Croatia or Russia? | Vital Football

Croatia or Russia?

R

RainhamGill

Vital Youth Team
If, and it's a big IF, we can somehow beat Sweden on Saturday, who would we prefer to play in the semi final?

I know Croatia are the better team but I'd prefer to have England play against them than Russia: Home advantage seems to have given the ruskies a real edge in this World Cup and the home crowd is carrying them further than anyone would have expected, that gives the players a boost and also has an effect on the referee's decisions. I would rather we took the home advantage and the hostile atmosphere of a partisan crowd out of the equation to play against someone else.

Also, if Croatia win their quarter final then all those Russians in the ground may well choose to cheer on England...or is that a ridiculous thought?
 
I've watched nearly all the games, and the team I've feared the most was Columbia. Apart from maybe the French and certainly Brazil, I haven't seen a team that we should fear. Have I know jinxed us? lol
 
We can beat both and were it a qualification game we'd probably be expected to. Croatia have the better players and offer more going forward, but Russia have massive momentum. of the two I'd probably plump for Russia.
 
We have played a physically intimidating team in a hostile environment and won on penalties -so I would prefer Russia and up against the odds to a facing the Croats with some expectation that we ought to win.

But, of course, Sweden may have something to say about all this. That's going to be another tense one.
 
RainhamGill said:
If, and it's a big IF, we can somehow beat Sweden on Saturday, who would we prefer to play in the semi final?

I know Croatia are the better team but I'd prefer to have England play against them than Russia: Home advantage seems to have given the ruskies a real edge in this World Cup and the home crowd is carrying them further than anyone would have expected, that gives the players a boost and also has an effect on the referee's decisions. I would rather we took the home advantage and the hostile atmosphere of a partisan crowd out of the equation to play against someone else.

Also, if Croatia win their quarter final then all those Russians in the ground may well choose to cheer on England...or is that a ridiculous thought?
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Well they're Slavs, but they're Austria's Catholic Slavs who think they're nearly as Western as Slovenes so the Russians might like us. Different if it were the Serbs -little brothers and all that.
 
HerrLjunga said:
We can beat both and were it a qualification game we'd probably be expected to. Croatia have the better players and offer more going forward, but Russia have massive momentum. of the two I'd probably plump for Russia.
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On a purely footballing basis - usually I’d say Russia as on paper they have the weaker team. But as you say home advantage could be important – as it seems to have been. Although I do wonder how long they can perform above their pre-tournement form/rankings.

One thing worth considering is that I’d also say we’d want to avoid any chance of INGERLUND idiots fighting with Russian Thugs. So if we can avoid them then that’s only going to be a good thing from that perspective.

Don’t really care though. It would be amazing just to be in the semi final quite frankly and on paper we’re in with a chance with either team.

It’ll be interesting to see how both play in the next game. I don’t think they’ll be fearing us though either. While being fairly comfortably better than Columbia last night overall - we didn’t exactly create a lot of chances last night – hence why one silly mistake allowed them to take us to Extra Time.
 
I'm sort of with LSB 2 on this one, I'm already on record as saying I'd have preferred Japan to Colombia by a long way. My view was to take each game as it comes and I felt the easier route to a quarter final was to beat Japan.
I know our win is now sinking in but I think it's been lost on many just how big the win was. We were up against a much more experienced world cup nation who are not only a better team IMO but knew all the tricks to wind our players up. Although some fell for it a bit, generally I was really impressed at how well we dealt with that aspect of the challenge.
Having got over that hurdle, I can see no one in our half of the draw to scare us, even if it goes to penalties again. The way we took those will give us a big psychological advantage should it go to a shoot out on Saturday.
France worry me more than Brazil so I hope they go out before the final, and I'd love a final between England and Brazil. Not only because of the iconic value of the fixture going back to the 60's and 70's but because I honestly think we could beat them.


Come on England ???????
 
Yeah, can't disagree with that and I'm assuming nothing after the way this tournament has gone. I'd just love a final against Brazil as I'd hate to be remembered as the team that won the World Cup just because all the "big" teams had gone out.
 
Would love us to get through then play and beat Russia just to see the expression on Vlad's face. Not that he has been to many matches as apparently he doesn't like football. So he has been sending his poodle Medvedev to a number of matches.
 
Nobby_66 said:
I'd hate to be remembered as the team that won the World Cup just because all the "big" teams had gone out.
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Might start a whip round for those poor Leicester supporters who only won the league because the bigger teams were in transition / decline.
 
I’d prefer Croatia as Russia are the home nation so will get most of the 50/50 decisions. However we have a very poor record against Sweden, who remembers Dhalin and Brolin?!
 
Croatia for me. Just to eliminate the home advantage.

I think a Belgium - England final is looking a distinct possibility.

Whatever happens though I just want to say this England team seem to have reconnected with the country after the debacle of Iceland.

That alone makes this a fantastic world cup whatever happens next
 
markinkent said:
Croatia for me. Just to eliminate the home advantage.

I think a Belgium - England final is looking a distinct possibility.

Whatever happens though I just want to say this England team seem to have reconnected with the country after the debacle of Iceland.

That alone makes this a fantastic world cup whatever happens next
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The only thing thats reconnected is the fact we are winning. They are glory hunters thats all. I have no doubt that as soon as we lose our fans will be moaning and criticising again. Even when we conceeded, in the pub i was in, there were some idiots calling them ***** for the next 20 minutes.
 
Russia please so that we can get what Spain got- free oil and gas for the next ten years( to lessen the impact of Brexit).
 
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