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World Cup Draw


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29 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

I've long thought that St Kilda could be redeveloped as a prison island (with mined seas, patrol boats, submarines, guard towers etc) where football's worst could serve out exile sentences.

Barton would've made his way there never to return, along with wee Billy, Celtic, Rangers, Celtic fans, rangers fans, robbie savage, most of the Tony Pulis hat thread, all sky pundits, most bbc pundits...where amongst the seaguls they can live out their meagre existence playing celtic v rangers until they all eventually wither and turn to bird food.

7

You seem to be ready and charged for today's game.

I strongly recommend that you skip B4's pep talk! Could be too much... :)

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In fairness Argentina should be picking up nine points from their group quite easily.

Nigeria are no great shakes, Iceland are spirited but any decent team (such as France) would dispose of them comfortably while Croatia have notoriously struggled against latin sides (Mexico and Brazil beat them easily enough in 2014).

I think it looks hard on paper because they are teams you'd expect England to struggle against. But Argentina are a lot better than England, and they have the best player to have ever played the game in their ranks.

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6 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

In fairness Argentina should be picking up nine points from their group quite easily.

Nigeria are no great shakes, Iceland are spirited but any decent team (such as France) would dispose of them comfortably while Croatia have notoriously struggled against latin sides (Mexico and Brazil beat them easily enough in 2014).

I think it looks hard on paper because they are teams you'd expect England to struggle against. But Argentina are a lot better than England, and they have the best player to have ever played the game in their ranks.

Yes yes, more like this

It's a foregone conclusion that Argentina will roll over all opposition in their group, starting with trouncing Iceland

There is no way that they could fall into the trap of overestimating themselves and underestimating their opposition 

Might as well announce them group winners here and now, but hold on, i see you have already done that

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3 hours ago, ramit said:

Yes yes, more like this

It's a foregone conclusion that Argentina will roll over all opposition in their group, starting with trouncing Iceland

There is no way that they could fall into the trap of overestimating themselves and underestimating their opposition 

Might as well announce them group winners here and now, but hold on, i see you have already done that

It’s not a foregone conclusion. They could lose all three games. But they should top the group with relative ease.

Argentina are much better than their opponents. They are potential champions, whereas if any of the other three make the quarter-finals then it would be a big success story for them.

Argentina are one of the best teams in the world. Expectations are high. A semi-final exit or worse would be seen as a failure for them.

England, on the other hand, would see that as a challenging group. It’s already been talked about how a quarter-final place would represent progress.

There arw clear levels.

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7 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

It’s not a foregone conclusion. They could lose all three games. But they should top the group with relative ease.

Argentina are much better than their opponents. They are potential champions, whereas if any of the other three make the quarter-finals then it would be a big success story for them.

Argentina are one of the best teams in the world. Expectations are high. A semi-final exit or worse would be seen as a failure for them.

England, on the other hand, would see that as a challenging group. It’s already been talked about how a quarter-final place would represent progress.

There arw clear levels.

In every major tournament there big teams that struggle in the group stage.  Argentina has been in decline as a team and football is a team sport.  They cannot count on Messi alone to carry them far in the competition.  Yes, there are clear levels.  The best and most united teams using the most effective tactics will very likely do best in the group stages and beyond.  Those are the only levels that count.

 

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1 hour ago, ramit said:

In every major tournament there big teams that struggle in the group stage.  Argentina has been in decline as a team and football is a team sport.  They cannot count on Messi alone to carry them far in the competition.  Yes, there are clear levels.  The best and most united teams using the most effective tactics will very likely do best in the group stages and beyond.  Those are the only levels that count.

 

I wouldn’t say Argentina are in decline. They had a poor qualifying campaign bu their standards, but that was largely due to having a poor manager in charge at first while Messi’s absence didn’t help.

Sampaoli has them playing better, and they will only gel more with time.

We will see how they get on

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10 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

I wouldn’t say Argentina are in decline. They had a poor qualifying campaign bu their standards, but that was largely due to having a poor manager in charge at first while Messi’s absence didn’t help.

Sampaoli has them playing better, and they will only gel more with time.

We will see how they get on

A poor qualifying campaign by any contender's standards, they barely scraped through.  Of course they are a very formidable unit when they play as such and we in Iceland are glad that we will meet them in their first game, as they will likely improve as the group stage continues.  We are under no illusions, this is a mighty task we face but we are very much looking forward to it.

Yes we shall see and that's the beauty of the tournament, most anything can happen in the group stages

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3 hours ago, ramit said:

A poor qualifying campaign by any contender's standards, they barely scraped through.  Of course they are a very formidable unit when they play as such and we in Iceland are glad that we will meet them in their first game, as they will likely improve as the group stage continues.  We are under no illusions, this is a mighty task we face but we are very much looking forward to it.

Yes we shall see and that's the beauty of the tournament, most anything can happen in the group stages

They had a poor qualifying campaign, but let’s not forget they’re in the most difficult group with some top quality sides.

Chile are one of the best teams in the world and they failed to make it.

It’s a great game for Iceland, and interesting too as they have evidently never faced a South American side in a competitive game before.

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1 hour ago, Bris Vegas said:

They had a poor qualifying campaign, but let’s not forget they’re in the most difficult group with some top quality sides.

Chile are one of the best teams in the world and they failed to make it.

It’s a great game for Iceland, and interesting too as they have evidently never faced a South American side in a competitive game before.

Valid points there

It's true, aside from a friendly with Brazil a few years ago we have not met a single South American side.  It's one thing that can work in our favor, we know much more about them than they do us. 

i just can't wait for June to arrive :)

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14 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

Chile are one of the best teams in the world and they failed to make it.

Wouldn’t that suggest they are not one of the best teams in the world if they failed to qualify?

Whilst I don’t have much faith myself in England, you earlier wrote us off and used results in major tournaments where Deli Alli was 14, Harry Kane 17 and Southgate was just a poor TV pundit as a reason why, but praise Chile as one of the best who couldn’t qualify now, what’s the based on?

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5 hours ago, David said:

Wouldn’t that suggest they are not one of the best teams in the world if they failed to qualify?

Whilst I don’t have much faith myself in England, you earlier wrote us off and used results in major tournaments where Deli Alli was 14, Harry Kane 17 and Southgate was just a poor TV pundit as a reason why, but praise Chile as one of the best who couldn’t qualify now, what’s the based on?

Chile are in the top ten for sure. The difference is their qualifying section is much more difficult than Europe’s equivalent.

I didn’t realise Dele Alli was only 14 at Euro 2016.... The same year Chile won their second successive Copa America.

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10 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Chile are in the top ten for sure. The difference is their qualifying section is much more difficult than Europe’s equivalent.

I didn’t realise Dele Alli was only 14 at Euro 2016.... The same year Chile won their second successive Copa America.

they finished 6th so that makes the other 5 part of the top 9 in world football, is that what you're saying?

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20 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Chile are in the top ten for sure. The difference is their qualifying section is much more difficult than Europe’s equivalent.

I didn’t realise Dele Alli was only 14 at Euro 2016.... The same year Chile won their second successive Copa America.

What is your top 10 out of interest?

Never mentioned Euro 2016, you listed games from previous World Cups where Alli was 14

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5 hours ago, David said:

What is your top 10 out of interest?

Never mentioned Euro 2016, you listed games from previous World Cups where Alli was 14

My top ten in no particular order.

France, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Portugal.

 

 

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