Russia 2018 World Cup - Progressive Rock Music Forum

^^^^^

Of course, after sabotaging the european ship four 45 years (since 73) with only a slight cooperation (the Blair years), now the rats are leaving the ship. Ouch

Good riddance, really!! Approve

We'll keep the seat warm for the Scots, as soon as they decide to do away with perfidy, though. Tongue

ExittheLemming wrote:

Sean Trane wrote:

Brrrrrrreeeeexxxxxxxiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...............

Seriously?

Soldato of the Pan Head Mafia. We'll make you an offer you can't listen to.
Bandcamp Profile

Lewian wrote:

ExittheLemming wrote:

It's now (almost) official: the tallest dwarfs in the village are Belgium. Can a fan of either England or Belgium please post anything that might repudiate the idea that no-one gives a flying f.u.c.k about the outcome?

I'm not a fan of either but as usual for a 3rd place match I found it entertaining and there was some good football on display, not one of the, say, best 5 of the competition, but above average for sure.

You're right that many don't give a toss about it but then just ignore it rather than complain that a match is played you are not interested in but others are.

Look at how Croatia celebrated their 3rd place in 1998 or Turkey in 2002. Countries that don't have the sense of entitlement to finals as the English have (without much of a basis really) know what separated bronze from 4th. The Belgians certainly didn't celebrate it as if they just won the World Cup but you could see that Martinez was very happy to have won this and to have achieved the best of all positions for Belgium in WCs.

I waste too much time reading football comment on BBC but before the game there were quite a number of England fans writing that they really hope England secures 3rd now.

I know a few other people who regularly complain about the 3rd place playoff but I was never impressed with the "if I don't have fun with this, nobody else should" attitude behind this.

It might be illuminating to learn what nationality you actually think I am? (no-one is denying your right to enjoy the traditional WC 'dead rubber' but most of us are not naive enough to believe it's anything other than another grubby money raking scam by a disgraced world governing body)

Edited by ExittheLemming - July 15 2018 at 09:52

The VAR is over

Congratulations to France. The pivotal movement was probably the debatable penalty award just before half-time. I'm not even entirely convinced that the free kick which led to France's opening goal was legit either. Great game (despite the scoreline I thought Croatia were the better side.....)

Edited by ExittheLemming - July 15 2018 at 11:42

Icarium wrote:

The VAR is over

I doubt it.

None of the instant replay things have hurt the American games at all, and in at least one case, it made it even better.

The real issue with VAR is that FIFA may have committed to it, but most of the referees that were at the WC did not have experiences with any kind of a reply system, to know how to use it efficiently and properly.

Eventually the game has to come up to snuff and date, or it will just become like the BC cartoons ... kicking a stone around, and nothing else matters. The economical and importance of the games these days requires better appreciation for the television ... which is the all seeing EYE that the game is trying hard to ignore altogether. That eye makes the referees and the game look very bad, and FIFA needs to address it so they can improve the game. VAR is not the problem. The folks using it are, since half of them do not want to use it!

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

MMMhhh!!!... I see that Censored

censorship struck again Geek

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

VAR had a good tournament, it cut down grappling in the box, got decisions right on key goals. They need to tweak it for handball but otherwise it was a clear benefit.

Actually, there were only four red cards delivered throughout the whole WC ( a modern-day record) and I believe that the VAR is a direct consequence (and the other way around), because the sly-foulers knew they could be directly expelled Clap

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

Yup, two iffy calls changed the game, I can see the logic of both but they both could have gone the other way. Croatia were great but got stretched chasing the game, Lloris' horrible goalkeeping blunder nearly got them back in it.

The freekick leading to the first goal was a crystal clear dive and Perisic's movement of the hand seemed to be natural to me, so well done France, you won by two irregular goals.

Great performance by Croatia though who upped their game once more, and France has still a good enough team to be worthy champions except I'd have liked to see them achieving this without cheating.

Re VAR: Griezmann's dive wouldn't have been spotted without it either, and apparently the ref didn't even see Perisic handling the ball, so one may argue that even in that case VAR was an improvement despite the fact that I don't agree with the decision made based on VAR. But this is rather an issue of the (official or individual) interpretation of the rules regarding handball than of VAR as such.

Entertaining tournament, very entertaining final. The penalty was entirely justified, if you don't keep you hands right next to your body you will risk unjustly blocking the ball, and in that position it really wasn't fair that he could fend off a ball which was going to pass the rest of his body easily and which was gonna land right in front of the goal. I believe he didn't even get a card (?), which is reasonable, but it was definitely a penalty.

And while Croatia showed a lot of energy, they could have shown some better organization in the attacks on a lot of points, and that's where France really beat them.