Day 5: Sweden vs South Korea, Belgium vs Panama and Tunisia vs England (19H00)

Martin Keown is more golem than man. It's like Rodin's The Thinker has been brought to life. Ironic.
 
bosnian_red said:
6 touches in that first half from Lukaku. Comparatively, Panama's striker has 12, courtois has 12, Panamas goalkeeper has 15 (the 3 closest to him). Say what you want a out everyone else and how they're performing. This is why he gets criticized. He is completely invisible far too often.
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Just like United, Belgium need better fullbacks and wingers who can cross the ball. It's never his fault.
 
KirkDuyt said:
Technically it’s the Netherlands yes.

It’s one part LVG’s succession (though we flattered to deceive in Brazil honestly) and one part Sneijder and Robben aging. That last world cup, Robben was absolutely insane. In 2010 it was Robben and Sneijder with a fantastic link up striker in RVP coupled to the infamous cnut block of Van Bommel and the Young. (Edit: err De Jong :lol:)

Current problem is having a drought of good attackers and being unable to adapt to it in our playstyle. On paper our team is definitely world cup worthy. Players like Van Dijk, De Veij, Wijnaldum, Strootman and Memphis are by no means terrible.

Meh this world cup makes me sad.

Regarding Italy (and us) we deserve missing out we were shite in the qualifyers.
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With Koeman you will probably be back at the next Euros.

Don't like the man but he's a much better coach than your last one.
 
Belgium’s biggest problem in this game is their pressing and it was the same in the friendly against us a couple of weeks ago.

Panamá might not be great but if you give them tons of space they can pass the ball too. 40% possession and yet everytime Belgium do a bit of pressing they get the ball back and they manage to break into space. They need to press their defenders, Panama will start hitting it long and Belgium’s CBs will easily win the ball back. Then they can send wave after wave of attack rather than the game being as divided as it’s been.
 
Redplane said:
Bit like the Netherlands really. Though they ve clearly done a bit better the last few decades but similarly have suffered from having star stuffed teams without a lot of cohesion. I've often wondered how much that has to do with a perhaps perceived lack of national pride. Playing for the country rather than just playing for glory.
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This is the beauty of NT football. The gap in quality can be closed where a huge talent pool can under perform for lack of teamwork/self sacrifice while inferior team with more togetherness can punch above their weight.

Peyroteo said:
Belgium’s biggest problem in this game is their pressing and it was the same in the friendly against us a couple of weeks ago.

Panamá might not be great but if you give them tons of space they can pass the ball too. 40% possession and yet everytime Belgium do a bit of pressing they get the ball back and they manage to break into space. They need to press their defenders, Panama will start hitting it long and Belgium’s CBs will easily win the ball back. Then they can send wave after wave of attack rather than the game being as divided as it’s been.
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From tactical POV, it's as you said. Thing is to persuade these stars having to pull their sock up and doing more defensive work against team they perceive as much inferior, that's the problem. It's related to the above part of my response to other poster.

Belgium like France can still win and win big in the second half. However, their struggle to put in a consistent performance would always be their. It's more about mentality thing than talent.
 
If Belgium were playing us they would a lot more sharp. I
Isotope said:
Just like United, Belgium need better fullbacks and wingers who can cross the ball. It's never his fault.
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Might have known it’s not his fault. The reason he doesn’t get enough touches is because his off the ball movement isn’t good enough.
 
Kearnkoff69 said:
This is also the criticism that I have of him. I've seen many comments about him not getting involved enough on his own, but I'm of the opinion that he isn't the kind of striker who will ever be getting lots of touches in the game. That's just not his game, and it doesn't play to his skill set.

Great strikers can influence the game in ways other than just being on the ball a lot - some of the most lethal strikers knew how to manipulate defenses with their movement, pulling defenders out of position to create space for their teammates and then making clever runs to exploit those spaces. Modern-day Ronaldo is the perfect example of this. He sometimes only has 15-20 touches per game, but he always is manipulating the defense because of his movement.

I'd rather Rom put in the effort to work on his football IQ and off-the-ball movement so he can put himself into better positions throughout the game.
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Exactly. As a finisher I don't doubt his quality. He hardly misses headers and inside the box most of the time he will tuck it away but his all round game is still lacking. You might rely on your team for service but you need to help your teammates too. If you give Lukaku 5 clear cut chances every game there's a chance he will put all 5 away or maybe 4 at least. But the team will not be able to do that every game and maybe you might not even get 1 clear cut chance. This is where a top top striker earns his money by using clever movement, making runs in behind, or going out wide even and opening up spaces for other players to exploit. You will create chances for yourself and your team mates. Definitely something to improve.
 
Lukaku movement needs to improve. Doesn't work the channels well enough for me.
 
I’m amazed BBC and ITV can give so much time to England in the 5 days this WC has been going on. Obviously I know it’s because it’s England but it feels like every one out of that 23 man squad is getting interviewed and asked the same goddamn cliche questions and they give the same goddamn answers.

Face it, footballers are for the most part boring... Either because they’re boring personalities anyway or they’ve been media trained to be boring to avoid looking too dumb or exposing too much of the team setup. It feels they’ve got cue cards behind the camera when Gabby Logan or Gabriel Clarke is interviewing them and a England PR is there personally vetting the questions given and the answers provided.

Unless it’s Zlatan, it’s just not going to be worth the watch or the listen for the most part.
 
Isotope said:
Just like United, Belgium need better fullbacks and wingers who can cross the ball. It's never his fault.
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He's scored 27 goals for United this season and 25 goals in 27 games for Belgium over the last 3 seasons. What exactly is he supposed to be at fault for?
 
I mean that is Belgium isn't it.

They have players capable of incredible individual moments of magic, but they just never seem gelled as a team.
 
Who decided to make hazard the captain? He has nothing to do with leadership.
 
Redplane said:
Bit like the Netherlands really. Though they ve clearly done a bit better the last few decades but similarly have suffered from having star stuffed teams without a lot of cohesion. I've often wondered how much that has to do with a perhaps perceived lack of national pride. Playing for the country rather than just playing for glory.
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A bit better? Excuse you?!

We almost won the world cup in 2010, where on the doorstep of the final in 2014 and in 1998 we were arguably the best team of the tournament but were unlucky against Brazil (it was a fecking pen.) Belgium havent done anything remotely like that.

To win a world cup you need a bit of luck and we lacked that. Well that and being shite at penalties.

As for national pride; well I don’t go on this offended rant for no reason.

:)
 
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