:dubious: 
Not sure you’d enjoy this “Anglo-German” collaboration.
Yeah, I get it, “Scheiße” is a funny word :dubious::D.
ETA: what was REALY funny were the German players all labeled “Kuntz”, complete with mullets and moustaches, in the video to the 1998’s version of “Three lions”. That STUNG :-).
Southgate has done just about everything right in this WC, including creating a positive fun atmosphere.
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Seriously - you are living in some very different parallel universe. Belgium outplayed Brasil and it wasn’t really all that close, definitely wasn’t as close as the 2-1 scoreline would indicate. Yes, it could have ended up tied after 90 minutes because that’s football, but objectively watching that game and thinking that Brasil was the ‘better team’ is baffling.
The result was a fluke. Brazil completely dominated the game. Perhaps Belgium would have shown something more if not for the early own goal. But they didn’t show much besides countering when Brazil were over-aggressive. Good for Belgium that they did, but there is no evidence that agrees with you that they were better, except for one nice shot and some dazzling saves.
Look I get it, this is a heavily European biased board when it comes to soccer, as can be But y’all are blind as bats. You could take the best players combined from Belgium and Germany, and Brazil wins 7 out of 10 times. I actually think that Hazard and DeBruyne (and Mertens, although he didn’t play) are world class. But Brazil has a Top 5 player in the world at every position on the pitch except GK.
Here’s a reminder on what actually happened in this “parallel” universe of mine:
So… you’re basically saying Brazil couldn’t score as many goals when attacking as Belgium did when attacking means…what, exactly?
The Brazil press disagrees with you, btw.
Don’t worry, I get that clinging to some (non-existent) moral victory is all you have.
To be fair, the Brits like making spoof songs based on national anthems music; even for themselves, like this from the last WC. (From about 1:00)
Do you understand how crazy this sounds? Brazil hasn’t even played in a final in its last two WC’s and has done even worse in the last two CAs. You are of course deserving of your own opinion…
Sure looks like Belgium’s goalkeeper outplayed Brazil’s goalkeeper by a large margin. Do any other stats matter?
The sad thing about JJ is that Argentina has been better The last decade. But, like Trump, facts don’t matter.
The dominated the last 20 minutes. Even despite that they managed only two threatening shots on target, one of them the goal. Even in this timeframe, they were unable to stop Fellaini from marking Neymar out of the game and Hazard taking the ball ino the opposition half to run down the clock on several occassions.
Your defination of “dominated” seems to be “had the better run of play in one segement”.
ETA: Getting back to tonights game, I suspect the French Intelligence already has orders to “take care of Thierry” if Belgium win.
Deschamps has already dubbed him as “an enemy of France”. Come on, he is an assiatant coach with Belgium, not Marshal Petin.
BS Brazil started far stronger and could have been up by 2 when Belgium got their flukey goal. After that it made sense that Brazil had to take the initiative, especially after the good counter for the second goal.
In the second half they got away lucky a few times, a second for Brazil would not have been against the run of play at all.
There is nothing wrong with being lucky and grinding out a result. We did the same against Brazil in 2010. That doesn’t mean we out played or dominated them.
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No. The Brazilians had basically no penetration for all their box activity. Every Belgian counter attack or attack looked like it was going to score and Thiago Silva was the only reason the score remained 2-0 at half time.
Look, I have no hatred towards Belgium but you’re all ignoring the facts (besides the last post by Polar Bear; exactly, Belgium got lucky, and sometimes luck beats skill). I know all the players well, and am quite happy for them. But none of you arguing with me has come to the table with anything more than excuses for the one-sided stats. If you think that Belgium outplayed Brazil, find me another game with a similar stat disparity in which the team that appeared dominated was still better. At best, you may find a game that was even. But I’ll wait.
What’s funny is that I could have predicted your views based on your earlier posts. There is major bias against South American teams here, certainly due to jealousy. Germany literally won one World Cup in the last 20 years. Nothing else. But everyone acts like they were some kind of dominant team. No, they peaked 4 years ago at the right time, and still needed extra time against Algeria! and Argentina.
Also, many of you jumped in to defend the penalty called on Kane against Colombia, which was bogus, especially when there were 3 fouls in the box on Godin (against France) on Neymar and on Jesus (against Belgium) that were harsher than that one and not called. Every announcer I’ve seen agrees with this. Lalas and Twellman are examples. Others call it borderline, but no one says obvious penalty except for the “experts” here. I watch every major league in Europe every weekend during the season and that one on Kane would never get called in any league.
Anyway, you can lead a horse to water…
As for today, France 3 Belgium 1 The absence of Meunier will be big and N’golo Kante is a truly unique player who will pester the crap out of Belgium. I couldn’t understand why he sat for the Euro 2016 final against Portugal, but I think he’s invaluable.
I just… don’t have any idea where you get this notion - either the bias, or the jealousy, which, considering European teams, after Sunday, will have won 7 out of the last 10 World Cups, would be an strange feeling to carry.
JJ thinks that the team that had more hits and more runners left on base was better than the team that scored more runs. Or the team that had more passing yards was better than the team that scored more points. He doesn’t understand the point of the game.
Germany have also been better overall in the World Cup than Brazil. 12 finishes in the top three. This is one stat that has alluded him.
Brazil’s last 4 international tourneys:
Finished 4th (as the host nation) at the 2014 WC including the most humiliating host nation loss ever.
Knocked out of the 15 CA by Paraguay in the first knockout round
Finished 3rd in the group stage behind Peru and Ecuador in the 16 CA
Knocked out in the quarterfinals in the 18 WC.
Where is the dominance?
A team that sits back and invites possession and attacks from the opposition with the intention of playing on the break may well be on the wrong end of some game stats. That does not mean that the opposition were unlucky to lose or that they “dominated” to any meaningful extent. You win in footy by executing your plan well and nullifying what the opposition do. That’s definitely the way that I saw the game. Belgium played a tactically excellent first half and most of the second. Of course Brazil had chances, Belgium knew that by doing what they did they ran the risk of Brazil scoring but balanced that against their more incisive and accurate break-away play.
Do you have links to those? in any case there were multiple fouls on Kane in the Tunisia game that were far worse and not called…your point is? That referee interpretation is not yet perfect? That not every foul is clearly visible to the ref? You do know that the refs at this tournament have been given instruction to look out for exactly this sort of thing?
I really don’t know why you are fixated on one, potentially debatable decision. It isn’t the reason why England went through.
and every announcer I’ve heard agrees it was a clear, obvious stonewall penalty. It was a “soft” penalty because the defender didn’t have to do it and had been warned by the ref 10 seconds earlier but, you can’t block a runner, you can’t lay hands on them, you can’t hold them either with one hand or with both and you certainly can’t jump onto their back to stop them whilst making no attempt to get the ball. I watch the same games you do and if that gets seen clearly by the ref then it gets given every day of the week.
I think the other thing JJ doesn’t appreciate is that Brazil is pretty much universally loved in Europe - they avoid all the petty inter-country rivalries which dog most European teams - Germany, France, England, Spain, Portugal etc all have other European countries who hate their guts. Brazil doesn’t carry that weight of wider history, so to suggest this Euro-slanted board is some how ganging up on them is pretty laughable as a concept.
I have to also add that Andres Cantor (Spanish language announcer on Telemundo) immediately said the foul on Kane was a penalty while going absolutely crazy about the rest of the Col v Eng match.