2022 World Cup Discussion

If England run the gamut of France, Spain and then Brazil it will be one of the greatest runs of all time. If Brazil, Croatia, Spain and Portugal get to the quarters it's gonna be epic. I don't see any upsets in the rest of the round of 16. The favorites aren't losing for the next two days.
 
Mad Eyed Screamer said:
I'm sat in a bar in Atlanta Airport en route to Philadelphia.
The complete indifference of Yanks to "soccer" is staggering. Fuck knows how this country gets to host the world cup twice since England has.....

The bar was reasonably full with the game on 5 screens around the place
The US score and approx 5 or 6 people let out a gentle "whoop" as the others looked up from their phones and then back to their phones.
The Dutch 3rd goal received 2 quiet groans. Those on their phones didn't even notice.....
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That’s a huge oversimplification and certainly at odds with my experience visiting a wide number of places in the States, including Atlanta, where its MLS team, Atlanta United is very well attended, regularly (iirc) getting crowds of over 70,000 and averaging around 44,000, discernibly more than Leeds United.

There is no doubt that football has been steadily growing in popularity in the US in the last couple of decades and so to suggest there is ‘complete indifference’ to ‘soccer’ there is simply wrong. There are still significant pockets of indifference but that isn’t the same thing. It’s far from the same thing.

I‘m certain that the portion of the World Cup that the US hosts will be well organised, safe and very well attended. Those are some of the reasons why they get to host the WC again. Personally think it would be an amazing WC to attend, if you can afford and deal with all the travelling.

Let’s not forget that England fans were ‘denied’ the right to attend the World Cup in large numbers in 1994 by the gross ineptitude of Graham Taylor!
 
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After watching the match vs Senegal, I am sure I saw a few Pep style passages of play.
Is it possible that the players who are working and have worked with Pep are giving Southgate a few ideas?
 
prestonibbo_mcfc said:
Don't think that's particular to England. It's creeping in at all levels of football.
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Without question. When I played football in the 80s and 90s you could probably count on one hand the number of times during a whole season we’d try and play a goal kick out from the back. And without being big headed I played at a pretty decent level.

Nowadays you walk through a park on a Sunday morning and see a game going on and you’ll routinely see both centre halves dropping back making themselves available for a short goal kick in or just outside the penalty area.
 
Stephen230 said:
Nowadays you walk through a park on a Sunday morning and see a game going on and you’ll routinely see both centre halves dropping back making themselves available for a short goal kick in or just outside the penalty area.
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Before they launch it into the opposition half!
 
I’m not a huge fan of the England national team but if they win fair enough. My small enjoyment would be ruined by the absolute wanker Henderson playing a part and winning a medal and the sycophantic praise “Hendo” would get, I can’t stand the wanker. It’s funny how much adulation he’s getting compared to the contributions of Foden, Stones and Walker who have more than helped England into the quarter’s.
 
As a USA fan, I'm condemned to watch the mediocre (but much better than I expected) Fox Sports coverage of the WC (yeah, yeah, VPN/torrent/whatever - these possible workarounds are way too much trouble):
worldsoccertalk.com

Funniest mistakes of FOX's World Cup coverage so far

FOX's comedy of errors at Qatar 2022 is a case study on how not to broadcast soccer. Here are the funniest mistakes of FOX's World Cup.
worldsoccertalk.com worldsoccertalk.com

Still, the broadcast team selected by Fox has been far better than I expected it would be. Derek Rae and Ally Wagner have been a pleasure to watch; John Strong and Stu Holden have been good (unexpectedly), and Ian Darke and Landon Donovan has also been good (but Donovan seems like a prick, always taking digs at Ian). And best of all, JP Dellacamera - that nasal, pretentious, "Captain Obvious," broadcaster - seems to maybe have been dropped for future broadcasts (fingers crossed).

There's nothing worse for me than tuning into an exciting match only to find that it's being covered by a terrible (or annoying) broadcast team. Kudos to Fox for providing a decent (watchable) broadcast team for the WC and for seemingly having the insight that their weakest team includes Delacamera.

Still - Fox hasn't quite learned that "soccer" isn't the same, at all, as "American football." In particular, Fox still insists on including a third - "on field" announcer" - as part of its broadcast team.

In American football, the on-field announcer is used to provide insight into personal player stories or manager insights. In American football, this works well. But for coverage of the WC - it's always been shit. For example, Darek Rae's excellent broadcast is interrupted by some sort of nearly incomprehensible on-field commentary once or twice a game - providing zero insight - and in fact - as coverage is live - frequently on-field commentary occurs at the expense of coverage of exciting action occurring on the pitch.

Another fault of Fox, is that they rely on Dr. Joe Machnik for commentary/insight about rules. Machnik has been dead wrong on at least two occasions. He's brought on and states that "according to the rules, such and such will occur" - and then later when this doesn't occur - he's back on to announce that "FIFA rules now allow this and that which means that such and such is legal." For fucks sake!

First of all, why the pretentious use of "Dr."? - there's no PhD/Doctorate awarded for football rule competency. The use of "Dr." - simply attempts to build up Machnik's credibility.

Next - why is Fox employing someone in the capacity of "rules expert" who clearly isn't up-to-speed on the rules? Machnik has - on at least two occasions - been dead wrong on rules.

Fox has also employed Mark Clattenburg as an on-stream rules analyst. Clattenburg has been far better than Machnik - but really? - why is it necessary to have someone outside of the two-person broadcast team to be available live to comment on rules? This, is another American "footballism" cut-and-pasted by the Fox executives into international football broadcasts. Look - if the announcers don't know the rules of the game - they shouldn't be announcing. There's zero reason to have another broadcast member on standby to comment on rules (especially if that person - e.g., Machnik - doesn't actually know the rules).
===
TL/DR - I've enjoyed the USA announcing for the most part aside from JP. Still, there's plenty room for improvement.
 
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BlueMoonAcrossThePond said:
As a USA fan, I'm condemned to watch the mediocre (but much better than I expected) Fox Sports coverage of the WC (yeah, yeah, VPN/torrent/whatever - these possible workarounds are way too much trouble):
worldsoccertalk.com

Funniest mistakes of FOX's World Cup coverage so far

FOX's comedy of errors at Qatar 2022 is a case study on how not to broadcast soccer. Here are the funniest mistakes of FOX's World Cup.
worldsoccertalk.com worldsoccertalk.com

Still, the broadcast team selected by Fox has been far better than I expected it would be. Derek Rae and Ally Wagner have been a pleasure to watch; John Strong and Stu Holden have been good (unexpectedly), and Ian Darke and Landon Donovan has also been good (but Donovan seems like a prick, always taking digs at Ian). And best of all, JP Dellacamera - that nasal, pretentious, "Captain Obvious," broadcaster - seems to maybe have been dropped for future broadcasts (fingers crossed).

There's nothing worse for me than tuning into an exciting match only to find that it's being covered by a terrible (or annoying) broadcast team. Kudos to Fox for providing a decent (watchable) broadcast team for the WC and for seemingly having the insight that their weakest team includes Delacamera.

Still - Fox hasn't quite learned that "soccer" isn't the same, at all, as "American football." In particular, Fox still insists on including a third - "on field" announcer" - as part of its broadcast team.

In American football, the on-field announcer is used to provide insight into personal player stories or manager insights. In American football, this works well. But for coverage of the WC - it's always been shit. For example, Darek Rae's excellent broadcast is interrupted by some sort of nearly incomprehensible on-field commentary once or twice a game - providing zero insight - and in fact - as coverage is live - frequently on-field commentary occurs at the expense of coverage of exciting action occurring on the pitch.

Another fault of Fox, is that they rely on Dr. Joe Machnik for commentary/insight about rules. Machnik has been dead wrong on at least two occasions. He's brought on and states that "according to the rules, such and such will occur" - and then later when this doesn't occur - he's back on to announce that "FIFA rules now allow this and that which means that such and such is legal." For fucks sake!

First of all, why the pretentious use of "Dr."? - there's no PhD/Doctorate awarded for football rule competency. The use of "Dr." - simply attempts to build up Machnik's credibility.

Next - why is Fox employing someone in the capacity of "rules expert" who clearly isn't up-to-speed on the rules? Machnik has - on at least two occasions - been dead wrong on rules.

Fox has also employed Mark Clattenburg as an on-stream rules analyst. Clattenburg has been far better than Machnik - but really? - why is it necessary to have someone outside of the two-person broadcast team to be available live to comment on rules? This, is another American "footballism" cut-and-pasted by the Fox executives into international football broadcasts. Look - if the announcers don't know the rules of the game - they shouldn't be announcing. There's zero reason to have another broadcast member on standby to comment on rules (especially if that person - e.g., Machnik - doesn't actually know the rules).
===
TL/DR - I've enjoyed the USA announcing for the most part aside from JP. Still, there's plenty room for improvement.
Click to expand...

Excellent summary with just one more small annoyance to add. Derek Rae is probably reasonably fluent in a couple of languages, but his over emphasized pronunciation of players names (particularly German/Dutch/Spanish) is just fukin irritating.
 
I have been surprised how poor Rice has been in one aspect inparticular, he does not seem able to receive the ball from the back four, neither making space for himself or receiving the ball with a midfielder at his back. Players like basquets, Rodri, and other top internationals do so easily. The lack of movement of the other two midfielders does not help, and Southgate had to " go long" to change the game yesterday.

Rice has got other attributes, just not suited to that role, imo
 
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