Yeah, I'll discuss them then John Strong and Stuart Holden.. I give them 1 out of 5 stars. Strong's voice breaks up when something crazy happens (which always does, because it's soccer). Holden, for me is really bad. He was marginal as an American soccer player, and poor as a commentator. JP Dellacamera and Tony Meola.. I give them 4 out of 5 stars. I generally like JP, he's been in the game a long time. Although he does have his moments where he just completely miss identifies players. Meola is really solid. Much better as an analyst than as a goal keeper He really has a good pulse for the game and the strategies. Derek Rae and Aly Wagner.. I give them 3 out of 5 stars. I like Rae, always have, you know what you are going to get and he notices everything that you do. He's the equivalent of Al Michaels in that respect. Aly... oh boy... this is going to sound sexist... but I don't want a woman commenting on men's soccer. I'm typically not this outspoken about it... except her voice grates on me. Why is she yelling all the time? She reminds me of that one woman that calls diving in the Olympics for NBC. I forget her name. Mark Followill and Warren Barton.. I give them 2 out of 5 stars. I like Followill, he's fairly decent. Barton... just because he's british doesn't mean I'm going to like him calling my soccer. He's mostly lazy. Just doesn't spend enough time on the intricacies of the matchup. Seems to say the same **** over and over. When he takes a stance on something, he'll repeat it until he's eventually proven right. Jorge Perez-Navarro and Mariano Trujillo. This might surprise... but I give them FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS! I just love it when they call the games. It takes me back to the 86, 90, 94 World Cups coverages here in the US when all you could see was the Spanish speaking channels and Andres Cantor yelling GOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. Now these two are speaking english but there's a certain flavor about them that I just enjoy. And they don't agree on things which is good to have them debate. Trujillo offers a refreshing perspective. Lastly, Glenn Davis and Cobi Jones... This is like 2 stars. never a fan of Cobi as a player, and not as an analyst. He's not terrible, but I could do a better job. Went to high school with him (and Eric Wynalda, another blowhard). The group at the studio are generally awful. Lalas, the king of the blowhards... Abdo is cute though. Dr Joe Machinik, I typically agree with him on 95% of his decisions. So he's one I don't mind listening to Guus Hiddink, awful.
God, you haven't even mentioned the worst of the worst. The drop off from Bob Ley and Mike Tirico as studio moderators, to Fernando Fiore might be the steepest cliff in broadcasting history! I hate these guys, they constantly use the wrong terminology. I don't know if it is a translation error, or they really believe that a throwin should be called a handball, and a foul outside the penalty area should be called a penalty. Plus louder is not necessarily better. I like Aly better than you do, although she may get in some trouble today. There was a moment where there was a foul where a player was hit in the groin. She said "It didn't look like he was going for the ball, then a hesitation "the soccer ball" Strong and Holden are just meh for me. JP does indeed constantly miss see things, his eyes must be going. He annoys me because after 25 years as a soccer broadcaster, he still insists on explaining basic rules during his commentary. Anybody watching these games, where the US is not present, knows that the goalkeeper can't handle a back pass... Overall, I like Tony. I like Rae and Barton more than most, I'm sure it's partially the British accents, which I favor going back to Toby Charles. I think Lalas is just trolling people.
Is Fernando even in Russia for the WC? Yeah, he's an annoyance. I heard Aly say that too, I laughed. Should have heard was Gus Hiddink said last night to Seedorf (I think it was). Something Seedorf said about favoring Brazil. And Hiddink said something to the effect of "you're saying that because you are colored" I think I knew what he meant (he meant biased because he played a lot with them), but it came off as something else... ooops!
Ouch, I missed that. I have been avoiding the late night shows because of Fiore. I think he is there but I'm not sure. I know they only sent two announcer teams. The rest are using monitors from the US.
VAR's getting a lot of discussion over here following the incidents in last night's game between Iran and Portugal. Much of it negative, but I see that often as the presenters trying to drum up controversy...any many of them being dinosaurs who don't want the game to evolve, Personally, I think the VAR experiment in this World Cup has worked fairly well, it's still in it's infancy so there will be teething problems, but on the whole it's resulted in a greater percentage of correct decisions being made and hasn't resulted in the game being slowed up too much or often (one of the main criticisms from presenters/commentators). The referee in the Iran/Port game didn't help it's case though by being a pretty weak referee who looked out of his depth. He looked like a rabbit in headlights when the players surrounded him (and I so much hate that about soccer, surrounding the referee to try and influence him). There also still appears to be a lack of understanding from the presenters on how VAR is working in this tournament, where just a little research would tell them what they're complaining about is not the way the system works (ie. saying "why's the referee not asking for a review", when it's the VAR officials that say to the referee that a decision needs reviewed). I imagine there's less controversy in the US re VAR, with your sports already having video assistance well embedded as part of the game?
I can't stand Jorge Perez-Navarro and Mariano Trujillo when they do live commentating. I can tolerate them on shows but not live. I literally muted them during the Mexico match and pulled up a Mexican commentating stream haha. I'm absolutely loving the VAR, as you said it has some kinks. But this is very new tech for the players and ref. What I eventually hope VAR will help cut down the diving. Like the supposed crackdown on divers in the EPL that never materialized, I hope they give after the fact yellows for diving on penalties that are awarded and then reversed due to a dive.
I don't know if it is less controversial. I think that no matter where you are the conflicting penalty decisions in Portugal-Iran and Argentina-Nigeria, are inexplicable. Either they were both penalties, or neither one was a penalty. One of each is absurd... One problem I was having, is that the Fox commentators have really failed to explain how VR works. They have been constantly stating that the VR is supposed to alert the CR of a possible clearly incorrect decision, which he then goes over and reviews himself, to determine if he was wrong. However, on a referee forum they pointed out, that for "factual determinations" the VR actually makes the call himself. As far as I can tell this has never been explained by Fox. This is more of the way that instant replay works in most US sports. Booth reviewer is the decider. Even in the NFL, I believe, the ref going under the hood is just to see it again while the reviewers at the NFL home office tell him what to do.
You can't say Germany deserved to go thru after today's performance. Knew they were going to lose when I saw Ozul and Khedira in the starting lineup.
You're right about the Fox commentators getting it wrong, or giving confusing statements on how it works. IMHO Fox's coverage has been absolutely abysmal, one of the reasons I don't watch many of the Bundesliga matches on Fox cause they haven't even tried to improve.
Germany, Germany, Germany! It looked to me like their older players have all lost 2 steps,, and their in their prime players and young players just didn't step up. Not all that unlike the US problems this cycle where they basically had no in their prime players, and Arena did not let any of the young guys play except for Pulisic. The only worse performance than Germany was Fox. How many times does John Strong have to tell me that Germany never failed to advance from a group before? And when ESPN had the Cup they would cut into simultaneous games briefly to show goals from the other game. Is this beyond Fox's technological capability?
I"m going to revamp my elimination predictions... although I did predict 4 out of the 8 round of 16 games correctly in my previous post. Had a feeling Germany would struggle but I did still have them making it to the quarters. R016: Portugal over Uruguay. 1-0 Even though Uruguay is the more complete team, Portugal just has too much Ronaldo Plus I have to stay with my prediction from before on this one. France over Argentina. 3-1 Going to be an epic game hopefully. Brazil over Mexico. 2-0 Mexico just can't compete at this level. Belgium over Japan. 4-0 Pretty easy matchup for Belgium Spain over Russia. 2-1 Although Russia could pull this one out, I wouldn't be surprised. At this WC nothing is going to surprise me anymore. Croatia over Denmark. 3-0 Just too strong. Switzerland over Sweden. 1-0 You could flip a coin on this one. I reckon it'll be either 1-0 or PK's to decide a scoreless draw. England over Colombia. 2-1 If James can't go, that really limits them. The way England has been playing (save for today's non competitve matchup) they should be able to dominate on the dead ball situations once again. Colombia's CB Mina is a threat though (two goals already). Not going to take Colombia lightly. 1/4s: France over Portugal. 3-2 This could be memorable Brazil over Belgium. 2-2, winning on PK's. What a matchup. This half of the 16 teams is really competitive and makes for great matchups on paper. Croatia over Spain. 2-1 Croatia's Midfield the difference over an aging Spanish side. England over Switzerland. 2-0 Should be an easy path to the semis for England. Of course, what do they say about expectations? Semis: Brazil over France. 3-2 These two meet in the semis. Should have been the finals. England over Croatia. 2-1 This is a favorable matchup for England. They should know the Croatians very well. Could be a great game Finals... Brazil over England. 3-1. Hey as much as I'd want to pick England, I have to be real here. They'd be over matched for the first time in the eliminations round. And I just don't see them scoring enough. Would love to be wrong. This is a little like Liverpools journey to the final of the Champions League. Although they did dominate Man City, the rest of the matchups on their way were favorable in that they could have drawn a tougher opponent. England has a similar path.
Ridiculous to use " Fair Play" (least yellow and red cards) to determine advancement, and I have no horse in this race. The refereeing crews vary so much in their threshold for yellow and red cards, it is completely unfair unless every team in the group gets the same crews, which, of course, does not happen. Having the teams meet the next day to take penalties would be better.
I think it's a sign of the times, that teams are so close now in the World Cup that we finally get to use Fair Play to decide a tie. What is the next tiebreaker after Fair Play? Flip coin? I read online that a better way to decide it (instead of penalties) is shots on goal accumulated over the first three matches. That would at least reward attacking play and make it more of a level playing field (rather than the referee subjectivity).
It was a great match against Columbia. Those penalty kicks are nerve wracking. England's goalie guessed right and got all ball! That play saved the day! England advances! My wife's Irish relatives will be happy! Yay!
Well I am frickin happy as a **** right now. What a breakthrough on penalties. Finally... I mean it's been 28 years of agony for me in these World Cups. Up until today, winning just once in six shootouts I believe (if you add in Euro's as well). They'd never won a PK shootout in the WC. Think they played a better match and deserved to win it in regulation. Colombia played dirty trying to draw the ref into bad calls and surrounding him. They should have had at least one player sent off for the head butt on Henderson. And then when COL tied it up, I mean I'm shell shocked. The team was shell shocked. You could see for the first 12 minutes of the added 30, just stunned. Then they finally get their bearings and almost win it in the 30 (Rose's try comes to mind). Then comes the pens... and we all know how it's supposed to go... and then Hendo misses his pen and I'm thinking that's it. If not for the crossbar it's probably over as COL misses their fourth kick. I think Trippier was it that tied it up 3-3. Then the fantastic save by Pickford. And Dier with just enough to beat a reaching Ospina who gets his hand on it. And then I just lost it... mind gone.. voice gone... Yeah it's just a round of 16 match... but to me (and all of England) it's more than that. Love this world cup right now. Of course Sweden on Saturday is going to be a struggle. England have only won once in the last eight meetings (including friendlies). I don't know if I can take pens again, but I have a feeling this team can handle it now. The monkey has been taken off the back. The other three quarters, I'm going with FRA over URU... should be a good matchup though, offense vs defense clearly BRA over BEL... what a matchup on paper. Hope it plays out that way. CRO has to beat RUS don't they?
Oh and Belgium 3 Japan 2 is the match of the tourney for me. And if you guys haven't heard about Japan and their class fans/team after losing that heart breaker, you should check it out. Cleaning the locker room (it's spotless)... fans cleaning the stadium. Brilliant stuff.
Got to beat Sweden first, it will be another nail biter. And Croatia is going to have all kinds of problems with Russia.
I'm sad that not a lot of England supporters have gone to Russia yet... not compared to Mexico/Colombia. I think that's half what happened at the Euro vs Iceland with much lower expectations and the fact that the games are in Russia and there's a bit of an issue going on between the two countries at the moment! I'm hoping that will change for the Sweden match. After seeing all these England Fan Reaction videos I'd suspect we'd see a few more Brits over there now It's Coming Home! Historically English fans don't fear going anywhere. A few bad apples have spoiled their reputation in the past. Other countries way worse though, especially recently.
I just don't like Croatia and they're the one team I don't want to see win. France and Brasil are the next two. I agree with you but I think we'll see an England Croatia semi. I also think we'll see a Belgium France semi on the other side. I had no idea you are actually English. Great tourney for you guys and you got the penalty monkey off your backs. Good job and good luck dude.
Why do you dislike Croatia? I got a buddy who's Croatian and that's the only reason I'm pulling for them.
I have a close friend since high school who's Croatian and I still want them eliminated. They're generally viewed as a very arrogant, ignorant, and unfriendly people seen as @ssholes. They act superior to everyone and think their stuff doesn't stink. My friend has most of those qualities. If they win, f me man...I'll never hear the end of it. I've hated Portugal more than anyone else (Portugal/Italy rivalry only exists in Canada specifically here in Toronto due to culture clash) and I have rooted against them all my life since I was a kid. Past Euro cup and this world cup I was cheering for them because I became good friends with a Portuguese guy through another friend. I even went to the Algarve last year which was like sacrilegious 5 years ago. Amazing place, amazing party btw. I've known my Croatian friend much longer and still want them to lose. Don't worry, he secretly wants Italy to lose. We just don't admit it to each other and have a silent understanding. I guess you can say I share some of those same qualities that I dislike in Croatians as well. You know what they say, birds of a feather flock together.
I always make fun of Croatia and call them the Fighting Tablecloths due to their uniforms. You should try it with your Croatian friends.
Shameful from Mbape and Neymar today, but at least these antics *might* kill this stereotype that Italians dive like crazy. Baby Neymar (everyone getting tired of this guy this tourney) https://www.clippituser.tv/c/rykekg Baby Mbape (Mbape did something similar in the first game of the tourney) https://www.clippituser.tv/c/vxbwra
Well, I didn't see BEL beating BRA. I think I'm done with the predictions, But obviously Belgium were the much better side. So explosive on the break once they got the goal. And I suppose had it been Brazil taking the lead, they would have been just as explosive. The first goal in this WC has been so crucial MOST of the time. Martinez changing the lineup to put KDB closer to Hazard and Lukaku was the move that won them that game. And Casemiro getting a 2nd YC in the prev game and BRA having to go with Fernandinho was the move that lost them that game. In fact, I can't remember a Brazilian who has single handedly killed his team like Fernandinho did today. What a nightmare of a game for him. The OG and then failing to tackle or take down Lukaku on that break away for the second goal. And you wonder why BRA didn't start the game with a different lineup. Jesus has been crap all WC. Willian has been inconsistent. Firmino has shown what a true #9 looks like. And yet they never started him. Costa was also very good when given the opportunity (I guess he was injured most of the WC). Oh well, first WC ever without either Germany, Argentina, Brazil in the semis. And now I wait all night for the ENG SWE match... not much sleeping occurring tonight
Just looked back at my predictions. Even with Germany screwing the pooch, looks like I got half the semi-finalists. I did not even remember I picked Bel over Bra!
I picked France, Brazil, England and Croatia in both of my predictions, one before the cup started and one before the round of 16 started. I'm not going to say anything else until after tomorrow's games good luck sweaty palms and it's only a quarter final. I can't imagine what I'd be like if we were in the final. It's equivalent of the Dolphins in the Super Bowl for me. Same level of excitement and nervousness. breath breath...
Obviously the better team today won. Didnt take the Swedish side lightly. Team is focused and deserve to be in the semis. Pickford top man. Very happy. Everything gravy from here. Now lets see if its CRO or RUS. Should be CRO but RUS winning wouldnt totally surprise me.