might have different ideas. In Martinez, Belgium have the tournament's best coach, a far cry from Wilmots who was not a manager who belonged at a high level quite yet. He was a little like Hierro this tournament.
     
  19. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    #94 Sexy Beast, Jul 7, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2018
    They clearly played 4-3-3 (4-3-1-2) in defense with Chadli joining witsel and fellaini in midfield three and de bruyne leading the way in pressing from the centre.

    My analysis is actually perfectly accurate demonstrated by Martinez taking care of exactly things i pointed out so idk what you are talking..

    Brazil was still better team, and it is better in generaln but best team doesnt always win. I was perfectly aware of that possibility.
    Fernandinho was the key factor from one obvious reason (own goal) and one little bit less obvious, plus in general he didnt bring any sort of security whatsoever.. there are also few disappointing performances by Brazilians (that wouldnt be a huge deal if they scored their chances), but it is since they lost. I aint going into that in depth.
     
  20. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    But for the record, its not an awful performance by Brazil by any mean. If they played the same exact game they would probably win it, its just that thats football.
     
  21. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Dude.. just think about what changes he made in terms of players
    1st Chadli in, Carrasco out. Predicted it
    2nd Fellaini in, Mertens out.

    Those are two completely different players. Mertens is a winger, Fellaini is another midfielder.. how is that remotely similar?.. if you saw my post in my thread i exactly pointed out that pressing with two midfielders is impossible and then he does what he did..
     
  22. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
     
  23. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark

    Two out of six is supposed to be a good percentage?
     
  24. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Its 5 and i am just saying lol.. at the end of the day, they are bold predictions.

    Isco never had chance with Lopetegui getting sacked after my prediction. Other two were relatively close
     
  25. Hayaka

    Hayaka Member+

    Jun 21, 2009
    San Francisco North Bay, Bel Marin Keys
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Denmark
    [QUOTE="Sexy Beast, post: 36871804, member: 295306"]Its 5 and i am just saying lol.. at the end of the day, they are bold predictions.

    Isco never had chance with Lopetegui getting sacked after my prediction. Other two were relatively close[/QUOTE]

    No, six. You were twice wrong about England. :x3:
     

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