Official 2018 FIFA World Cup Thread—The Road to Moscow

[yankeesking92]

Argentina and dark horse in the same sentence? Lolwut

Who’s talking about Argentina? They’re far from favorites. They’ve played poorly and just barely stumbled through qualifying to make it to the tournament.

And for those that label Belgium a dark horse, they’ve been labeled that since the last World Cup, let’s call it what it is, they’ve got great players but are limited heavily by their manager. They were Just barely able to take out USA in the last World Cup. They’ve underachieved and their golden generation is being wasted.

 

[LA Diggler]

Naija fam, we are in here o!! We making it out of the group stages somehow lol.





And always

Engerrrrland!


Winner: Spain
Golden Ball: Neymar
Golden Boot: Neymar, Timo Werner
Golden Glove: De Gea
Best Young Player: Mbappé
The price just went up ball: Ismailia Sarr

 

[sonoftony]

 

[bathing chuck]

Will this be the year Belgium puts it all together. I mean they are stacked. Considering they did not take the human Bane aka Nainggolan at all.
Hazard is World Class.
De Bryne is WC.
Lokaku is WC.
Kompany is one of the top defenders in the World. The list goes on and on.

its time for them to step up this year. Otherwise this will have been a wasted Generation. Same as Argentina. I dont consider them a dark horse. I consider them a favorite. When you have the best player in the world, you cant be consider a dark horse, IMO.

 

[Josizzle]

Currently living in England so will have to go with the Three Lions

 

[Trey Bantz]

Sigh.

Why couldn’t we schedule normal friendlies like everyone else? Why did we embroil ourselves in a political and religious conflict when we should be preparing for a World Cup?

This is just another one of countless examples of AFA’s incompetence.

 

[EddieDoyers]

 

[rolaholic]

Who’s talking about Argentina? They’re far from favorites. They’ve played poorly and just barely stumbled through qualifying to make it to the tournament

They might be a bit more under the radar this year given their form during the qualifiers like you said but they're still not some second or third rate footy nation though

They've got pedigree having won twice before and also have one of the best players to ever lace a pair of boots on top of world class talent.

They were in the final last time too,they're way too good to ever be considered a dark horse in any occasion

Good on them

 

[Trey Bantz]

No WC winning nation (aside from England and Uruguay) can ever be considered a dark horse IMO

 

[Armada]

Senegal is my dark horse this World Cup. They have a nice core of players with a couple that are hands down great players in Mane and Koulibaly, very good players that play in top 5 leagues in Sane, Gueye and Balde Diao and some decent players that have held their own and still play football in a top 5 league in Koute, Niang, Diouf and Ndiaye.

 

[Armada]

the Golden Boot, Golden Glove and Golden Ball awards for this world cup

 

[sonoftony]

Sigh.

Why couldn’t we schedule normal friendlies like everyone else? Why did we embroil ourselves in a political and religious conflict when we should be preparing for a World Cup?

This is just another one of countless examples of AFA’s incompetence.

The whole situation was crazy I read somewhere that people were threatening to burn Messi kits if that game was played

 

[Nouss]

Senegal is my dark horse this World Cup. They have a nice core of players with a couple that are hands down great players in Mane and Koulibaly, very good players that play in top 5 leagues in Sane, Gueye and Balde Diao and some decent players that have held their own and still play football in a top 5 league in Koute, Niang, Diouf and Ndiaye.

Damn I slept on Senegal, their entire MF plays in the Premier League lol.
Hope they make some noise too.

 

[tramericanjr]

i just wanna see good ball for a month ........ want african nations to do well... and watch the england show waiting for them to mess up , lol

 

[sonoftony]

England is my dark horse in this WC. This ain't the same ol' 3 lions we are used to

 

[Trey Bantz]

Sigh.

From the outset, we should've scheduled a World Cup-caliber nation to spar with.

 

[ronaldo nazario]

Have any of you checked out the Highlight Machine on Fox Soccer's website? I haven't dove into it yet but it looks pretty cool. Basically a database of all World Cup Highlights and you can make your own reel.

https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/highlights

 

[layziegunts]

There’s this thing called “YouTube”

 

[layziegunts]

I’m definitely cheering on panama My concacaf breddrinah. A lot of you people in here only cheer on big teams, but I love it when smaller nations make it and what it does for their people. Watching them qualify and damn near the whole country was crying send chills down my spine.

The day Jamaica qualifies again I don’t think I will know what I’ll do with myself

 

[ajiiiplatinum]

Sigh.

Why couldn’t we schedule normal friendlies like everyone else? Why did we embroil ourselves in a political and religious conflict when we should be preparing for a World Cup?

This is just another one of countless examples of AFA’s incompetence.

This is actually a good thing brother.
Hundreds dying in the streets while grown men play soccer in a stadium. I though it would be insensitive. I also think given Messi’s following/support in the middle east and the death threats made to player families, it was the right thing to do.

 

[ajiiiplatinum]

I’m definitely cheering on panama My concacaf breddrinah. A lot of you people in here only cheer on big teams, but I love it when smaller nations make it and what it does for their people. Watching them qualify and damn near the whole country was crying send chills down my spine.

The day Jamaica qualifies again I don’t think I will know what I’ll do with myself

Same here. Concacaf doesnt get any love but in previous world cups US, Mexico, and Costa Rica have consistently performed. There are always like 3 european countries that suck and no team from asia or africa even got out of the group stage last year.

Shout out to Costa Rica for beating spain and italy 4 years ago.

 

[ajiiiplatinum]

Have any of you checked out the Highlight Machine on Fox Soccer's website? I haven't dove into it yet but it looks pretty cool. Basically a database of all World Cup Highlights and you can make your own reel.

https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/highlights

I saw this yesterday and watched Argentina’s shots on goal vs Germany in 2014. Smh
...Man Palacio and Higuain sucked big time.
Also Ezekiel Garay was walking in overtime...dude just watched Gotze make a run, catch the ball, and tap in the game winner.

 

[Trey Bantz]

This is actually a good thing brother.
Hundreds dying in the streets while grown men play soccer in a stadium. I though it would be insensitive. I also think given Messi’s following/support in the middle east and the death threats made to player families, it was the right thing to do.

I agree 100%. I never wanted our national team to be Israel’s political puppet. We were getting played like a fiddle.

Maybe I didn’t articulate it well, but my frustration was with the fact that we even scheduled a friendly against a country like Israel in the first place. It’s frustrating for me to watch Brazil play Croatia and Portugal play Belgium while we’re playing against nations like Haiti and Israel.

I’m highly concerned about how little experience this roster has playing together, and the friendlies that we’ve scheduled aren’t going to give us or the coaching staff any sort of indication of how they’ll do at the World Cup.

 

[ajiiiplatinum]

I agree 100%. I never wanted our national team to be Israel’s political puppet. We were getting played like a fiddle.

Maybe I didn’t articulate it well, but my frustration was with the fact that we even scheduled a friendly against a country like Israel in the first place. It’s frustrating for me to watch Brazil play Croatia and Portugal play Belgium while we’re playing against nations like Haiti and Israel.

I’m highly concerned about how little experience this roster has playing together, and the friendlies that we’ve scheduled aren’t going to give us or the coaching staff any sort of indication of how they’ll do at the World Cup.

Yeah I am not sure what was up with that.
We also had Nicaragua on the schedule too lol
Haiti, Nicaragua, and Israel.

 

[Thierry Henry]

Sigh.

From the outset, we should've scheduled a World Cup-caliber nation to spar with.

y'all couldn't play Chile?