World Cup Discussion

[moses]

England have just lit up the World Cup for me Great Match.
Love the physicality and strength that Tuchel has gone for, big strong lads, Bellingham, Anderson, Kane, MRogers, Rashford, Madueke. Clearly he’s also got the players on board, that was some change of attitude in the 2nd half.
At 3-2, absolutely loved the Subs, attack minded,  and…Spence looked like a prime racehorse flying forward. No shutting up shop there.
Loved it!

I was looking at the bench and wondering if Grant had taken the England job.

[Filo]

England have just lit up the World Cup for me Great Match.
Love the physicality and strength that Tuchel has gone for, big strong lads, Bellingham, Anderson, Kane, MRogers, Rashford, Madueke. Clearly he’s also got the players on board, that was some change of attitude in the 2nd half.
At 3-2, absolutely loved the Subs, attack minded,  and…Spence looked like a prime racehorse flying forward. No shutting up shop there.
Loved it!

I was looking at the bench and wondering if Grant had taken the England job.

Not sure moving James to Rice’s position was the right move when we had Mainoo and Henderson on the bench

[selby]

  The England performance in the last friendly before the competition was a really good pointer to how well they were in the groove,
  I was surprised how few recognised it at the time.

[Rupee92ONLY]

England have just lit up the World Cup for me Great Match.
Love the physicality and strength that Tuchel has gone for, big strong lads, Bellingham, Anderson, Kane, MRogers, Rashford, Madueke. Clearly he’s also got the players on board, that was some change of attitude in the 2nd half.
At 3-2, absolutely loved the Subs, attack minded,  and…Spence looked like a prime racehorse flying forward. No shutting up shop there.
Loved it!

I was looking at the bench and wondering if Grant had taken the England job.

Not sure moving James to Rice’s position was the right move when we had Mainoo and Henderson on the bench

He wanted someone more disciplined defensively in there, Mainoo wouldn’t have been the right pick really for that. He could’ve gone with Henderson but he’s a slower tempo player. Moving James who’s very good technically allowed him to get Spence on and give us even more pace to exploit a tired and stretching Croatia.

I didn’t take much notice of Tuchel’s subs before last night, they stood out as very brave. Southgate wouldn’t have done the same and that’s the mentality that saw us fall short under him imo.

Tuchel is world class, we must keep him motivated for the job!

[drfchound]

Kane’s first penalty, why do the stutter? It just puts extra doubt in the takers mind for me, just run up and hit the f**ker hard and high

Anthony Gordon, I reckon Newcastle have had Barcelona’s pants down on that one

Kane has different approaches to the ball when he takes a pen and he almost always scores.
Yes, he got lucky with the refs good spotting of the keeper off the line plus the encroachment but inevitably he will miss one eventually.
The “standard miss rate” is something like 20 to 25% of those taken and he has a much better conversion rate than that.
I have seen him do the stutter lots of times so it isn’t an unusual thing for him to do.
Someone as good as him won’t ever just hit the fcker hard and high and hope it goes in.

[selby]

  Filo, two things, at Barcelona he will not be the player most feared by the opposition and not attract the same attention from other teams.
  Secondly half the teams he will play against, like Rashford found out are not the same standard as in the Premiership to play against.

[IDM]

What evidence do you have that Spanish top flight clubs are not to the standard of premier league ones.?

[NickDRFC]

What evidence do you have that Spanish top flight clubs are not to the standard of premier league ones.?

They’re not, simply because of the money. Bottom half Premier League players routinely spend £30m on players. Different levels.

[Chris Black come back]

The only head to head comparison possible is with the European club competitions. Over the last decade Spanish sides have won the most, across the three trophies where both Spanish and English sides compete. 

[Colemans Left Hook]

Kane’s first penalty, why do the stutter? It just puts extra doubt in the takers mind for me, just run up and hit the f**ker hard and high

Anthony Gordon, I reckon Newcastle have had Barcelona’s pants down on that one

Kane has different approaches to the ball when he takes a pen and he almost always scores.
Yes, he got lucky with the refs good spotting of the keeper off the line plus the encroachment but inevitably he will miss one eventually.
The “standard miss rate” is something like 20 to 25% of those taken and he has a much better conversion rate than that.
I have seen him do the stutter lots of times so it isn’t an unusual thing for him to do.
Someone as good as him won’t ever just hit the fcker hard and high and hope it goes in.

it's pretty obvios to me thatin such a competition as this it should have been VAR's job to check for encroachment and goalie off his line not the ref.

I was only half watching the match and wondered if England (a team made up of players I did not even know were qualified to play for England as I don't watch International matches and little premiership ones -even though we have virgin sky) would have been able to perform like this if there had not been air conditioning.

[Bristol Red Rover]

USA v Oz. A fair amount of dodgy calls by the officials, plus Oz making a few too many crucial mistakes, and USA winning with a suspect own goal. Conspiracy?! 

[Bristol Red Rover]

Second goal interfering player deffo offside. Trump to hand the cup to USA?

[scawsby steve]

The utter b*ll*cks some people spout on here.

The USA are winning because they're playing well again.

[Fal]

The utter b*ll*cks some people spout on here.

The USA are winning because they're playing well again.

Yes they are playing well but they will be found out against better opposition, Paraguay, Australia and Turkey are all poor!

[Bristol Red Rover]

The utter b*ll*cks some people spout on here.

The USA are winning because they're playing well again.

Halfy tongue in cheek! But they're not playing great. Both goals deffo suspect, and most of all, shite chants. Oh, and the most appalling red and white hoops 

[Scooter]

Great start for Morocco. What a finish that is

[IDM]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

[BillyStubbsTears]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn EDIT Adams in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

Disagree. It wasn't stone cold. If you watch it again you will see McGinn started going down before there was any contact, so it wasn't contact from the defender that induced it. So, no foul, no penalty. When I first saw it, I thought penalty but it was one where he was trying to buy it. 

[Fal]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

The McTominay one was more of a penalty than the McGinn one.


Baffles me though watching Scotland, they have a creative player in gannon doak and a goalscorer in Shankland sat on the bench, Che Adams offers absolutely nothing at all.

[BillyStubbsTears]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

Disagree. It wasn't stone cold. If you watch it again you will see McGinn started going down before there was any contact, so it wasn't contact from the defender that induced it. So, no foul, no penalty. When I first saw it, I thought penalty but it was one where he was trying to buy it. 

I don't see how that matters. The defender was always going to clatter him. That's what matters. There was no possible way that McGinn could continue in his chosen direction without the defender hitting him. Whether he anticipated the contact is irrelevant.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

Disagree. It wasn't stone cold. If you watch it again you will see McGinn started going down before there was any contact, so it wasn't contact from the defender that induced it. So, no foul, no penalty. When I first saw it, I thought penalty but it was one where he was trying to buy it. 

I don't see how that matters. The defender was always going to clatter him. That's what matters. There was no possible way that McGinn could continue in his chosen direction without the defender hitting him. Whether he anticipated the contact is irrelevant.

If we start thinking it's ok for players to start going down because they're anticipating being clattered then we've lost it. That's the player making the adjudication of what might happen not the referee on what actually happens. 

[GazLaz]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

Disagree. It wasn't stone cold. If you watch it again you will see McGinn started going down before there was any contact, so it wasn't contact from the defender that induced it. So, no foul, no penalty. When I first saw it, I thought penalty but it was one where he was trying to buy it. 

I don't see how that matters. The defender was always going to clatter him. That's what matters. There was no possible way that McGinn could continue in his chosen direction without the defender hitting him. Whether he anticipated the contact is irrelevant.

If we start thinking it's ok for players to start going down because they're anticipating being clattered then we've lost it. That's the player making the adjudication of what might happen not the referee on what actually happens. 

I don’t think it was a penalty.

[BillyStubbsTears]

What was dodgy about the own goal in USA vs Aus.?

For the second, I did think there was another USA player who was offside maybe in the GK’s way, but from the replays it didn’t look like the keeper was impeded.

The ref in the Scotland game was worse - let go so many challenges that would be called as fouls every game over here.  And the VAR bodged a late penalty call for Scotland.

Scots looked much better when McClean came on, can they pinch a point off Brazil.?

The penalty on McGinn was a stone cold one. How in God's name can VAR look at that and say the ref hasn't made a bad mistake? Plus the clear DOGSO on McGinn in the first half. Yes he was 40 yards out, but he's got a clear run on goal. Definite red card. I think Scotland were very badly treated overall.

Disagree. It wasn't stone cold. If you watch it again you will see McGinn started going down before there was any contact, so it wasn't contact from the defender that induced it. So, no foul, no penalty. When I first saw it, I thought penalty but it was one where he was trying to buy it. 

I don't see how that matters. The defender was always going to clatter him. That's what matters. There was no possible way that McGinn could continue in his chosen direction without the defender hitting him. Whether he anticipated the contact is irrelevant.

If we start thinking it's ok for players to start going down because they're anticipating being clattered then we've lost it. That's the player making the adjudication of what might happen not the referee on what actually happens. 

For what it's worth, I don't see his movement as starting to go down before impact. He may have very slightly lent in towards the defender, but there was never any way that the defender could make that challenge without wiping McGinn out. The impact has knocked McGinn a yard to the side. You can't "initiate going down" like that. It's not physically possible. And given the speed, absolutely no way that McGinn could be expected to ride the challenge. Clear penalty.

[ChrisBx]

McTominay dived.

[drfchound]

I’m also of the opinion that neither were pens.

[Prez]

Wasnt VAR brought in for "clear and obvious?"

Judging by the comments above on the penalty decision, opinion is divided, therefore no penalty.

[IDM]

The one I’m on about, ITV had a ref “pundit” who explained that the first thing to check was contact with the ball, and there was none.  Then is it a clear foul - yes, she said.  So the ref and VAR were wrong in her professional opinion.

[IDM]

Or BBC, I can’t remember which side it was on..

[BillyStubbsTears]

The one I’m on about, ITV had a ref “pundit” who explained that the first thing to check was contact with the ball, and there was none.  Then is it a clear foul - yes, she said.  So the ref and VAR were wrong in her professional opinion.

Which one was that?