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Posted
11 hours ago, Ikarus360 said:

This world cup is already smelling of French victory. I hope i'm wrong but it seems to be the only logical conclusion so far.

Very likely. The way they dismessed England was revealing. 

But there's still Messi, though. 

Posted
17 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

Couldn’t resist

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About as predictable as last night's result. At least the more important game earlier in the day went the right way.

Posted
7 hours ago, fusilli said:

Very likely. The way they dismessed England was revealing. 

But there's still Messi, though. 

Only if he's able to surpass Croatia and beats them before getting dragged to penalties for the millionth time. And even if Argentina survives that they would be too drained to face France seemingly unlimited stamina.

Posted (edited)

For the Morocco game, the Canadian commentators were all over themselves fawning over Portugal. Morocco didn't stand a chance. And boom - Morocco!

Croatia vs Morocco final would be absolutely wonderful and incredibly boring all at once. 

Just for perspective. 

Germany and France have made 4 semi-finals each since 1998

Croatia, Brazil, Netherlands have made 3

Argentina 2

Spain, Turkey, Korea, Turkey, Portugal, Uruguay, England, Italy and Morocco 1

Croatia has more semi-final births than 2 entire continents. And the same as Spain, Italy and England combined.

Also can I just say how much I f-cking HATE the way anglophone commentators talk about soccer. Especially North American ones that try to mimic the ridiculously annoying vocabulary that the British use instead of using typical North American sports talk. It is obnoxious.

Edited by Faster
Posted
19 minutes ago, Faster said:

Also can I just say how much I f-cking HATE the way anglophone commentators talk about soccer. Especially North American ones that try to mimic the ridiculously annoying vocabulary that the British use instead of using typical North American sports talk. It is obnoxious.

Sadly it's a catch-22 situation for them. Option 1: pretend to be someone you are not and adopt British jargon. Option 2: use North American phrases and be accused of being an ignorant chauvinist and not knowing anything about "real football".

Posted
23 minutes ago, Nacre said:

Sadly it's a catch-22 situation for them. Option 1: pretend to be someone you are not and adopt British jargon. Option 2: use North American phrases and be accused of being an ignorant chauvinist and not knowing anything about "real football".

It just sounds so pretentious. I mean I cannot stand the people Canada has used for the best part of 2 decades at this point. 

Posted

Possible solutions to avoid commentators:

-Mute button (not the best!)

or

Search your TV audio setting and (if your system allows it) try change the levels. There might be one with just ambient sounds and no voices over.

Posted
1 hour ago, Sir Rols said:

Sigh…

Oh well, I guess playing for a penalty shoot out only gets you so far

That's what they get for making disgusting fools out of Canada a couple of weeks ago. Still, it's largely Canada's damn fault for letting that happen for playing embarassing. You were better than Croatia ever were. No excuses, Canada! Guess we at this time should quote the late Minnesota Vikings and (I still call them the) Phoenix Cardinals football coach Dennis Green...

"THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!! (and in Canada's case with the following) AND WE LET THEM OFF THE HOOK!"

So one team now in the final. Argentina. Thankfully not Croatia...

Posted

When your country makes history as an underdog in something like a World Cup, you get the best of all worlds and richly deserve a reception at your home base in Doha when reaching the semifinals for the first time, not just for Morocco itself but for all African nations, by knocking off along the way more heralded soccer nations. Such is the case when Morocco's Atlas Lions returned to a hero's reception at their hotel base to a red and green party after knocking off Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal in the quarterfinals. Brought to you by the Royal Moroccan Football Federation.

Not sure they will defeat France, its former colonial master (with a portion then occupied by Spain). The defending champs have loads more talent than Morocco got. I think the dream for World Cup glory will end for them there tomorrow. But they certainly shown the Atlas Lions can more than hold their own against very good opponents: 

 

  • Haha 1
Posted

I’m torn… my heart’s with Morocco tomorrow, but not sure if they have what it takes to trounce Argentina. And when you have a Chilean in the family, you go for any team that plays Argentina.

Maybe I should just have more faith in the Lions. Otherwise, it’ll be Allez Les Bleus!

Posted

Your Chilean should join the ranks with many Brazilians who cannot stand the sight of Argentina winning a third World Cup and would certainly prefer the World Cup drought stays on for another 4 years to 40 years come 2026...

Me? I'm Ok with Argentina winning for Messi to check off that box. Playing against France, should that happen on Sunday, will be epic. 

Posted (edited)

Well, if Les Bleus go all the way, we know who will be close to lighting the 2024 cauldron in 1.5 years' time.  

On the other hand, for Sunday, time to get ready to play the Evita song!! 

 

Edited by baron-pierreIV
Posted
7 hours ago, iceman530 said:

I am absolutely not going to watch the Morocco-Croatia third place game.  Theyre just going to sit on the grass for 120 minutes and wait for the shootout

I am going to. Maybe last match for Modric and also looking forward to see Morocco to explode to leave good result as ever.:)B)

Posted

This has been a dream World Cup for Qatar in the end.... hosting controversies aside.

There has been some fantastic football, shock results, upsets, elation for some teams and what should be an amazing final with two football powerhouses.

A mediocre or bad tournament would have been great for those angry of Qatars hosting but in the end we have seen the football win.

Posted (edited)

I enjoyed watching some World Cup matches again too. I missed the last one in Russia largely as I as travelling through another football no-man’s land, the US, at the time. But always nice to follow the action, even if I’m only a one-every-four years fotball follower with no real appreciation of the finer points of the game (I still prefer Rugby - Union and League).

But I don’t think anybody would have rejoiced or been smug at a mediocre or bad tournament. It doesn’t change the fact Qatar shouldn’t have been hosting it in the first place - the football would surely have been just as good or exciting in Australia or England or the USA or wherever. At the end of the day, fine sporting action it may have produced, but was the utterly obscene cost - in terms of both cold hard cash as well as the astonishing number of lives lost building those vanity stadiums - worth it? 

Edited by Sir Rols
  • Thanks 2
Posted (edited)

/\/\  Ya know they (and the region) are precluded from the OGs and the Miss Universe / World / gay beauty pageants.  So what is left?  :wacko:  Asian Games, World Cups, World Expos and Islamic Solidarity Games.  Hopefully they won't aspire to host the Oscars anytime soon.  :D

Edited by baron-pierreIV
Posted
4 hours ago, Scotguy II said:

This has been a dream World Cup for Qatar in the end.... hosting controversies aside.

There has been some fantastic football, shock results, upsets, elation for some teams and what should be an amazing final with two football powerhouses.

A mediocre or bad tournament would have been great for those angry of Qatars hosting but in the end we have seen the football win.

Also the worst refereeing I have seen, the keys that somehow looked arranged for argentina (messi's team from which qatar state is sponsor) to go to the final and not mentioning that in the semifinal you could see lots of empty seats in the stadium. Appart from that, and the low level soccer from some of football biggest powerhouses, sure great cup

  • Haha 1
Posted

Final should be epic. Anticipated as the most watched World Cup final ever. Wish I could say more but my work hours presently have been loaded on me as I get closer to Christmas for a confluence of reasons--I work in retail. Hope to talk post-Christmas

  • Like 1
Posted

My biggest criticism of this World Cup has been the lower than average referee quality. Too many controversies and criticism from players regarding this, specially during the Argentina vs Netherlands match. Some people say it benefited Argentina more but for me it was targeted at helping Netherlands given how the referee lacked the guts of drawing any yellow cards (granted, Argentinean players joined too into the constant aggressions but the lead up was also the lack of action by the ref). And then you got those 10 minutes of additional time which helped Van Gaal team to equalize.

For me, it was also the second goal Japan did against Spain in the group phase. Granted, Spain was playing mediocre but the ball obviously crossed the line. It was all for the sake of sinking Germany even further since we all know the Qatari government/sheikhs wanted them out of this WC due to their protests against their discrimination against LGBT.

Anyway...I feel that Argentina had to face much tougher teams to get into the Final, much like France did in 2018. And while this french team also looks really strong and its very likely they will win their third trophy tomorrow, you could tell they were somewhat struggling in the second half of the Morocco match, plus they didn't had rivals as strong as Argentina (which was smart enough to defeat Croatia before being dragged into Penalty shots).

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