This Thread is devoted to Off topic.

Use this topic to talk about everything, in order to avoid clogging the other threads..

Casemiro saved us today. Militão was messy, while the Fred-Paquetá combo was dreadful. Bruno was a game changer, and I hope he becomes the starter CMF from now on. Maybe Telles and Ederson would raise our passing to another level, as the current GK and backline are struggling with ball distribution.

I don't know what was worse today: Uruguay's tactic itself (what's the point of playing Darwin as a mixture of left winger/CF in the first half again?) or the way how de Arrascaeta wasted their biggest chance. Such an arrogant move, at that point he should have already understood that he can try such things against Brasileiro goalkeepers but not against Costa..

Yeah, that was a total dipshit move. He is better than this. Uruguay came this close to equalizing with Arrasca, Maxi Gómez and Luisito, but it didn't work out, such a shame.

Darwin always drifts out to the left side even when he's playing in the middle for Liverpool, he's been doing it all season, I think he even played as a left winger in a few games when Firmino was starting. Problem is that with Uruguay that just leaves Cavani all alone on the right side and he doesn't have the energy to cover so much ground any more, Cavani needs to just be poaching or playing as a central target man instead of having to cover the whole right side of attack by himself with no winger supporting him on that side.

Suarez is completely done at the top level by the way, he looks like an old man at this tournament. And Cavani isn't much better. Do Uruguay really not have any more promising players? It's just sad seeing them rely on these guys that are basically already retired. They look like they're ready to go back to pre-Tabarez days. Darwin, Araujo, Valverde and Bentancur are all good players, de Arrascaeta could maybe be good (hard to judge his level compared to the guys in Europe) but other than that they seem so mediocre. Even then, I'm not very convinced by Darwin, Araujo seems to be injury prone and Bentancur is only at Spurs starting to play very well, he could go back to his Juve form at any moment.

IMO Portugal look pretty good, certainly much better than I expected. If Cancelo and Bernardo can improve then they could easily reach the quarter finals as they'll likely play Switzerland in the next round. Also I was just thinking, it would be funny if Spain just threw the final game against Japan, as that would almost definitely eliminate Germany but also likely let them avoid Brazil in the quarter final, although it would set up a semi final against France. The top teams so far have been Spain, France and Brazil, and I'd expect the winner to be one of those. Overall I think the "lower half" teams have improved a lot (Morocco, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Japan) while a lot of the usual "upper half" teams have been disappointing (Argentina, Germany, Belgium, Uruguay).

Van Gaal can try to make the rest of his roster play against Qatar to do the record of making all his selected players play the World Cup like in 2014 again and still would win.

Australia reaching the knockout stage with this team and in that group is IMO a bigger surprise than their success at the 2006 WC. Still feel bad for Tunisia though since they played very well in the WC (similar to Ecuador). Don't know what to say about Denmark tbh, I wouldn't say that they were totally horrible but right now they belong to the disappointments of this tournament so far..

Mæhle was completely lost on that Leckie goal, buddy forgot how defending works, lol. Sad I couldn't watch the game, but I'm happy that Arnie got the team past the group stage. Johnny Warren would be proud.

I don't think they can go much further, but they seem to have some good players. Goodwin has probably been one of the top aussie players since 2019. Souttar strikes me as a solid CB. Mooy may be past his prime, but he is a key member of the squad, alongside Duke, Leckie, Irvine and Ryan.


Btw, I have been taking some notes on Brazil and Uruguay matches, but I forgot my notepad at my brother's after we watched PT x URU. I'll be sure to post them in the future.

Imagine Poland and Argentina drawing and Saudia Arabia defeating Mexico. That would lead to a Saudi Arabia vs Australia match.

Wasn't counting on that

Szczsny Golden Glove so far.

Well, that's not gonna happen.

A chingar a su madre, Mexicanos.

When you think that Ronaldo's penalty was the most laughable one yet - refs really proved it can be worse
If this had happened against Lewy or any other Argentine/Polish player=> no penalty, that's for sure. But as you would say in basketball: Ball don't lie!
Apart from that it was pretty one-sided match of course, tbh Poland would have deserved to go out for it. It wasn't just parking the bus, it looked like Poland celebrated the 10th anniversary of Roberto di Matteo's 9-0-1 formation..

Golden Ball so far, to be honest. Poland probably played the worst football over the three games and they're through, only because of him. I feel sad for Saudi Arabia to be going home after showing so much passion, but they had many chances to kill Poland which they didn't take. And Mexico had two embarrassing performances in their first two games, they were good tonight but again, should have had a much more commanding win than just 2-1. Poland are going to get massacred by France, they must be the worst team to reach the knockout stages in years, maybe even worse than Nigeria in 2014.

I'm very disappointed with Denmark, based on their performances in the last few years they should have even been challenging France for top spot in the group, not coming home with 1 point. Credit to Australia of course for their fighting spirit, hopefully they can cause an upset against this miserable Argentina team. Now that we know 2 of the potential semi finalists, I think logically, I'd have to go with Argentina and France to reach that stage, although I'd prefer to see England, Senegal or Australia, of course the last two are almost impossible though.

BTW, I'm working during almost every game from now on The only ones I know I can watch live are the third round of 16 games and the 3rd place playoff. I'm watching the games when I get home from work, while trying to avoid seeing the result until then

Denmark and Poland disappointed in terms of performance. Looks like Belgium is going to the same way. Maybe Serbia too. Netherlands got the results though.

I believe we can partially blame Nations League for that.