• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Brazil 2014--The FIFA World Cup Thread

I had a few thoughts on the eve of the beginning of the knockout stage (none of them about Luis Suarez, sorry).

-One big story of this Cup is three CONCACAF representatives making it to the second round. Surely there was no one who expected this prior to the start of play, given Mexico's struggles in qualification and the group placements of Costa Rica and the US, but here they are. The chance of at least one moving on to the quarterfinals has to be pretty good--in particular, it would be , at most, a very minor upset for Costa Rica to beat Greece. And who'd have thought that the US would get this far with such poor play from Michael Bradley?

-Goalscoring has dropped off some from the first games, but it's still high. The 136 goals in group play is the highest total since the Cup expanded to 32 teams in 1998, and if the current pace of 2.83 goals per game were sustained through the final, it would be the highest goalscoring rate since the 1970 Cup.

-Of the sides that look to be the top contenders at this point--Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany and the Netherlands--Argentina seems to have the clearest path, at least as far as the semifinals. They face Switzerland, followed, assuming they win, by the winner of the Belgium-US matchup. No one at this stage is going to be a pushover, but none of those three are real powerhouses (Belgium may be one in the near future but they don't seem to have it all together yet).

-If Brazil is going to win on their home soil, they're going to have to earn it the rest of the way. Their next opponent is Chile, probably the strongest of the second-place finishers in group play, followed most likely by Colombia, which is in great form. That's just to get to the semifinals, where there's a good chance they'll face the winner of a France-Germany showdown.
 
I'd love to see a Chile upset, but I don't like their chances in a shoot-out unless a couple of Brazilians get fancy and blow it.
 
Chile missed 3/5 penalties. That's pretty hard to do. (I guess unless you're in the round of 16 in the World Cup)
 
rousseau said:
Chile missed 3/5 penalties. That's pretty hard to do. (I guess unless you're in the round of 16 in the World Cup)
Click to expand...

I wonder if anybody has any statistics on success rate of penalties in normal play compared with success rate in penalty shoot outs.
 
rousseau said:
Chile missed 3/5 penalties. That's pretty hard to do. (I guess unless you're in the round of 16 in the World Cup)
Click to expand...

In the second round in 2006, the Switzerland-Ukraine match went to penalties, and the Swiss missed or were saved on every penalty they took.
 
Brazil has not been impressive. I'll doubt that they get past the semis against Germany or France, and not at all surprised if they lose to Colombia in the Quarters.
 
doubtingt said:
Brazil has not been impressive. I'll doubt that they get past the semis against Germany or France, and not at all surprised if they lose to Colombia in the Quarters.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with that. Brazil's attackers, Neymar excepted, have not been very impressive so far. Fred and Jo have been non-factors, and the same was true of Hulk until his solid showing today. Oscar had a nice showing in the opener but has faded since then.

Brazil got a bit lucky today; had Pinilla's late shot dropped just a few inches lower, or if Chile's penalty takers had done better, they would have lost.
 
EricK said:
rousseau said:
Chile missed 3/5 penalties. That's pretty hard to do. (I guess unless you're in the round of 16 in the World Cup)
Click to expand...

I wonder if anybody has any statistics on success rate of penalties in normal play compared with success rate in penalty shoot outs.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of statistics out there on penalty success rates in general; the numbers vary a bit but the overall success rate in penalties tends to be a bit over 75%. I also found this page which has stats for each penalty shootout in the World Cup from 1982-2010. The success rate in shootouts was just over 70%, slightly lower then the overall rate.

You'd expect a slightly lower success rate in shootouts, because when a penalty is taken in regulation, there's a small chance that if the keeper saves the initial kick, it will rebound into play and the penalty-taker or a teammate can score on a follow-up shot.
 
MarkW said:
EricK said:
rousseau said:
Chile missed 3/5 penalties. That's pretty hard to do. (I guess unless you're in the round of 16 in the World Cup)
Click to expand...

I wonder if anybody has any statistics on success rate of penalties in normal play compared with success rate in penalty shoot outs.
Click to expand...
There are a lot of statistics out there on penalty success rates in general; the numbers vary a bit but the overall success rate in penalties tends to be a bit over 75%. I also found this page which has stats for each penalty shootout in the World Cup from 1982-2010. The success rate in shootouts was just over 70%, slightly lower then the overall rate.

You'd expect a slightly lower success rate in shootouts, because when a penalty is taken in regulation, there's a small chance that if the keeper saves the initial kick, it will rebound into play and the penalty-taker or a teammate can score on a follow-up shot.
Click to expand...

I would think the bigger difference is due to penalties in normal play being taken by an established penalty taker, whereas in shoot outs you need to find 5 (or more) players to take them.
 
Eh, I dunno if that was a flop. Robben might have dramaticized it, but the Mexican player clearly had his foot in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and clearly made contact. The ref has to call that.
 
doubtingt said:
Sad that it was decided on such a blatant untouched flop by Robbie.
Click to expand...

You might want to get a new TV set, he was actually touched twice in the same action before he fell.

It is true he was playing the mexicans to make a foul and he didn't fight gravity too much but that does not make it a dive. A dive is when a players acts a fall when no foul was committed. What Robben did was gaming the system but that is not against the rules: it is using the rules.

He was tackled by a player who had never any intent to play the ball within the box. That is worth a penalty.
 
Rousseau said:
Eh, I dunno if that was a flop. Robben might have dramaticized it, but the Mexican player clearly had his foot in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and clearly made contact. The ref has to call that.
Click to expand...

Okay, maybe there was a tiny bit of toe to toe contact, and maybe the ref had to call it (though they don't call 30 trips far worse then that every game), but it was still a flop. The contact didn't cause him to fall. He felt the contact, and then threw himself to the ground because he had already lost possession at that point.

Dutch_labrat said:
doubtingt said:
Sad that it was decided on such a blatant untouched flop by Robbie.
Click to expand...

You might want to get a new TV set, he was actually touched twice in the same action before he fell.

It is true he was playing the mexicans to make a foul and he didn't fight gravity too much but that does not make it a dive. A dive is when a players acts a fall when no foul was committed. What Robben did was gaming the system but that is not against the rules: it is using the rules.

He was tackled by a player who had never any intent to play the ball within the box. That is worth a penalty.
Click to expand...

He wasn't tackled by anyone. He threw himself to the ground over the defenders leg after making minimal toe toe contact with a player who most definitely was playing the ball and had just put he foot down after trying to kick it away from Robben. The contact didn't make Robben fall. He intentionally flopped (as he had earlier in the game and as he is known to do all the time) with the prototypical flailing arms because he had already lost possession the ball by kicking it toward the other defenders. Given the contact, it wasn't an outrageous call by the ref but he could have not called it, and had Robben kept playing not thrown himself to the ground, no foul would have been called. I realize that phony flopping and faking injury is a central aspect of the sport, but given that he wasn't even in scoring position at that point and had lost possession, it was sad to see such a big game be decided on a player on a technicality and gaming the system.
 
rousseau said:
Damn. What a heart-breaker for the Mexicans.
Click to expand...

Very tough loss for them. When I was watching, though, I could sort of see it coming when Mexico retreated into a defensive shell so soon after they scored. 40 minutes is an awfully long time to defend a 1-0 lead against a squad like Holland with so much offensive firepower.
 
So Ramadan just started which means that Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink anything before the sunset. In a World Cup where we have seen official water breaks because of the heat one wonders how well Muslim players will be able to cope with it. Now Algeria is the only Muslim country left and they are lucky that they will play in the cool, southern Porto Alegre tomorrow against Germany (and there is not much chance for a revenge for 1982, let's be honest, so this will be their last game) but German, French, Nigerian etc. sides also have Muslim players on their rosters and they will probably have to play in one of the furnace-like stadiums before the tournament is over.
 
Last edited:
rousseau said:
Eh, I dunno if that was a flop. Robben might have dramaticized it, but the Mexican player clearly had his foot in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and clearly made contact. The ref has to call that.
Click to expand...
No, he doesn't. Robben made a meal out of it, and he had already lost the ball. On the other hand, at this level, every defender should know Robben is a flopper and should not put themselves into that position.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom