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2018 Quarter-finals


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22 minutes ago, La Albearceleste said:

Honestly, both France and Belgium will be happy with everything they've watched today, IMO anyway. They're probably both sending someone out to buy trophy polish as we speak.

 

No idea, how good or bad England were, as I was busy in the kitchen, but they apparently took care of business. However this Croatia side is hardly awe inspiring. Well, the other semi-final between France and Belgium will definately feature the better footballing teams. But let's wait and see who picks up an injury or gets sent off there, before we crown the new champions. Particularly Belgium's bench can't compensate for Hazard, de Bruyne or Lukaku. 

Besides being the better team hasn't really helped Portugal against Greece in '04, and neither did it help France against Portugal two years ago. 

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I just don't want to play to England. 

3 minutes ago, Notone said:

No idea, how good or bad England were, as I was busy in the kitchen, but they apparently took care of business. However this Croatia side is hardly awe inspiring. Well, the other semi-final between France and Belgium will definately feature the better footballing teams. But let's wait and see who picks up an injury or gets sent off there, before we crown the new champions. Particularly Belgium's bench can't compensate for Hazard, de Bruyne or Lukaku. 

Dries Mertens, the god of Napoli :dunno:

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1 minute ago, Notone said:

No idea, how good or bad England were, as I was busy in the kitchen, but they apparently took care of business. However this Croatia side is hardly awe inspiring. Well, the other semi-final between France and Belgium will definately feature the better footballing teams. But let's wait and see who picks up an injury or gets sent off there, before we crown the new champions. Particularly Belgium's bench can't compensate for Hazard, de Bruyne or Lukaku. 

Besides being the better team has really helped Portugal against Greece in '04, and neither did it help France against Portugal two years ago. 

This is all true, but it's true of the 'weaker' teams too. Anything can happen. And I missed the France-Uruguay match myself. But the standard of football I've seen from all four teams today has been distinctly lower than anything I saw from either side in Belgium-Brazil. England probably played the best of those four, to be fair.

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Can the commentators please give the '70th in the world before this tournament' stuff a rest?

You know what happens when you win the right to host a tournament? You stop playing competitive games, and your FIFA rating drops.

Russia have done unexpectedly well but this particular metric is nonsense.

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2 minutes ago, Triskjavikson said:

Just out of curiosity, where do you think they'd have come in ranked if they weren't hosting and had to make max effort (or where would they have been ranked even if they missed the tourney)?

No idea. Neither does anyone else.

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Credit to Russia. They were written off before the start of the tournament but have given a good account of themselves and shown that they are better than their world  ranking, which was not accurate anyway since they haven't played any competitive games since Euro 2016.

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12 minutes ago, Triskjavikson said:

Just out of curiosity, where do you think they'd have come in ranked if they weren't hosting and had to make max effort (or where would they have been ranked even if they missed the tourney)?

Does anyone care? Fifa ranking is horrible and has never been representative.

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