Only his fourth. He didn’t become a naturalized citizen of Portugal till after the 2006 World Cup (not sure he would have made that squad even if he was eligible).
Yeah, that was only a few months ago and an exceptional game. I’ve never seen a better goalie performance.
Thanks! Now I dimly remember that he was naturalized. From Brazil?
They seem to be doing fine without him.
More than fine! 4-0… does CR7 stay on the bench next game as well?
Well, it went very smoothly for Portugal tonight without him.
ETA: and now Goncalo Ramos, CR7’s substitute, scores his third goal. So there…
ETA2: I have to say that Portugal impresses me as much as Brazil versus South Korea.
ETA3: and now there was a roar in the stadium as if somebody had scored. No, it was just Ronaldo preparing to come in.
Portugal is definitely not taking the Spanish way.
They play so much better and more effective than Spain. I think with today’s elimination of Spain and also the German disaster (the German’s tried to copy the Spanish method right after losing to them in the 2008 Euro final and succeeded for a time), tiki-taka to the extreme is officially dead. And that’s a good thing. The way the best teams in this tournament are playing is much more dynamic, powerful and attractive.
Ouch, now it’s a demolition for Switzerland.
Here’s one for you, @Frodo. Sami Khedira is an expert on German TV and was asked what impressed him the most in this tournament so far. His answer was “the Argentinian fans”.
Been watching a lot of the games. I went in with doubts about the quality but I am pleasantly surprised. I’ve liked this World Cup. It’s been cagey in the first half of matches but I wouldn’t say boring. Unless you think a 0-0 scoreline is automatically boring. In reality the floor of the lower ranked nations is higher than before. The gap is narrowing. I also like the refereeing on the whole. Timewasting is being punished because now they actually are adding on all the stoppages. There’s also been hardly any red cards. A factor that probably helps is the timing of a winter World Cup. It means all the players are physically and mentally fresh since we are only three months into the club season. When they play normally it is in the summer after everyone has just finished a long campaign. You watch England and usually they are really big on passion and thundering into tackles but where did that get them vs this suave tactical way they are playing in recent tournaments.
My bet was a France vs Brazil final and I still think they are the two best teams. However as a Messi fan I want him to win it.
Looking at the remaining draw, and what has transpired so far, got me thinking…
…if there was ever a way to engineer a Messi vs. Ronaldo World Cup Final, one would need quite a bit of experience in being crooked successfully, and also a large amount of money to make sure everyone involved continues to STFU; well there is no better partnership than FIFA and an oil-rich monarchy. And it helps that both parties are audacious enough to do it.
/not saying; just saying
ETA: I acknowledge that a Google search will probably tell us that I’m not even close to the first person to think of this conspiracy theory.
Just sayin’: Seven out of eight on my (unsurprising) predictions. The Morocco game was very entertaining. They had perfect positioning, were very physical had a great goaltender and their shot blocking strategy was the right one but they earned a few chances too. But I am surprised at Spain’s apparent nerves during penalty kicks.
The keeper had a nice “trick”: he made fake moves.
Players on a certain level just watch where the goalie is going and “aim” for the other corner. Not putting the ball @80+km/h 2 feet up and 1 foot from the post: if you shoot like that, the goalie has no chance, problem is that you risk fouling up the movement and missing the goal altogether. Watching the goalie and aiming slightly to the other side requires fast reflexes but is harder to fuck up.
(You’ll see “better” player all shoot relatively slow and not especially far into the corner)
That technique requires that the field player keeps his cool longer than the goalie: this goalie had enough cool for the whole stadium.
He made some misdirecting moves and kept watching the bal. That sounds easy but it is practically unheard of in football.
People have been saying for years that statistically the goalie shouldn’t “pick” a corner, instead watch the bal. Combined with his little dance; that devastated Spain’s approach to penalties.
Funny how Zihech’s penalty never would have gone past Bolo.
The Spanish goalie was playing the conventional strategy - just pick a corner. The Moroccans really did a number on them.
It puts a different light on the whole match: with a radical approach they must have been quite confident in winning the penalty shootout, so they never extended too far in an attack because they knew they didn’t have to.
Tiki taka only worked for 2008-2012 Spain, and they almost lost many times in 2010, because Xavi and Iniesta were so amazing. I like Pedri, but this midfield doesn’t create. And it worked for Barcelona because they had great strikers, and Messi. You need the final ball or a guy that can break defenses on the dribble.
And then Ronaldo sits on the bench the whole game! I would die laughing.
It did honestly look like he got in their heads in the most fundamental way.The whole shootout he looked like the issue where Clark Kent sat in for Jimmy Olsen and nobody noticed in until the recap in the next issue where the Superman smirk . showed why it was going to be 31-30 from the beginning.
This Morocco team is intriguing. Stats show that they have been dominated in all 4 games (even against Canada) with respect to possession, shots and corners. But they manage to get the same number of shots on goal as their opponent (except Canada) every game.
Possession is a style stat, not necessarily indicative of much other than if one team decided to play a counter-attacking style.
True. And I guess my main point is that seem to br managing to create the same number of chances as teams that should be outskilling them. I’ve only been able to watch them play once, so this is all based on stats alone. And even SOG may not be indicative of true chances.
Yeah, so little possession = attempting to counter attack. Still good quality shots on goal = effective counterattack. Lots of teams that attempt to counter get blown out.
And yeah, not all SOG are equal. That’s what the xG stat is supposed to take into account, but it’s still missing a lot of things. For instance a slide tackle to block a tap in means there’s no xG even though the attacking team was extremely dangerous. I also see some xG models that don’t take defensive position into account so they’re VERY noisy.
Soccer analytics is very much in its infancy.