2022 FIFA World Cup - Qatar, November 21-December 18

[Santander]

Italy not qualifying is just bonkers. Yes, the shouldn't have lost to North Macedonia. But it has to say something about the qualifying system that the defending European champions who are ranked #6 in the world can get left out with one bad game.

It was a complete bottle job, not anything wrong with the qualification system. They missed two penalties and an open goal in qualifying against a weak group and the weakest team in the playoffs.

If you want a cruel qualification system, in Africa, everyone has to win the group and then win a playoff. Algeria only had to blink once in a playoff match they dominated to not qualify for the World Cup.

[Santander]

Portugal is massively overrated because of Ronaldo and winning Euro 2016 after winning literally one game. They limped through qualification (normal for Portugal) and their squad is filled with questionable ancient players. They'll make it through to the knockouts because the rest of the group are even weaker paper tigers, but they will get exposed by the real teams in the knockouts. If they play Brazil in the first knockout round, they will lose, and I would favor Serbia in a matchup, too.

[Santander]

Bold predictions:

A
Qatar - 4
Ecuador - 3
Senegal - 1
Netherlands - 2

B
England - 1
Iran - 2
USA - 4
Wales - 3

C
Argentina - 1
Saudi Arabia - 4
Mexico - 3
Poland - 2

D
France - 2
Australia - 4
Denmark - 1
Tunisia - 3

E
Spain - 1
Costa Rica - 3
Germany - 2
Japan - 4

F
Belgium - 1
Canada - 4
Morocco - 3
Croatia - 2

G
Brazil - 1
Serbia - 2
Switzerland - 3
Cameroon - 4

H
Portugal - 2
Ghana - 4
Uruguay - 1
South Korea - 3

Round of 16:
Senegal vs Iran
Argentina vs France
Spain vs Croatia
Brazil vs Portugal
England vs Netherlands
Denmark vs Poland
Belgium vs Germany
Uruguay vs Serbia

Quarterfinals
Senegal vs Argentina
Spain vs Brazil
England vs Denmark
Germany vs Serbia

Semifinals
Argentina vs Spain
Denmark vs Serbia

Final
Spain vs Serbia

[Santander]

Everyone picked France to advance past the group stage so far, but deep down I don't feel that good about France's chance.

Four of the last five World Cup winners failed to advance past the group stage in the next World Cup. I remember how Germany thought their 2018 squad is even better than their 2014 squad and then they ended up somehow losing to my lowly South Korea.

Well, obviously France is not guaranteed to get out of the group stage, but you have to say they are more likely than not to. Morocco is actually better than most people give them credit for (they scored 20 goals and conceded 1 in the hardest African qualifying group) but much of their team is playing for Morocco because they couldn't make it for France...

[Santander]

Everyone picked France to advance past the group stage so far, but deep down I don't feel that good about France's chance.

Four of the last five World Cup winners failed to advance past the group stage in the next World Cup. I remember how Germany thought their 2018 squad is even better than their 2014 squad and then they ended up somehow losing to my lowly South Korea.

Well, obviously France is not guaranteed to get out of the group stage, but you have to say they are more likely than not to. Morocco is actually better than most people give them credit for (they scored 20 goals and concedeId 1 in the hardest African qualifying group) but much of their team is playing for Morocco because they couldn't make it for France...

Everyone who watched 2018 World Cup realized how good Morocco is after drawing with Spain and outplaying Portugal in terms of goal opportunities.

I could easily see Morocco getting in over Croatia.

I actually meant to talk about Tunisia but somehow I got distracted and forgot, and ended up making a bit of a non-sequitur about Morocco. But yes, Group F is actually quite juicy.

[Santander]

If I was a gambler, I really would have a cheeky £10 on England not qualifying from the group stage. I know it is "only" The Nations League, but that defeat at home to Hungary (who were excellent, by the way, and fully deserved to win) was the worst I have seen us as a team since THAT game against Iceland in 2016.

It's long been a mystery as to why England routinely underperforms in World Cup when, on paper, they have one of the best squads perennially. A part of it, of course, is that England is terrible in penalty shootouts, a game deciding method which I think is an abomination, even though many fans love the masochism of watching it.

Seeing that La Liga teams tend to beat Premier League in Champions League, I may be overestimating the strength of English roster though.

England is very good at blowing their own trumpets. Look back at some of those squads from the past decade in retrospect - just terrible. This squad is better than those, but many of the players will be looked at rather poorly in 10 years' time. Tactical ineptitude from a manager who got the job because the last guy was an open sleazebag doesn't help.

[Santander]

Pep Guardiola's expressed interest in coaching a national side after his contract at Manchester City expires. England could make a run at him (or possibly Wayne Rooney, who has done an amazing job with practically nothing at Derby).

lol and LOL

[Santander]

To be honest, I don't exactly blame them for it. Anyone would be excited at the prospect of names like Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney and Kane in their roster during the past decades. I feel as though England wised up and are becoming more of a complete team instead of trying to star-stud their team.

They need to realize goalkeeping/defense are just as important as offense. See 2006 Italy (Buffon) or 2010 Spain (Casillas) or 2014 Germany (Neuer). All world class defense and/or goalkeepers.

Everyone agrees those are good players, but the England setup and players convinced themselves they were the best players and the best team in the world, when they were not - they were just the players they saw on Sky every week. Nobody outside England thinks Kane is the best striker in the world, but England have convinced themselves he is. England have hardly been blessed with exceptional talent compared to other major European countries and the idea of a "golden generation" was arrogant nonsense. England got results like the 8th-best team in the world because they were about the 8th-best team in the world and never had the manager or tactics to achieve above that level.

England have the worst managers and least tactical innovation of any major European country by a big margin. But instead of really finding solutions to bad tactics and selection, they choose the easy route of blaming fringe factors like the media, club rivalries, and psychoanalyzing penalty shootouts. If you think the English media is bad, try working in Spain or Italy.

[Santander]

In the US not every boy plays football, because it isn't the sport most Americans exercise, since more typical american sports are NHL, american football, NBA and so on. Football is relatively new in the USA with perhaps only 5 to 10% following it?

lol, no, soccer is probably the most widely-played sport in the US. The number of American kids who play American football or ice hockey is pretty miniscule. There is a reason the term "soccer mom" exists. The difference is that soccer has not, until perhaps recently, been seen as a viable sports career, so getting a college scholarship and then moving on to "civilian life" after their college career is the norm.

Women's sports tend to be dominated by high-income countries, and the US in particular subsidizes high-level women's sports heavily.

[Santander]

Imagine thinking that Qatar will play fair as the host. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say the country is literally run by demons. They could cheat to win, but if they don't feel that's worth the risk then Senegal beats them.

Qatar are defending Asian champions. They are a decent team and don't need to cheat to get out of the group.

[Santander]

Eusebio, one of the all-time best football players was Portuguese, yet, they only qualified once and became third in '66 which was the year of England.

England stole the World Cup from Portugal. Eusebio was the greatest footballer of all-time.

Portugal and Austria have similar potential for soccer, since both are European, both have similar population. But it depends on generations. Portugal has a very good generation now: generation of players and coaches.

Portugal has the advantage of being better positioned to "import" national team players. Perhaps not quite as lucky as England, France or Spain, but still pretty good. Being a "working-class" country helps the talent pool in a working-class sport, too.

[Santander]

Because England is bad - the tactics are bad and the players are bad. How is Harry Maguire still in the squad?

[Santander]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/18/football/qatar-world-cup-beer-stadium-spt-intl/index.html

Doha, Qatar
CNN
 —
Just two days before the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, soccer’s world governing body FIFA confirmed that no alcohol will be sold at the eight stadiums which will host the tournament’s 64 matches.

“Following discussions between host country authorities and FIFA, a decision has been made to focus the sale of alcoholic beverages on the FIFA Fan Festival, other fan destinations and licensed venues, removing sales points of beer from Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 stadium perimeter,” said the FIFA statement.

😍 Inspiring to see a pious Muslim nation standing up to Budweiser and FIFA.

[Santander]

I will be watching the World Cup to see how far US men go in soccer.

American men in general don't care for soccer, looking at the way American sports personalities like Mike Francesa, Craig Carton, etc. have been making fun of the sport.

Look at how US women's soccer gets made fun of.

American men like football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR.

Shows how exceptional America is, because we ARE different than the world.

Like how baseball is the Dominican Republic's sport, hockey is Canada's sport, soccer is the rest of the world's sport.

When you have rightwingers like Alexi Lalas pushing for his fellow rightwingers to get into the sport, shows how far US men's soccer has to go..

Baseball is the leading sport in a hell of a lot more than just the Dominican Republic. Ice hockey is the leading sport in Finland and Latvia (maybe Belarus?) and basketball is the #1 sport in Lithuania and the Philippines (lol). Australia and Ireland have both indigenous sports and English sports. And South Africa has the racial divide that supports multiple sports. America is hardly exceptional.

Not to mention the US is actually a huge market for watching soccer. It's just playing professionally that is not on the radar.

[Santander]

No offense to either of the two nations, and it may turn out to be a great match, but has there ever been, on the surface, a less compelling opener than Qatar vs Ecuador? Of course this partly because the World Cup is usually held in a country with a strong football pedigree and history.

Qatar are reigning Asian champions, beating South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia, the traditional powers in Asia along with Iran, enroute. They did not have any pedigree when awarded the World Cup, but they built it real fast.

Let's not forget Japan never qualified for a World Cup when awarded co-host status...

[Santander]

And imagine how bad they would be in footballers were subjugated to the same naturalisation policies as everyone else in the country.

You could say the same about the Chinese ice hockey team or the Greek basketball team. Hell, getting Spanish or Italian nationality usually takes years of processing time even when eligible, but sports stars always magically get their passports in time...

[Santander]

Where is the actual outrage? We see plenty of "outrage" about Qatar, but it is all vaguely directed at the Qatari government (whatever that's supposed to mean) and FIFA (easy punching bag). When Qatar banned alcohol from stadiums, the outrage was all at the Qatari government, not at AB-InBev, the Western business sponsoring this supposed celebration of gay butchery and slavery. Nor any criticism of other usual suspects like Visa, Coca-Cola and Adidas. Instead of getting upset at players for not wearing a stupid armband, maybe people should be asking why the players are in Qatar enabling so-called "sportswashing" in the first place?

TV networks bid for media rights, sponsors queued up in droves, commentators didn't quit their jobs, prominent players didn't pull out, nobody is boycotting Qatar Airways, PSG gear remains fashionable as ever, and Anthony Blinken is in Qatar to "recognize Qatar’s important contribution to international sports diplomacy as it hosts the World Cup" and "reiterate U.S. appreciation for the long-standing partnership between the United States and Qatar".

The only logical thing to do at this point is to celebrate how successfully Qatar exposed Western hypocrisy and hope it accelerates the downfall of the West.

[Santander]

Let's not get carried away by England's result against Iran. The 6-2 scoreline doesn't really reflect the game - it was probably more like a 3-0 or 3-1 match. Iran have very good forwards who can seriously test more pedestrian teams like the USA and Wales.

England could also lose to anyone in a one-off match.

[Santander]

It's very simple math - according to Google (not worth much, but it gives us some numbers), England have a 62% chance of beating USA and 64% chance of beating Wales, which is pretty lopsided for a football match. That is 28% chance to lose at least one of the two matches, and if you include draws, a 39% chance to drop points in the two matches. England will make it out of the group, but they're not even close to guaranteed 9 points.

Wales and the USA are favored by far less against Iran, which accurately reflects the much smaller gap between those teams.

[Santander]

🕋

[Santander]

We shouldn't underrate the AFC national teams. The 5th of the AFC, Australia, won against the 5th of the Conmebol, Peru, in the penalty kicks in the qualifier.

Asian teams should not be underestimated, but Australia is actually bad.

[Santander]

I love how badly France wants to get more goals.

[Santander]

American commentary calls England vs. USA "the big one". 🤦‍♀️

[Santander]

our analists say you should have gotten 2 penalties more. the referee didn't do his job. It is the same referee who rigged Ghana vs South Africa. We should also have gotten a red card, however one of the canadian players also should've gotten red and only got yellow.

What we did was a bad match, embarrassing, a lot of things didn't work. We played too horizontally, instead of vertically, despite having one more player in the midfield. The midfielders didn't even ask for the ball. Our assist was a from a defender who gave the ball to the striker, who made the goal. Also, very static play. Extremely weird.

Canada should've been given at least one more penalty, yeah. Honestly, the two teams played as if they were wearing the wrong shirt - Canada had far better passing and pressing, while Belgium were under pressure and hoofing balls over the top. Tactically, as you said, Canada took the Belgium midfield out of most of the game, and forced them into sideways passing and long balls, one of which they were lucky enough to convert.

Alphonso Davies on the ball though - wow. Whenever he makes a run, I'm reminded of him ending Nelson Semedo's Barcelona career a couple years ago.

[Santander]

Of all places in the world, there are literally a dozen Koreans crowded around the TV watching the World Cup at the Senator Lounge at Munich airport.