Round of 16: : LET THE (Knockout) GAMES BEGIN!

[ljkeane]

Schmeichel couldn't have done much more than that. If you save two penalties in a shoot out you'd expect to win it.

[Davrum]

I'm Danish Dynamite but that was a deserved win at the end of the day for the Croats. Great job from Subasic especially, who is massive and made himself even massiver.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

Both goalkeepers were really good. But yeah, horrible penalty kicks. Must feel awful for Schmeichel to save two penalty kicks, plus the one earlier, and still lose. 

[Consigliere]

I'm glad Croatia won. Not a fan of what Jorgensen did - he knew exactly what he was doing imo which was taking out the man to prevent a goal. Makes me wish that football employs something similar to a penalty try in rugby. Croatia were denied a 100% guaranteed goal in favour of an approximately 75% chance of scoring from the spot.

[Jo498]

16 minutes ago, Prince Onyinye W. Ndidi said:

I'm glad Croatia won. Not a fan of what Jorgensen did - he knew exactly what he was doing imo which was taking out the man to prevent a goal. Makes me wish that football employs something similar to a penalty try in rugby. Croatia were denied a 100% guaranteed goal in favour of an approximately 75% chance of scoring from the spot.

I wonder if the rules were relaxed because in earlier times Jorgensen should have seen a red card not only yellow for this action.

Overall a rather disappointing match, I hardly cared anymore who would advance before that foul and the penalty.

[polishgenius]

46 minutes ago, Soylent Dropbear said:

Players who take straight-down-the-middle penalties should go to football jail. There's no excuse, they're just terrible terrible penalties relying wholly on luck.

They rely on psychology and percentages, not luck. So long as most players don't do it, it'll always be a good place to put one everyone once in a while.

[Dolorous Gabe]

1 hour ago, Prince Onyinye W. Ndidi said:

I'm glad Croatia won. Not a fan of what Jorgensen did - he knew exactly what he was doing imo which was taking out the man to prevent a goal. Makes me wish that football employs something similar to a penalty try in rugby. Croatia were denied a 100% guaranteed goal in favour of an approximately 75% chance of scoring from the spot.

Agreed. Might be difficult to define what circumstances are required for a penalty goal and it will be a rare occasion that it's used but it would have felt like justice not only tonight but also the Suarez Vs Ghana incident 8 years ago.

[john]

2 hours ago, locura said:

Ref let both keepers jump off the line consistently at least, but... ???

Yeah, I appreciate it happens a lot but I don’t see why it’s allowed. The keeper is literally narrowing the angle. I’m not sure it would make it appreciably more difficult to score but seems dodgy.

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

I wonder if the rules were relaxed because in earlier times Jorgensen should have seen a red card not only yellow for this action.

Overall a rather disappointing match, I hardly cared anymore who would advance before that foul and the penalty.

They were relaxed. If the defender makes a genuine attempt to win the ball but messes up it’s only a yellow.  It looked like a pretty wild effort by Jorgensen to me, but the pundits I was watching were happy with the decision.

[Davrum]

14 minutes ago, john said:

It looked like a pretty wild effort by Jorgensen to me, but the pundits I was watching were happy with the decision.

A "wild" effort typically involves slicing across the line to take out the attacking players legs or wrenching the attacker off balance with grappling.

Jorgenson's challenge was actually very precise. His foot was directly specifically in the direction of the football and on a straight trajectory rather than chopping across the legs of Rebic. He would have known the huge risk involved if he didn't manage to reach the ball, but it seemed fairly clear he was trying to reach the ball.

[Iskaral Pust]

The quality took a nose dive today.  The relatively dull fare, extended by extra time, made today feel like a slog to watch. 

This is the least likable host nation in a long time but Spain didn’t do anything to deserve to go through.  Too many underwhelming performances to mention there. 

The refereeing was very poor today.  The Russian own goal was a rugby tackle on Ramos that wasn’t being whistled (but karmic justice prevailed), and both Ramos and Pique were simultaneously fouled late on but VAR managed to turn a blind eye.  It felt like the usual FIFA bullshit to keep the host nation alive.  And then in the second game there was no red card for Jorgeson, who blatantly lunged to get ball and/or man from a position he couldn’t possibly reach the ball first in order to prevent a certain goal.  But even aside from penalties, there were so many cynical fouls to stop attacks and dirty tackles from behind, but no yellow cards to stop it.  It gives defenders free rein to clog away all day and stop any actual football from being played.  Mourinho was probably laughing and cheering throughout.

Denmark were pretty dirty for the opening half an hour but eventually found a groove to play some decent football at times, albeit in a game still stifled by a litany of fouls, congested midfield and increasingly fatigued players.  Croatia were my pre-game favorites but their struggles here don’t bode well for a match-up with Russia.  That could be another long game unfortunately. 

The good news is the novelty of new teams potentially reaching their furthest ever point in a WC and the potential for a new first-time champ.  I just hope the quality picks back up. 

[Davrum]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Putsch said:

... The Russian own goal was a rugby tackle on Ramos that wasn’t being whistled (but karmic justice prevailed) ...

... there were so many cynical fouls to stop attacks and dirty tackles from behind, but no yellow cards to stop it.  It gives defenders free rein to clog away all day and stop any actual football from being played.  Mourinho was probably laughing and cheering throughout ...

... The good news is the novelty of new teams potentially reaching their furthest ever point in a WC and the potential for a new first-time champ.  I just hope the quality picks back up. 

Saying it "wasn't being whistled" kind of ignores the fact that no foul is whistled as it happens. This would have been whistled had it not resulted in a goal, and even if the ref had somehow missed it VAR has been good at picking the grappling up 95% of the time.

With you on that second point though. For all the shit we give Neymar for the times he plays up he also gets kicked more than just about anyone, robbing fans of "actual football" every time he's felled.

Also with you on that last point. I'd be stoked to see a final played by two sides who haven't won it before, or at least two sides who haven't won it for a long, long, long time. England vs Uruguay or Croatia vs Belgium would suit me real nice.

[Maltaran]

With Spain out, the only teams on that side of the draw who’ve been in the final before are England and Sweden 

[Melphis Amekia]

7 hours ago, Iskaral Putsch said:

 Denmark were pretty dirty for the opening half an hour but eventually found a groove to play some decent football at times, albeit in a game still stifled by a litany of fouls, congested midfield and increasingly fatigued players.  Croatia were my pre-game favorites but their struggles here don’t bode well for a match-up with Russia.  That could be another long game unfortunately. 

What made it difficult for Croatia was the fact that the team had eight yellow cards. If you've noticed, they had made only five fouls in the whole 120 minutes or so of the game. Croatia couldn't play a direct, strong game because it'd have meant a lot of the players outright not being able to play in the next match.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I think all the teams on this side of the tree is thinking the same thing: maybe... we can actually do this?

Russia, Croatia, Sweden, Switzerland, Colombia, England. Not saying they aren’t good teams but they certainly don’t carry the same historical and psychological weight as the big nations do. Any one of them should have a pretty good chance to reach the final. This is once-in-a-career (if not lifetime) opportunity for those players and I think that adds some extra excitement to this year’s tournament. As a Swede, I definitely like the fact that I can allow myself to dream for a minute (at least until tomorrow when we’ll probably be smashed by that other European country that starts with the same letters ).

[baxus]

16 hours ago, Ali Daei-nvek said:

I’m surprised it wasn’t a red for that. Surely he was last man?

A couple of years ago there was a fair bit of talk about red + penalty being too harsh on a team and that yellow+penalty should be appropriate. Didn't know they changed it, but it seems they did back in 2016.

It's only a red card + penalty if the foul is "violent" or if it's a handball (what Suarez did in 2010).

I think it's wrong to change it like that, precisely for the reason we saw yesterday. Still, the ref called it by the book.

16 hours ago, Soylent Dropbear said:

Players who take straight-down-the-middle penalties should go to football jail. There's no excuse, they're just terrible terrible penalties relying wholly on luck.

Hate when I see down-the-middle shots and hate when I see two step step-up. Get yourself enough room to smash it through the keeper if needs be.

[Consigliere]

Matt Le Tissier was the best penalty taker I can remember. IIRC, he only ever missed one penalty. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 hours ago, Iskaral Putsch said:

The refereeing was very poor today.  The Russian own goal was a rugby tackle on Ramos that wasn’t being whistled (but karmic justice prevailed), and both Ramos and Pique were simultaneously fouled late on but VAR managed to turn a blind eye.  It felt like the usual FIFA bullshit to keep the host nation alive.  And then in the second game there was no red card for Jorgeson, who blatantly lunged to get ball and/or man from a position he couldn’t possibly reach the ball first in order to prevent a certain goal.  But even aside from penalties, there were so many cynical fouls to stop attacks and dirty tackles from behind, but no yellow cards to stop it.  It gives defenders free rein to clog away all day and stop any actual football from being played.  Mourinho was probably laughing and cheering throughout.

 

I disagree. I think the referee in Russia - Spain (Kuipers) was actually really good. Blowing the whistle before the balls finds its way into the net would've been howler. The Ramos/Pique situation was in the grey area, as all players involved were holding and pulling. Given he was rather lenient throughout the game, I don't think that was a clear error (and neither did the VAR).

Same goes for the referee in the Denmark-Croatia game. I thought it was a red card, too. However, there a yellow card was by all accounts at least a justifiable decission. 

Otherwise very little controversy in both games with regards to the refs. And from the refs I've seen thus far Kuipers remains my pick for the final.

[Consigliere]

13 hours ago, Iskaral Putsch said:

Croatia were my pre-game favorites but their struggles here don’t bode well for a match-up with Russia.  That could be another long game unfortunately. 

I'm not so sure that Russia will set up so defensively against Croatia. The Russia manager gave an interview where he says that the players were not too keen on such a defensive setup and that he had to work hard, even speaking to all the players individually, to convince them that this was the best way to go about it against Spain.

[Philokles]

The Mexican decision making has been horrendous. They’ve wasted so many breaks by taking a pot shot and ignoring the obvious ball to a man in space. Such a let off for a mediocre Brazil side.

[Corvinus85]

Ochoa keeping Mexico in the game.