No Irish, No Yanks, No Clogs - FIFA World Cup 2018

Can't decide if, had England reached the final, I'd liked to have seen May there getting drenched. As has been pointed out her apparent disinterest in football might be one of her more redeeming features.

heh

Maintenant parlons de Giroud qui, une fois le match terminé, rate un but SANS GARDIEN pic.twitter.com/95dtqrUjtt

— colman 🇨🇵 (@ColmanLegrand) July 15, 2018

It's as though Putin dragged the others into his own way of operating (and they were happy to do it - Macron as culpable as anyone).

Putin most dignified of the bunch tbh

So he did finish the tournament with 1 shot on target

he missed!

Was looking on my phone, it was small. Lol Giroud.

Yes I was thinking more of whether FRA deserved to win the match, on the day, given how well CRO played.

Over the tournament, it is true that FRA overcame significant opposition - blasting away ARG, dispatching a very dangerous URU (albeit with no Cavani - I didn't see that match anyway) and a superb BEL - and getting past a terrific CRO. So on that basis, they do appear to have achieved it the hard way.

I still think I never saw them play that impressively except vs ARG, maybe a very brief spell with the 2nd-half goals yesterday, and also vs BEL where I thought they looked better than other people seem to have thought.

FRA were very lame for most of their matches against AUS and PER, and it's said that the DEN match was a non-event. So they certainly hadn't given much notice of greatness prior to knockout stages.

BEL lost to FRA but are they a significantly flawed team? You might think: Martinez - poor defence. But they only shipped the one header to FRA - there's no general evidence of defensive frailty in the BEL team. I still think they were maybe the most all-round exciting team of the tournament, with some of the outstanding individuals (Courtois, Vertonghen, Hazard).

I couldn't say CRO looked flawed either at the end - but then they did look limited vs DEN and RUS and for 40 minutes vs ENG. Yesterday may have been their best performance of the tournament.

What this FRA seem to have most is strength in depth - a sense of gears they're not using.

> feel like usa/canada/mexico is paving the way for uk/scotland/ireland in the next world cup after that tho

the next euros will be partially in the uk - it's being spread all around europe, no single host country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2020

xp i think we all judge france vs some perception of what we suspect they may have left in a tank of potential, not that they havent won deservedly against each opponent in turn but that nonetheless they havent hit 80% for anything more than a ten minute spell here or there (and may never given Deschamps' preferred method)

this is contrasted to croatia squeezing every last ounce out of their team, whereas ive not really been too impressed with their actual play bar (similar to france) a few minutes here and there since the knockout stages

Even if France only played well for very short periods (which is a very big if - what you do off the ball matters as much as what you do on it) those short periods were some of the most devastatingly effective I've ever seen. They conserved energy in the group stages while doing everything they needed to do, but I don't think any team in the world would have been able to deal with those Kante/Pogba -> Mbappe rapid counters.

You have to go back to 1958 for the last time a side scored four goals in 90mins of a World Cup Final.

croatia got a lot of mileage out of their midfield being better than everyone else's, until they met france and it wasn't

(xp) Brazil did it in 1970. The second time that final's been overlooked on this thread in the last few days!

yeah they were fairly comprehensively outplayed in the end, and tactically questionable in the way they went after France and allowed them to play their counter

4 goals is a great achievement, but most people seem to think one of them was a pen that shouldn't have been given.

Many people also seem to doubt the free kick, though I don't see the problem with that.

I think the doubt cast over those two important goals is a factor in judging the performance. If they were all clearly valid and not poor refereeing decisions then it would be inarguable.

The last two French goals were very good. Pogba's slightly similar to the superb Japanese goal in following such good hold-up play. It would have been more spectacular if he'd scored from his first shot, yet I find it more impressive, in a way, that he could immediately shoot effectively with the other foot.

Of course one of CRO's goals was simply from a dreadful error. Perisic's, though it looked a tremendous strike, seems to have been affected by a big deflection.

One of Cro's goals emanated from a free kick they earned where the player clearly flopped too

dont say flop

the ref decisions were good

if not, then perfect refereeing sees croatia out against england after a mountain of yellows

but happily they were good decisions and croatia conceded two goals that counted

Scoring from a free kick that might not have been a free kick, who cares?

No-one remembers those.

pinefox brought it up re: France. I certainly don't gaf.

One of Cro's goals emanated from a free kick they earned where the player clearly flopped too

Uh, no it didn't. It was a pretty classic cynical foul by Kante. Ran across the player and clipped his heels while trying to make it look accidental

I think Tom was having a joke about England's 1990 semi-final fail Neanderthal.

Ohh

I wasn't!

Darraghmac: you are sure that it was a handball and penalty?

The penalty was a penalty

The free kick wasn't a free kick. Croatia should have defended it better though

Nah, it was a free kick, it wasn't a pen.

i know i shouldn't do this but what i don't see mentioned about the handball is that perisic was watching the flight of the ball the entire way. i know there's a lot of maybe it is, maybe it isn't handballs in the box, but they're often deflected off someone's shin/shoulder/elbow straight into an outstretched hand. clearly not penalties. but this took no deflections. perisic had a clear view of it all the way from the touchline. how do you not get your hand out of the way?

There was one camera angle for the free kick where you could see the contact clearly, I know it wasn't as obvious from the other shots.

Yeah given the current interpretation of the rule it's on you to get your hand out of the way

Perisic actually moves his hand (probably instinctively) towards the ball

Dunno what angle you're talking about but Griezmann clearly throws the leg out Pires-style

I did think it was a free kick.

Tracer, I thought a French player deflected the ball on to Perisic's hand?

It also seems to be a consensus that CRO should have defended the free kick a lot higher up the pitch than they did.

it was a very clear free kick. the fouled players movement isnt relevant when the tackling player fouls him regardless.

jesus.

thought the fk for the equaliser was frankly soft alright but any contact or hint of it from behind is enough.

ppl acting like the slight head fra player got on ball makes a marked difference to perisic slapping it out of the air like a fucking seal

jesus

griezmann was hit low and miles from the ball on a leg that hasnt rly moved

definite pen

never a free kick. diving wee fuck

I've got to admit I thought it was a penalty, no-one else I've spoken to agrees though, but it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if it hadn't been given.

if either hadnt been given it would be *shrug* alright but thats pre-VARifocation

and only shrug because the common knowledge is to discriminate against skilled players/for defenders in reffing decisions

good riddance to that

No se merece nada! Griezmann needs some practice in fair play. #cheater #dive #griezmann pic.twitter.com/Rl37TtBhqo

— Learn German w/ Anja (@aniadealemania) July 15, 2018

I mean come on

ref needs spray-on, quickly disintegrating handcuffs to tie up everybody's hands during free kicks

egregious dive

if possible, the ball should also be sprayed out of a can

thats a foul!

jesus!

obv I knew you would say that

it might have ended up being a foul, but Griezemann initiated the contact. He got the dive wrong, but he got away with it

coming around to the fact it may have been a pen but it was a clear dive by griezmann imo

pen, dive

,deflection