World Cup Round of Fourteen Open Thread
Goooooaaaaalllllll
Dzyuba!!!!!
I will be rooting for my kinfolk, Go Croatia!!!
Russia has done a good job of gumming up the works for Spain. They look lost and frustrated.
Russians love to gum things up!
Good lord, that is some serious home cooking on the non-penalty with two simultaneous football tackles in the box by Russia. Officials are clearly worried about getting a souvenir dose of polonium if they send Russia out on a a penalty.
Dunno - I thought Ramos and the Russian guy were grabbing each other.
This game has been a soccer hater's dream.
Spain has completed over 1,000 passes but has rarely threatened to score in two hours of action.
The two goals have come on a comical own goal and a handball penalty.
Bring on the PKs.
Bring on Picqué!
not well placed
VICTORY!!!!
what a final save
What a save.
Penalty kicks to decide a world cup match is the equivalent of a home run derby to decide a World Series.
They should play until it's decided on the pitch.
Third biggest upset in Cup history.
And that even sells it short. The biggest upset on paper (South Africa over France in '10) is deceptive - it was the last group game and France benched all the guys who had led the "strike" against the coach.
In baseball the players barely move for hours on end. In soccer they are constantly moving.
The two sports could not be more different.
In this match I don’t know if a goal was ever going to come. It was rough.
Spain should have had a PK in extra time. Officials blew it.
Russian paid bribesto get this WC and they will do whatever they can to win. Bribes, drugs ..,
Russian paid bribes to get this WC and they will do whatever they can to win. Bribes, drugs ..,
My solution: After 90 minutes open up the benches and play til the death.
It’s not the same. I don’t think anybody likes deciding games on penalty kicks, but there’s not a lot they can do about it. Players will fall over and die before some games are decided “on the pitch”. They tried sudden death/golden goal and no fewer games ended in penalties. Now they’ve added another sub, which in theory would help.
I think the only thing that might help is taking players off the field. 9 v 9 instead of 11 v 11. Again, in theory, it might open things up and allow more opportunities.
The issue is the structure of soccer in and of itself. It's not a game that is remotely suited to a knock out format. The chance of a tie match, even after extra time, is too high. The Champions League solves this by having teams play home and home after the group stage (until the final). That's not an option in the World Cup. The World Cup used to solve this problem by having replays and then in 74, 78, and 82 a second group stage. Since 1986 however, we've had this 16 team knock out format. And it's going to move to a 32 team knock out format in 2026 at the latest.
So while I believe one should minimize the amount of knockout games in any given tournament, your idea of taking players off the field to make the end result fairer in any given knockout game is an interesting one.
It works in hockey OT, but that’s a sport that features more goals in general. People thought golden goal might get teams to play out more, but teams ended up bunkering more in fear of giving up the goal.
I want to avoid anything gimicky, like a 2v2 suggested by another poster. Some might say penalties are gimicky, but at least a PK is something that may also take place in an actual game. I’d settle for those over a glorified half court style game. 9v9 might only work in theory, but I think that even if teams tried to bunker in, one really good player could make a bigger difference. Messi operating against only 7 in the box vs 9 could make all the difference.
I was at Game 1 of the stanley cup finals at the United Center a couple of years ago, when the Hawks won it in the 3rd 20 minute overtime. I can promise you the hockey being placed at that point was not high quality or particularly fun (beyond the novelty of it all) for the fans.
I get that, at that point, it's just survival for the players. But at least the game was won or lost by playing actual hockey as opposed to a shoot out.
But even with hockey, you sub out every minute. You do short shifts and get regular rest. Soccer players don’t get that. They’ve started expanding the amount of subs, but idk how much of that they will do. Eventually, players bodies will just give way and you’ll be having a ton of injuries.
I say do something similar to hockey. If the game is still tied after the first extra 15 minutes, the second 15 is 8v8 or 9v9.
My solution is the two best players on both teams play a game of fooseball. First one to 7 to settle all ties.
Better yet. They play Subbuteo to see who wins.
Let's see how many of you know that reference.
Penalties are a beyond-ridiculous way to end a match. It's like deciding a basketball game with a free throw contest.
But that said, that was a wild kick-save to end it. That Russkie goalie is going to get more local tail than a Miss Universe organizer. Peeing optional.
No. In basketball you can sub guys out freely. In soccer you get 3(4 if game goes into extra time) for the entire match.
Which makes it all the more ridiculous-- you have completely fresh world-class players sitting on the bench at the end. Overtime should come with unlimited substitutions. You brought the players from all over the world to the tournament. Excluding them from the pitch is absurd.
Even if you want the finality of PKs, the game of soccer is 90% dribbling, passing, marking, and tackling. It's not all about shooting a stationary ball. Give the ball to 2 offensive players from Team A out against 2 defenders plus goalie from Team B. They either score or Team B kicks it out of play or the goalie gets possession and the turn ends. Repeat with the other side until one team scores and the other doesn't. Basically the same concept as PKs, except you have to use the actual skills of the game you just played for 120 minutes.
There are a hundred different ways to end a game, and they picked the most random they could think of. Rock-paper-scissors would be an equally just means of determining the winner.
In Soviet Russia, Ministry of Silly Walks watches you.
The Volkswagen curse? Germany, Iceland and Argentina are out. Maybe we should pick against Brazil, Switzerland and Belgium, too...
A game like this illustrates why the penalty kick for a foul in the box is far too punitive. Russia was totally outclassed in this game, but because they were basically given a free goal they were able to force PKs and get a win. The PK should be made significantly more difficult--it should be converted on about 20% of the time.
On another note, I enjoyed watching my new favorite player, Kyrien Mbappe of France. That kid is just utterly explosive.
Your new favorite player's name is actually Kylian...
Remember it this way.
"Who loves you, and who do you love??" KYLIAN!! KYLIAN!!
It’s time to start RUNNING!!!!
I don't disagree with your opinion about the punitive nature of a PK, but Russia wasn't given a free goal. It was a clear hand ball in the box.
Was Russia fortunate that a defensive strategy ended up paying off? Absolutely. And the better team certainly didn't win the game. But it's not like Spain got a bunch of great shots off and they just couldn't find the net (a la Germany). They just held the ball forever and didn't do much with it. To paraphrase the BBC commentator I was listening to, "they tiki-taka'd there way out of the World Cup."
Yeah. Some handball penalties are marginal, but this play one may have prevented a goal from being scored - the header looked to be on target.
Holy cow, what a start to this game!
There’s been more action here in 4 minutes than there was in 120 in the other game.
Well THAT was an unexpected first 238 seconds.
The first 4 minutes and 12 seconds of Croatia and Denmark was more entertaining then the entire 120 minutes + penalties of Russia and Spain.
But seriously, f*** Spain. They didn't deserve to win. They have all these superstar players - superior to the Russians at every position - but no one played hard. They didn't want to win, so they lost. There was no effort to show me they actually wanted to score to win the game. They scored in the first 7 minutes and then seemingly were content with holding the lead to kill the clock. When Russia tied the game, it seemed like they had no problem going into overtime and a shootout. Someone should have told them that passes don't count for shit and you only get points if you actually score by putting the ball in the goal.
They usually bore me to death but this was the worst I've ever seen them. F*** 'em, I'm glad they're out.
Totally agree. Started out rooting for Spain. By the end their boring ass, lack of imagination, watch the defense pass back and forth 6 or 7 hundred fucking Times was enough to drive me to the Russian side.