World Cup: National Team threads #2

[bluesfan94]

who is left?

The South America bid and the bid that's Spain Portugal Morocco and then weirdly Ukraine.

 

[Savant]

The South America bid and the bid that's Spain Portugal Morocco and then weirdly Ukraine.

Bizarre bid

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

No word on if Egypt and Greece will go ahead with their joint bid without SA.

Bizarre bid

It presumably gets them Europe and African votes.

 

[Savant]

No word on if Egypt and Greece will go ahead with their joint bid without SA.


It presumably gets them Europe and African votes.

Sure, just a weird group. I think Spain and Morocco or Portugal also would have been just fine

 

[bluesfan94]

Sure, just a weird group. I think Spain and Morocco or Portugal also would have been just fine

I think if you drop Ukraine, it makes total sense as a bid, but Ukraine is just a weird throw in that likely has more to do with geopolitical events at the time Ukraine was added.

 

[Savant]

I think if you drop Ukraine, it makes total sense as a bid, but Ukraine is just a weird throw in that likely has more to do with geopolitical events at the time Ukraine was added.

That’s fair. I don’t really get the Portugal/Morocco connection (except via Spain) but as a trio of countries that is very hard to complain about for tourism. Mrs Savant would probably murder me if I made her do soccer again after narrowly missing getting tear gassed in Paris but her family is from Canary Islands so that would be as good an excuse as anything

 

[cgf]

Against Spain, they had 4 more shots (only 1 additional on target). xG is varied depending on site, but footystats has it at 1.39-1.07 for Germany...an advantage but hardly a significant one. They were also massively outpossessed. Belgium they outplayed statistically, but the xG is bloated by being given a penalty (probably just about parity otherwise)...they again only managed an equal number of shots on target despite taking twice as many overall. Even if you want to say they outplayed either team, it didn't translate to results.

They generate possession offensively but they suck at finishing. When they don't suck at finishing, they can't keep the ball out of the net. They also don't get going until way too late in games:
-only goal against Oman - 80'
-only goal against Spain - 83'
-3 of the 4 goals scored against Costa Rica from 73' on, in a game they needed to score big in
-second goal against Belgium (in a 2-3 final) at 87'
-the 2 goals against Ukraine to tie it at 3-3 at 83' and 90+1' (the latter a pk)
-several qualifiers against subpar teams the offense only got going in the second half (Armenia, North Macedonia, Romania)

Oh it didn't lead to the results we wanted against Spain or Japan, but I acknowledged as much by pointing out our dreadful goalkeeping and lack of a striker.

And I was referring to outplaying Belgium after Can came on. We may have had more possession before then, but we were so vulnerable that the Belgians were unquestionably the better team.

 

[cgf]

Last experiment I want to see Flick try would be to play Kimmich & Henrichs as defensive FBs in a 4-1-4-1, with Ilkay joining them in front of the CB pairing to form a 2-3-4-1 in possession & a 4-4-2 against the ball:

In possession:
Füllkrug
Sane - Havertz - Musiala - Wirtz
Kimmich - Gundogan - Henrichs
Schlotterbeck* - Süle*
ter Stegen

Against the ball:
Havertz - Füllkrug
Sane - Gundogan - Musiala - Wirtz
Kimmich - Schlotterbeck* - Süle* - Henrichs
ter Stegen


Depth:
Adeyemi - Moukoko - Gnabry/Werner
Goretzka - Brandt/Müller
Can/Khedira
Raum/Gosens - Thiaw/Ginter/ABK* - Rüdiger* - Baku/Wolf/Klostermann
Trapp/Leno​

 

[spintheblackcircle]

 

[cgf]

That vid is 2-5 years too late. Like we all bitched about in 2018, arrogance and complacency had infected the NT from the top down. Getting rid of Jogi helped rid us of the root of that complacency, but we were still too arrogant in Qatar...letting our whole tournament by sabotaged by Neuer & Müller's egos not letting them ride off into the sunset with the ass-scratcher & last-DDR-born-superstar.

Since Jogi was replaced our youth teams have been producing world class talent again...albeit not as much as France...and winning titles. While under Flick the senior team has played much better in competitive matches than we had under Jogi since the qualifiers for 2018. And it's not just world class attackers that we're producing, Flick either already has options for the 6, FB, and CB, or they're getting close.

I get the timing after Flick's experiments with a back 3 over the last international break failed so miserably, but the relevant time to make those vids was during the lockdowns. That was when things were really dire and we hit our nadir.

 

[luiginb]

He just have had Thilo Kehrer in the thumbnail pic. At least Sane is good at football.

 

[cgf]

He just have had Thilo Kehrer in the thumbnail pic. At least Sane is good at football.

Sane's an easy target because there was a period in his career where he fell victim to the same complacency that ran through the NT setup in Jogi's final years. Injuries played a big part in his city tenure turning sour, but his ego was also a big part of it.

Granted that's since changed and he busts his ass both with the ball and against it, but with how talented he is/was, his career has been a bit of an underachievement.

 

[Power Man]

Africa's groups for the 2026 WC qualifiers :

 

[gary69]

No really bad draws for the top teams, but it will be a tight race to qualify for play-offs as a runner-up:

"The winner of each group will directly qualify to the World Cup, while the four best group runners-up will participate in play-offs"

 

[koyvoo]

Looks pretty straightforward for the top seeds, aside from the last group.

 

[Power Man]

No really bad draws for the top teams, but it will be a tight race to qualify for play-offs as a runner-up:

"The winner of each group will directly qualify to the World Cup, while the four best group runners-up will participate in play-offs"

I'm glad the playoffs are only for the runners-up now

Up until now, each group winners met in the playoffs which was stupid because it meant good teams miss the WC
We were eliminated by Cameroon in the last minute of the 2nd leg (I mean we beat ourselves but whatever) and Egypt was eliminated by Senegal in penalties.

Looks pretty straightforward for the top seeds, aside from the last group.

On papaer but Africa is weird, top teas suffer on the road against supposedly weaker teams.

The Zambia-Morocco game should be interesting

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

World Cup qualifiers are largely irrelevant now

 

[Power Man]

World Cup qualifiers are largely irrelevant now

No they were too brutal in Africa tbh
Even when we qualified, I felt bad for good teams that missed out

Only 5 spots until now and a terrible system

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

World Cup qualifiers are largely irrelevant now

This is the worst part of the increased World Cup. Largely the same teams will make the round of 16, 8, 4, but now no one has to work to get to the World Cup and all the tradition of World Cup Qualifiers is now gone.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Africa just having 5 spots makes no sense. Racism? They should have 8 spots.

 

[bluesfan94]

Africa just having 5 spots makes no sense. Racism? They should have 8 spots.

Africa gets 9 spots + 1

 

[Eye of Ra]

Africa gets 9 spots + 1

yes but not until now...should have been 8-10 long before

 

[bluesfan94]

yes but not until now...should have been 8-10 long before

Who do you take those 3-5 spots from?

 

[Eye of Ra]

Who do you take those 3-5 spots from?

europe

 

[bluesfan94]

europe

Seems kinda silly given that the last WC was the first time an African team made the semis, but I guess. I don't think Africa should have as many spots as Europe, frankly.