Congratulations to France for winning World Cup 2018!

France is a fantastic defensive team. Forget about the goals they have conceded.. the quality of chances they give to opposition is extremely low.

Probably the worst team in the knockouts (argentina) scored 3 against them and you said no one can score against them, that was my point, I didn't even say anything about the Belgium game.

We really got this...

Like you got Portugal in Euro 16

nevertheless probably true.

As if Croatia can score against Umtiti-Varane

OUT.

sportsczy wrote:We really got this...

Yeah you do. France honestly has no excuse. None. Deschamps would be tarred and feathered if his manage to fk this up and I'm really struggling to see how France would.

Gratz on being World Champions, don't drink too much.

Winter is Coming wrote:Like you got Portugal in Euro 16

nevertheless probably true.

We were like Croatia going into that final...  less than 72 hours to the final and having gone through an absolutely monstrously hard game against Germany.  In the first 15 mins of the final, I could tell we had no legs. Portugal parked the bus and then saw us basically lose it physically come the last 20 mins the game. We were dead on our feet in OT.

This time, we're fresh and rested while Croatia is shattered.

This " now or never " attitude from Croatia is really scaring me.
I'm predicting a Brozovic screamer ffs.

Croatia as world champions would be just UNREAL. An upset such as Greece 2004, Leicester 2016... probably even more memorable given the importance of the World Cup

Not mad if France wins as well. Touchy sometimes but very fun people overall.
My blood is more than 75% french, i've never care for that before, but if France wins it will matter a lot during the next 4 years

honestly, i think i'd rather a french win, i really like their team, and for all the flak deschamps gets, i've always respected him as a player, and he's had some decent moments as a manager.

Everyone makes it sound like we're such a negative team.  Fact of the matter is that we played 3 different ways in all 3 elimination games.

We played open against Argentina because Argentina were so open to being attacked

Against Uruguay, we controlled the middle of the park.  Proof is that Suarez had ZERO touches in the box... that's right, ZERO.  Didn't park the bus; just concentrated on defending the middle of the park.

Against Belgium, we parked it once we scored.  We were actually looking to push and attack more in the 2nd half and then scored fairly early.  That's the smart way to play a semi-final of a WC...  you go up with 30 mins left to play so you set up to protect the score.  If Giroud wasn't such a numpty, it wouldn't have been a 1-0 game anyhow.  We outshot Belgium 19 to 9...  and they only had 3 shots on target while we had 9 I believe.

Against Croatia, my guess is that we'll look to control the middle since that's their strength.  There's no pace on Croatia's attack to worry about as in the Uruguay game (Suarez is slow).  Expect something similar to that one.  Modric is going to have a very hard time as Matuidi/Hernandez with Kante as cover has been rock solid.  They basically took out DeBruyne.  Pavard/Pogba has been great and only really struggled for about 25 mins against Hazard.  Reason is that Mbappe doesn't defend like Matuidi obviously as the 3rd defender.  Rakitic is no Hazard however.

congratz sports

sportsczy wrote:  There's no pace on Croatia's attack to worry about

Perisic and Rebic have plenty of pace tbf

BusterLfc wrote:

sportsczy wrote:  There's no pace on Croatia's attack to worry about

Perisic and Rebic have plenty of pace tbf

Our defenders, all 4, are faster than them.

sportsczy wrote:

BusterLfc wrote:

sportsczy wrote:  There's no pace on Croatia's attack to worry about

Perisic and Rebic have plenty of pace tbf

Our defenders, all 4, are faster than them.

Didn't say they are faster than France defenders which I think they are tbh, I just said they have plenty of pace. But if France sits back and hit them on counter they have a great chance for a win, somehow I think no team will open up here and we will go into extra time, last 3 WC finals went into extra time.

No way in the world they're faster than our defenders. None. Pavard is the slowest and he's plenty fast. Varane is a gazelle.

Pavard gets into trouble because he's not a natural fullbacks and doesn't know how to use the boundaries to his advantage. Gotten a lot better as the tournament has gone along.