The most popular tournament in the world has finally come to a reality after 4 long years. 32 teams battle it out for the once every four year tournament known as the FIFA World Cup.
USA Eliminated from the World Cup, and did not qualify for the tournament for the first time since 1986. USA plans and vows to be back as a power house for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
USA, Mexico, and Canada will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with USA hosting 60 of the 80 matches. Below is a link for the 2026 possible venues for play, Arrowhead being one of the possibility's as a venue for the cup.
Originally Posted by Baby Lee:
With the exception of the goalkeep brainfart, Spain played fine.
Brazil is going to do a little sweating of the officials with footage of Neymar's harassment in the Swiss game. Should open things up.
I do agree they went a little overboard with the harassment on Neymar. It was pretty obvious that was Switz's plan to begin with, to rattle him a little and perhaps get him frustrated, it worked. However, For the most part I did not see the ref not give neymar the calls that the anaylsts were complaining about after the game. The tugging of the shirts all that stuff, neymar was always rewarded the penalty's, it was the shoulder to shoulder stuff that I witnessed him not receiving which is exactly how it should be. Shoulder to shoulder is perfectly legal.
That being said, this world cup to me is seeing a lot of more "let them play" type things than anything. It wasn't just Neymar that wasnt getting all the calls, there was the brazilian forward that was dragged to the ground in the box and no call was made, but there was a few cases where brazil players fouled the switz players and no calls were made either. It is also good to note, that switz is a much more physical team compared to brazil.
The argument anaylsts were having afterwards was you need to protect the star players, and I do agree with that to a degree, however we cannot have all the star players playing so light on their feet always looking to grab a call.
One play I was annoyed with was when neymar had 2 defenders on him, he nutmegged the defender, and tried to legit "run" through the defender and instead fell to the ground, and was given the penalty which I feel like is complete BS.
To put it in short, there were some calls that needed to be made, but there were also some calls that had no right being called so in a way it all balances out in the end. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Baby Lee:
With the exception of the goalkeep brainfart, Spain played fine.
Brazil is going to do a little sweating of the officials with footage of Neymar's harassment in the Swiss game. Should open things up.
there is no sweetening of the officials. Once the officials are chosen for the next game they will all study important moments from this game as well as the past few for each team. [Reply]
Originally Posted by penguinz:
there is no sweetening of the officials. Once the officials are chosen for the next game they will all study important moments from this game as well as the past few for each team.
S W E A T, not sweeten.
As in verbal pressure in hopes of altering behavior. [Reply]
What a save by KOREA! Very physical game! I don't think I have ever seen a game with so much contact. Guys are getting laid out all over the pitch. [Reply]