OlympicsFan

Yes, so? Just because i would have done the same, it doesn't make it right.

I think i would have taken the penalty. If they win, it doesn't matter whether he took the penalty or not. If they lose and he made his penalty, then at least he can say that he somewhat made up for his missed penalty and won't always have to ask himself whether he should have taken it. In 3 out of 4 possible outcomes taking the penalty would be the better decision in my opinion, so i think it would be better to take it. You could also see it this way: Why did Modric take the penalty? The reason probably is that he is their best penalty-taker, so if he can get the missed penalty out of his head, he would increase their chances to advance by taking one of the penalties, so it's somewhat his duty to do it, but of course only he himself can tell whether he is able to get the missed penalty out of his head or not.

I am very glad that Croatia won, the foul that lead to the penalty should have resulted in a red card, i am glad that the danish player wasn't rewarded.

Apparently this was the 10th time that Spain played against a host at the world cup or european championships and they lost every time. At the 1934 world cup they lost against Italy, at the 1950 world cup they lost against Brazil and at the 2002 world cup they lost against South Korea. Another interesting stat: Vladimir Granat who was subbed in at halftime didn't complete a single pass in the 75 minutes he played ...

The world cup continues to be a disappointment in my opinion. None of the big teams has played at their best so far. I still think that having longer seasons every year for the big teams doesn't help the level at world cups or european championships. This result is another proof that tiki taka is done, i think more physical teams will dominate football in the future. For the sake of football i hope that Russia won't come near the title, i would prefer less destructive teams like France, Belgium or even England to win it.

Apparently it does. There a multiple reasons why previous outcomes of penalty shootouts might be a predictor concerning the outcome of current penalty shootouts.

England in a world cup final would be shocking indeed, then us germans couldn't make fun of english football for at least 4 years ... Has England won every world cup final they played? Has any of those teams (except for England and Sweden) ever made a world cup final (senior level)? This would look a lot like that last european championships, where the big teams (France, Germany, Spain, Italy) battled it out in one half and in the end Portugal, who were in the other half won the cup. This time my favorites would be Croatia and England (since Colombia without James is only half as good).

Own goals included? If yes, then i would say own goal ... From an historic perspective, Ramos or Iniesta would be the players most deserving of scoring that 100th goal for Spain.

With every game i see, France becomes an even bigger favorite for me, hard to see them not winning it. Would a France vs. Belgium final be possible? At the moment this would be my favorite final, finally a new finalist and probably a very heated atmosphere too.

What? Be a bit patriotic please , i would give a lot to see Germany back in the tournament again, but that won't happen. A world cup is only once every 4 years, you have to enjoy it. In addition to that i don't see how Russia instead of Spain advancing would make games more exciting. You think a) Russia vs. Uruguay would be a more interesting match than Spain vs. Uruguay b) Russia has more to hurt Uruguay than Spain has?

For me this looked more than fishy by Pique. I think i have never seen such a stupid penalty before. His hands were already down again and then he put one of them up again, almost as if he wanted to be hit.

Better than Portugal vs. Spain?

Brazil vs. Germany in 2014?

They have great depth, but people shouldn't act as if France is heads and shoulders above every other team. Tolisso doesn't even play for Bayern and Pavard plays for Stuttgart + he isn't even a right back. In my opinion France has too many similar midfielders (only box-to-box players) and noone like Kroos, Modric or someone else who can control a game.

Perfect results for me, although i am surprised that France had to fight so much (based on the scoreline, i couldn't watch anything today). Mbappe probably was a lock to win best young player before the tournament started and now there can't be anyone who doesn't agree about that. Golden boot should be between Kane and Lukaku.

Warholm continues to improve, but this still might not be enough to win a medal in 2019 or 2020, given the recent improvements of Samba, Benjamin and McMaster, although i think it's very likely that at least one of them will get caught in the next couple of years.

Who is they?

So bad on so many levels ... Where is Sweden? What does Brazil have to do with anything? How is Germany littlefinger? They took Brazil head on 4 years ago and destroyed them, which is something littlefinger would never do. Whoever did this clearly doesn't seem to know much about football and/or game of thrones, which also tells us a lot about the person thinking that this was a good way to describe the situation.

"You brought this as "proof" but now you are saying that it is irrelevant. For me it's an absurd claim." I didn't bring it as proof for anything. If one country is forbidden to play at the world cup by another country that invaded it just weeks before, then that's a scandal for me and if that country was one of the biggest rivals of the eventual world champion, then the title loses at least some of its value in my opinion, but we obviously disagree about that one. At least we agree that the first italian win was a joke. Is there any proof for german doping? If yes, then this would also make that world cup a joke. I didn't know about the brazilian scandal and i never claimed that i did know about all world cups, but good that you brought it up, because it means that Germany should be tied first place in world cups together with Brazil. In the end the essence of this discussion is that world cup wins from 80 years ago don't really have much relevance, because it was a completely different game. Italy won only 2 world cups after 1938, noone in his right mind would put them on the same level as Brazil or Germany. Margaret Court won 24 slams, but noone seriously considered her as great as Williams or Graf, because she won her titles in a time when the competition was clearly weaker, the same is true for Italy concerning football, they won half of their world cups in a time when there weren't really any professional league. That is the reason why many experts consider Italy the Maragaret Court of football.

Not if the deleting of comments continues ...

Yes, you need to change your system like Germany did after 2004. You trust old players too much and don't give enough chances to young players + your coach has been very bad.

Italians always had a tendency to be melodramatic, now we can witness it first hand.

From all i hear out of italy right now, you guys all seem to have jumped into a time machine ... way back into the past. It's hard to accept for some that those times will never come back, in football as well as in politics.

No, my favorite is still Italy. They went through the group stage very quiet, as usually, but when it matters they will show up.

The big difference is that Germany has a lot of great young talents and will have no problem to be a contender again in 4 years, while Italy and the Netherlands have been shit for a long time and don't have much promise, that's also why german fans can take those provocations as what they are: An attempt to hide the fact that those countries have become irrelevant in today's football and that it is very likely to stay that way.