WORLD CUP 2018

munckee

Wow how to kill Croatia as shown by France. Thank god we didn't win the semi : )

guitarfishbay

Lol

fandango

I was going to say that with the score at 4-1, there's surely no way back for Croatia. But then Mandsukic scores a sneaky.

4-2 .... Game on!

lovestrat74

Someone please let Giroud have a shot on target!! it's embarrassing that a team can win the world cup but their main man up front cannot hit a shot on target all tournament !!

EDIT: oh dear too late ...

fandango

Gutted for Croatia.

In terms of guts they had it all. And gave it all.

And Modric. What a fantastic player!

Well done France!

underdog

Is it me or is this the most disappointing world cup winner ever? All tournament France have done just enough and got bits of luck but for the most part looked bang average. Even England looked better than them in most games, and that's a tough thing for a welsh man to say

BigLicks67

I think France played well against Belgium and Argentina, but really got lucky today with a poor refereeing display. The performance of Croatia shows what a decent side they are and puts the England game in better perspective.

underdog

Croatia were probably the team of the tournament for me, really good midfield and never looked to give up.

Schnozz

That comb over though...Was that Rab C Nesbitt's alter ego again?

EricTheWeary

Currently in small town France. Lot of happy people here. I'm slightly worried that the car horns will never stop. Vive Le France. Couldn't hear a pin drop when Croatia got that second though. 

Didn't see the England game yesterday, had R5 on whilst stuck on the M25. Somewhat miserable afternoon. 

I guess the hope now is that Southgate will build upon this and we will see a good outing at Euro 2020. 

fandango

underdog said:

Croatia were probably the team of the tournament for me, really good midfield and never looked to give up.

Second this. I really liked Croatia's determination in every match. No panic if/when behind. Very streetwise - in a European way, not in the South American cheating kind of way.

England would never have coped with France.

The reality is that France have won the World Cup TWICE and European Cup in the last 20 years. England doing cartwheels just for reaching their third ever Semi. Shows the huge gap that England have to bridge with Southgate at the helm.

The worry is that Southgate persists with the one-trick-pony that's the high energy game. Croatia found them out. And with the next WC in Quatar (2022, assuming England qualify), England MUST learn a different way of playing. Unless England develop a comfort on the ball and can slow the play down and play slow, and allow the ball to do the work, they will struggle in the heat of Quatar.

dano

Gutted for Croatia.  My best team of the tournament true underdogs doing amazing things.

Lestratcaster

Congratulations to France for winning the tournament. Today's final was the first game I actually managed to watch in full from the start, and I'm glad I did. Some of the play was outstanding and in Kylian Mbappe they have some player. I only wished Arsenal would make a move for him!

The French midfield has exactly what England are missing. Creativity. Kante and Pogba run the show in the middle and Griezmann can get up to support Giroud when they attack.

England have a lot of work to do to get to that level and go one further in winning a World Cup, what we saw in this one is encouraging but by no means the finished article. yet.

lovestrat74

The problem England now have is expectation. They went to world cup with the lowest expectation I can ever remember and now there is a growing expectation as a nation and in the media and we all know where that has lead in the past.

smogmonster

Does anyone else think that var has been a complete failure? All it has done is swap one set of contentious decisions for another. I can think of the failure to send off a German defender during Germany (which postponed Germany's elimination), a refusal to review penalty decisions during Spain-Russia and Belgium-Brazil, before today's fiasco. These all had a decisive influence on not just each game, but possibly the outcome of the whole tournament. These are just the ones I can recall, there will be others.

What the past month has demonstrated is that you can not eliminate human error from refereeing decisions, much still depends on individual officials' interpretations of the rules. Therefore the experiment should be abandoned.

I can't help feeling there is an agenda behind the introduction of var: tv companies are spending ever larger amounts of money on broadcasting rights and var stoppages represent an ideal opportunity to insert ad breaks during the course of games. The more spectactors accept var breaks as 'natural', the easier it will be to get them to accept ad breaks during the course of a game.

Teetonetal

lovestrat74 said:

The problem England now have is expectation. They went to world cup with the lowest expectation I can ever remember and now there is a growing expectation as a nation and in the media and we all know where that has lead in the past.

Players at big clubs surely know how to deal with pressure and expectation.. I think that excuse is a cop out to be honest. The real issue was that between 2004 and 2016 we had poor international managers, too many egos and a real lack of desire, I also suspect we had squads that just did not get on. Then there is luck.

Knock out football always hinges on 1 or two key moments in a match, when teams are close. There is no way that anyone can rightfully expect a team to even get to the semis, let alone win.

I think expectation is actually a fan issue. Oh this team is crap because they ought to get to semis and only reached last 16... is an attitude that is arrogant and fails to recognise that football at the top level is really close these days.

MagicPigDetective

It is intriguing that England don’t have many technical, creative midfielders that keep the ball. Is it the training or culture? Or maybe it’s just bad luck, world class midfielders don’t come round that often. Actually we are very lucky in Wales to have Joe Allen, Bale and Ramsey around at the same time. They bossed Belgium two years ago  shame we followed it up with poor qualifiers. Croatia have inspired  us small nations for 2022! 

lovestrat74

Teetonetal said:

lovestrat74 said:

The problem England now have is expectation. They went to world cup with the lowest expectation I can ever remember and now there is a growing expectation as a nation and in the media and we all know where that has lead in the past.

Players at big clubs surely know how to deal with pressure and expectation.. I think that excuse is a cop out to be honest. The real issue was that between 2004 and 2016 we had poor international managers, too many egos and a real lack of desire, I also suspect we had squads that just did not get on. Then there is luck.

Knock out football always hinges on 1 or two key moments in a match, when teams are close. There is no way that anyone can rightfully expect a team to even get to the semis, let alone win.

I think expectation is actually a fan issue. Oh this team is crap because they ought to get to semis and only reached last 16... is an attitude that is arrogant and fails to recognise that football at the top level is really close these days.

I guess we'll see if they have the mentality and ability in 2 years

menamestom

MagicPigDetective said:

It is intriguing that England don’t have many technical, creative midfielders that keep the ball. Is it the training or culture?

Neither.  England are world champions at U17 and U21.  The training and culture are fine, it's just mainly at a younger level.
The right talent will come through, because it is already winning championships.

p90fool

England's progress this time had less to do with one or two key moments in a match than one or two key moments in the draw if we're being honest. 

Even losing in the group stage to the only decent team worked out perfectly.

They're unlikely to get that lucky again.