2022 World Cup Qatar - the football

VAR strikes again. Arguably England had a far better shout for a penalty that went unchecked, the Iran call looked marginal. Fortunately, neither decision played a major part in the final result, but if this inconsistency continues it will at some point.
Players can't really complain, you could make a case for a penalty in almost all dead-ball kicks, very few are accidental contact, but many are 50/50 & half the time they are off the ball incidents.

(21-11-2022 17:52 )Charlemagne Wrote:  In the England match there was 24 minutes of extra time + another 2 minutes whilst the referee decided to award Iran a last minute penalty.

You get the impression that accurate time keeping is a priority, & at a major tournament you don't want to see a nation knocked out by not playing all the stoppage time. Ten minutes were played in the 2nd half of the Senegal Netherlands match.
The officiating was at fault when they delayed the opportunity for England to make a substitution, the game had stopped & England almost conceded a goal playing with 10 men, they had initially tried to bring a player on by kicking the ball out, a complete joke.

The Wales v USA game was a true game of 2 halves.
Wales totally outplayed in the 1st half and a totally different performance in the 2nd half, once they brought on striker Keiffer Moore. If only he was English

Great to see all those thousands of Welsh fans in their red tops in the stadium.

I get ther feeling the draw between USA & Wales probably wasn't the result either side really wanted, but I feel we can't be too complacent against either team as I feel both teams have players that can expose serious weaknesses in our back four. It seemed a comfortable victory for Netherlands in the end but to be fair to Senegal they played a very good game until late on. I feel it is more likely that Netherlands will end Qater's hopes of qualifying than Senegal and wonder how locals react if Qatar don't make knockout stages. I think the goals we gave away were soft, including the penalty.

Argentina getting beat by Saudi Arabia.
It's a match where I don't know who I want to get beat the most.

But I remember my Maradona - cheating bastard.

Let's all laugh at Argentina.
I'll start.

(22-11-2022 12:46 )Charlemagne Wrote:  Argentina getting beat by Saudi Arabia.
It's a match where I don't know who I want to get beat the most.

Notes from England's opening match.

The time added at the end of the first half is a World Cup record (14.08).

The total added time in that match is also a World Cup record (27.16).

Rashford's goal is the 3rd fastest by a substitute at the World Cup (49 sec).

When did Argentina become Argentinia? Most of the pundits seem to have a problem pronouncing the word today. Graeme Souness managed to say it three different ways in one sentence

What’s with the insane amount of extra time they are adding to every match?

It’s not enough that they nicked the 2022 World Cup? They’re going to end up playing one World Cup and a half!