For you WC noobs...

Pool play form means absolutely nothing as long as you qualify for the elimination rounds.... Countless pool play heroes flopped in the elimination rounds. On the flip side, many pool play flops wound up winning the WC or reaching the final 4 (Italy makes a habit of it lol and France wasn't anything amazing in WC 98 or WC 2006 either in pool).

The only teams where pool play counts a bit more are the younger ones. The kids need to build confidence.

The tactics and play change drastically in elimination round games.... because it's a single game elimination. You don't play it the same.

ok thanks

Thank you.

In other news the NFL preseason, the NBA and NHL regular seasons and the MLB season are also meaningless

Lol whats the point in this thread, delete please mods.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/38011510.jpg

From what I have witnessed (semifinalists):

World Cup 98:

Brazil - won everything comfortable expect a loss against Norway when they already were 1st place;
Netherlands - Looked solid throughout the tournament, that Yugoslavia team in the 2nd round was a very solid team and in group stages they had only 5 points because of a "friendly" 0-0 with Belgium and a 2-2 with Mexico when they basically stopped playing in the 2nd half.
Croatia - Very solid, 2nd in a group with Argentina and afterwards thumped everything, including Germany 3-0.
France - 9 points in a group with a great Denmark team, not so solid afterwards in elimination rounds, barely made it past Paraguay and Italy;

WC 2002:
Germany bashed everything in the groups, South Korea topped a group with Portugal, Turkey 2nd in group with Brazil barely beating them, Brazil got 9 points ...

WC 2006:
Germany comfortable in group stages (9pts), Portugal (9 pts) and Italy the same, France had a slow start indeed but Zidane hadn't entered God mode yet.

WC 2010:
Spain and Germany had blips against Switzerland and Serbia but otherwise looked good, Uruguay and Netherlands bossed it.

My point is it's not the 80s anymore, semifinalists in big competitions usually look good throughout - it's a short tournament where form and tactical setup are crucial, it's not the UEFA Champions League when you have several months to sort yourself out (see the Internazionale story). The only possible change imho can be a sudden rise in the form of a team's star player - like Zidane did in 2006 or CR did in 2012.

what would we do without you sports.

Well it seems like everyone is calling teams "crap"and other teams "godly"....  or even saying that teams "are finished" after one game lol.  

And btw, getting points and playing well are two different things.  I can tell you that France, other than the opening game, looked nowhere near WC winning material in WC98.  Completely dominated Paraguay and Italy but just couldn't score since they had no CF in early elimination rounds...  bossed possession, created a lot of chances and the opponent never even worried them.  In pool, it was sluggish mostly.

The good teams get points while working out the kinks in early pool play.  Some even drop a point here and there.  But the idea is to build upward momentum.  The reason that Germany hasn't won since 1990 and the dutch ever is that they peak early and can't sustain it.  Italy is the master of slowly gathering momentum and France uses the Italian model.  Spain often starts slowly too.  The only team that successfully has gone hard from start to beginning is Brazil historically...  and that's because they're the Harlem Globetrotters of footy (or were).  They were expected to put on a show.

If you guys think it's so obvious, why do you post inane comments that show extreme kneejerk?

I don't know if what you write is completely true, sports. It might be, it might not be. Or maybe something in between.
Let's just wait and see, then we'll know what has happened.

Hans...  I think what it comes down to is energy conservation for later rounds.... Historically, Brazil didn't have to worry about it much because of its insane depth.  Other teams never had that.  Maybe Germany has it this year too.

If you go 100% with effort and everything from the word go, it's hard to maintain for 7 games in a 4 week period both mentally and physically.  This risk is that you get knocked out of pool if you try to manage yourself too much... but then again, most of the top team are looking to win the thing, not just get to elimination rounds.  Depends what your goals are i guess and if you feel you can manage the pool without too much risk.

Well, against Portugal, Germany went into cruise mode to preserve energy in the 2nd half, so maybe Jogi Löw learned something after all. ^^

I like playing pool. Gif related.

What is a pool play?

lol at people acting as if it's soooooooooooo obvious when most of you were writing off btazil after the mexico game.