Futebol

chrondog wrote:Based on what I've seen so far, it appears like Mislintat is the one with the vision thus far, as evidenced by the Yacine Adli signing, for example.

He announced he will be staying at PSG today. Kind of a bummer that this fell through, but I am really excited about Lucas Torreira. I think he is going to suit this new Arsenal system really well. This most likely means that Jack is out the door. It will be interesting to see what Unai has in mind for Granit, Ramsey, etc. I think this continues to be a really positive transfer window overall for Arsenal.

But who cares about all that now! The fucking World Cup is here! I am so excited that I plan on watching all ninety minutes of Russia versus Saudi Arabia on a tape delay when I come home from work tomorrow. I also went out and bought a French soccer jersey the other day from the Nike store. Allez les bleus!!

What a great match to end the day and get a weekend of World Cup football going.

Ronaldo is brilliant.

Looking forward to this weekend so hard.

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic is a fucking beast. Serbia's young central defenders looked immense. That was fucking great.

The World Cup is fucking great.

Nick wrote:

Ronaldo is brilliant.

More impressed by Costa's display tbh

So is Germany out? Sorry zappo...

Nah, we still alive. Gonna be a much tougher row to hoe, though.

Something tells me 'you'll' be fine

I sure hope so!

I love how several podcasts commit to daily recaps/previews & we are just into the second group stage matches & they all sound tired already.

They aren't the only ones! I need the group stage of this tournament to be over soon so there aren't three games each day. It's too much!

The games have been really fun so far. I've really fallen for this Mexico team and I am backing them the rest of the way. None of the favorites other than Belgium (but they aren't really favorites and it was one half against Panama) have really impressed thus far. It looks like a wide open tournament, which is fun.

It's still really bumming me out not having Italy in this tournament, but at least not having the United States means that I can enjoy the games in peace.

Knowing that Zappo is rooting for Germany is really grossing me out, by the way. Knock that off dude!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup thus far and was standing up celebrating in my home when Nigeria got their second yesterday.

Looking forward to see how Mexico looks in their second match.

Also, I’m like 99% German so I’m excited to see them collect 6 points and hit their stride in the knockout stage!

I am a first-generation German-American who grew up in a bilingual household and has always felt (slightly) more German than American, so WP can fuck right off.

I didn't know that. May as well take up some worthless space since I can't get an answer without asking... Which part of the Schland is/are your parent(s) from?

Lübeck, back in the day. All the relatives live in and around the 'Furt, though, these days.

God. DAMN.

Fuck me.

My hot take watching that match was that maybe Toni Kroos isn't that good. He was at fault in the only goal for Sweden. He delivered several errant passes, including one that could have cost them in the 69th minute if Sweden weren't keeping all ten outfield players behind the ball the entire second half. I don't watch a lot of Real Madrid matches, but it must be pretty easy to be playing in a midfield alongside Casemiro and Modric, the former of whom covers his ass and the latter of whom is one of the most creative midfield players in the world.

This was all going on in my head when he bent that goal into the side netting. Fair play Zappo and it is probably for the best to have Germany playing in the knockout stages of a World Cup to be honest. BUT there is no way there should have been five added minutes....

Nick wrote:I love how several podcasts commit to daily recaps/previews & we are just into the second group stage matches & they all sound tired already.

I love these wrap up pods, but they are truly obsessed with talking about boring/dumb shit. Discussing decisions and VAR will never EVER be compelling. It would also be sweet if every pod wasn't an episode of "overreaction theater" where an entire WC campaign is reduced to to prognosticating based on the most recent performance.

Alec wrote:Knowing that Zappo is rooting for Germany is really grossing me out, by the way. Knock that off dude!

Lmao you support Italy. Even their fascism is less efficient than Germany.

German-Americans can support Germany and I nominally do. I picked them to win this tournament because of experience like they showed today (even though they've been mostly woeful). When Serbia isn't around I support them even more. Tbf though, Serbian fans are some of the biggest knobheads on the planet and it's a disgusting, right-wing country.

Truly gutting result against Switzerland yesterday for the Serbs. They're such an interesting and physically imposing side. Would've been interesting to see their progress if Milinkovic-Savic had been integrated into the team earlier. Switzerland deserve immense credit for being giant bastards. Xhaka looks so much more impressive physically when he's not playing in the Premier League where everyone is so quick.

Alec wrote:I've really fallen for this Mexico team and I am backing them the rest of the way. None of the favorites other than Belgium (but they aren't really favorites and it was one half against Panama) have really impressed thus far.

I'm surprised by how many folks are suddenly "taken" with the Mexico team. It seems to me to be an Americas bias in the European coverage--Europeans don't seem to know a goddamn thing about CONCACAF. Mexico's defeat of Germany was truly the result of the round, but they pretty much do this every four years. They're a decent side with a tremendous amount of passion and togetherness. They have always been that and people just seem to have forgotten about it this time around.

Alec wrote:My hot take watching that match was that maybe Toni Kroos isn't that good. He was at fault in the only goal for Sweden. He delivered several errant passes, including one that could have cost them in the 69th minute if Sweden weren't keeping all ten outfield players behind the ball the entire second half. I don't watch a lot of Real Madrid matches, but it must be pretty easy to be playing in a midfield alongside Casemiro and Modric, the former of whom covers his ass and the latter of whom is one of the most creative midfield players in the world.

Damn, this is impressively the worst and most reactionary football take possible. Kudos.

And Messi is only good because of the Barcelona system, right WP?? This World Cup proves it!

Every player has limitations, bad games, and makes bad decisions. If pundits contextualized performances more knowing those facts, the footballing public would be better for it.

Jerome Boateng has been recognized as the best center back in the world on more than one occasion, but played like an idiot, got sent off and roundly criticized today. It happens!

chrondog wrote:I love these wrap up pods, but they are truly obsessed with talking about boring/dumb shit. Discussing decisions and VAR will never EVER be compelling. It would also be sweet if every pod wasn't an episode of "overreaction theater" where an entire WC campaign is reduced to to prognosticating based on the most recent performance.

Must you always be so sobering, Chrono? Would you prefer they just talk about xG and passing statistics the whole game?

It isn't that reactionary really. For me, the most compelling part of the World Cup is watching the best players in the world slot into different and unfamiliar positions alongside players of varying degrees of skill. In that sense, yeah, Messi has been really disappointing. Nobody is saying that Messi isn't great or that his greatness is only the product of the players he has around him and the tactical system at Barcelona, but these performances do matter and are accounted for.

The most irritating example for this to me is the debate around Pogba. it is just a fact that he was afforded quit a bit of latitude at Juve when he was playing in a midfield with Andrea Pirlo and Claudio Marchisio. The freedom he had to roam around the pitch suited his playing style perfectly and he excelled. It has been a different story at Manchester United so far. These are facts. It doesn't mean that he is just a luxury player or that he isn't worth $X amount of money. It might mean though that if you are a club you might prefer to anchor your midfield around someone like N'Golo Kanté.

It's okay to compare players and form opinions when watching sports without qualifying everything or backing it up with Opta statistics.

Alec wrote:Must you always be so sobering, Chrono? Would you prefer they just talk about xG and passing statistics the whole game?

Would be better tbf, though I don't look at that stuff much. The journos on these pods don't do sober analysis OR emotion-driven human interest angles. They provide this weird middle ground of faux-analysis based on narrative. Nigeria were awful in their first game, ipso facto they are one of the worst teams in the tournament and Iceland will beat them. They do this kind of analysis because it's the absolute lowest-hanging fruit and incredibly easy. Is it so wrong to think that a team should be judged based on a combination of their entire WC campaign, recent results, current player form, and overall player class, rather than just one of those components?

Alec wrote:It isn't that reactionary really. For me, the most compelling part of the World Cup is watching the best players in the world slot into different and unfamiliar positions alongside players of varying degrees of skill. In that sense, yeah, Messi has been really disappointing. Nobody is saying that Messi isn't great or that his greatness is only the product of the players he has around him and the tactical system at Barcelona, but these performances do matter and are accounted for.

I don't see how this paragraph relates to anything I said. I think the bolded portion is spot on. I have heard countless times this World Cup that even though Argentina are awful, Messi needs to "find a way to grab the game by the scruff of the neck". Maybe I'm responding to a straw man, but it does seem to be a giant talking point. Maybe just because in America Fox continues to push this "Big 3" narrative around Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar.

Alec wrote:The most irritating example for this to me is the debate around Pogba. it is just a fact that he was afforded quit a bit of latitude at Juve when he was playing in a midfield with Andrea Pirlo and Claudio Marchisio. The freedom he had to roam around the pitch suited his playing style perfectly and he excelled. It has been a different story at Manchester United so far. These are facts. It doesn't mean that he is just a luxury player or that he isn't worth $X amount of money. It might mean though that if you are a club you might prefer to anchor your midfield around someone like N'Golo Kanté.

It's okay to compare players and form opinions when watching sports without qualifying everything or backing it up with Opta statistics.

Again, I don't see how this relates to what I said and your post is quite confusing. Opta and statistical analysis of football is certainly interesting, but extremely limited. I'm looking for cogent analysis of the things that actually matter: form, class, coaching, behind-the-scenes reporting, possible tactical switches, comparisons of players who provide different options. Some kind of holistic look at the games beyond "England have the firepower to beat Tunisia". What might the pattern of play be like? Where are the key matchups on the pitch? How are the roles these players will be playing in this game different than their typical roles in previous games? For their club sides?

I simply think there's a lot that isn't looked at because it requires "effort". I also understand that the tight turnaround schedules for these productions means that kind of analysis can be quite difficult to generate. I like these podcasts regardless. But they could certainly elevate the discussion a lot.

Another small point: the World Cup has been fucking fantastic!

chrondog wrote:Another small point: the World Cup has been fucking fantastic!

It really has been.

My point was very tangential but it was intended to be an illustration that the narrative around Pogba, although quite tiring and polarizing, is actually quite accurate. And that sometimes, there are actually on-field reasons why these narratives form and exist and they aren't just the self-perpetuating fantasies of journalists and pundits...

I hear ya. You're saying that the "tired narratives" I'm referring to are actually relatively fair characterizations of the players based on real events that happen on the pitch. That's a broad point and I'd agree overall, but it's akin to saying "stereotypes are based on truth" to me. While that's also possibly true, punching down to the lowest common denominator narrative becomes tiresome when you consume as much of this stuff as I do. Complicate the narrative!! I hope that listening to football pundits will expand my view of the game, not simply tie together familiar narratives. And, for as much as I'm focusing on this annoying tendency, there's been a lot of great discussion that has enriched the cup for me from the guys at the Ramble/Guardian/Totally show.

I enjoy talkin' football pods on the Internet with ya WP!

Same!

chrondog wrote:Football Ramble has priority for me over Football Weekly, it's my favorite. i started listening to it a few years ago based on your rec. i dropped Men in Blazers about the same time because their schtick sucks and it's total ESPN "narrative" garbage.

I remember when you made this post about a year ago and it really bummed me out because at the time I was consuming a lot of Men in Blazers and this single post really punctured the veneer of this pod for me. I am, in general, far less critical of football punditry because I didn't grow up totally absorbed by it the way I did with baseball as a kid here in the States.

This assessment though is spot on and I've never been able to listen to or enjoy their podcasts since. At the same time, they are a great gateway drug into following the Premier League. Whenever someone asks me how they should get into soccer, I always tell them to start listening to this podcast and find a team that they feel suits them so they can start developing some emotional investment and rooting interest. They seem aware of their function as like the unofficial ambassadors to United States football fandom as well, which is fine. It definitely gets much worse.

I spend a stupid amount of time thinking about, watching, consuming shit related to this sport now. This has occurred very organically over the last couple of years, but it is weird to think about retrospectively because I can't even remember what my life was like before this budding infatuation started.