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Don't buy on Messi and Friends. They are not a good team right now, and frankly they're probably the "good" team most likely to flame out in the group stage.
While it sucks not to be there, the US would have been crap this year thanks to the lost generation. At least now we get a bit of a head start playing our kids in friendlies for 2022. US in 2022 has an insane ceiling rn that isn't on the back of a couple untested pieces. It's on the back of a few kids who at 18/19 are already having and impact + a bunch of promising kids.
Peru at 200-1 is an insane buy. Uruguay is also probably a good buy at w/e price they are at (soft group + Portugal R16 gives them an ez path to quarterfinals, and they are a super fucking legit team that people love to overlook)
France is also at a decent price because they have a relatively soft group, then they're R16 is against the team that gets out of the group of life, so their first real test will be vs Uruguay unless something weird happens or Ronaldo carries Portugal very hard vs Uruguay
After getting third in their group and Greeceing their way through most of the knockout stage.
They got lucky that they drew relatively soft teams in the third and fourth pools of their group, but I would put them at only a 60-70% chance of getting out. Iran or Morocco could show up for a few games and edge them out on tiebreaks in a 9-4-4-0 group
In post 68, zoraster wrote:I wonder how they'll handle the altitude of Mexico city and to a lesser extent Denver. It's not a problem really if it's consistent through the group, but given Mexico has 3 host cities and only 10 matches, it's likely Mexico city only gets 1 round of a group, which makes that game pretty different than the other games in Houston or whatever.
tbf Houston and Orlando will also be garbage to play in for different reasons. Teams are going to be playing in 100% humidity and dying.
Uruguay individually looked really good, but their play in the final third was very lacking in creativity until the end of the game (and they won on a set piece, which isn't that weird with how much more athletic/tall their CB pairing was that Egypt)
They'll coast out of this group in first, but they need to get their shit together for the knockout round
In post 89, BROseidon wrote:Uruguay individually looked really good, but their play in the final third was very lacking in creativity until the end of the game (and they won on a set piece, which isn't that weird with how much more athletic/tall their CB pairing was that Egypt)
They'll coast out of this group in first, but they need to get their shit together for the knockout round
egypt defended pretty well and made themselves hard to break down, tbf.
but yeah, i don't really know if uruguay played well individually either? like suarez def should have scored/didn't look really good and i thought the uruguay midfield had terrible final ball even when they did get decent positions.
they'll probably play better against teams not designed to prevent them from playing, though.
Suarez was bad. Cavani and the CB pairing were insane. Midfield was fine, but lacking in creative ideas.
Uruguay conceded 1 shot on goal for the entire group stage. Doesn't matter who your opposition is, that level of defense is beyond god-tier. Belgium and Croatia have actually looked good and dynamic while they've played.
It's not even that other teams have played hard teams. Spain had an easy as fuck group (Portugal is bad don't @ me) and squeaked out with 5 points. Argentina has been ass for 3 years, and anyone who thought they were going to win their group hasn't been watching them at all. Brazil have looked meh, barely beating fucking Costa Rica with two very late goals. France barely got by fucking Australia and lost possession vs Peru (tbh they could have easily drawn or lost that game, and Peru is a team that Uruguay is a couple steps above). Germany? lol.
You can't just let brand names coast on being brand names (and let's be real by individual talent Belgium is tier 1 right now and Uruguay and Croatia are tier 1.5 anyways, so it's not that big of a leap that these teams are the best because they actually have cogent gameplans and identities).
Also, yes, Uruguay vs. Egypt could have been 0-0, but Uruguay got that result with a much more dominant defensive performance than any of the other weak results. Uruguay plays "garbage" football as a style.
What Godin and Gimenez are about to do to CR7 tomorrow is going to be very NSFW. They will fucking destroy him, and he has no support from the rest of his team to help out.
In post 180, BROseidon wrote:My thing is like what does France do when Godin and Gimenez beat the shit out of Mboopi?
Giroud will probably be trying to take the brunt of this i think (and is well capable of doing so). It should be interesting tho as France are one of the few teams that have quite a few options to switch it up, in the event of players playing poorly. The argentinian paper defense definitely made them look good, though.
I think it'll be an interesting game. Hope Cavani is fit, as he was so great last game.
I don't think any of the French front 3 are good enough individually to take on the Uruguayan back 4 (nobody is), and France doesn't have the service from the midfield for some reason.
Faraday has a good response. Only thing I will add is that it helps that Godin and Gimenez play together at the club level. Cohesion between centerbacks is very important, and Uruguay very much has that.
The goal they conceded to Portugal was Gimenez being mortal on a set piece. Obviously it's better not to concede that, but fact is that they held Ronaldo to 0 goals and were mostly pretty confident in it (last 15 minutes got a bit scary, IMO)
If Spain didn't play dated soccer they could have as well.
Anyways Russia over Croatia would be the biggest potential upset the QF could produce (including yesterday's games). Croatia has looked consistently solid (except vs Denmark, where Schmeichel carried hard), and Russia lost to the only good team they've played so far.
Winner of Belgium/France is probably the favorite for the final. France started out a bit slow but have been looking stronger each game, and Belgium have just been the best team of the tournament. Croatia started strong but has faded a bit their past 2 games, and England just... hasn't looked spectacular in their run other than destroying Panama
France is also defensively the strongest team left (since Uruguay and Brazil were the only two stronger defensive teams lol), and good defenses always have high potential to bullshit their ways to tournament wins