Hate It If We Played It - Qatar World Cup 2022

Tuesday, even

I've only just realised Wales can still go thru if they win and Iran-USA is a draw.

That's fantastic!

Auf wiedersehen.

Fucking hell

Germany are there for the taking, so good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKC7aJ3kIRo

What a waste from Musiala

Yup, that was bad

Germany look so sluggish, heavy touches all over the place

Not as assured as Spain but probably should've scored one.

And there it is!

well-deserved

Musiala has been brilliant

Loving this. Would mean Spain still have to work v Japan also.

Musiala easily their best player. Plucking some galumphing great lump of a centre forward from obscurity to score in a World Cup seems very German.

I see yer fella’s won a competition to be Germany’s number 9 at a World Cup https://t.co/ItMYm2g2vU

— Vincent Collateral (@t_manning92) November 17, 2022

Good tackle on Morata

Germany so near!!

wow, germany has been owning

Really enjoyed all three BBC games today.

So for the benefit of myself and anyone else who missed it: in this tournament managers can field 26- as opposed to 23-man squads and make five subs across three separate instances not including half-time plus one concussion sub (opposition can also make a sub if this happens) plus one knockout game overtime sub for a grand total of seven possible subs, is that correct?

that sounds about right, without googling

i'm not a fan of these excessive substitutions, it clearly favours bigger nations

Super strike from Morata, sorry to see GER equalise, regret that GER will very likely progress now.

Nobody talked at all about the fact that the GER goal was scored from the inside left channel just after ESP had replaced their left-back - literally a minute or two. Alba had a collision, but I was surprised he immediately came off. Maybe it was planned, but it seems unlikely that you choose to take your LB off when GER are attacking you. Not sure that taking him off was a good decision; it was hard for the other young lad to come in and get up to speed, and I think the goal might not have happened without all this.

Nobody on TV mentioned it once. If the equivalent happened with ENG (Trent on for an injured Walker) then it would be the talking point all night.

Lineker played the concerned thoughtful journalist for a couple of minutes earlier asking Klinsmann about his remarks. JK, I felt, kept digging his hole. Saying "I only meant that Asians are more emotional than us" is not a great defence. And it doesn't even correspond well to what he originally said.

Watched extra footage on iPlayer, Pochettino and JK talking management. Surprised how confident JK was in talking about management as, sadly, he hasn't really been successful at it for some years?

Germany are getting nowhere if they don't beat the surprise package of the tournament, Costa Rica!!!

Tico und die Mannschaft.

lol

pf very astute, particularly on the potential impact of that substitution and the lack of any enlightenment about it from the commentators.

They didn't have time to do all the stupid little graphics they use to tell you the bleedin' obvious.

i listened to BEL-MOR on the radio (actually on BBC Sounds) as i was walking around doing errands and the atmosphere sounded immense. the commentators were losing their minds. just watching the highlights back now and i get the same impression. probably the most intense crowd i’ve seen at this tournament so far.

don't know if I agree that extra subs help the bigger teams. if you are a less able team surviving on small percentage of possession and closing down aggressively in the middle third and on edge of your own box being able to swap out half your outfield players is probably helpful.

Ally McCoist disagrees with you, he was talking about it during one of the games at the weekend.

most takes on it seem to be framed as the difference in one teams quality on the bench vs anothers. not sure that a better framing might be the difference in quality btw one teams starting 11 and their bench. eg I would argue in club football terms the difference in quality btw lfc's starting 11 and bench over the last few successful seasons is wider than that of many bottom half teams.

weird that this might be the last good world cup given that next time out a ridiculous 48 teams will be involved.

Coming round to 48 teams. North America and Oceania shouldn't be given a spot. African teams should be given at least 2/3 more and Latin America a couple more instead but unfortunately money speaks louder...so African and Latin Am teams being given more spots in an expanded competition is something I can see as a compromise.

This WC is so much poorer without Colombia, Chile, Nigeria, Italy. Eng are getting out of their group because of this.

48 is just way too many though. the cricket WCs do it well by having a little qualification tournament for the 'smaller' teams in the same venues just before the main event - is that the idea with the 48, that 24 of them will compete for 8 places in the tournament proper, 8 groups of 3, winner takes all? that's the only way i can see it working

lol xp

but that doesn't work either because with groups of 3 you'd not be able to have all the teams playing their last match at the same time. so maybe 6 groups of 4, all winners and 2 best second place go through

third game should be random

8 groups of 3, only one match in each group, but it's this https://goob.me.uk/3sided.php

Current preferred format is 16 groups of 3, top two go through. In response to suggestions that we’ll get WG-AUT all over again, FIFA have said “well, maybe we don’t have any draws, penalties at 90min”. Which solves nothing. So they may revert to 12 groups of four, top two plus eight best third-placed teams go through to round of 32.

Let’s just have a straight knockout, no seedings, FA Cup style, starting in autumn 2024. Prelim round feeding into a last-128. Gibraltar vs Suriname goes to a third replay at Villa Park. Snow on the pitch. Orange ball. Last 16 go to the WC.

lol otm

So they may revert to 12 groups of four, top two plus eight best third-placed teams go through to round of 32.

this is a fucking absurd amount of football

even if it is a straight knockout from the round of 32 onwards

Fergie time has an effect at this WC :-(

And that's that. All Serbia: 3-1

Cameroon playing a bit more now. They have 30 mins to salvage something.

Excellent finish, declared goal on VAR: 3-2

Cameroooooooon

don't dud 'em with the VAR pls

Lol