FIFA World Cup Qualifiers for Qatar 2022 (soccer)

Discussion in 'Sports' started by CenterField, Aug 9, 2021.

  1. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ugh, Spain. :gun: :dohtwo:

    Gotta run - Enjoy the game tonight, CenterField. I'll catch you back here tomorrow while we're basking in the afterglow of victory. :D
     
  2. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If not a Golden Raspberry.

    HAIL USA!!
     
  3. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Very disappointing draw 1-1 Italy-Bulgaria. Italy with something like 75% possession and 14 corner kicks to zero... and still couldn't score a second goal. Emerson sucked, Florenzi made a bad mistake that resulted in their goal, Verratti wasn't that good... Jorginho and Chiesa were great, Immobile and Insigne tried hard and played rather well, but the second goal didn't come, out of some great saves by the Bulgarian goalie (and they parked the bus).

    And this spells some trouble. We have 10 points, Switzerland has 6 but they have two games in hand and the next game is Italy at Switzerland. If we lose that game we're in trouble.

    On the other hand this was our 35th game without defeat, which ties a world record. If we at least draw against Switzerland on Sunday, then we'll be the sole owners of the world record of consecutive games without a defeat for a national team.

    England had a great second half, won 4-0. Spain lost to Sweden 1-2. Belgium also had an easy time, 5-2 against Estonia. Lukaku scored twice.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2021
  4. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    England dominant.
    4 games 4 wins.

    Shares in Man Utd went up by 200-300 million pounds on news of Ronaldo's return.
    He still sells shirts but let's see if he can still keep up with the pace of the Premiership.
    The old man looked a little slow in the Euros.
     
  5. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Brazil v. Chile, a very good game; as I post this, first half is ending. It's a diminished Brazil without 9 of its main players who weren't released by the EPL teams, and a very hungry Chile - they really need the points as they only have 6 so far (while Brazil sits comfortably at 18 points). So Chile has been very aggressive and had the best opportunities, with Brazil's goalie producing some three or four miraculous saves. Still, Brazil had some good chances too, making for a fast and attacking game on both sides of the pitch. Still 0-0.
     
  6. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    OK now I looked at the official stats for Italy 1-1 Bulgaria. I thought there were more corner kicks for us; they were 10 but indeed zero for Bulgaria. Possession 79% for Italy. We outshot them 27 to 4. Their goalie made 7 saves. Some days, the ball just refuses to go in. Pity.
     
  7. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Brazil won a hard-fought game, 1-0. The ref lost control of the game, with several Chilean players collecting yellow cards, but the ref did his best not to give a second yellow to the same player which would have resulted in a red; this contributed to increasing Chile's violent fouls. Brazil had a better second half, scored their goal and controlled the rest of the match on defense with some counters. Brazil achieves 21 points in 7 games, becoming the first South American country ever to win the first 7 games of the World Cup Qualifiers.

    Argentina and Ecuador, the second and third placed teams, won their games too, so the three leaders pulled further ahead from the competition. Chile now has a difficult road game on Sunday against Ecuador, and several of Chile's players will miss that game given that they collected a second yellow in the competition and are suspended for one game. Chile in deep trouble.

    Brazil will face Argentina, and the fact that Brazil is minus 9 of its main players should count on Argentina's favor.

    Now, my full attention to USA v. El Salvador. 0-0 so far, second half starting, I'm disappointed so far with the USMNT's performance. Actually El Salvador has had better chances, so far.
     
  8. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    FT, SLV 0-0 USA. Very disappointing. I guess these players do not have the game rhythm yet, with the Euro season just starting, and they had to travel a lot for this game. They were uninspired and played much worse than they usually play for their clubs. Anemic performance including by McKennie.
     
  9. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    They were what they were last night, CF - a young team playing on the road without one of its best players. I also got the sneaking suspicion that they've been drinking their own Kool-Aid since they won the Gold Cup and Nations League championship over the summer. The only good thing I can say about their performance was that they played well on defense, and it's good to be able to hang your hat on that when your offense plays as poorly as theirs did last night. They weren't sharp in possession in any respect - poor on the ball, poor passing, poor spacing, terrible in the box, unproductive on set pieces. They generated only one really good scoring chance during the entire game and McKennie badly muffed the header. The coaching staff didn't help the players, either - I didn't see an effective game plan going into the match and I saw no effective adjustments during and after the half. Extremely disappointing and I agree with the points you made, particularly about their anemic, uninspired play. I didn't see any urgency and aggression out of that team last night, which was frustrating to watch.

    Moving ahead, everyone has a bad night and we had one yesterday, and all you can do is be thankful that you got out of there with a draw, regroup and play better, smarter and harder next time. This is also a very young team and games like this are bound to happen, so hopefully they got it out of their system and they can shake it off. Berhalter & Co. certainly have a lot to work to do during the next couple days and hopefully Pulisic will be back on the field Sunday. Reportedly, he spent last night in Nashville while the team traveled to San Salvador so I'm hoping that means he will be playing in Nashville this weekend against Canada.

    Speaking of Canada, I watched a good part of their match against Honduras and the Canucks underperformed at least as badly as we did in a 1-1 tie where both goals came on PKs. The foul Canada's Buchanan committed in their own box was textbook bad defense - absolutely awful - and the penalty Honduras committed on their end could have gone either way, imo. Canada was even luckier than the U.S. to get out of their Central American road trip with a draw, and that was against a team that I last saw getting its butt kicked in humiliating fashion by Mexico (ugliest beatdown I saw all summer - much worse than the score indicated).

    Sunday's game between the US and Canada is going to be a really interesting match. Both teams will be coming off bad draws that had to be somewhat demoralizing and we're going to find out which side is tougher mentally and physically. I'm expecting another low-scoring affair that ends in a draw or something like the 1-0 result we saw the last time these two sides played each other.

    PS. I saw that Mexico's fans - arguably the worst in the Americas - were banned from last night's game between Mexico and Jamaica and will be banned from their next match against Canada. The program was also fined over $100,000 for their unsportsmanlike antics, and I'm glad to see FIFA is finally bringing the hammer down on their asses. If they want to behave like a bunch of simians they can stay home and throw bananas at one another. :boo:
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2021
  10. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Spot on. I agree 10% including the last paragraph about Mexican fans. They are awful (I mean, the ones who misbehave; I'm sure they also have civilized fans who feel as dismayed at this as we do).
     
  11. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Hungarian fans are ********s too.
    FIFA has launched a ''full investigation'' into the incidents during last night's game against England.
     
  12. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What were the incidents? I watched that game but I had 3 screens going on, and was paying more attention to the other two (Italy v Bulgaria, Sweden v Spain second half); the England v Hungary game was on mute (as well as the Sweden v Spain game; I had only one game playing with sound, the Italy one).
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2021
  13. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Racist chants, monkey noises, throwing cups and bottles at England players.
    Usual ****.
     
  14. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Despicable. It does seem like Hungary has an expressive number of white supremacists, and they have a very right-wing government that is popular among the people, so, I'm sure we can't expect much from them in this regard. In Italy, there are two teams with supporters who are quite the white supremacists: Lazio and Hellas Verona. In Croatia there is also a significant segment of the soccer public that embraces neo-Nazism, as shown by the swastika formations they displayed during some games.
     
  15. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm sure they are not only dismayed but pissed off, as well. Not only did their unsportsmanlike compatriots make them look bad, they got them punished for offenses they would never commit, so now they can't go out and have fun and root for their team because some *******s had to **** things up for everybody.

    Coincidentally, I was talking to my wife not long ago about how my football (American football) coaches used to use collective punishment to discipline individuals for a variety of things, and while she was adamantly opposed to that I was okay with it (and I was the one who had to deal with the punishment). I fully understand the argument against it, but what I also understand is why my coaches did that, and it was to teach all of the young men on our team a valuable life lesson - when you're on a team and you **** up, you hurt the whole team, and I can tell you for a fact that their method worked. It instilled in all of us a sense of self-responsibility as a group and as individuals to maintain the highest standards and be accountable to one another, and that was one of our main ingredients to success. Unfortunately, the jerkoffs who ****ed up in Arlington and screwed every Mexican fan over were never taught that lesson or never learned it.

    By the way, I know you're not generalizing and I's sure you agree with me that the majority of Mexico's fans are great - they love their team, they've got great spirit and enthusiasm and ya gotta love the costumes, especially the crazy outfits they put on their kids. They're part of what makes the game great. What happened to them totally sucks, and I hope they hold the *******s who victimized them accountable for their misbehavior.

    PS. I don't know if you caught this last night but there must be problems with some of the fans in El Salvador, too. I was shocked to see policemen holding up riot shields to protect the American players taking corner kicks from projectiles. I applaud the authorities for protecting them but it's horrible that they had to do that.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2021
  16. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Lifetime bans for all the perps. No quarter.

    BTW, Centerfield and I are wondering what you think of your "favorite" player returning to Manchester United? :D

    image.gif
     
  17. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    LOL, I meant I agreed 100% with you, not 10% like I typed...
    Yes, I saw the riot shields.
    Yes, I'm sure most Mexican fans are great.
    Yes, good method, your coach used.
     
  18. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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  19. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  20. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Now my team is back in the Premiership we'll have to face Man Utd with Ronaldo. I'm not looking forward to it, we lost 5-1 to them already this season without him.
     
  21. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm happy that *my* team (AC Milan) will no longer have to play against him (Juve). And I'm also glad that we won our first two games while Juve drew one and lost the other one. Too early of course but if feels good to see Juve in 13th place, LOL!
     
  22. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Debut England game for Leeds United's Patrick Bamford. 11 changes from the team that beat Hungary 4-0.
    A simple 4-0 against Andorra with a pair of goals for Lingard, a Harry Kane penalty and a lovely goal for Saka in the first game at Wembley since he missed that vital penalty.

    Not a lot you can learn from playing a lowly team like Andorra with your B team.

    5 games 5 wins going into Poland next week.
     
  23. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Another frustrating draw for Italy, 0-0 on the road against Switzerland, with again Italy shooting more, shooting on target more, and wasting some golden opportunities including a penalty taken by Jorginho and missed. Switzerland played physically, committed 16 fouls and collected 4 yellow cards, and should have had a red carded player (another violent foul by a player who was already booked) but the ref chickened out. Jorginho doesn't do well against physical mid-fields. Verratti who is more muscular than Jorginho and Chiesa were inexplicably benched and only came in too late. I don't understand why Mancini didn't notice that Jorginho was struggling, and didn't realize that we needed Chiesa much sooner. Immobile sucked as usual. Insigne was good and almost scored a couple of times, including in a play when the goalie saved it miraculously (tipped the ball which was still going into the goal but recovered and got the ball again) and another one with his signature curling shot that went wide by a hair. Switzerland was barely a threat to Donnarumma, and defended more than anything.

    But here is what the problem is: Italy is 4 points ahead of Switzerland but Switzerland has two games in hand. If they win both they'll get ahead of us thanks to our horrible draw against lowly Bulgaria, then our game against Switzerland at home will be a must win. I just hope Jorginho's missed penalty won't be the moment when Italy failed to qualify again.

    ----------

    Meanwhile, big fiasco in the much anticipated Brazil v. Argentina for the CONMEBOL WC qualifiers.

    Four Argentine players lied in their immigration forms. All four play for English clubs and boarded a plane in London to come to South America. According to Brazilian sanitary regulations, people coming from a red-zone country for Covid-19 such as England (as well as South Africa, India, etc.), must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. So the players lied and did not say that they had been to England within the last 14 days. Obviously a very short-lived lie given that they are regularly playing for English teams, in England.

    OK, so play started... with 6 minutes of play (still scoreless), 3 Brazilian FDA-equivalent officials (there, called ANVISA) entered the pitch and interrupted the game, with orders to escort out the four Argentines for deportation. The other Argentine players wouldn't take it, and went back to the locker room. The Brazilians remained on the pitch, willing to play. According to the rules, Brazil should have been declared the winner of the game 1-0 by default. CONMEBOL however, headquartered in Paraguay and always siding with the Spanish-speaking nations against Brazil, the South American outlier that speaks Portuguese, instead of declaring Brazil the winners as the rules would require, suspended the game without a winner (hopefully to be rescheduled).

    Now, what is incomprehensible, is that while there is no doubt that the Argentine players were in the wrong and the local laws required their deportation as quarantine violators (being a footballer shouldn't shield them from respecting the local laws, and doesn't grant them the right to lie in an immigration form), this was known since yesterday (their lie) so why did ANVISA wait for the game to start to detain the players? They could have done so at their hotel yesterday, and the game would have happened with subs.

    Some people (like the TV commentators) think that ANVISA wanted the whole world to be watching while they did that, to score political points... which is why they did it during the live TV coverage rather than just going quietly to the hotel and arresting the players before the game. The local government which is under fire for the out-of-control pandemic, likely wanted to score some points and look tough. If true, despicable.

    To the credit of the Brazilian players and coach, they all begged the ANVISA officials to allow the game to proceed, and detain the players after the end of the match. They were, however, inflexible and did escort out the four players. An emergency meeting between CONMEBOL and ANVISA officials did happened but an agreement wasn't found, and the game was suspended.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2021
  24. gnoib

    gnoib Well-Known Member

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    Ok, here I am.
    First game of the Flick area was against Lichtenstein.
    As expect Flick did some experimenting, against a team like Lichtenstein. They had only 3 days of practice
    I was a bad game despite the 2-0 win. Highlite was youngster Musaila. Naturally the critic in the outlets was nasty.
    Today it was Armenia, the Group leader. This time we saw Flick football. Pedal to the metal for 90 minutes. As we were able to see from Bayern Muenchen. The Bayern axis started, one of the changes, Sane, Gnarby Goretzka and Kimmich with Reus ( BVB) and Werner.
    Flick must have lit a fire under some peoples arses after the first game. They came out hot and just flat out overran the other team.
    4:0 after the first half, could have been 6:0, one upright from Sane and a grazer from Goretzka. Second half started with a nother goal.
    After that Flick took the starters of the pitch and replaced them with the teens, U21 European Champions, except for Musaila, he never played U21 for Germany. The kiddos got the final word in and got a goal.
    6:0
    That was more like it, that is what I had expected to see. Loew was at the end was more about not loosing, was it tiredness, was it reputation, who knows and his loyalty and some times not to players. U21 had hardly a chance, no matter how good they were. Except once when Loew won the Confed Cup. But none really made it into the A team, despite the Cup. Flick has 5 of the U21 on the team, all teens, plus his protegee Musaila.
    I am sorry to be short on Names, but the whole teams has now so many new, very young players I have hardly heard of and I have a very bad name memory, on top of it.

    One thing Flick said in a presser before the game, he will very much take into consideration the work load of his top players, with in the leagues, Euro Cup, Champions League and National Cups. So his team call up will vary accordingly, which is exciting.
    More young players will come on line.
    Next game is Island. I hope we will see the same, relentless power football, Flick style.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2021
    Talon and CenterField like this.
  25. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nice, Gnoib, seems like Germany is getting a much needed rebuilding.

    --------

    US - Canada: disappointing 1-1 draw. We almost score the winning goal in a header, in the last 10 seconds of the game, but it went across the bar.

    I can't comment on the USMNT's performance. I had the game on, but barely watched, because unexpectedly, we had to do the draft for my NFL fantasy football league. Some of the participants didn't have any other available time slots until the NFL starts this Thursday so we had to do it during the game, and I was entirely distracted, trying to figure out who to draft.
     

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