World Cup 2018 | 6th July | QF: Brazil vs Belgium, KO 19:00 (BST)

[Chris in London]

Unfair criticism of Jesus, I feel. Showboat Neymar with undoubted skills slows Brazil's attacks down with his own preciousness leaving the Brazil forward line uncertain of his intentions. There is craft and guile in Gabriel's game, he just needs a master like Pep in charge to engage it.

Brazil is less than the sum of its parts. We know Neymar is excellent because we’ve all seen it when we played Barcelona. We know Jesus is brilliant because we see it every week, same with Fernandinho. We know Coutinho is excellent. And Marcelo, Willian, etc.

Yet Brazil as a whole is underwhelming. Couldn’t beat Switzerland. Needed two injury time goals to beat Costa Rica. Picked off by Belgium. They played, especially Neymar, not like a team but as a collection of individuals. Maybe the team would be better without Neymar, I don’t know. But Brazil has, man for man, probably the most talented squad in the world. They aren’t getting the best out of that squad by some distance.

 

[mosssideblue]

Lol @the rags celebrating lukaku performance like he was the second coming of Messi bamboozling Brazil's defense. It was decent run but most of the Brazilians were backing off him and hardly challenging him. Coutinho was also tremendously laxed in his defensive duty that time.

Take the specs off. Lukaku had a brilliant game - its OK to say that

 

[Andy Conway]

It's actually Paulinho who provides that killer pass to Colin Belgian, not Fern, and not lukaku.

https://www.clippituser.tv/c/kaqzan

 

[mosssideblue]

I’m beginning to feel quite sorry for the big lump.
He looks twice the player without the cold dead hand of peg on his shoulder.
He needs to follow the example of the dimarias and mickyterrians of this world and get out of the swamp now.

I agree. Far better player than what he is at the swamp. Hats off to A&E yesterday too, he also looks decent away from there

 

[mosssideblue]

He didn't warrant all the praise as if he was Pele in his pomp. Aside from the decent run he didn't really threatened much in front of goal. Hazard and KDB were much better as offensive threats and keeping the ball.

Neither scored a goal today but gab is heavily criticized while lukaku got praised to the high heavens. If gab had the open spaces Belgian attacking players had this game he would be more threatening top. Tactically Martinez set his team up well and got the upper hand. But still even with tight spaces gab managed to show his flair and skill with that slick move putting the ball under vertonghen and going past him. Doubt lukaku could have done that.

Totally disagree with that. Lukaku held the ball up extremely well

 

[Neville Kneville]

I agree. Far better player than what he is at the swamp. Hats off to A&E yesterday too, he also looks decent away from there

They actually did all the stuff they do at the swamp; running down blind alleys, losing the ball, random fouling etc, the difference being that a Premier League team would pull their pants down for it, as would their own fans, wheras international teams are just a bunch of blokes chucked together.

Consequently, when Lukaku, with Belgium winning, got the ball at the halfway line, set off trying to outpace the defender & ran straight off the end of the pitch, it was described as 'fantastic' (or similar) by the commentator, wheras Utd fans in a typical Prem game at 0-0 would be calling him a fucking useless, brainless, lump.

Barring the Brazillian bloke tackling him & therefore passing to KDB, I'm not sure what else he actually achieved. He certainly didn't 'hold the ball up' 2nd half.

He's fairly quick & strong but put any world class striker in that Belgium team & we'd be talking about who comes 2nd.

 

[razman]

their front 3 was brilliant last night....got to admit lukaku and hazard were class....kdb of course MOTM

 

[Neville Kneville]

their front 3 was brilliant last night....got to admit lukaku and hazard were class....kdb of course MOTM

Imo, they were good only by international standard. If that was our front 3, it would be a relatively poor showing.

For the 2nd 45 mins they failed to do their jobs, especially Hazard, who was getting lauded for beating the first man & running head first into Brazillians but swap that for Sane or Sterling in a match thread on here, they'd be geting slaughtered.

In their 'good' 45 mins, they were playing vs a team with no real plan for stopping them other tham Fernandinho & yet only had one decent effort, from KDB, mainly due to greed by Hazard & lack of ability by Lukaku. Again, we would be shouting at the tv for more intelligence in the final 3rd.

It's the fact they were playing v yellow shirts, which has people going overboard imo.

As an international team, they did well to dig in & beat Brazil (with the help of bad finishing & good luck). As they did well to come back & beat Japan.

But imo, apart from KDB's finish, none of it would be considered very good, if it was a Premier League team.

 

[maurizio]

Bloke on Talksport just saying that in Brazil all the flack is going to Fernandhino for his own goal and his performance. Not fair. Obviously. He was pretty much isolated in the middle. Ignored a lot of problems elsewhere

 

[Jalfraag]

They actually did all the stuff they do at the swamp; running down blind alleys, losing the ball, random fouling etc, the difference being that a Premier League team would pull their pants down for it, as would their own fans, wheras international teams are just a bunch of blokes chucked together.

Consequently, when Lukaku, with Belgium winning, got the ball at the halfway line, set off trying to outpace the defender & ran straight off the end of the pitch, it was described as 'fantastic' (or similar) by the commentator, wheras Utd fans in a typical Prem game at 0-0 would be calling him a fucking useless, brainless, lump.

Barring the Brazillian bloke tackling him & therefore passing to KDB, I'm not sure what else he actually achieved. He certainly didn't 'hold the ball up' 2nd half.

He's fairly quick & strong but put any world class striker in that Belgium team & we'd be talking about who comes 2nd.

Lukaku running the ball out of play and then getting praise for it, illustrates the way the media brainwashes the masses. I can't remember which cretin was commentating, but if Sterling had done that, the perception and reaction would be very different.