It is a good side on paper. No way it is better than England, Portugal, Belgium, etc...
CA 2019 - Final - Brazil vs Peru
- Thread starter Mark_Barca
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They really are in trouble if they need help from the USA
So Muriel is better than Lo Celso because Lo Celso hasn't shown as much at the top level? But Lo Celso is 23 and Muriel is 28... And Sanchez is as good as Otamendi? And Medina better than Saravia? How does that work? Pezzella had a better season than Mina, Otamendi had a better season than Sanchez, from what I've read Saravia had a much better season than Medina (who shouldn't even start) and Lo Celso had a much better season than Muriel. The argentinian players then come to the national team and stop performing, doesn't mean you get to ignore the 9 previous months.
Argentina have a much better squad on paper than Colombia. It's not even close. Colombia are a team, Argentina aren't.
De Gea, Carvajal, Ramos, Martinez, Alba, Busquets, Saul, Thiago, Isco, Pedro/Paco, and Asensio
Patricio, Semedo, Pepe, Fonte, Guerreiro, William, Danilo, Fernandes, Bernardo, Guedes/Andre Silva, Cristiano
Really? There's 2 portuguese players that would start for Spain, at best.
Same for England, Bernardo and Ronaldo for us and Sterling and Kane for England.
Disagree, but that's not how you compare sides. There isn't much between most players position for position. The biggest differences are bernardo and cristiano, who are on a diffrent order of magnitude than the best spanish players. Same goes for england
Anybody who's clued up on football knows the Argentina squad is extremely weak.
As for your comparisons. Sanchez had a better season than Otamendi. Saravia has looked absolutely woeful. Mina was injured and is clearly better. I never said Muriel was better, I said he had shown more at this level. For this tournament I think Muriel is a more rounded player and has the experience. Lo Celso been average in both games to no surprise to me.
Also I can't take anyone serious who was hyping up Kazakhstan, no offence.
Um, TAA? Easily starts for Spain.
Sancho is better than Asensio as well .. all of England's front 3 start for Spain
Not to mention, maybe only a few Portuguese/English players start for Spain, but give me a couple of world class attackers over a few decent but not great cms/decent central defenders.
It’s evident for me Spain has better individual players overall than us. Has they always had. But you know that collectively when those teams face each other even that fact hasn’t made their games easier. Sure they always have more possession, create more chances, but we know how to frustrate them.
For a second I thought you were making parody posts given you're a Barcelona fan but alright, do your thing. Colombia have a better squad than Argentina then, as nobody else in the whole world thinks. Great, awesome stuff. Not as if Messi is twice the player James is, Aguero is twice the player Falcao is and Di Maria is twice the player Cuadrado is. Not like Lo Celso had an insane season that was much better that any season Muriel's ever had. Not like Tagliafico, Otamendi and Paredes would walk into that Colombia side as would Pereyra or Saravia and Casco over Medina who is average in Mexico and got subbed out at half time last game.
Who cares about that? Not as if people here watch football for the past 9 months. Great.
The coach is actually doing a good job, they're very well organized as a team and the reason they fail to perform has absolutely feck all to do with an insane amount of tactical problems, lack of any sign of team spirit and leadership and everything to do with the players that had great seasons for their clubs not being good enough to perform for their country because of some dark magic that happens as soon as they put that shirt on. Makes sense.
It's really not. It's not a strong squad but it's not weak either. It's tragically mismanaged and carrying the 1000 ton weight of having to win because Messi, and were already leaderless and mentally fragile to begin with.
The best thing that happened to Argentina was Messi retiring after the 2016 final. The worst was him coming back. It's not really his fault, but argentina need a fresh start with less pressure and expectations and for that Messi has to go. He's not capable of shouldering that burden for the whole team.
That, and they need to finally get a competent manager. They had 2 in 10 years and unsurprisingly made finals under them
Not now they don't, and results and performances bear that out
I think we’re being influenced here by the recent international performances, but I agree it’s always hard to look at them and compare with the generations they had who won them everything.
They will remain a good NT, of course they cannot go to international tournaments sacking Lopetegui 1 day and make a WC with Hierro,and now this problem with Enrique.Everything counts.
How so? There is a big difference in the rest of the team, there's more than a couple of levels between Patricio and De Gea, Guerreiro and Alba, Pepe and Ramos (in 2019), William and Busquets, Fonte and Martinez, Thiago and Bruno Fernandes, etc... judge their form for their clubs and it's not even close.
We can play Cedric instead of Semedo, 37 year old Bruno Alves or Ruben Dias instead of Pepe, Eder or MLS Nani instead of Guedes, Pizzi or Joao Mario instead of Bruno Fernandes and we can still compete against anyone because we're set up well. Bernardo only started performing for us during the Nations League, him and Cristiano make the difference but even if they don't do it the team doesn't fall apart because of it. That's how it should be. We're stable and mentally strong, Santos is as far away as possible from being a tactical genius but he's done a good job of always keeping us solid and with a chance to win against anyone.
Spain completely dominated us for a reason at the World Cup, they're way more talented than us overall. Even Morocco completely played us off the park. Then the one game we played well vs Uruguay we get knocked out.
Are you seriously trying to claim we have better players than Spain? Even the most anti-spanish portuguese fans wouldn't argue that
How many games have you watched us play in the past 3 years? Seems like you're judging us solely on the Holland match when that was 10 levels above anything we've done in any game in that period. In the last 4 games we've been outplayed by Switzerland and drew Ukraine and Serbia at home. We'll struggle to qualify to the Euros.
Wow. And I thought I was the pessimist here. Seriously, if we don’t lose on Serbia we will qualify without playoffs.How so? There is a big difference in the rest of the team, there's more than a couple of levels between Patricio and De Gea, Guerreiro and Alba, Pepe and Ramos (in 2019), William and Busquets, Fonte and Martinez, Thiago and Bruno Fernandes, etc... judge their form for their clubs and it's not even close.
We can play Cedric instead of Semedo, 37 year old Bruno Alves or Ruben Dias instead of Pepe, Eder or MLS Nani instead of Guedes, Pizzi or Joao Mario instead of Bruno Fernandes and we can still compete against anyone because we're set up well. Bernardo only started performing for us during the Nations League, him and Cristiano make the difference but even if they don't do it the team doesn't fall apart because of it. That's how it should be.
Spain completely dominated us for a reason at the World Cup, they're way more talented than us overall. Even Morocco completely played us off the park. Then the one game we played well vs Uruguay we get knocked out.
Are you seriously trying to claim we have better players than Spain? Even the most anti-spanish portuguese fans wouldn't argue that
How many games have you watched us play in the past 3 years? Seems like you're judging us solely on the Holland match when that was 10 levels above anything we've done in any game in that period. In the last 4 games we've been outplayed by Switzerland and drew Ukraine and Serbia at home. We'll struggle to qualify to the Euros.
I am not entirely pessimistic here. We have better individual players now than 5 years ago. Another thing is saying we have the same type of resources than a Spain, France or Germany.
We lack numbers and some specific positions. It’s normal.
Wow forgot this is a Copa America thread. Forget Portugal or Spain.
There really isn't though. Not that much between William and Busquets, Semedo and Carvajal(and you have Cancelo too), Patricio and De Gea, not now, not this season. And there is a colossal difference between bernardo and cristiano and isco and rodrigo
Spain didn't dominate you, draw was the correct result. And they also got mostly played off the park by Morocco. But that was last year. You were worse than you are now, and they better
No, i'm saying you don't have worse players overall. Or better yet, you don't have less qualityAre you seriously trying to claim we have better players than Spain? Even the most anti-spanish portuguese fans wouldn't argue that
And, beyond that, you're likely a better team. Certainly not a worse one. Spain are good, but they're nowhere near a great side
I'm not pessimistic, things are great and I believe we'll qualify. Still mad to see us bieng put on the same level as any of France, Germany, Spain or Belgium. I think we're on the same level as England and the dutch at best which is a higher level than we've been for most of the past 10 years.
I always like to compare with the Dutch, Belgium, Uruguay and so on. Confident we will be there in 2020. Even if it’s a playoff.
What? Last time I read a Betis forum they had nothing but insults on his thread. William was bad at Sporting before moving and has been on a clear decline since Jardim left.. there's a reason he got sold to Betis, not to Real Madrid or Barcelona.
De Gea had a poor season but come on, he's twice as good as Patricio. Alba to Guerreiro, Ramos to Pepe and Martinez to Fonte is a ridiculous difference. As is Danilo/Pizzi to Thiago. Difference between Bernardo and Isco isn't so big btw, this season it was but that had a lot to do with the circumstances. They're actually very similar. Fairly amusing how much lower the Real Madrid players of that 3 CLs team get rated since Ronaldo left. 2 years ago Isco was getting the same Ballon D'Or shouts Bernardo gets now, apparently nowadays Carvajal would be benched by Trent Alexander-Arnold and isn't much better than Nelson Semedo and Asensio went from a future Ballon D'Or winner to average...
Spain didn't dominate us? We had 3 shots on goal and they had 4 times the amount of chances we had. Controlled possession too. How was that a fair result in any way? And we're better than last year? Why? We're playing exactly the same, the two pillars of this NT have been Pepe and Ronaldo and they're both getting older. We're getting worse, not better. I really think you're taking the final vs Holland out of proportion. We didn't even deserve to beat Switzerland to get there.
I'll leave it at that since it's off topic but really, Portugal having a better squad than Spain and Colombia having a better squad than Argentina are both mental opinions. If Qatar knocks Argentina out, I'm expecting comparisons between Eder and Sergio Aguero. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint.
Spain don't deserve to be in that first category though. They've been shit two tournaments in a row and crap in the Nations League to boot (a friendly tournament, but still). I'll give Germany some leeway since it's only the one off tournament.
France/Belgium are the best European sides and then it's a number of sides who have a claim to 3rd best, we won't really know for sure till the Euros .. nations league means almost nothing.
The way I see it, it makes more sense to rate the teams on the players available than on previous tournament results. It's knockout football with one off games.
We went from losing on pens in Euro 2012 semis, to getting knocked out in the WC 2014 groupstages, to winning Euro 2016. The dutch went from a WC final in 2010, to getting knocked out in Euro 2012 groupstages to losing on penalties in 2014 WC semifinal. There's rarely any pattern to this, things change a lot in one or two years. We've done better than Germany in the past 3 tournaments (Euro 2016, WC 2018 and Nations League), doesn't mean it makes sense for anyone to rate us over them imo.
Spain have been crap for a little while in tournaments though, it's not the same team. They have a very unbalanced squad with a lot of good midfielders but no firepower at all. It doesn't really make sense to judge purely on quality of players available because that doesn't take in to account how well those players work together, how balanced the team is etc. Spain's side haven't put together really good performances in a tournament in a long time.
There's obviously going to be up and down sides (especially sides that rely on being a bit plucky like Portugal because of your style, quite easy to go out in the groups when you're coached to play defensive football) but right now Spain really aren't all that good. You haven't done better than Germany because the Nations League isn't a proper tournament, the last two tournaments have finished you winning the Euros/going out in the groups and them winning a world cup and going out in the groups.
Anyway, I could easily see someone rating you above Germany in 2019. They're in a transition phase with the likes of Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Boateng etc who were key to the 2014 win retiring/ageing so they're struggling with that, I honestly don't expect much from them at the Euros unless something quite drastic changes. They're just another 'good' side in Europe, behind the current two favourites in Belgium and France who imo have easily the most talented squads.
I know this is a Copa America thread but I definitely don’t rate more Belgium than Germany, France or Spain. At least from a collective point of view. And even from the individual point of view.
But doesn’t matter, international football is definitely won on small margins, it’s not the same as the Champions League.
Now relating this to Copa America despite all the problems Brazil or Argentina have, and they have, one of their problems also in South America is that in the recent years the difference between them and teams like Uruguay or Colombia was mitigated, and their fans or the media aren’t adapting well to the new reality.
What the feck is Japan doing in this?
Belgium are better than Germany or Spain. France are the best.
Hazard and De Bruyne are stardust. Both better than any individual in Germany or Spain's current squads. Then they have a great cb partnership, a solid midfield, a good keeper.
As for the South American teams, Brazil just don't impress me all that much without Neymar, with him they have that X-factor, a genuinely world class player who can make the difference. Argentina are just fecking weird, they have a shit ton of talent which on paper should blow teams to pieces (their defence/midfield/keeper isn't world class but it should be functionable) but they just never look well coached at all.
They got invited
I think you’re going to be let down by Belgium in 2020. Only my prediction.
Regarding South America one thing that is great on the recent years beside the strengthening of teams like Uruguay or Colombia is watching the recent performances of teams like Venezuela or Equador at the under 20 level and how that’s translating to the senior sides. For now Venezuela.
On the other hand Brazil or Argentina look zombie teams without any sort of connection between them and their fans.
Two teams get invited every time, usually Mex/USA or other CA sides. Gold Cup is on right now so they had to look further afield.
Maybe, I think they probably need someone better to lead the line to emerge by the Euros. Lukaku isn't a bad player and is a good goalscorer, but he has deficiencies which will always crop up in top level games.
Agreed, South America has a lot of interesting sides with really enviable mentalities, countries like Uruguay punch so far above their weight in terms of population, money to invest etc.
They’ve been invited before as well
0-1 Japan
what a silly penalty to give
Well, that's just absolute crap. VAR is horribly flawed.
He got a yellow for that and it wasnt even a penalty.
Otamendi fouls from behind and not even a yellow.
Not much consistency to be fair.
Pen incident
Terrible decision and I'm somewhat convinced referees feel under pressure to give decisions when they go over and see them on the screen. I'd be really interesting to see some statistics about the number of fouls called for and against in those situations.
Edit: Cavani was never getting to the ball so it's extra dumb.
Edit: Cavani was never getting to the ball so it's extra dumb.
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None at all. How often do you see a player kick another players studs? It's just part of the game.
I thought the okazaki one was more of a pen but the ref showed no interest whatsoever.
Think the pen is another issue of everything looking much worse in slow motion + another incident of a penalty being given that would never be given if VAR didn't exist, similar to the France Womens Pen v Norway.
In isolation it's easy to see why it was given, Cavani has a shooting opportunity, defender has attempted to play the ball and has missed and has stopped Cavani from a clear shot. In slow motion it looks bad but in real time it's just a completely natural coming together. It's never ever a pen for me though.
I think referees should only be allowed to use slow motion replays to verify if there is contact with a player/handball then they have to watch the actual incident in real time to make a decision. Literally everything looks a foul in slow motion.
In isolation it's easy to see why it was given, Cavani has a shooting opportunity, defender has attempted to play the ball and has missed and has stopped Cavani from a clear shot. In slow motion it looks bad but in real time it's just a completely natural coming together. It's never ever a pen for me though.
I think referees should only be allowed to use slow motion replays to verify if there is contact with a player/handball then they have to watch the actual incident in real time to make a decision. Literally everything looks a foul in slow motion.
Yeah man, quite ridiculous. It's a shame that the judges are still making the wrong calls, even with all the evidence right there. VAR itself is a great tool, but human stupidity is fecking shit up. The sooner some AI takes control of making these calls, the better.
Worth noting that CONMEBOL only paid for the basic shitty version of VAR. This is not the same VAR used in Russia or Europe.
Classic Latin America.
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