FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 - Knockout Phase

[Sedale Threatt]

To be fair, FIFA never gave a sht about that to begin with. Witness how they're trying to drum up support for a biennial World Cup. Between them, the domestic leagues and the continental organizations, players are nothing more than very, very lucrative stakehorses to be squeezed for every last penny.

[Mamba81p]

stop with the injuries crap, it's just flat out untrue. already linked you to the data.

again, it sounds like you wanted this WC to fail, and now you must think it's failed to validate your preconceived idea.

It's fact, not crap. You seem to ignore the obvious: Mane, Benzema, Pogba and (I think) Varane would play in this world cup with a 3 week preseason.

and, even with those guys missing, it's still not an outlier in terms of injuries for a WC. that's the fact.

The fact is that the 2 best players in the world this year do not play just because of the calendar made for qatar.

the data you provided is very weak. You can't compare world cup years with non-world cup years. wtf is that. players have season ending injuries/surgeries in non-world cup years while in world cup years they do everything they can to make it. We don't have details on the type of injuries.

What I know and you keep denying the most obvious thing: a 3-4 week injury which is VERY common in soccer does not prevent a player from playing in a normal world cup.

[Mamba81p]

you haven't given a single valid reason why it hasn't been a great tournament.

injuries? The Athletic already dispelled that BS claim.




https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/3774705/2022/11/09/world-cup-injuries-crisis-fact-fiction/%3famp=1

other than the obvious xenophobia as to why it's been a 'disaster', still waiting for a valid reason.

Mane and Benzema would be playing in this tournament if the tournament had a 3 week break as a pre-season. that is a fact.

Oh and the quality on the pitch is pretty bad, because of the lack of pre-season.

i think the quality of the product has been great and we just witnessed one of the best group stages ever.

sounds like you were just looking for reasons to dub this tournament a disaster. sorry that didn't turn into reality for you my guy.

You didn't watch too many world cups didn't you? Or soccer/football games in general.

[clyde21]

It's fact, not crap. You seem to ignore the obvious: Mane, Benzema, Pogba and (I think) Varane would play in this world cup with a 3 week preseason.

and, even with those guys missing, it's still not an outlier in terms of injuries for a WC. that's the fact.

The fact is that the 2 best players in the world this year do not play just because of the calendar made for qatar.

happens every tournament, Aguero and Dani Alves among others missed 2018. it happens and it's not exclusive to this WC in Qatar as much as you want to pretend that's the case.

[Mamba81p]

and, even with those guys missing, it's still not an outlier in terms of injuries for a WC. that's the fact.

The fact is that the 2 best players in the world this year do not play just because of the calendar made for qatar.

happens every tournament, Aguero and Dani Alves among others missed 2018. it happens and it's not exclusive to this WC in Qatar as much as you want to pretend that's the case.

Aguero and Dani Alves were the 2 best players?
Injuries longer than 3-4 weeks are accepted, and players have to live with it. In this case the players are missing BECAUSE of qatar. that's the only reason. Qatar is the reason why we don't see the 2 best players this year.

[clyde21]

Mane and Benzema would be playing in this tournament if the tournament had a 3 week break as a pre-season. that is a fact.

Oh and the quality on the pitch is pretty bad, because of the lack of pre-season.

i think the quality of the product has been great and we just witnessed one of the best group stages ever.

sounds like you were just looking for reasons to dub this tournament a disaster. sorry that didn't turn into reality for you my guy.

You didn't watch too many world cups didn't you? Or soccer/football games in general.

you're more than welcome to boycott the tournament if you think the product sucks and its been a disaster my friend.

Sounds like the WC is breaking TV records for soccer in the states tho, that must be painful for you.

[clyde21]

The fact is that the 2 best players in the world this year do not play just because of the calendar made for qatar.

happens every tournament, Aguero and Dani Alves among others missed 2018. it happens and it's not exclusive to this WC in Qatar as much as you want to pretend that's the case.

Aguero and Dani Alves were the 2 best players?
Injuries longer than 3-4 weeks are accepted, and players have to live with it. In this case the players are missing BECAUSE of qatar. that's the only reason. Qatar is the reason why we don't see the 2 best players this year.

Benzema tore a muscle, he's gonna out way longer than 3 weeks

and, again, this WC is not an anomaly in terms of injuries. the fact they it's specifically Mane and Benzema is completely irrelevant to it being in Qatar.

[Mamba81p]

i think the quality of the product has been great and we just witnessed one of the best group stages ever.

sounds like you were just looking for reasons to dub this tournament a disaster. sorry that didn't turn into reality for you my guy.

You didn't watch too many world cups didn't you? Or soccer/football games in general.

you're more than welcome to boycott the tournament if you think the product sucks and its been a disaster my friend.

Sounds like the WC is breaking TV records for soccer in the states tho, that must be painful for you.

Thank you for answering my question. Study the game a little more before making such passionate opinions about quality of a football game.

[clyde21]

You didn't watch too many world cups didn't you? Or soccer/football games in general.

you're more than welcome to boycott the tournament if you think the product sucks and its been a disaster my friend.

Sounds like the WC is breaking TV records for soccer in the states tho, that must be painful for you.

Thank you for answering my question. Study the game a little more before making such passionate opinions about quality of a football game.

i think the product on the field has been great...if that makes me an "amateur" to you quite frankly idgaf

let more of that hate and xenophobia seep thru tho it's getting quite obvious at this point.

[Mamba81p]

One thing that is surprisingly good about this WC is that refereeing has been quite good. Maybe it's just the VAR, and it's not worth it for them to try another 2002. I feared we might have a similar situation to 2015 Handball World Championship. VAR had it's problems but I think/hope we are done with big conspiracies/controversies.

[Mamba81p]

you're more than welcome to boycott the tournament if you think the product sucks and its been a disaster my friend.

Sounds like the WC is breaking TV records for soccer in the states tho, that must be painful for you.

Thank you for answering my question. Study the game a little more before making such passionate opinions about quality of a football game.

i think the product on the field has been great...if that makes me an "amateur" to you quite frankly idgaf

let more of that hate and xenophobia seep thru tho it's getting quite obvious at this point.

You seem to be giving plenty of **** to tell us how great the product is, even though I am not sure if you even know what exactly is so great about the product.
I think it's pretty clear why do you think the product is great.

Me and others who are watching this game for decades hate the calendar changes around this WC for a ton of reasons. It's probably hard for you to accept and to understand that, but it's not about xenophobia. If the world cup was in June in Egypt/Turkey there would no complaints, at least from me. Then I would have agreed that the complainers are xenophobic/islamophobic. It would be really hard for me and other "complainers" to be xenophobic/islamophobic, but I guess it's hard for you to find other debate points.

And with that I am done. I can see you love to waste a lot of time around here(holy crap), but I have better things to do.

[HIF]

tbh for all the hype, the only surprise is that Belgium haven't made the quarters and that happened because they aged overnight.

Otherwise all the expected teams are on their way to the last 8

Holland
Argentina
Brazil
England
France
Spain
Portugal

And you've got to imagine that 4 of those 7 will be in the semis and 2 of them in the final.

The early rounds are simply money making machines and a target for the rest of the world. Like the Champion's league we could simply seed 6 teams for the last 8 and have everyone else play a competition to make the remaining 2 places.

Germany - am I a joke to you? I mean, yeah, Germans are a joke, but come on, you not surprised they didnt even make out of the group.

P.S. Lets go POLSKA.

Germany have a great history but they havn't been very good for many years now. They lack quality in midfield and attack especially. It wasn't such a great surprise that they didn't make it out of the group and certainly they are not a top 8 team. Portugal are wavering on the edge of playing too many oldies too.

[HIF]

you haven't given a single valid reason why it hasn't been a great tournament.

injuries? The Athletic already dispelled that BS claim.




https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/3774705/2022/11/09/world-cup-injuries-crisis-fact-fiction/%3famp=1

other than the obvious xenophobia as to why it's been a 'disaster', still waiting for a valid reason.

Mane and Benzema would be playing in this tournament if the tournament had a 3 week break as a pre-season. that is a fact.

Oh and the quality on the pitch is pretty bad, because of the lack of pre-season.

i think the quality of the product has been great and we just witnessed one of the best group stages ever.

sounds like you were just looking for reasons to dub this tournament a disaster. sorry that didn't turn into reality for you my guy.

I sympathise with some of your arguments but this World Cup has been no more of a success than any world cup. It's the world cup of the most popular sport in the world it's bound to be a success on the pitch. As for conditions, climate, lives it hasn't been a success but I don't blame Qatar I blame money greedy people in FIFA for that.

I think we'll find that Euorpean leagues are hurt badly in Marchand April as the international players try to compete for trophies but just haven't got the legs for it. We could see some very interesting situations then and a lot of injuries.

[HIF]

It's fact, not crap. You seem to ignore the obvious: Mane, Benzema, Pogba and (I think) Varane would play in this world cup with a 3 week preseason.

and, even with those guys missing, it's still not an outlier in terms of injuries for a WC. that's the fact.

The fact is that the 2 best players in the world this year do not play just because of the calendar made for qatar.

the data you provided is very weak. You can't compare world cup years with non-world cup years. wtf is that. players have season ending injuries/surgeries in non-world cup years while in world cup years they do everything they can to make it. We don't have details on the type of injuries.

What I know and you keep denying the most obvious thing: a 3-4 week injury which is VERY common in soccer does not prevent a player from playing in a normal world cup.

Why are you getting so personal with this guy? You sound racist. Are you American?

You can make decent points without the racist overtones and the work jibes - you have no idea about his personal life and it's none of your business.

Your argument about injuries is partly valid but it's more the injuries that will come later in the year than now. Every World cup has players out injured and the 3 week layoff is not an argument ( they've just finished 9 months of matches at that stage). Claiming that Mané , Benzema and Pogba are the best players in the world really hurts your credentials.

[Foye]

and, even with those guys missing, it's still not an outlier in terms of injuries for a WC. that's the fact.

The fact is that the 2 best players in the world this year do not play just because of the calendar made for qatar.

the data you provided is very weak. You can't compare world cup years with non-world cup years. wtf is that. players have season ending injuries/surgeries in non-world cup years while in world cup years they do everything they can to make it. We don't have details on the type of injuries.

What I know and you keep denying the most obvious thing: a 3-4 week injury which is VERY common in soccer does not prevent a player from playing in a normal world cup.

Why are you getting so personal with this guy? You sound racist. Are you American?

You can make decent points without the racist overtones and the work jibes - you have no idea about his personal life and it's none of your business.

Your argument about injuries is partly valid but it's more the injuries that will come later in the year than now. Every World cup has players out injured and the 3 week layoff is not an argument ( they've just finished 9 months of matches at that stage). Claiming that Mané , Benzema and Pogba are the best players in the world really hurts your credentials.

I don't see any change in injuries due to the timing of the world cup tbh.

As a reference I will point to the "Marco Reus index":
Marco Reus has missed 2014, 2016(EC) 2018, 2021(EC) and 2022 due to injuries.
In 2021 he was actually available to play but decided not to take part because he felt his body wasn't ready for the wear and tear.
Conclusion: Big tournaments should be played in odd-numbered years as Marco Reus will at least be theoretically available in those.

[Foye]

tbh for all the hype, the only surprise is that Belgium haven't made the quarters and that happened because they aged overnight.

Otherwise all the expected teams are on their way to the last 8

Holland
Argentina
Brazil
England
France
Spain
Portugal

And you've got to imagine that 4 of those 7 will be in the semis and 2 of them in the final.

The early rounds are simply money making machines and a target for the rest of the world. Like the Champion's league we could simply seed 6 teams for the last 8 and have everyone else play a competition to make the remaining 2 places.

Germany - am I a joke to you? I mean, yeah, Germans are a joke, but come on, you not surprised they didnt even make out of the group.

P.S. Lets go POLSKA.

Germany have a great history but they havn't been very good for many years now. They lack quality in midfield and attack especially. It wasn't such a great surprise that they didn't make it out of the group and certainly they are not a top 8 team. Portugal are wavering on the edge of playing too many oldies too.

I don't even think it is lack of quality to be honest.
It is more a lack of fit.
I guarantee you they would've done better had they selected players that are worse players individually but more focussed on their actual job.
In the defensive midfield for example Sebastian Rode (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Dominik Kohr (Mainz 05) are terribly limited players but either of them would've taken a lot of pressure of Kimmich because they are very defensive minded. Instead they played with Gündogan and/or Goretzka next to Kimmich. That means they had two players in the defensive/central midfield who are jumping around everywhere on the pitch but not actually defending...this issue has been going on for years now (given that Kroos also was known to not care about defending much).

[Fairview4Life]

The technical quality of the games has been pretty meh. This hasn’t been outstanding soccer or whatever. We’ve seen a whole lot more awful defending and goaltending and really poor finishing than we normally do. And tons of players have been running out of gas after around 60 mins. The group stage games were very entertaining though, because of all the wacky upsets and anything can happen results.

Think of it like March madness. The actual quality of basketball is nowhere near what you see in professional leagues, but it’s still very exciting.

[magik9113]

we are being blessed with a Argentina - France, Messi vs Mbappe final. These two teams are incredible. Shoutout to Brazil and even Portugal, but I can’t see any other possibility.

Maradona up in heaven is using God’s literal hand to ensure an Argentina victory. ( and Napoli as well but we’ll save that for when the wc is over )

Argentina struggled with Saudis and then Australia. I'm not that confident in them.

Netherlands won't be easy. Even if they get passed them, I can't say with confidence they beat any of Brazil, Croatia, Japan, best Korea.

When Spain last won the wc, they lost their opening match to Switzerland. When Italy last won, they squeaked by Australia with a stoppage time PK in their first knockout game…they also tied the US in group stage. End of the day, advancing is all that matters

My money is on Argentina…but not a lot of money because France—even without their injured superstars—look almost unbeatable.
Going through the Netherlands, then Brazil, then France (or Portugal?), is going to be one helluva task.

[El Turco]

looks like qatari investment fund found itself in realgm soccer board

[LordCovington33]

we are being blessed with a Argentina - France, Messi vs Mbappe final. These two teams are incredible. Shoutout to Brazil and even Portugal, but I can’t see any other possibility.

Maradona up in heaven is using God’s literal hand to ensure an Argentina victory. ( and Napoli as well but we’ll save that for when the wc is over )

Argentina struggled with Saudis and then Australia. I'm not that confident in them.

Netherlands won't be easy. Even if they get passed them, I can't say with confidence they beat any of Brazil, Croatia, Japan, best Korea.

When Spain last won the wc, they lost their opening match to Switzerland. When Italy last won, they squeaked by Australia with a stoppage time PK in their first knockout game…they also tied the US in group stage. End of the day, advancing is all that matters

My money is on Argentina…but not a lot of money because France—even without their injured superstars—look almost unbeatable.
Going through the Netherlands, then Brazil, then France (or Portugal?), is going to be one helluva task.

Except they didn’t win the World Cup. It was France. They beat Croatia in the final.

Misread. Thought you meant the last WC played. My bad.