Quote:
Originally Posted by megadude
Canada may have had zero points and we're all disappointed but they weren't far off from having 2 or more. What if Phonzy scored the penalty? What if Borjan didn't have that howler of a clearance today? Such are the fine margins in tournament football. Three games and you're out. If they played an entire season against the WC teams, they'd win some games no doubt but that's not how tournaments work.
CR was 4th in CONCACAF and lost 7-0 to Spain but they beat Japan who beat Germany and Spain. But CR finishes last. CR also won a group with Italy and England 8 years ago. This is tournament football. And in tournaments, it shouldn't be too much of a shock when there are big upsets. Watch any league and you will see upsets happen where not a single player from that victorious team would make the bench let alone starting XI of the team they beat. Many City lost at home 19 days ago to Brentford.
Watching some of these upsets really hits home the fact that possession is not everything (ie. Spain et al). You can pass the ball all you like but half of those passes are back passes into your own half. Meanwhile, if the other team can finish their one or couple of their very few chances, they can win. That is football. There's so few chances in total that it often comes down to who actually finished them that day. And you can see lots of examples of $100m attackers get a chance and try to murder the ball into the goal and end up skying it when all they had to do was strike it firmly and not rocket it. Or just place it. And watch all the examples of guys hitting a volley up into row 53. It's like they never practice it. It's natural to just kick the ball that way when it's coming down but really you just need to delay your instinct half a second and then kick. You will be meeting the ball closer to the ground and the ball will be lower and closer to goal. I used to practice that even though I wasn't an attacker. It was just to test my theory.
Speaking of all that back passing, this is why I can't watch full games anymore. I feel like it happens way more often than in the past. I only watch like the last 15 minutes now. It's very frustrating to watch movement up the pitch and instead of crossing the ball in or even taking a long shot and seeing what happens, they just pass it back and then the next guy passes it back again. As the end of the game nears, then teams play with intensity and actually try to attack because one of them needs a goal. That is what I want to see.
Also, there's always big teams that bounce out early and underdogs that make deep runs. It really goes to show that for the big teams, in tournament football, it doesn't matter who your coach is as long as the coach has half a brain. As a matter of fact, having the big name coach with the ego and stubborness that can go along with that, actually hampers the team sometimes when it comes to selection or tactics. So much of it is luck too.
You can pick a random soccer fan and make him coach and get the same result or better in a tournament. Can also do worse, but probability says he will also do better sometimes. That's tournament football. So when Germany rewards Lowe with dumb ass contract extensions (unnecessarily rewarding the past) despite declining performance you have to shake your head. Now, the current German coach is Flick, who was a guy noboby heard of before he took over Bayern as interim coach and lead them to the only perfect Champions League campaign. Big names Ancelotti and Pep did not win the UCL before but no name Flick did. Also see Di Matteo winning the UCL with Chelsea first time when Jose couldn't. Lowe, the long time manager and Flick, the relative newcomer, both crash out of group stage in the last two WC's. Doesn't really matter who the coach is. Voller lead Germany to 2002 WC final but two years later he got knocked out in group stage without winning a game against Latvia, Netherlands and the Czechs.
Mancini lead Italy to a 37 game unbeaten streak and Euro glory. Then they finish behind Swizterland in WCQ and can't beat North Macedonia in the playoff. Argentina was on a 36 game streak and Copa title before they lost to the Saudis. That's tournament football!
Can anyone name the coaches from '94 semifinalists SWE and BLG? Or '98/'18 Crotia 3rd/2nd place teams? Or Greece's coach in Euro 2004 or Czech coach in Euro '96? Or the coaches from multiple Champions League teams that made final four runs with unfancied teams? But lots of people can name the big time coaches whose big time teams crashed out in the group stage of tournaments.
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This tournament has highlighted a bunch of developments in my mind:
1) Europe is no longer the hotbed for football talent. The rest of the world has caught up and now can more than compete with European giants. If they are going with additional teams for the 2026 WC, I would hope it is mostly allotted to Asia, Africa, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF.
2) An organized defense can definitely win games. You can have all the possession you want, but a quick counterattack with some talent up front can destroy a team; i.e. Japan, South Korea as examples. They don't maintain possession but play hard and are well organized.
3) Elegant football is a thing of the past.
4) South America is no longer as dominant as they once were. Only 4 teams made it in after Peru was defeated by the Aussies. In years past, the South American teams would have demolished an Asian or CONCACAF team. Outside of Brazil and Argentina, I would classify the South American teams as quite "meh."
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