Points for goals conceded weren’t being added up, it seems they’ve finally fixed that (e.g. Ramos 9 -> 7) but there’s still players with incorrect scores.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?pli=1#gid=0

Spain’s future is grim:
De Gea, Montoya, Bartra, Iñigo, Moreno, Carvajal, Illarramendi, Thiago, Rafinha, Deulofeu, Jesé, Rodrigo...

Anyway, credit to Aragonés to what he did with this current generation.

Group B keeps delivering!

Pffff... I knew the Australia game wasn't going to be easy for the Dutch, but I didn't think it would be such a thriller.
Australia won hearts and minds last night. Incredibly passionate performance and an amazing goal, it's sad to see them go. I would've fancied their chances in some of the other groups.

Compared to the 5pa1n thrashing, sure. But this was a much better indication of the current Dutch standard. They're really not that good and you can expect to see some more struggling when they play Chile on Monday. I'm not so sure they'll be able to cope with them plus Van Persie will be suspended of course. Probably a draw is needed to avoid Brazil in the 2nd round. With Martins Indi out, back to 4-3-3 perhaps? (like they did the 2nd half last night)

Still, 6 out of 6 is an excellent result and it's good to see the team come back from behind to win for the second game in a row... also Cillessen gets to practice his penalty save yet again. Who knows he might actually save one later on, should there be a shoot-out. :rolleyes:

Isco? Morata?



My fantasy score dropped as well, from 116 to 114. Dunno, the score seems to be changing constantly. When can we see each other's teams?

You can easily swap during the round for a player who hasn't already stepped on the pitch, if you're not happy with the points your first-choice captain brought you had he had a bad day.

This I didn't expect; it is disappointing, I think we'll not be allowed to.
Plus we can't see how good a performance in real life is credited for for a player we've left behind.

The solution would be for you to give me your email address and password, and I promise I'll mess it up do the same.

Mine for this round is:
Haghighi (Courtois will be brought in if Haghighi scores less than, say, 7)
Ramos (8), Marcelo (9), Srna (8x2), Manolas
Oscar (low 5), Arroyo, Di Maria - Lulic to replace the lowest-scoring midfielder; De Bruyne might do too
Vargas (10), Osako (Emenike to replace if Osako's too bad, but Emenike, from the reports...), Benzema

End of an era for Spain last night. Thankfully Tika Taka is now probably over, it was effective but my god it was boring to watch after 10 minutes of it. Spain just couldn't play it at the intensity they did 4 years ago when Xavi & Iniesta were in their prime, it's a shame to see Xavi bow out like that, one of the all time great midfielders. I think they missed Puyol at the back too, they needed a real leader like him to pick them up this tournament. Still some questionable decisions by Del Bosque, taking Torres over Negredo and Lorente plus not dropping Casillas who's confidence looks shot. Despite winning the U21 european championships, I think Spain's dominance is over, they aren't going to have players come through who replace Xavi & Iniesta, they are once in a lifetime players. Anyway I thought Chile were great, well disciplined. Alexis Sanchez was incredible as was Vidal. The match with Holland should be great.

Holland vs Australia was one of the best matches so far, great end to end stuff.

ahhhhh… that was it! i actually had ramos. plus someone else lost a point.


haa haa haa


and i still like javi martinez but in a different setup. yesterday he had a poor day as those in front of him were overpowered and he plays better more upfront. here's an intriguing article… well, more of a puff piece, but still:

http://www.bundesliga.com/en/tournam...0000295783.php

worth thinking about or marketing bullshit?


and aránguiz, and díaz, and medel--oh, and bravo! (who is now going to barcelona)

--

i don't think we can say tikitaka is "dead" if by that we mean possession football-- it will simply evolve and adapt. chile itself is an example of it, but with more direct attacks that make them more fun to watch these days. tikitaka is only boring when it lacks teeth-- kick-and-run teams can be very boring too.

i think the problem with spain's latest failures is that they lacked dynamism and del bosque was too fond of some players & schemes, and didn't renew or reform his squad to accommodate new blood. yesterday it made me sad to see his sad grandpa face, but i think this was ultimately his doing.



he's staying till the next euros, supposedly, so we'll see what happens. i am curious to see what he'll do vs. australia--put the geezers in for a final funeral, or put in the whole fresh hungry bench to usher a new era? i seriously hope it's the second.

mexico croatia should also be a fun one!

What is the furthest that an African nation team has gotten in World Cup?

i think cameroon made quarterfinals in 1990? they famously beat argentina that year.

ps- yeah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FI...ce_of_Cameroon

pps- looks like senegal and ghana too

Quarter finals.

Cameroon - 1990 (beating world champions Argentina indeed)
Senegal - 2002 (beating world champions France)
Ghana - 2010 (so close to the semis, Suarez handball on the goalline)

I think that's it, but I may have missed one. I didn't even have to look that up, think I heard it mentioned during one of the recent games.

Why does the USA team play such wimpy ass, shitty passing, soft futbol? I do not know enough about the preparation that goes into futbol teams, especially national teams.
I know that most good teams play so much together and practice so much together that their moves and decisions are nearly second-nature. Is the USA team's problem that it only plays together on weekends or something?

thanks !@#$% and pokeherderrierre

Excellent plan Bertrand. However, for security reasons I will need your full credit card info before I can send you my email address and password. Please PM them to me or post them here in this thread.

Looking forward to Uruguay - England. Both teams needing a win, should make for a great game. Plus it's not in fucking Manaus this time which should also help things. During the last 25-30 minutes of Italy-England you could see the teams succumbing to the heat, especially England because they had to try and equalise while Italy could conserve energy a bit more defending their lead.

hey! passing is an improvement over kick-and-run primitivism! brains over brawn.


i think that's the rule more than the exception--only a few national teams with strong domestic leagues tend to follow the scheme of a central team. germany's core is made up of bayern munich players, and changes in the team now even reflect changes in bayern (e.g. lahm as midfielder) . spain mirrored barcelona during both team's best years. the core of italy is juventus right now. holland during its legendary days built upon ajax-- don't know about these days.

problem with USA as with most national teams is the best players play abroad, and have little time to gel together. e.g. brazil and argentina have some great players, but they all play for different teams, and aren't fully connecting.

i think england suffers the opposite problem-- while most/all of their players are locally employedd, the core of their best teams are foreigners, so again there is no one skeleton team to build upon that i can see. but i'm no england expert so i'll wait for the ingleses to confirm or deny.

but even without a core team, whenever there is a strong link between players, that tends to get exploited. e.g., zonalmarking's article on chile's game mentions how isla and alexis sanchez combined well because they used to play together at udinese (italy):
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2014/06/...age-day-seven/

the rabbit hole goes very deep!

That surprises me. I'd have thought he'd go immediately, not cos I thought he made any outrageous mistakes (mistakes yes but not ones that lacked any kind of logic) but to make it easier to start a new era under someone else. But even with a new manager there'll still be an overlap. I'm sure the mood in Spain will be to start with a completely fresh slate but there are still players, like Busquets and Ramos, who probably still have at least a couple more big tournaments left in them.

Either way, Chile were brilliant.

Right. England.

Rooney likely to play in the centre behind Sturridge = good move
Same back 4 as started against Italy = good move

Predicting a 2-1 win to England

In Roy I trust

Rob, if you're basing your analysis on the one game this far, that is too small of a sample size.. Lets see what happens in the next two games..

The bigger issue with the USMNT and cohesion, this has been a bit of a roster tweak since Jurgen is trying to keep everybody on their toes. Even in practices the line-ups have been shifting around, which is giving even less than usual opportunities "to gell"

Also, Ghana just played fucking great. They shot 21 times to our 8. They were in attack mode. USMNT was put on the defensive, and since for most of the past 20 years we've been a defensive oriented team, you could see guys fall back on their instincts and get less focused (to say it euphemistically) on offense.. The upside is that while Ghana shot the shit out of us, we had 7 shots of our 8 on goal and both teams had 5 saves, so our defense disrupted the quality of their shots which is kind of what USMNT does. Our fall back for at least the past 12 years is stop goals even if its ugly.

In the Gold Cup and WC qualifiers in 2013 the team had a lot more offensive flow and chemistry, lets hope they can get back into that kind of form.

Ivory Coast has a real challenge for them today, they can find out if they're real deal against Colombia..

Rob, if you're basing your analysis on the one game this far, that is too small of a sample size.. Lets see what happens in the next two games..

The bigger issue with the USMNT and cohesion, this has been a bit of a roster tweak since Jurgen is trying to keep everybody on their toes. Even in practices the line-ups have been shifting around, which is giving even less than usual opportunities "to gell"

Also, Ghana just played fucking great. They shot 21 times to our 8. They were in attack mode. USMNT was put on the defensive, and since for most of the past 20 years we've been a defensive oriented team, you could see guys fall back on their instincts and get less focused (to say it euphemistically) on offense.. The upside is that while Ghana shot the shit out of us, we had 7 shots of our 8 on goal and both teams had 5 saves, so our defense disrupted the quality of their shots which is kind of what USMNT does. Our fall back for at least the past 12 years is stop goals even if its ugly.

In the Gold Cup and WC qualifiers in 2013 the team had a lot more offensive flow and chemistry, lets hope they can get back into that kind of form.

Ivory Coast has a real challenge for them today, they can find out if they're real deal against Colombia..

oh man colombia needs a good finisher. teo is not.