devonexlondonimp
Vital 1st Team Regular
Think i overheard Rheady say in an interview, one of his cousins was in the Russian squad and he has a desire to come to the uk to play,but he had set his heart on being based in the Cleethorpes area.
The Big Vital Lincoln City World Cup 2018 Thread!
- Thread starter Jules
- Start date
Think i overheard Rheady say in an interview, one of his cousins was in the Russian squad and he has a desire to come to the uk to play,but he had set his heart on being based in the Cleethorpes area.
The Japanese have a very good team ethic and always have. The sum of their parts will always be more.
1) yes but look at opening results - Argentina draw against Iceland, Brazil draw against Switzerland, Peru lose to Denmark, Colombia lose to Japan. The players may play in Europe but are the coaches using tactics more adapted to South America?
2) The 7-1 was a shock result. No question. Of course the German’s may still have won if Neymar had played and the Brazilians hadn’t completely flopped. Without that we have an all South American final. The trend then would not have changed as much as you’re suggesting.
In 2014 only Germany were European teams who knocked out South American teams in knockout rounds.
No African team made the quarter finals.
I would suggest that 2014 was more the German’s are an exception than the trend changing at the moment.
Rasenimp
Vital Football Legend
On 1, surely that's not a massively defensible position! Germany lost to Mexico (!) in direct contradiction, France were awful against Australia and pretty jammy to win the game, and Peru absolutely battered Denmark and missed a pen haha, Japan isn't even in Europe for your theory and they played 10 for 88 minutes haha, without Colombia's best player (James). Surely there's more to it than climate!
On 2, that's just revisionism as you could make the same comments about pretty much every world cup, if X hadn't thumped Y! Also only Germany knocked out a South American team at that tournament... there were only four games, Germany knocking out Brazil and Argentina, Argentina winning on pens (!) against Holland and Argentina beating Belgium, which was with the bookies anyway. Not exactly conclusive! If you throw in Holland beating two central American teams in knockouts too...
I get it's a reasonable theory but it's not clear in recent tournaments and extremely simplistic. Was a reason Brazil were bookies favourites before the tournament even in the face of it...
Ok so Asian beating South American doesn’t count but North American beating Europe does?
In terms of James, you can’t blame Japan for that. The red card was the Colombians decision and deserved. So that argument doesn’t work.
Brazil are one of the favourites but we’ll see over the next month how that goes. Hopefully a rematch against Germany to see if that 7-1 was shock or not.
Game on RasenImp
Merthyr Imp
Vital Football Hero
I thought the commentators, etc were being rather unkind about the Egyptian who scored the own goal - even if he was a little overweight they shouldn't have kept calling him what they did.
Rasenimp
Vital Football Legend
Haha, my point is more you can't say Carlos Sanchez has handled the ball because it's too cold or he doesn't like playing in Europe. He played 50 times for Villa!
I also think Asian/South American is a dubious distinction (how well have Asian teams done in any world cups, excluding 2002 as hosts!) when it's clearly Europe v South America. Mexico also owe a lot more of their footballing culture to South America than they do say, the USA. If it's climate that's the issue you can't claim Mexico is cold haha.
Anyway I digress. Argentina can't defend and Brazil didn't look superb against the Swiss, but I would argue neither are because the world cup is in Russia as opposed to being outside of Europe (is Russia really a proper European world cup anyway)!
And of course it’s a thin Theory and there is more.
Rasenimp
Vital Football Legend
My theory would be that it used to be an issue, isn't anymore and if a European team wins then that's not correlation = causation. But I guess we'll never know, and it's kind of interesting!
This time I think the European teams are probably stronger anyway, only really Brazil as a threat (surely Argentina can't win it with their defenders/keeper). At a push Uruguay, but nothing after their first 11, and that's got one or two average players in it.
We’ll see this tournament what happens.
But at the moment Brazil drew with Switzerland and Argentina drew with Iceland and Peru lost to Denmark.
I predict an all European final with Colombia and Peru not getting out the group stage and Argentina and Brazil not impressing either.
But we will see.
Oh yeah I forgot Uruguay. I do also expect Russia to beat them.
Spain to knock out Uruguay. 2nd round.
Argentina knocked out by France. 2nd round.
Brazil knocked out by Belgium. Quarter Finals.
I do wonder if it is the coaches. Argentina and Sampaoli will be a good test of that compared to Brazil and Tite.
My theory would be that a series of factors cause South American teams to do worse in Europe.
Climate, managers, tactics, weak defences all play a part of course. There will be more. Naturally I would expect this gap to close but I don’t think disappear.
Rasenimp
Vital Football Legend
Surely weak defences, tactics and manager are a factor that plays a part at any world cup regardless of where it is, and how do you explain climate when all eleven of Brazil's first team for example, play in Europe and many play in England?
(I appreciate we could go round in circles now!)
Yeah I think it is best that we just watch it out. Mostly for everyone else on this forums sake. And also I may turn mean. I was lying awkwardly and I think I pulled a muscle or broke a rib and now i’m in pain and may turn mean because of it.
Rasenimp
Vital Football Legend
Who knew lying down and binge watching Brooklyn 99 would be so dangerous?oh dear. Get well soon!
