World Cup, football and Pro Wrestling

[KawadaSmile]

I've been ACHING to talk about this shit here.

England is the absolute biggest shitbag heel in the history of the sport! Claiming they be the best and that "FOOTBALL IS COMING HOME" while only winning ONCE is peak heel shit. The sheer hypocrisy on the treatment of players is astounding, too. Miz without the accolades, pretty much. Alternatively, they would be that indie fan that hypes up any C+ player to be a A+ one. Walcott and other players like him like Lingard and Sterling are the sort of backyarders who only do flips.

Spain would be the Revival. Always technically profficient, but other than a period of glory, bunch of underachievers.

Brazil is the actual GOAT, undeniably. However, much like the greatest ones had their nemesis, we still have to overcome France after '58. Still we keep it a 100% Jesus, who's yet to score in this WC. Injuries killed him and maybe going to Porto or another top portuguese club would be great for a rehab, just like Drew McIntyre did in his indie run.

[KawadaSmile]

5 minutes ago, Magnum Milano said:

More footy I'm afraid, but I'd love to hear your explanation on how England played the same as Colombia.

Colombia tried every dirty tactic they could to try and provoke a reaction out of England.  From memory alone there was the headbutt on Henderson that should've been a red, Henderson's yellow in the second half was as a result of the Colombian putting his head into the back of his, the constant holding and grabbing of England players at corners, delaying the penalty by over three minutes due to their harassing of the referee, Colombian players scuffing and kicking the penalty spot to loosen the turf whilst doing that harassing, there was a needless body check on Maguire and at half time one of the Colombian staff elbowed Sterling as he was leaving the field with said member of staff later caught on camera laughing about it after playing 'innocent' to the fourth official.  The irony of all this is that for the last twenty minutes of the ninety and when they cut out all of that nonsense, they looked the better team by far and is every chance they would've beaten England if they'd played the previous seventy like that.

Stones scrapped Falcao's head with his foot while Garcia was down, which itself should've at least got a yellow, or also a straight red. Plus, England players going sole first in a tackle and HE'S the one to sell the impact while the Colombian player gets the yellow card. Ridiculous diving by the english players (after all the shit they gave Neymar, you'd think they wouldn't be even worse), and all the "harassment" the Colombian players did (which Enligsh players also done after Mina scored his beautiful goal - miss you big guy go back to Palmeiras please don't waste your time in Barcelona) was because Kane, while unquestionably got fouled in the box, was pulling and pushing Sanchez before the whistle. 

To act like Colombia were provoking England, while the other side was stoic and wasn't playing exactly the same is to believe "they are above that", which is complete bollocks as a whole. No player in the world is above diving or hitting the other player in an underhanded way. However only a few are holier-than-thou about that.

[GSR]

1 hour ago, KawadaSmile said:

Stones scrapped Falcao's head with his foot while Garcia was down, which itself should've at least got a yellow, or also a straight red. Plus, England players going sole first in a tackle and HE'S the one to sell the impact while the Colombian player gets the yellow card. Ridiculous diving by the english players (after all the shit they gave Neymar, you'd think they wouldn't be even worse), and all the "harassment" the Colombian players did (which Enligsh players also done after Mina scored his beautiful goal - miss you big guy go back to Palmeiras please don't waste your time in Barcelona) was because Kane, while unquestionably got fouled in the box, was pulling and pushing Sanchez before the whistle. 

To act like Colombia were provoking England, while the other side was stoic and wasn't playing exactly the same is to believe "they are above that", which is complete bollocks as a whole. No player in the world is above diving or hitting the other player in an underhanded way. However only a few are holier-than-thou about that.

No idea what you saw after Mina scored his goal but I didn't see any harassment by the English players to the Colombians after it.  Great header, no complaints, the only issue was with him taking an eternity to get back for the kick off.  After they'd showed all the replays from various angles he was still in the England half celebrating while England were ready to kick off.  My take on the Stones' incident at the time was that he tried to jump over Falcao and caught him accidentally with his boot.  I've tried to find it on YouTube to re-watch but couldn't find it anywhere.  Yeah, no idea what Ashley Young was playing at on that tackle when he was the one who went over the top.  What diving though?  Harry Maguire gestured to the official that when he went down it wasn't a penalty, and the ex-pro's who did the analysis on the box over here all thought another in the second half which wasn't given (I can't recall if it was on Lingard or Sterling) should've been a penalty as the Colombian caught him.  Was there a third incident that I've forgotten?  Don't agree at all with your take on the Colombian's behaviour after conceding the penalty, it was blatant delaying tactics to put Kane off right down to the one guy who was following him around when Kane was walking away from it all.  If there was any 'pushing and pulling' by Kane it was to free himself from the Colombian who was trying to rip his shirt from him.

Sorry, but whilst England are certainly not 'holier than thou' and have been guilty of plenty over the years, Colombia were on a completely different level with their behaviour last night.

In regards to your initial post, I don't think one person in England claims that we're the best.  We weren't even the best team in the UK not too long ago!  It's just after years of having the so called 'Golden Generation' who were going to win something on the World stage and repeatedly failed tournament after tournament, expectations were pretty low going into this one.  Now the draw has opened up and there is a very realistic chance that for the first time in a lifetime England could reach a World Cup final, and yeah if they do they'll have hardly done it the hard way, but you can only beat who's in front of you.  Not sure how much you know about 'Football's Coming Home', but it was released prior to Euro '96.  The country got fully behind the England team that summer and for the first time since then, football seems to have caught the nation again so no surprise that it's been adopted again by the supporters.

[KawadaSmile]

Regarding the penalty, Sanchez and Kane first were chest-to-chest, normal contact, nothing weird. Then Kane initiates the pulling pretty blatantly, and afterwards Sanchez, on his second mindfart in 3 matches played, piggybacks Kane. It was a penalty, but maybe a fould should've been awarded. Worse penalties weren't called, including against Brazil so what the fuck.

I'm pretty sure there was a third dive, on OT IIRC. Similar to Maguire's, but non apologetic at all.

Really hard to say Colombia were on "a different level", at least to my perception of things. It was certainly one of the roughest matches of the tournament, but it's far, far from the black and white takes some people are saying. In all honesty, it was similar to a semifinal match on Libertadores, CONMEBOL's club tournament. Felt like a big time match, at least.

 

About 'Football's Coming Home', I've seen that being used every single big tournament, be it Euro or WC. It's not this one time I've seen it, and when you start to see people say the exact same stuff failure after failure, it kind of starts to become grating, even moreso if you are not from England. And it might be my perception, but I always see people praising nearly every single C+ player that appears coming from England, more frenquently on twitter, but sometimes even actually high class players such as Alan Shearer. It might be silly, but considering how much we do consume UK-based information in Brazil, it is easy to see how we would be like "fuck, again?". We might be guilty of doing that with the Hexa, too. Not sure how it comes off to the international crowd and I would enjoy to have your thoughts on this, to be honest.

All in all, I was pretty upset last night. The match was what it was, good or bad, and I think Perkerman's Christmas Tree formation killed any offensive chances the team could've had, but it was mostly because Borja and Mina, two of my current faves - the former our current top goalscorer with 15 goals in 22 games, and the latter one of the best CBs in the world and who was actually on the Brazilian Championship winning team of 2016, Palmeiras -, were emotionally destroyed.

[NotJayTabb]

As a Welshman who normally enjoys a good chuckle at England failures, the behaviour of Colombia turned them face in my eyes. Such niggly, dirty players, with the member of coaching staff who body-checked Sterling, played innocent to the ref then chuckled about it, being the ultimate panto villain. Falcao's horrible overreacting to every justified free kick given against his team was embarrassing, as was the three minutes delay for the penalty. Ref should have been dishing out yellows a minute into that farce.

[GSR]

18 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

About 'Football's Coming Home', I've seen that being used every single big tournament, be it Euro or WC. It's not this one time I've seen it, and when you start to see people say the exact same stuff failure after failure, it kind of starts to become grating, even moreso if you are not from England. And it might be my perception, but I always see people praising nearly every single C+ player that appears coming from England, more frenquently on twitter, but sometimes even actually high class players such as Alan Shearer.

Maybe I just don't see this praise, or the people I discuss football with are more realistic when it comes to the England team.  We've one World class player (Kane), some very good ones (Stones, Rashford, Alli when he wants) and some flat out average ones (Pickford, Walker, Young).  There is no depth there, as evidenced by how poor we were against Belgium, and after Colombia got their equaliser all I could think of is, "Christ, half hour of Eric Dier now who was brought on to supposedly shore up the midfield".  What we do have is a manager who has got the best out of the squad, togetherness that hasn't been there for twenty years and players performing above and beyond what I expected (Trippier has arguably been our player of the tournament and Maguire is improving with every game).

In regards to 'Football's Coming Home' I suppose it has become an unofficial 'anthem' of sorts for England and is considered one of the two best Football songs ever in this country (it's either this or 'World in Motion', although I'm partial to 'This Time (We''ll Get it Right) from World Cup '82).  The media do us no favours in this country constantly hyping up the team ('Golden Generation' again!) and seemingly every time a tournament comes around we're reminded that it's 'x' amount of years since 1966.  I can imagine from an outsider looking in it's kinda laughable seeing this praise considering we fail all the time (Iceland any one?).

[ButchReedMark]

23 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Wales is the actual GOAT, undeniably.

FTFY

 

[KawadaSmile]

The road from '90 to 94 was rough. We almost didn't made the WC in the USA.

[ButchReedMark]

GOAT

 

 

Neymar is a poor man's HRK.

[ButchReedMark]

Who would this be in Wrestling terms? Ben Woodburn was born and raised in England but always considered himself Welsh and always turned down England national teams. He comes off the bench for his debut as the crowd start singing the Welsh National Anthem, at it's crescendo he scores an absolute cracker.

 

 

[KawadaSmile]

It's the face version of Sgt. Slaughter turning his back to his country of origin, pretty much.

Also I completely forgot Belgium - Wales was 1-3. From my memory, it was a hard fought 1-0 victory by the Welsh. It actually gives me hope for the game tomorrow.

 

Peachy finish by HRK too. Romario-like, even.

[KawadaSmile]

Uruguay had a good run. Being able to accomplish what they did with MUSLERA as their goalkeeper was truly a feat.

[KawadaSmile]

Oh, fuck!

That own goal + Courtois bringing it fucked us over. Belgium could've scored another two at least but they went easy on us. Almost "respected" us.

[ButchReedMark]

Fucking England.

[KawadaSmile]

I'm fully convinced the Croatian players are cyborgs.

[GSR]

Just now, KawadaSmile said:

I'm fully convinced the Croatian players are cyborgs.

It's pretty funny in hindsight the way the TV pundits said if it comes down to stamina England will win, yet even though this was their third successive game that went to extra time it was the Croatians who looked fresher and had more energy than England the longer it went on.  We should've had it wrapped up by half-time and Croatia wouldn't have been able to come back if we took all  our chances.  Very reminiscent of the Colombia game in that we were all  over them for a half and should've been out of sight, then the oppo came out for the second 45 and were like a different team while we were hanging on.  Can't say the ref did us any favours last night, though Croatia beat us because they were more clinical and took their chances.  Will be very surprised if they do anything against the French mind.

[KawadaSmile]

Croatia played yesterday's game to near perfection. Sterling was, as incredible as it sounds, the most dangerous offensive player on your side, but after the half-time whistle the whole team pretty much stopped playing.

Once Croatia got a hold of the game, the fear was pretty much tangible and it was just a matter of time until they got their goals.

 

Southgate did an incredible job with the pieces he had. Hendo being an 1-man midfield worked surprisingly well, and the defensive line was solid despite their fatal mistakes - Maguire and Trippier stood out, not to mention Pickford accumulating miracles throughout the previous 3 games. Still, only being able to score from set pieces was going to take its toll sooner or later.

I'd say you guys have a pretty good chance of reaching the semi finals in 2022 - a better chance than any South American squad other than Colombia, at least. 

[Microstatistics]

What a weird final. Really glad France won, they have been the best team this tournament. They didn't bring their best game to the final (atleast in the first half) but they adjusted, created and took all their chances. Croatia learned the harsh lesson that domination means nothing if you can't seal the deal (a classic wrestling theme too like in Liger vs. Sano from 1/1990). Really impressive midfield play from them but they barely managed any real chances and were pretty much drained by the end. Still, an excellent performance.

And good god, the vitrol towards France on places like reddit's r/soccer is unreal. They were fully on the Croatia underdog bandwagon and were so salty throughout the match. France got a bit lucky in the first half with the free kick but acting like Croatia was robbed and France cheated their way to the title is ridiculous. 

 

 

 

[Microstatistics]

Also France this tournament were like Alexander Otsuka or El Dandy or Tatsumi Fujinami in that they could play different styles depending on the opponent and play multiple different ways within one match. 

[KawadaSmile]

I think people were really upset about that first foul - IMO it was non-existant - and how long it took for the ref to check with the VAR if there was a penalty or not.

While I wouldn't say Croatia was robbed, those two plays really deflated much of the supporters' spirits. Still, I LOVE how they managed to get there. Despite not winning the big one, Croatia made history and are actually the most successful squad in their country's short history, with some really good players showing up.

As for France, it is wonderful how having a coach who can actually deal with players, creating an actually amicable environment, devoid of blackmailing assholes like Benzema. I'd say that Valbuena not being there would generate some bad blood eventually, so props to Deschamps. I've heard lots of people criticizing him, saying that France was playing below what they are capable of with their current roster (which is true to a certain point), but like Micro said above: he can adjust his team nearly effortlessly depending on the situation and opponent. That is not so easy as one might think.

Also, subbing Kanté was very smart. As much as I like him, he was having his worst match of the tournament, looked really nervous. Glad everything turned out okay.

All in all, while this was not as good as the 2014 WC, it was leagues above the 2010 and 2006 Cups, and had one of the best final games ever. Good Stuff.

[ButchReedMark]

This thread is now the WALES TO WIN EURO 2020 ANTICIPATION HUB. We shall be the mid 89 Skyscrapers to the rest of Europe's Ding Dongs.

[Microstatistics]

15 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

I think people were really upset about that first foul - IMO it was non-existant - and how long it took for the ref to check with the VAR if there was a penalty or not.

While I wouldn't say Croatia was robbed, those two plays really deflated much of the supporters' spirits. Still, I LOVE how they managed to get there. Despite not winning the big one, Croatia made history and are actually the most successful squad in their country's short history, with some really good players showing up.

As for France, it is wonderful how having a coach who can actually deal with players, creating an actually amicable environment, devoid of blackmailing assholes like Benzema. I'd say that Valbuena not being there would generate some bad blood eventually, so props to Deschamps. I've heard lots of people criticizing him, saying that France was playing below what they are capable of with their current roster (which is true to a certain point), but like Micro said above: he can adjust his team nearly effortlessly depending on the situation and opponent. That is not so easy as one might think.

Also, subbing Kanté was very smart. As much as I like him, he was having his worst match of the tournament, looked really nervous. Glad everything turned out okay.

All in all, while this was not as good as the 2014 WC, it was leagues above the 2010 and 2006 Cups, and had one of the best final games ever. Good Stuff.

Yeah, that foul wasn't really a foul. But I thought the penalty decision was fair and was surprised that the majority of pundits were slamming it, considering penalties have been given for a lot less. Also Kante was sick I think, which explains his performance considering he was immense during all the other games (excluding maybe the second half of the semi).

Agree 2014 WC was better but this one was more open in that no one apart from France looked consistently convincing (maybe Brazil but they got rattled by Belgium early and didn't recover in time) so it felt like anything could happen. While in that one the top teams were clear as was the second tier and so on.