The Quarter Finals: Croatia, Argentina, Morocco, and France through

[Solitude20]

57 minutes ago, Doctor Zaius said:

 

Argies gonna Argy. 

 

Don't think I'd be able to hack them winning it like.

 

 

Honestly, the Dutch were bullying them as well during the penalties. It was more like “in your face” kind of thing. 

[samptime29]

Tomorrow is an absolute huge game. I fancy ourselves, France or Portugal can beat Argentina. 

[Kimbo]

54 minutes ago, 54 said:

Its going to be Argentina vs Portugal in the final and therefore a GOAT off isnt it? 

Only one of them would play.

[Geordie Ahmed]

Would be immense if Morocco can somehow beat Portugal though reckon assuming they go unchanged Portugal will be too strong for them 

[Jaqen]

No game will be easy from here but it's a huge chance in the final for whoever comes out of outside of the draw. 

 

Kind of hope Portugal win in the earlier game, will be annoying as fuck if we lose and we're a potential Morocco game away from the final with Brazil gone.  

[nemtizz]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl9OFQEoEiG/

[Conjo]

Didn't see the Croatia match but hope Croatia players had a 5 minutes choreographed kolo dance after their goal before sending the diving Brazilians out of the cup

[Mike]

1 hour ago, Tomato Deuce said:

 howling

 

I've genuinely been laughing about that gif ever since.

[Disco]

So pleased Weverton got his WC appearance. Top lad, great keeper. 

[Disco]

3 hours ago, Flip said:

Croatia can fuck off. Devastated. Brazil v Argentina in a semifinal would’ve been a classic.

[rgk_lfc]

2 hours ago, ponsaelius said:

I honestly don't think Argentina are as bad as people make out. They have a very good tactical structure which gives them a foothold in every game. Holland were supposed to be the slicker footballing side according to many and I thought they were completely outplayed there. Even in extra time.

 

I don't think Scaloni is being given enough credit here. He is definitely in the running for the manager of the tournament. After the first game, he made changes. He has risen tactically to every challenge thrown at him. This is a limited squad compared to the great Argentina squad of 2006 and 2010, but the way he has marshalled his resources is brilliant. 

[rgk_lfc]

By the way, in case some of you are wondering why Scaloni is so good, he did have the chance to work with one of the greatest football minds of this generation. Apologies if I am doing a Giggs.

 

The conversation is about Lionel Scaloni and Alan Pardew, on the phone from his current base in Greece, is recounting the time he managed the future Argentina coach.

It is approaching 17 years since Pardew brought Scaloni to West Ham United, on loan from Deportivo La Coruna, in January 2006 and he remembers how a smart, savvy right-back adjusted seamlessly to the demands of Premier League football, even in mid season.

Pardew is in full flow, recalling how he would hear Scaloni telling team-mates about his latest visit to a London museum or a restaurant he liked and raving about the defender’s character, when his voice suddenly trails off and there is a momentary pause.

“But the downside to all of this,” Pardew says. “Is he cost me a Cup final winners’ medal and I can never forgive him!”

The second part of that remark is made firmly in jest but the 2006 FA Cup final between West Ham and Liverpool - the last one to be held at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium before the showpiece returned to Wembley - may never have come to be remembered as ‘the Gerrard final’ but for a rush of blood to the head from Scaloni.

“So many West Ham fans have come up to me over the years and said, ‘Oh my god, that throw in! What was he thinking!?’,” said Pardew, now the coach of Greek Super League side Aris Thessaloniki. “All this time later and they still bring it up. If only he’d just done something different.”

Pardew can laugh about it now - well, just about - but the moment in question arrived in the final minute of normal time with West Ham leading 3-2. After Djibril Cisse succumbed to cramp, Scaloni kicked the ball out of play near West Ham’s own corner flag, a sporting gesture albeit a risky one in the circumstances. From the subsequent throw-in, the ball was returned to Scaloni by Liverpool’s Dietmar Hamann but rather than look to keep possession or play down the sides, the West Ham defender lashed the ball wildly and aimlessly into the middle of the pitch. As the clock hit 90 minutes, Gerrard picked it up and passed inside to John Arne Riise, whose cross into the box was cleared only as far as the lurking Liverpool captain who, from 35 yards out, lashed a stunning equaliser past Shaka Hislop.

The despair in Pardew’s voice is still evident. “It’s a moment of madness because there was a minute left and all we had to do is run the clock down,” he reflects, ruefully. “You don’t want the ball to end up centrally in the pitch at that time.”

The irony is that Scaloni - who had delivered the cross from which Jamie Carragher turned the ball into his own net to give West Ham a 21st minute lead - is the last player in his team from whom Pardew would have expected that. “It was at complete odds with a player who was ordinarily one of the most savvy in the team - he’d have been bottom of my list to do that,” he said. “With some I’d have gone, ‘Well, what do you expect, you know?’ but here’s our most intelligent, sensible player …”

The game went to extra-time and West Ham eventually lost on penalties and, amid the emotions and disappointment of an agonising defeat, the incident was long forgotten by the time the players returned to the dressing room. To this day, Pardew has never had the chance to discuss it personally with Scaloni. Yet he hopes the Argentina manager has used the moment to his advantage as a coach - and does not expect to see any of Scaloni’s players making the same mistake during the World Cup in Qatar.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with him about it but it would be nice to have it one day - ‘What was your thinking?’,” Pardew said. “I haven’t spoken to him since he became the Argentina manager but I’d love to meet up with him and I’d love to know if he’s ever referenced that moment with his players: what not to do when you’re winning with a minute to go. If he hasn’t I don’t rate him as a manager at all!”

The truth, of course, is very different. Pardew has great admiration for the way Scaloni has united what was a deeply fractured Argentina squad and developed an organisational structure to finally provide a robust platform from which Lionel Messi is thriving. Argentina are unbeaten in 35 matches and, at 35, this is probably Messi’s best chance of winning a World Cup.

Pardew says it was not immediately obvious to him that Scaloni would become a manager but, on reflection, sees many of the same traits in him that he witnessed with the now Chelsea manager Graham Potter, who was one of his players at Reading.

“I never saw Scaloni take a Marlon Harewood out and do a coaching session with him - he wasn’t that sort of type - but he absorbed everything and was intelligent,” Pardew said. “When I look back at the likes of Potter and Scaloni, they were always listening and studying and that’s a very good trait of a manager. The concentration was always there.”

Scaloni started 17 of West Ham’s final 19 matches in that 2005-06 campaign and Pardew said his character shone through from their first meeting. “He wasn’t blessed with pace but he made up for that with his positional play and straight away it was clear he was a people’s person,” Pardew said. “Players liked him immediately and that’s one of the reasons why he’s been successful in bringing that Argentina squad together.

“He had the personality to adapt at West Ham, he absorbed everything and we could see he was not going to be phased. You need to embrace the culture when you come to a new country and explore and enjoy it and Scaloni was like that. He came to London and loved it. He was going to museums, I could hear him in the background talking about things he’d seen and visited, restaurants he’d been to.

“Knowing Scaloni’s character I think his personality will have been good for Argentina because it is a volatile place, it’s volatile football. I’ve been to games in Argentina and it’s chaos. But he’s a sensible person and I think that’s what they needed. He hasn’t tried to be flamboyant and he’s obviously organised the team very well around Messi.”

Just try not to mention that Gerrard goal around Pardew.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-cup/2022/11/19/day-argentina-manager-lionel-scaloni-cost-west-ham-fa-cup/

 

 

[Ketsbaia]

A day of mixed emotions because Argentina finally squeezed through but losing Brazil is shit.

 

Now that the stress is over...... what an incredible free kick by the Dutch. Ballsy as fuck. Still can't get over it  

[nemtizz]

Messi to destroy us in the final, please.

[nemtizz]

What a player.

[JNK]

7 hours ago, leffe186 said:

He has played nearly twice the number of games Romario did tbf.

He has played more than any of the 3 but, still impressive

[Dokko]

France's to lose, but if we beat them, we should be winning this. Nothing to fear in any of the other teams so far

[Lush Vlad]

9 hours ago, Solitude20 said:

Honestly, the Dutch were bullying them as well during the penalties. It was more like “in your face” kind of thing. 

Yeah, in isolation that looks horrendous and South American teams are genuinely unmatched when it comes to shithousing. 
 

But I noticed some sort of aggro after a few of the Dutch pens. Seemed like they were always going for mind games on the way back to the middle. But constantly over-stepping. 

[TheBrownBottle]

6 minutes ago, Dokko said:

France's to lose, but if we beat them, we should be winning this. Nothing to fear in any of the other teams so far

I’d make the winners of France vs England favourites, but any of the remaining teams would still be tough for England.

[Dokko]

Just now, TheBrownBottle said:

I’d make the winners of France vs England favourites, but any of the remaining teams would still be tough for England.

 

Tough, but nothing to fear. I fear France. Technically gifted, full of pace, playing as a team, playing well,  controlling matches, squad depth and hungry for it. None of the other teams have all that.

 

The only real weakness in France is their keeper. It's been some years since Lloris was worldclass, and in his stage of his career, I don't put him above any of our 3. I also think Kane will have the better of him time again, we just need to get Kane into scoring positions, which is difficult with him sitting deeper.

[TheBrownBottle]

8 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

Tough, but nothing to fear. I fear France. Technically gifted, full of pace, playing as a team, playing well,  controlling matches, squad depth and hungry for it. None of the other teams have all that.

 

The only real weakness in France is their keeper. It's been some years since Lloris was worldclass, and in his stage of his career, I don't put him above any of our 3. I also think Kane will have the better of him time again, we just need to get Kane into scoring positions, which is difficult with him sitting deeper.

Yep, France are head and shoulders above the rest, comfortably.

 

I just hope Southgate has instructed Saka and Foden - assuming they start - to close Lloris constantly, and apply as much pressure as possible.  I absolutely agree that he’s the weak point in that side.

 

I’m struggling to see how that England back line copes with what France has, though.  There’s a hell of a lot of quality in that side even without Mbappe.  

 

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by TheBrownBottle

[Dokko]

19 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Yep, France are head and shoulders above the rest, comfortably.

 

I just hope Southgate has instructed Saka and Foden - assuming they start - to close Lloris constantly, and apply as much pressure as possible.  I absolutely agree that he’s the weak point in that side.

 

I’m struggling to see how that England back line copes with what France has, though.  There’s a hell of a lot of quality in that side even without Mbappe.  

 

 

 

 

We would probably be better of with risking 10 men and taking out Mbappe early on. If we went at him early with Walker, you'd probably just get a yellow, then bring on Tripps straight away to see out the game. It's desperate tactics, but fuck it. If you want to win you've got to get dirty sometimes. 

 

More serious note, he needs to have an off game, and we need Maguire to have the game of his career. Well they all do. 

[Dokko]

Messi should be suspended for the next game, read he's had a right go at the ref. If so, should be a suspension. Lets see if FIFA have any balls.

[gbandit]

If anyone should be suspended it should be the ref like 

[LV]

France are as capable of choking as anyone, even with Mbappe. I think we could do this as long as Southgate doesn’t do anything ridiculous with selection and tactics.