OlympicsFan

If you are England in a penalty shootout you have to use some innovative strategies ...

Out of the last 7 penalty shootout at world cups the team that started only won once.

My money is clearly on England.

So far at this world cup no country that starts with an E has won a penalty shootout, so England is screwed ... Edit: No country starting with an E ever won a penalty shootout at a world cup. Time for England to write history?

Colombia has to win it in extra time if they want to advance.

Wasn't it scored in the 93rd/94th minute?

Very good buy by them, although i don't think he will get much playing time ahead of Pique/Umtiti.

Just wanted to make clear that Japan isn't any better when it comes to gamesmanship. If that opinion of yours was just based on personal preferences i have no problem with that.

I would be very surprised if Mina wouldn't end up at a top club after this tournament. In today's game set pieces become more and more important and he is a deadly weapon when it comes to that. Apparently he only had 3 shots on goal in this tournament and all of them were in ... I hope that Colombia wins, i want to see what they can do with James back.

You mean the japanese team that didn't even try to win it's last group game to secure the first spot?

So what do these two teams have in common? Edit: Didn't Russia basically destroy Egypt (=Tunisia) and Saudi-Arabia (=Panama) the same way Belgium destroyed Panama and Tunisia?

Solely based on the results here i would say: One less spot for CONCACAF (Panama), one less spot for asia (Saudi-Arabia) and one less spot for africa (Egypt) and in return 2 more spots for europe (Netherlands, Italy) and one more spot for south america (Chile).

How can they be meaningless if they determine which team will be group heads? If there would be now ranking, how would you prevent groups like Spain-Germany-Brazil-France from happening? Out of the 16 top ranked teams 13 advanced, while only 3 out of the bottom 16 ranked teams advanced, coincidence? Was it also a coincidence that at the last two world cups each time 3 out of the top 7 teams in world ranking made the semifinal?

I am not happy at all with this result, as a german of course i rather support Switzerland and in my opinion Switzerland has more interesting players. We will probably have one out of England/Sweden and one out of Russia/Croatia in the semifinal, this will be the first time since 2002 with two no-names in the semifinal. In 2002 Brazil won the world cup, so maybe it's a good sign for them.

You forgot how to quote? goalkeepers: Yes CBs: No, not even close full backs: Yes Kante and Casemiro/Fernandinho are close, them being the best in the world in that position doesn't mean much as many teams don't value such a type of player Paulinho and Matuidi are both shit, Pogba and Coutinho are completely different players Mbappe has been better than both Neymar and William, Griezmann has been about on the same level Jesus has been complete shit so far, certainly not better than Giroud To sum it up: France has better CBs and Mbappe + Griezmann have both been better than all brazilian attackers (maybe except for Coutinho, but that would still give France the advantage). In addition to that France has clearly more depth, even without Coman, Lacazette, Martial, Rabiot.

Willian was the best brazilian player for me. In my opinion France got more individual quality than Brazil, they are still the favorites, but of course Spain also had more individual quality than Brazil and still played like shit.

Neymar is beyond embarrassing, as a brazilian fan i would feel ashamed. I hope that Brazil will be eliminated in the next round by Belgium.

You realize where this meeting took place? Do you think it's a coincidence that 3 national records were broken in the same race? I would say on a track like Zürich those times would have been 0,5 s slower. I still don't see any of them, except for Sprunger, winning a medal at the european championships. My guess is that 3 out of the following 4 countries will win the medals: GB, France, Switzerland, Poland

Didn't he miss a penalty later on? In fact him getting a red card might have been better for you, because then he wouldn't have taken a penalty and his replacement might have scored and you therefore might have advanced to the next round.

Exactly, i didn't say under what circumstances it should have been a penalty. The rule is stupid and should be different and then it would have been a red card.

I would say (i know in reality there is always a chance ... ): Water polo m/w 0 % Rugby m/w 0 % Softball/baseball 0 % Basketball w 0 % Hockey m/w > 90 % Football w > 70 % Handball m, football m ≈ 50 % Basketball m*, handball w, volleyball m/w ≈ 25 % Realistic case: Hockey m/w, football w, handball m, basketball m *We shouldn't forget that by the start of next season Germany might have the 2nd most NBA players of all european nations, tied with Spain and only behind France.

Why?

Yes, if you stop a safe goal, you should get a red card. I am glad that Denmark didn't profit from a flaw in the rules.

Yes, i know, so ... ?

1) How was Modric's penalty a good one? Just because he made it? It was right in the middle and Schmeichel almost safed it with his feet. In my opinion only the penalty of Kjaer and maybe that of Rakitic were great. 2) How is it idiotic to nearly stop halfway? If you do it right, you are dramatically increasing your chances to score a goal. If a goalkeeper doesn't move into one corner before you shoot and your shot goes in one corner, then he has no chance to safe it. By hesitating, you might force the goalkeeper to move into one corner earlier then he normally would, because he can't predict when you will hit the ball (which wouldn't be the case if you wouldn't hesitate), so you will have more time to pick one corner, because you are still further away from the ball then you would normally be -> more time to pick a corner = better precision.