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United States10566 Posts
On July 03 2026 06:07 Slydie wrote:
Spain looked great vs Austria! I think they are the favorites to win this, alongside France. Great players who play well together all over the field. Apparently Spain has amazing GKs as well, they just never get challenged. How do you even beat them?
Spain's defense is good and their attack still created very clear and strong chances. France's attack is an S but their defense can be shakey. No one's afraid of Upamecano or Saliba or Konate.
Spain definitely has the stronger overall team, really gonna come down to if they can hold off the French.
Portugal really does not look all that good. An old ass Croatia team dominated the midfield against the supposed best midfield in the tournament.
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I haven't seen Spain play this tournament, but my first plan to beat France would be to try to hold the ball and play through calm possession quite a bit. You don't really want to be absorbing 90 minutes of French attack, make them press at least a bit and see how it goes from there.
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On July 03 2026 15:25 Bacillus wrote:
I haven't seen Spain play this tournament, but my first plan to beat France would be to try to hold the ball and play through calm possession quite a bit. You don't really want to be absorbing 90 minutes of French attack, make them press at least a bit and see how it goes from there.
So your plan to beat France is to try to dominate possession. Which is Spain's standard MO. But why worry about the semifinals when Portugal, and then probably USA are not insignificant hurdles. And Morocco might pull an upset of their own on that side of the bracket.
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Uggh the Portugal vs Croatia game was awesome but i feel like minor technology reviews got the better of it taking a 4-1 to a 1-2.
It’s weird how specific it is!!
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On July 03 2026 16:36 kakaru42 wrote:
Uggh the Portugal vs Croatia game was awesome but i feel like minor technology reviews got the better of it taking a 4-1 to a 1-2.
It’s weird how specific it is!!
Well, the offsides were offside. I mean obviously one could mess with the system but that is just conspiracy theory.
The penalty for Portugal seems legit. The problem is this situation occured 100s of times already and was never a penalty. Taking back the 2:2 was absolute BS and if I were Croatian, I would be fuming.
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On July 03 2026 15:01 FlaShFTW wrote:
Portugal really does not look all that good. An old ass Croatia team dominated the midfield against the supposed best midfield in the tournament.
Don't think this is true at all. Portugal controlled the first half. Ball possession was 60-40 in favor of PT. xG 2.2-1.34. Final third entries 89-24. There was a moment in the game where Martinez played a 4-2-4 and we were getting eaten on midfield, but it was all part of a genius move to justify taking off Cristiano Ronaldo.
As for the Croatians upset with the offside goal... it was scored at 12:30 overtime.
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On July 03 2026 19:26 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2026 15:01 FlaShFTW wrote:
Portugal really does not look all that good. An old ass Croatia team dominated the midfield against the supposed best midfield in the tournament. Don't think this is true at all. Portugal controlled the first half. Ball possession was 60-40 in favor of PT. xG 2.2-1.34. Final third entries 89-24. There was a moment in the game where Martinez played a 4-2-4 and we were getting eaten on midfield, but it was all part of a genius move to justify taking off Cristiano Ronaldo. As for the Croatians upset with the offside goal... it was scored at 12:30 overtime.
Well Portugal goal was scored 90+4. Planned added time was already +10 so adding a few minutes for the Portugal goal seems fine to me.
This should have gone to overtime a 100%
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Northern Ireland27405 Posts
Great game, despite our commentators bigging up Modric every 5 seconds, I think Kovacic had a better tournament and is a very underrated player.
Penalty felt a bit soft given IMO there’s been a general leniency and not going to VAR for more clear fouls across this tournament, but nothing too egregious
Interesting to hear so much booing for Ronaldo being subbed. From what I understand a lot of crowds here are quite made up of ex-pats or general football fans from North America, and less from huge travelling contingents due to the sheer expenses involved. I doubt that gets either booed or cheered especially if it’s hardcore Portuguese fans, but I may be wrong!
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Egypt beat Australia after penalties, I think generally deservedly so. Australia subbed in a goalkeeper for the penalties. As so often in the past, that did not do anything. What I found strange is that this substitute did not look at all like a penalty killer. Obviously we just see four penalties, so this can all be bad luck. But he wasn't even close to save anything or reading what the shooter would do. On top of that, Beach had a great tournamend and great saves today, so why sub him? Weird.
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51693 Posts
also we had 2 cb's take penalties for some reason over the rest of the squad which was just fucking weird
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So far there have been really really weird and bad ref decisions in almost every game.
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Norway28896 Posts
Yeah cbs taking pens is usually a bad choice. Captains doing it makes sense though but sending up an 18 year old cb is just weird.
That said I can't really remember instances of subbing on a gk other than Tim Krul, where it was a great success. But I also agree that he just didn't look like a great penalty gk, going way too early on a couple pens.
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Now that was a match. Cape Verde put up one hell of a fight.
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Wow just looked at the matchups. If Portugal were to win the title they prolly have the hardest road to victory a team ever had?
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On June 28 2026 21:25 DropBear wrote:
Finally we're down to 32, the real world cup begins!
Breakdown of nations making it through to the knockouts by confederation:
AFRICA - 9 of 10 through
Algeria, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa
Tunisia
ASIA - 2 of 8 through
Australia, Japan
(Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Uzbekistan
EUROPE - 13 of 16 through
Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
Czechia, Scotland, Turkiye
NORTH AMERICA - 3 of 6 through
Canada, Mexico, USA
Curacao, Haiti, Panama
OCEANIA - 0 of 1 through
New Zealand
SOUTH AMERICA - 5 of 6 through
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay
Uruguay
Europe and South America confederations are performing strongly as usual, but imo Africa should now be in the conversation for heavyweight confederation status too. Would not be surprised to see another African semi-finalist.
Asian nations performed very poorly overall and predict no Asian nation makes it to ro16.
NA performed roughly as I expected, with about half making the cut, and I predict no NA nation makes the ro8.
Oceania also performed as expected and are a waste of a slot.
Quite the difference after this round. Africa lost a lot. I also do not see the two remaining teams getting into a semi final over Argentina/France.
AFRICA 2/10
ASIA 0/8
NORTH AMERICA 3/6
EUROPE 7/16
SOUTH AMERICA 4/6
OCEANIA 0/1
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Yeah they got cleaned up, Egypt were not impressive against us either. Not as confident about US and Mexico losing as I was a week ago either
Asia done though, at least got 1/3 predictions right, that's better than normal for me :p
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Norway28896 Posts
Yeah the only two African teams that made it went through on penalties. The only two really comfortable wins were spain and France- the two biggest favorites since before the tourney started. I can still picture Morocco or US (or Norway!!) going far but we are realistically looking at the usual suspects in the end.
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Marocco controlled the 2nd half against Canada. Marocco has a deadly couterattack, extremely efficient! Their overall strength seemed solid as well.
Canada... They did their best, but they looked like one of the weakest teams to reach the Ro16. Solid tactically, but they simply lacked the skills at this level. Great to see them give it all to the end, though! That was the first keeper-on-keeper free kick I have ever seen!
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Marocco controlled the 2nd half against Canada. Marocco has a deadly couterattack, extremely efficient! Their overall strength seemed solid as well.
Canada... They did their best, but they looked like one of the weakest teams to reach the Ro16. Solid tactically, but they simply lacked the skills at this level. Great to see them give it all to the end, though! That was the first time I have seen a GK foul the other GK for a free kick!
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EPT![[image loading]](https://preview.redd.it/coavifoft2bh1.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=6c7e7398fa5adc3aa670e9b87ce473e4e014ad1b)
