definitely should've been a penalty for berg

BUT toivonen should've been cautioned if not sent off for kicking two separate players in the face while they were on the ground, one of whom had to come off injured, so I think it balances out

Did we watch the same game?

Step 1: Play well without scoring any goals even though you need to.
Step 2: Make a completely unnecessary and stupid mistake.
Step 3: Get super depressed.
Step 4: During half-time break get told that you actually need to win and to do that you need to score a goal.
Step 5: Bombard the goal with bullshit shots until one of them sticks.
Step 6: Keep doing that until you get tired of it.
Step 7: Repeat from step 1 and play well without scoring any goals even though you need to.
Step 8: Make a completely unnecessary and stupid mistake.
Step 9: Get super depressed.
Step 10: Realise there is no more half-time break and just straight up pull some bullshit out of your ass at the last second possibly with the help of undeserved luck.

This had no right to work. And I don't think a better team (sorry Sweden) would've taken those first 10 minutes of the second half like that.

For real, it's not a sign of consistency if you're good enough to win 10v11 but somehow fuck around most of the game running the good old "if we make no mistakes we can't lose"-strategy and then make mistakes and get super depressed because that wasn't the plan.

Definitely entertaining though.
If the loss to Mexico leads to match against Brazil in the Ro16 then that will probably be hilarious as well, regardless of the result.

fuckin swedes
oh well, chichadios will bring us the W and i think swedens attack is actually worse than SK's so im optimistic.
viva mexico cabrones

you are talking about 1 game (maybe 2 if you include vs Mexico). In my eyes, the fact remains that great teams find ways to win even if they play poorly. That is what happened today. Not every game needs to be perfectly played soccer for it to be a great game. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the match, I certainly did.

In my post, I am talking about Germany being one of the top teams in the world year after year and being "consistently" in that category. I think that is where you got mixed up with my comment.

would rather like to see germany knocked out than another piss poor performance against middie teams

I think the problem is how do you define a "consistently one of the best teams". If a team could beat basically anyone, but rarely do it because they don't play to their full potential, are they "consistently one of the best teams"? Imho it doesn't really matter if you are one of the best in theory, but don't actually win.
On the other hand does winning through sheer dumb luck make you a good team? Probably not.

I don't think there is any doubt that Germany has been one of the top teams in recent years (before that maybe not so much), but in this world cup they haven't looked like it so far.
The results of recent games which in include highlights like losing to Austria and barely winning 2:1 against Saudi Arabia are not something that should make you say "that's one of the best teams".
They got away with it against Sweden through the power of bullshit and sheer dumb luck and maybe because they are in theory one of the best teams, not because they are consistently one of the best teams.

or tl;dr
Playing poorly for most of the game and then somehow winning every time makes you "consistently one of the best teams".
Playing poorly for most of the game and then winning maybe 50% of the time against teams that are in theory much weaker does not.

And I still think it's hilarious, way more entertaining than if they just did the good old "actually play well, never let them score a goal, just shoot at theirs 100 times until we score one and then sit back and relax for the rest of the game"-strategy.

Express yourself, it's 1 on 1!

Wasn't the goal by Kane (62') offside?
Never mind, the dutch commentary said it was offside but the goal was fine because he hit it on accident. But it wasn't offside. First goal for Panama though :)

england are super fun to watch dude im excited for u guys and ur future

It's coming home

they played two of the three weakest teams of the tournament tho. It's not random that both Lukaku and Kane have scored that much, the opposition was weak. i wonder if either Belgium or England is going to throw the third game, considering being 2nd could give one of the two teams a super open bracket

im not saying i think they're gonna win, i just really am enjoying watching them play and i think their fans are hilarious

be in denial all you want everyone knows its coming home

Really interesting thread by Karim Zidan on twitter:
https://twitter.com/ZidanSports/status/1010257201770913792

Basically, Egypt's training camp is based in Chechnya, home of horrible dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, and Kadyrov is obsessed with using Mo Salah as a propaganda tool. He is the most popular Muslim athlete in the world, after all, and Kadyrov has used that + the general support for Egypt against Russia to legitimate his rule and launder human rights abuses (he has a long history of doing this with MMA as well, for the record)

Well, turns out Salah is sick of being treated as a zoo animal for a murderous strongman, and is now thinking about quitting the national team

First, i'm not arguing with you or anything. Germany is obviously your country/team so you would know a lot more details than I. However, I fail to see how my definition of consistently one of the best is wrong.
If my thinking is wrong, let me know.

World Cup Finishes:
2014 - Champions
2010 - 3rd
2006 - 3rd
2002 - 2nd

Euro Championships
2016 - 3rd
2012 - 3rd
2008 - 2nd

Confederation Cup
2017 - Champions

FIFA Ranks by year
2006 - 6th ------ 2012 - 2nd
2007 - 5th ------ 2013 - 2nd
2008 - 2nd ----- 2014 - 1st
2009 - 6th ------ 2015 - 4th
2010 - 3rd ------ 2016 - 3rd
2011 - 3rd ------ 2017 - 1st

qsd

England. UK plays as 4 separate teams: England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland. GB refers to the biggest of the british isles that consists of the biggest parts of England, Scotland and Wales.

If you're wondering why we play as separate teams, it's basically tradition. Those teams playing eachother pretty much pre-dates international football and when international football took off we just decided to carry on playing seperately.

https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1010808749265743873
ima say whoever gets to play switzerland in the knockouts gets a free pass to the next round

@SpaceCadet
You don't get the point.
12/16 world cups since 1954 with top 3 finishes. True.
They won because they were better than Sweden and could get away with this bullshit. Also true.

But struggling against much weaker teams and winning only half of those matches like in the past few months is not "showing what it's like to be consistently one of the best teams in the world".

Winning like that is only possible when they're one of the potentially best teams playing against a weaker team.
Being in that position where they have to win like that is because they haven't been playing like it.

When you're only looking at those last few minutes then it's not about being being consistently one of the best, it's just showing 10 minutes of brilliance and a lot of teams have done that without ever being the some of the best for years.

Really, this game didn't show that they are one of the best teams, it showed that they could be, but really aren't playing like it right now 80-90% of the time.

EDIT:
To make it clearer: Performing well under pressure is not exclusive to teams that have been amongst the best for years. If you're only one of the best teams this year and were bad the year before and will be bad again next year you're still allowed to do that.
Consistently struggling and more than occasionally losing against teams that you have 4:1 odds against or better (according to elo) should be exclusive to teams that are NOT the best.

So while no one is arguing about the fact that they have been consistently one of the best teams most of the time in the past, this game does not show that at all.

that's fucking pathetic

fifa holds tournaments in russia and qatar, routinely sucks up to dictatorships, and 2 players get suspended because they're playing the country that committed genocide in their birthplace and made them into refugees and they retaliate with ~hand gestures~?

sorry nfl, you aren't the worst sports organization in the world

I get the point. I was never simply talking about this 1 game or the mexico game. I was talking about historically so we are both talking about 2 different things.

All right.
You do see though how this

could be misinterpreted as talking about the game that just happened.

Let's see how much they struggle against South Korea.

three monitors total

until today still had two for work

now just one

productivity down by another third

My office has two on the wall, first time we've had to split the game so the whole office is looking around.

also it's coming home

To Scotland?

swiss bans changed to fine

edit: potential swiss bans thank you

they were never banned

can we talk about how hector herrera literally dominated kroos and khedira all game though, showed that he should have been the one to go to RM after 2014 imo

@ondkaja and other swedes how do you guys feel about the game tomorrow?

-

wonder if argentina wakes up a different team and pushes into the semis. could happen