“The N-country” is currently acceptable.
2-0; now the slightest of window openings cracking a tad wider for Argentina later on. Still need the Croats to draw Iceland in a low-scoring match though.
Missed PK for Iceland would have given them hope… hard to see coming back from that.
(On the plus side, I absolutely love VAR getting penalty calls right in both directions. Neymar’s diving was ignored, and this one, despite not being heinous, does seem to be the correct call.)
That missed PK could have big tiebreaker implications too, if Iceland manages to win against Croatia. Same with that stupid third goal yesterday where the Argentina defenders decided to stop playing.
Argentina actually isn’t in terrible shape now in the group. If they beat Nigeria, then they can only be eliminated if Iceland wins, and even then there’s only a one-goal differential to make up.
Yep I’m liking the changes to the refereeing this world cup, we’ve seen:
- VAR used to make important and correct calls
- Realistic stoppage time added (not just the standard 3-4 minutes but 6-7 for games that had lots of stoppages)
- Refs starting to not take any BS (aka the thing I was complaining about upthread). In Brazil game I think there were 2 yellow cards for petulance / arguing with ref. Good.
I’m sure Messi will urge his boy Rakitic to play hard. I’m sure Messi, to some degree, has control over Rakitic’s future paycheck.
Yes, they just need their offense to wake up for once. Goal-scoring is going to factor heavily in the two tiebreakers.
Marcelo is waiting for some half decent CF to make him his bitch. The guy seems to think he is a forward.
This already happened in the Infamous Semifinal. He was constantly pushing forward and couldn’t be arsed to track back. He caused the corner that led to goal #1 like this, and his total disinterest in trying to shut down the right side let Philipp Lahm run amok. He shared a big chunk of blame for goals 1, 3 and 6. Apparently that experience wasn’t instructive.
Did you see Serbia v Switzerland? The VAR guy must have been on a toilet break when two Swiss defenders did this in the box.
Was a good game in all other respects.
ETA: The Serbians had someone in the VAR room…
IMHO, Germany’s players should wear a uniform of a black shirt, red shorts and yellow socks+shoes, so as to visually represent the flag.
While I consider such shenanigans to be fouls, and when I refereed called penalties for them, at high-level soccer that sort of mugging is quite routinely not considered a foul. No, don’t go look at Law 12, because it’s clearly a foul by the wording of the Law. It’s just that strikers are required to EARN their goals, or some such thing.
There was a game in the first round of group games where someone was called for a penalty when he practically grabbed the guy around the neck and threw him to the ground. The fact that he thought he had a chance to get away with that says everything about how much leniency is given to defenders in the penalty area. :dubious:
Well my post was before the Swiss Serbia game, so no at that time I hadn’t.
But the referee chose not to use the VAR; it’s not that a wrong call was made after reviewing the video.
In this year’s CL Final, Salah caught him out of position about 4 times, before Ramos did his thing.
No penalty was given. That was a Tunisian defender on Harry Kane. There is leniancy and there is the CF literally wearing a defender.
So, right now, betwixt Argentina and Iceland and the fair-play tiebreaker, who’s got more yellow/red cards at the moment?
But the call can come from the control room-
Belgium is looking damn good. Can’t wait for their match Thursday against England.
Tunisia equalize!
Man there should be a way for three teams to advance.
Did anyone notice how much the Tunisian player moved the ball up on the set piece goal they just scored? I saw that but apparently none of the Belgians nor the referee did. Gave himself at least 2-3 more yards.