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The categories are just suggestions, feel free to make your own or go free form.
Your team
Best team performance:
Best player:
Favourite goal or moment:
Pleasant surprise:
How would you rate the overall performance?:
How would you rate the manager's performance?:
Overall thoughts:
The tournament
Favourite game:
Favourite goal or moment:
Best player:
Pleasant surprise:
How would you rate the tournament?:
Overall thoughts:
Your team
Best team performance: 3-0 vs Mexico
Best player: Victor Nilsson-Lindelöf
Favourite goal or moment: Augustinsson vs Mexico
Pleasant surprise: Victor Claesson
How would you rate the overall performance?: Amazing. Was afraid we were gonna finish last in the group not scoring any goals before the tournament so a quarter final is absolutely amazing.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: Took a bunch of mediocre players to a quarter final. Should be fucking knighted.
Overall thoughts:
The tournament
Favourite game: Belgium vs Brazil
Favourite goal or moment: Pavard vs Argentina
Best player: Luka Modric
Pleasant surprise: Sweden
How would you rate the tournament?: Very good. Up there with 94 & 98.
Overall thoughts:
Your team
Best team performance: England 2-0 Sweden I suppose. They were excellent in the first half against Croatia as well.
Best player: Maguire
Favourite goal or moment: Last minute winner against Tunisia was pretty great.
Pleasant surprise: Everyone
How would you rate the overall performance?: Very good. I don't think much more could have been extracted from that set of players.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: His in-play decisions weren't up to much, but I thought the "system" was good. Obviously a hero for getting to within twenty five minutes of the final.
Overall thoughts: The best tournament from an England side since I started watching them.
The tournament
Favourite game: Belgium 3 - 2 Japan. Honorable mentions to Croatia 3 - 0 Argentina and South Korea 2 - 0 Germany for epic lol factors.
Favourite goal or moment: Toni Kroos' winner against Sweden by a bit.
Best player: Modric
Pleasant surprise: I was really impressed by Belgium. I had them down as flops but were one of the best sides in it.
How would you rate the tournament?: Superb, but I was a bit bored of it towards the end. I think a world cup is always going to be entertaining despite the lack of quality.
Best team performance: First 20 minutes of most games, but Sweden was the first time I remember feeling so comfortable watching England in a game with something at stake
Best player: Trippier
Favourite goal or moment: Not just avoiding complete collapse after the Colombia equaliser, but winning on penalties too
Pleasant surprise: Being ok with exiting a tournament with no sense of injustice or anger at how shit we are
How would you rate the overall performance?: Good. From whatever Euro 2016 was to the semi-final of a World Cup is some going, there was good fortune with the fixtures but then they're games previous England teams would have fucked up massively
How would you rate the manager's performance?: Great. Not necessarily the football itself, but he's cultivated an England setup that people seem to actually like again
Overall thoughts: I can't remember the last time I felt as optimistic for the future as I do, so we'll probably not qualify for 2020 now
The tournament
Favourite game: Portugal 3-3 Spain
Favourite goal or moment: Messi's goal vs Nigeria, Roy Keane's air of menace
Best player:
Pleasant surprise: Russia doing well with a big man up top
How would you rate the tournament?: Football wasn't amazing and it seemed a strikers' wasteland but really enjoyed it overall. Felt a more open tournament than usual
Your team
Best team performance: 2-0 vs Sweden
Best player: Trippier
Favourite goal or moment: Trippier's freekick v Croatia
Pleasant surprise: Winning a penalty shootout
How would you rate the overall performance?:Pretty damn highly. Winning a penalty shootout is a massive deal for us. Overall we were professional and unspectacular, and to look steady as an England team is an impressive feat. I thought we sat far too deep for much of the Croatia game, and once we stopped breaking through Sterling we were just trapped. It did feel like a missed opportunity, because I don't know if I'll see us in a semi-final again. But it also felt like Croatia were the better team. I'm more on the side of the people who ask how many teams in the tournament played amazingly, than those who question who we beat to get to the semis. International performances should be judged more kindly than club performances.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: He didn't manage to change the momentum against Croatia, and almost let the Colombia game slide. But he's done fantastically well overall, managing and setting up the team, leading them to a shootout victory, and surely being the smoothest press operator of England managers in my lifetime.
The tournament
Favourite game: Belgium v Brazil
Favourite goal or moment: Ronaldo's freekick v Spain. Messi v Nigeria for best goal.
Best player: Just me or was it a relatively quiet tournament in terms of individuals? Seeing Mbappe announce himself as a world class player (or a 'toptoptop' player if you'd rather wait on the world class tag) was good fun.
Pleasant surprise: So many big teams falling early. For the drama.
How would you rate the tournament?: Very good. I thought the last World Cup had more of a fun group stage, but then the knockouts weren't so good. Given the excitement over England, this has to be one of the most fun for me.
Your team
Best team performance: Sweden. On a cross section of most important games vs most comfortable performance for England this is the best I personally have seen.
Best player: Trippier or Maguire, I'd be hard pushed to decide between. I might edge Trippier if forced.
Favourite goal or moment: Winning the shootout. I just slumped. Didn't properly sink in for about an hour.
Pleasant surprise: The overall thing. We weren't amazing by any means but we weren't far from reaching a World Cup final, the team weren't horrible dickheads and even if we were pretty stodgy for long periods we had an actual plan that wasn't "pick the most famous eleven players and hope for the best."
How would you rate the overall performance?:4/5. The results speak for themselves regardless of how much luck played into it.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: 3.5. In spite of the above there were things he could have done. Namely making changes to the team a bit earlier or between games, knowing when to push and when to try and slow the game down and telling Raheem Sterling to actually kick the fucking ball every so often when presented with an opportunity.
Overall thoughts: As we get further away from it I get more critical and I really don't want to. It was our best performance at a tournament I've watched by a mile, we've finally won a penalty shootout (though we sorta need to win the next one for this to just not get written off, I reckon) and we went out of a tournament in a way that didn't leave me disgusted.
The tournament
Favourite game: The Spain/Portugal one.
Favourite goal or moment: Pavard's goal. Any time Messi looked a bit glum.
Best player: He looked a bit knacked today but I'm happy to go for Modric.
Pleasant surprise: Some unlikeable big teams getting booted out early doors.
How would you rate the tournament?: I'm not giving it a number but it's been one of my favourite major tournaments. I'd been enjoying it even at the point when I hadn't yet enjoyed an England game I was liking the tournament a lot as I love an upset and there were lots of fun games even if the quality wasn't great at times.
Overall thoughts: A really fun World Cup and that's all that really matters.
Your team
Best team performance: England v Sweden
Best player: Trippier
Favourite goal or moment: Leaving work at half-time of the Croatia game and hearing the pubs in full voice.
Pleasant surprise: Not losing a match we absolutely should've won.
How would you rate the overall performance?: 8/10
How would you rate the manager's performance?: 8/10 but he really didn't do much with his subs.
Overall thoughts: Decent tournament. First time I've felt positive since the Golden Generation.
The tournament
Favourite game: France v Argentina
Favourite goal or moment: Pavard against Argentina.
Best player: Tough to call. I think De Bruyne showed his importance more when the Japanese kept him quiet and then decided to let him roam free towards the end of their match.
Pleasant surprise: No publicised crowd violence.
How would you rate the tournament?: As good as 98 but maybe had more of a novelty due to the big nations shitting themselves.
Overall thoughts: Plenty to enjoy, even if I did miss most of it at work.
Your team
Best team performance: England 1 Colombia 1. This wasn't necessarily our best performance in terms of football, but in terms of character we actually stood up to be counted in the face of the worst sort of victim-led chicanery. People forget that for 93 minutes we actually managed the game brilliantly, seeing off the challenge of the vile Falcao and his band of shysters without any scares, until we switched off and then got fucked for 15 minutes in shock (this trope would return, to our cost, in the semi-final). But the fact that we then recovered in the second half of extra time (MASSIVE credit to Southgate for this) and then won the penalties after going behind in them makes it the best England knockout performance/result combo of my lifetime.
Best player: Kieran Trippier and Jordan Pickford, which really does tell you that English football's strength is in its ubiquity and its geographical depth. We must NEVER become a nation of big city clubs, or we will be finished.
Favourite goal or moment: Maguire's header against Sweden was probably our Pickett's Charge.
Pleasant surprise: Pickford is a great goalkeeper who has character as well as ability. He is what Joe Hart wishes he was.
How would you rate the overall performance?: I thought we were excellent. Semi-final was fortunate due to the draw, but you can only beat what's put in front of you.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: He is tactically still fairly weak and takes too long to change things, but those players clearly play for him so he is a champion in that regard. We should stick with him for a long time and let him learn the rest on the job. And I'll happily admit to being wrong because in the qualifiers I thought he looked clueless and I wanted him gone.
Overall thoughts: Most enjoyable tournament to be an England fan since AT LEAST 2004, maybe 2002, maybe even 1998.
The tournament
Favourite game: Spain 3-3 Portugal and Belgium 1-2 Brazil the standouts.
Favourite goal or moment: Ahmed Musa's goal against Iceland was a beauty, horrendously overlooked in the various Goal of the Tournament wrap-ups.
Best player: I said Varane of France for the Golden Ball, but Eden Hazard was brilliant and I will miss him very much.
Pleasant surprise: That all the ego cunts got knocked out well before the final (Pogba aside, I guess).
How would you rate the tournament?: 8/10. The group stage had dips because too many Arab sides qualified, but that aside it was a strong tournament with some good, punchy teams.
Overall thoughts:[/QUOTE] Most European sides were great, let down by Poland and one or two others. South American sides were disappointing, except for Uruguay. African sides got loads of bad press (I'm not sure why they are despised by Football Twitter, but they are - this was new to me during the tournament) but for me, Nigeria and Senegal gave as good as they got and both were unlucky not to qualify. The weakness Africa have is that qualifying is an absolutely horrendous slog where you have to go and play on dirt bogs in Malawi etc after ten hour journeys by commu-copter, and that favours the North African teams who play bad football but can grind out 1-0s and are better at set pieces. Africa (and probably Asia) will come on strong again.
Iran and Uruguay were two of the teams I enjoyed watching the most. Morocco as well. There weren't many teams other than those that went out with a plan and worked together to try and get a result from their football matches.
This is a fair point, and some of that possibly helped us on towards the Sweden performance. The "Oh shit, maybe we're not doomed after all?"-factor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Your team: Australia
Best team performance: Many would say the France game, but I say Denmark. We were a little lucky with the VAR, but we were the better side in that game, and we kept Eriksen quiet after the first ten minutes.
Best player: Sainsbury. It was a star-making performance that should get him a good move.
Favourite goal or moment: The equaliser against Denmark.
Pleasant surprise: Arzani looking every bit the potential superstar he could be.
How would you rate the overall performance?: 7/10 - I didn't think coming in that we could do much, but we looked good enough for the first few games that being outplayed in the loss to Peru was a huge disappointment.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: He suits our team, and I wish he was staying. Graham Arnold might be two steps back.
Overall thoughts: Going forwards, we have to set the bar as getting out of the group stage. We've got a good young core that we can build around, and the home pipeline seems to be producing talent again at last. Mooy, Rogic, Arzani, Ryan, and Sainsbury are a spine we can build around. Leckie was decent, and would have been in that list if he hadn't wasted every good chance he created.
Favourite game: Argentina-France, just edging out Spain-Portugal. Really pushing the boat out there. Disappointed to have slept through Belgium-Japan and Croatia-Russia though.
Favourite goal or moment: Nacho's goal against Portugal.
Best player: Modric, beating out Varane and Hazard.
Pleasant surprise: Getting a final that wasn't a cagey 1-0 extra-time affair.
How would you rate the tournament?: 8/10. One mark down for some disappointing early 1-0 matches (and Morocco going home pointless), and one mark down for not having Italy in it.
Overall thoughts: Was it the best tournament of my lifetime? I'll still take 2006, for obvious reasons, and 1998, because I was the right age to appreciate it as a kid with a total lack of preconceptions and cynicism. But it was easily the best outside of those two.
The categories are just suggestions, feel free to make your own or go free form.
Your team
Best team performance: The Sweden game. It was a thoroughly professional performance against a half decent side and not once did we look uncomfortable despite the knowledge that we were playing for a Semi-Final. Considering Sweden are exactly that kind of team that would have tripped up 'The Golden Generation' that just makes it even better.
Best player: Jordan Pickford. It's not exaggeration to say that he kept us in the tournament on a few occasions.
Favourite goal or moment: Winning the Penalty Shooutout. I remember staying round my parents that night, they had gone to bed so I was sitting in the living room with the TV turned down and the shooutout was absolutely shredding what few nerves I had left. I had never seen us win a Penalty Shooutout and went properly nuts when we won, not to mention the amount of card racing past tooting their horns, it was like the whole country breathed a sigh of relief.
Pleasant surprise: The fact that we even got to the Semi-Final.
How would you rate the overall performance?: 8/10. Yes, we have a reliance on set-pieces, yes we had a soft run to the Semis, but you can only beat what is in front of you and we exorcised the Penalty Shoout demon.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: 8/10. Subs aside, he's the first England manager who you can tell genuinely had everyone behind him. The players looked like they would march through Hell for him and you can't underestimate that in international football.
Overall thoughts: Probably the most positive I've felt about England in my football watching life.
The tournament
Favourite game: Belgium 3 - 2 Japan. Wrong result but a brilliant game.
Favourite goal or moment: Neuer being caught in possession and condeming Germany to a Group Stage exit.
Best player: Hard to look past Modric.
Pleasant surprise: Takashi Inui for how much of a threat he was but you could say the whole Japan team to be fair.
How would you rate the tournament?: 9/10
Overall thoughts: As I've said to a few people I wasn't old enough to remember '90 or '96. I barely remember anything of '98 or '02 and '06 might as well not exist. Compared to '10 and '14 this was the tournament that really grabbed me. I only recall fully missing 2 or 3 games and I'll end up remembering even smaller moments from 2018. He's a brutal dictator who crushes all dissent and rules with an iron fist but Infantino knows how to run a tournament.
Favourite game: Portugal vs Uruguay
Favourite goal or moment: Mina vs England
Best player: Matuidi, considering he was played out of position and still ended up bossing it.
Pleasant surprise: Germany going out in the groups.
How would you rate the tournament?: 8.5 out of 10. It’s been pretty great and VAR won me over, but I’d have liked to have seen some of the “better” teams get further. Plus I don’t think I won a single bet, so that put a mild downer on proceedings.
Overall thoughts: I’ve enjoyed it. Russia turned out to be excellent hosts and the coverage has been outstanding, especially on talkSport who had live commentary for every single game. England were fairly turd and only got so far cos James Rodriguez was injured and they didn’t play anyone else good, but that wasn’t gonna stop England Fans™️ getting carried away, was it.
It's hard to know where you'd start on that post so I think I'll just not bother.
Only wrong thing is Mina’s goal, which you could see making sense if you had a vitriolic hatred for England
It was just funny, plus it meant we got to see England win a World Cup shootout. :drool:
Unless it’s me not reviewing “my team” but Liverpool weren’t in it.
Your team
Best team performance: The opening victory against Germany. The fact that Germany turned out to be shit takes some of the luster from it, but still, that might very well be our biggest victory ever.
Best player: Ochoa. He had a lot of work and he was flawless.
Favourite goal or moment: The goal against Germany. It all went downhill from there.
Pleasant surprise: Lozano I guess. He looks tidy. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a move to a big league on the back of this tournament. He'll almost certainly be a disappointment.
How would you rate the overall performance?: We ended up exactly where we always do, so 5/10.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: Same as above, 5/10. Still not sure wtf Marquez was doing there.
Overall thoughts: Can't complain I guess, but I do feel a bit disappointed. Unlike most times, when we start poorly and then some heroics follow, ending in a close elimination, this time we had a great start but then we turned out to be complete crap. Losing to Brazil is expected, but usually we would put a far bigger fight. Still, it was a poor squad and they didn't do worse than all of the previous ones.
The tournament
Favourite game: Spain - Portugal and Mexico - Germany, but I am biased on that one.
Favourite goal or moment: Goal would be Costa's against Portugal. Moment would be the last minutes of the S. Korea - Germany match.
Best player: Modric I guess. No one truly stood out for me.
Pleasant surprise: That the tournament was overall quite enjoyable. Argentina being complete shit wasn't surprising, but it was still pleasant.
How would you rate the tournament?: Very good.
Overall thoughts: The first time in forever that I got to watch most of the tournament and it didn't disappoint. I had a great time. Unfortunately, it might be the last enjoyable one thanks to the moar teams format.
They were ON THE ROPES after the Mexico thrashing, that's all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Yeah, the Mexicans stuffing it up the Bosch and screwing their tournament up was particularly pleasing. As was Neymar going home early.
It still astounds me that a team can leave Reus as home and then go on to be that shit. How fucking dare they?
He played bro
Sane. Derp.
Your team
Best team performance: N/A - Did Not Qualify
Best player: N/A - Did Not Qualify
Favourite goal or moment: N/A - Did Not Qualify
Pleasant surprise: N/A - Did Not Qualify
How would you rate the overall performance?: N/A - Did Not Qualify
How would you rate the manager's performance?: N/A - Did Not Qualify
Overall thoughts: (big ol' fuckin sad face emoji)
The tournament
Favourite game: Argentina 3:4 France, followed by Spain 3:3 Portugal and Japan 2:3 Belgium
Favourite goal or moment: Pavard v Argentina
Best player: Luka Modric
Pleasant surprise: Probably that the Final wasn't completely boring, I was ready for a cagey affair and ended up really enjoying the day.
How would you rate the tournament?: I really really enjoyed it. Best one I've seen in my short life.
Overall thoughts: I feel so sad that this shit is over now. I really enjoyed it. Might have had something to do with having a group of friends that are also really into football and us keeping up a little betting league going throughout the tournament (that I was supreme winner of :drool:), but I don't know man I had a lot of fun this go 'round even though USA wasn't there to disappoint me. Maybe that's why.
We all spoke about Euro 2008 in a similar way. No stressing about England, just enjoy the football.
Your team
O'Neill out.
The tournament
Favourite game: Spain Portugal
Favourite goal or moment: Nacho
Best player: No idea
Pleasant surprise: Croatia
How would you rate the tournament?: Good because quality was average which meant more teams were closer.
Overall thoughts: Just really really glad it didn't actually come home.
I really struggle to choose between the Pavard and Nacho goals. There’s something about a shot hitting both posts that makes it better somehow, but Pavards was just perfect.
Like a shot too good to miss twice? I just can't look past Pavard's technique. The fact that he meant to strike something in the way he did, rather than fluke one in on the way to falling over.
Pavard's almost brought a tear to my eye no way his wasn't better!
Nachos goal wasn't even top 10 :cab:
https://www.balls.ie/football/fifa-t...rld-cup-393568
SWEDEN
Best team performance: 3-0 Mexico
Best player: I'm a bit torn. Hard to not go with Granqvist for keeping his cool on both penalties and leading the team.
Favourite goal or moment: Granqvists penalty against Mexico I think
Pleasant surprise: Ekdal played very well in midfield I think. He does have some skill but doesn't always show up. Lindelöf continues to play much better for Sweden than United.
How would you rate the overall performance?: Way beyond expectation. Like Trance said - I thought we'd struggle to even get any points in the group.
How would you rate the manager's performance?: Amazing, of course. He's really turned Sweden back into what it should be post the Zlatan-era - a good collective where everyone fights for each other.
Overall thoughts: I'm a bit miffed we didn't go through to the Semis in the end, since England botched it against Croatia. We would have too, but as much as I love England, a semi final would have been even bigger for us than for England I reckon. Still, I can't complain.
The tournament
Apart from Sweden..:
Favourite game: Maybe the final actually, which was a really good game.
Favourite goal or moment: Croatia donning Argies was pretty good, Modrics goal in that the highlight. Not sure what the best goal was.
Best player: Modric
Pleasant surprise: Belgium, they played some really nice stuff at times, and Hazard really stepped up as a player. I really like him, he always tries to stand on his feet, plays fearless for someone small and technical that is unique.
How would you rate the tournament?: Very good in the end. The main concern was Russias mysteriously easy group, facing Saudi Arabia on the day Ramadan ended, the political show they made out of it and the suspiciously old-but-rejuvenated team efforts they displayed. The second concern was that some teams who made it there just shouldn't have been there. Mainly Panama, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia maybe. I was missing teams like Ivory Coast and Italy (hehe) in the end, as I think it would have increased the quality of the tournament a bit.
Overall thoughts: Some things are worrying for the future of the World Cup - the blatant political agendas coupled with corruption that's always been there. I don't think "western" countries really are that keen on hosting world cups anymore so I guess we need to get used to these power-displays from Dictators and Sheiks.
Another thing was the absolute dominance of European football. It's not good for the long term entertainment value of the WC if the rest of the world just comes there to get beat, and it'll make the draw more and more "important".
I like absolute balls teams like Panama and Saudi Arabia making it.
End of the day you've got to qualify. African format is a bit random for my liking, but in all the other continents the most deserving teams always make it.
Africa is cut-throat qualification. They probably deserves an extra team even under the current format, with the randomness ironed out to avoid Tunisia getting in over one of the decent teams that didn't qualify because they got drawn against another decent team in a one-off better-get-lucky winner-takes-all group stage.