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World Cup Qatar 2022 - Desert Strike

Boothjan

By Boothjan,
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Gotters

Gotters

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If this game is losing your attention the Upshot just sent out a mini write up of the 1930 tournament 

 

Like the first World Cup in 1930, when refs trotted about the pitch in suits and ties, the Bolivians played in berets, the Romanian team was selected by the King, and Uruguay had a player with one arm.

The European sides sailed together across the Atlantic on board a Scottish steamship called Conte Verde, training on the top deck, and stopping off in Rio to pick up the Brazilians. Egypt, the only African team in the tournament, were supposed to join them, but they set off late and missed the boat.

When the tournament kicked off, Argentina quickly established themselves as the badboys.

During their 6-1 semi final win over the USA, a horror tackle left one of their opponents with a broken leg, and the game descended into a mass brawl.

An Argentine player knocked four teeth out of an American's mouth, and another ended up in hospital with injuries to his stomach.

And in possibly the most slapstick moment in World Cup history, the American manager rushed on to the field to confront the ref, tripped and smashed a bottle of chloroform he had in his pocket. The fumes knocked him unconscious and he had to be stretchered off.
 

The final saw hosts Uruguay take on their hated neighbours Argentina, and more than 15,000 Argentine fans headed to Montevideo on board a steamship. But the ship got lost in heavy fog, and they arrived a day late to the news their team had lost, kicking off riots.

During the long boat trip back to Europe, Romanian midfielder Alfred Eisenbeisser Feraru fell ill, and was taken off to hospital when the boat stopped in Genoa.

The Romanian contingent continued without him, and arrived back in Bucharest to a hero's welcome. But when fans spotted Feraru wasn't with the party, a rumour spread that he had died in South America.

Even his distraught mother was convinced, and she soon made funeral arrangements, only for Feraru to walk through the door on the day on the day of the wake, causing his mother to faint on the spot.

Still, it wasn't all bad. Feraru recovered to compete for Romania in both figure skating and bobsleigh at the next Olympics.

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Orion

Orion

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6 minutes ago, Gotters said:

Is there a pro Japanese team following on here simply because its a game forum and Nintendo/Sega etc from there ?

 

good result for Germany, improves their chances a lot over a Japanese win that was expected.

 

I think there is a few people here who either live there or have lived over there.

 

They are usually plucky underdogs for the neutral fans too. 

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John0

John0

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On 26/11/2022 at 12:06, feltmonkey said:

I think the tournament is going well for England. A few key players who were struggling for form have suddenly started looking like international footballers again, notably Maguire, Sterling, Pickford, and Shaw. The shape of the team has looked a lot better with the back four and an extra player in midfield. 

 

We are doing the horseshoe of doom a lot, but we were doing that against Iran (who were a decent team that we made look terrible) and we scored six goals. All teams do this to an extent when in possession, it's about how you progress the ball from this set-up. For example Man Utd move through it by having Lissandro Martinez play passes through the lines. Man City have their five vertical lines on the pitch and players able to move the ball very quickly. Liverpool have excellent attacking full-backs and get them very high up the pitch.

 

England lack a passer in the middle of the park, either in central midfield or defence. Stones is very much a ball-player at CB, but he's not a passer like a Koeman or something. Rice and Bellingham are good players, but Rice is a destroyer with very good technical skills and Bellingham progresses the ball by running with it. Mount is supposed to play further up and do clever link-ups with Sterling and Kane, but that has happened once in two matches, so it's not working.

 

It's not that none of the players can pass the ball - Bellingham played some lovely balls forward against Iran, but there's nobody who's natural game is doing that under pressure, when it's difficult. There's nobody on the bench either. I've read that Phillips plays a lot of forward passes, but I've personally never really seen the evidence for that apart from one nice assist in the opening game of Euro 2020. 

 

I think we're going to see more of the horseshoe of doom, with England trying to probe down the wings.

 

I think we do need to tweak the forward lines a bit. Mount has been ineffective, so he's the most likely candidate. We could bring in Phillips and move Bellingham further forward perhaps. Or there is the option of Foden or Maddison in there. That runs the risk of turning us into a 4-2-4 and heaping more defensive duties on Bellingham though. Mount isn't really playing as a number 10, as he is working hard defensively as much, actually probably more, than he's looking to create. Foden has never played in midfield for City, remember. He's also never done anything for England. What he does for England is repeatedly dribble infield from the wing, get confused that his teammates aren't making the exact pre-determined runs they make at City, and lose the ball near the edge of the box. For all his talent, what has he ever done in an England shirt?

 

Leicester fans might be able to tell us more about Maddison's work-rate. I remember him telling an interviewer that he doesn't need to do any of that because Ndidi is good enough to do it for him, so that doesn't bode well. There's also the option of the forgotten man - Conner Gallagher. Could he come into the midfield? He's energetic and makes things happen. Not necessarily always good things, but he'd help shake of the lethargy that seeps into England performances. I always like it when teams have an agent of chaos in the attacking third - it makes defences nervous.

 

I don't know. I think we'll need to be at the races against Wales if we are to top the group. While my perfect scenario is both England and Wales going through, I can't see that happening now with the way the results went yesterday, unfortunately. I'm not going to be sitting there watching the last round of matches hoping that needle gets threaded.

 

@feltmonkey your considered and balanced posting genuinely helps keep me sane through these international tournaments :)

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neoELITE

neoELITE

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1 hour ago, Gotters said:

Is there a pro Japanese team following on here simply because its a game forum and Nintendo/Sega etc from there ?

 

good result for Germany, improves their chances a lot over a Japanese win that was expected.

 

I like them because they tidy up like polite Wombles. 

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John0

John0

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I'm torn because these kind of decisions are undoubtedly correct, but at the same time this isn't really the kind of goal that the offside rule was designed to prevent. Surely we want to stop outright goal hanging rather than forwards getting ahead of defenders by millimetres. A case for bringing back the daylight rule maybe?

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ChewMagma

ChewMagma

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I think they should replace VAR with more on field officials like NFL. If they see an offense, throw in a yellow flag, then discuss, and ref announces the decision on field over the tannoy. No on field flags, the play is good.

 

All VAR has done is shift the debate rather than eliminate it and made it a worse watching experience.

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