Day 4: Costa Rica vs Serbia, Germany vs Mexico , Brazil vs Switzerland

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I am sorry but I love the world cup and the passion surrounding it.

This world cup has rekindled my love for the game after our poor season.

 

[StillPlayingFooty]

Horrendous display from Neymar. Fancy flicks and way too long dribbles. He wanted so much to impress like a little boy, but fell short. Until Neymar starts to play for the team, instead of show-boating, Brazil will struggle. And it was contagious too. Brazil is full of technically stupendous players and we saw how Marcelo and Willian started to try dribble past everything. Especially Willian who was quite ok in the first half. Coutinho did his fair share of needless dribbling too, but was passing it to others sooner than Nay-mar. Firmino was welcome change as he tried to play very direct and things got moving again when he came on.

Brazil would have played better without Neymar on in that game. Especially the second half.

In the Germany vs Mexico the sobreros should have humiliated Germans, with so many attacks wasted on poor final passing. If Germany plays like this then we will see them exit after 3 games (fingers crossed). Boateng and Hummels seemed way after their sell-date stuff.

 

[FootyGirl88]

Youngsters Goretzka and Rudy are the 1:1 replacements, no clue why Löw didn't bring one of them when the midfield had proven to be nonexistent, they couldn't have made it worse.

Yeah, most of our problems came from the weak CM where Khedira, Kroos, and, in parts, Özil couldn't keep the ball, let alone stop a Mexican counter. I can't wrap my mind around how throwing on every offensive player we have was supposed to help.

I think he should play in the next game, Khedira needs to book a flight home.

How do you think you will line up in your next match? I think we'll see a very different German side in game 2.

 

[Slevs]

Costa Rica will beat Serbia

And Brazil game will be a draw.

1/2

 

[Jim Reaper]

Germany looked tired and leggy from the first whistle. they also lack an attacking outlet, they have no focal point. its like a needle with a blunt tip. Sane was a mistake, bringing players like Brandt on to late was mistake and playing Werner for most of the game was a mistake. Mexico played very well especially first half. Pressing was relentless and counter attacking was fast and direct, just a shame they couldnt find the quality to finish it earlier. They Needed to take those chances and be more cut throat. In ghe second half they showed great discipline, determination and passion. They defended their position with hard work and passion. congrats to them.

p.s gotta love chicharito

 

[giorno]

You were right. Can only see it as arrogant to think you can play a right back as a right winger in a back four.

That's what most big teams do nowadays. There's this tendency to get caught up in the initial formations and think that's how the team is supposed to look like throughout the game. Nobody plays a fixed formation in football anymore. Germany's problem was the Khedira-Kroos combination not doing its job defensively, and losing too many stupid balls in general as a team.

And also Mexico being in unreal physical shape

 

[NoLogo]

Germany looked tired and leggy from the first whistle. they also lack an attacking outlet, they have no focal point. its like a needle with a blunt tip. Sane was a mistake, bringing players like Brandt on to late was mistake and playing Werner for most of the game was a mistake. Mexico played very well especially first half. Pressing was relentless and counter attacking was fast and direct, just a shame they couldnt find the quality to finish it earlier. They Needed to take those chances and be more cut throat. In ghe second half they showed great discipline, determination and passion. They defended their position with hard work and passion. congrats to them.

p.s gotta love chicharito

Germany was way to predictable with every attack going over the right side trying to get Kimmich to do everything and we consistently exposed our right defensive side which Lozano exploited time and time again. To call this a tactically naive performance would be a compliment for Löw and his team. It also didn't help that Özil and Draxler might as well not have been on the pitch and Plattenhardt was completely ignored on the left. On top of that I can really understand Hummels being pissed at him and Boateng constantly being left without protection against two or three Mexican attacking players. All in all a really weak performance from our team.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

That's what most big teams do nowadays. There's this tendency to get caught up in the initial formations and think that's how the team is supposed to look like throughout the game. Nobody plays a fixed formation in football anymore. Germany's problem was the Khedira-Kroos combination not doing its job defensively, and losing too many stupid balls in general as a team.

And also Mexico being in unreal physical shape

I haven't seen that formation in many games. They were a back four that changed to a back three with a midfielder dropping in when their full backs disappeared up the pitch IIRC. Maybe in a back 5 you see such abandonment of both full back positions but not a back 3 with only one midfielder left in.

 

[do.ob]

You were right. Can only see it as arrogant to think you can play a right back as a right winger in a back four.

Have you seen Marcelo play for Real? Kimmich for Bayern? It's actually harder to find a team that doesn't rely on its FBs to provide width. It's the lack of cover that was the problem, not Kimmich's role. Had Kroos/Khedira stayed back as an anchor things would've been a lot more stable.

 

[giorno]

I haven't seen that formation in many games. They were a back four that changed to a back three with a midfielder dropping in when their full backs disappeared up the pitch IIRC. Maybe in a back 5 you see such abandonment of both full back positions but not a back 3 with only one midfielder left in.

Yes, their positioning was all over the place. But apparently that was indeed the plan, to push kimmich really far up and have plattenhart stay a bit further behind so he could tuck in and form a back 3, with Khedira for cover.

Honestly, if that's the plan, leaving Sané at home looks even more ridiculous

 

[Peyroteo]

Asking the fullbacks to be pushing so far up and then only Kroos and Khedira as cover was bound to end up in disaster against this Mexico team. They needed one more midfielder.

This one was on Low but Kimmich has to adapt throughout the game too, if he's constantly too far up to be able to recover for the counters then he needs to be more careful too, don't think it's really fair to not blame him at all and claim he was just following the coach's instructions.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Asking the fullbacks to be pushing so far up and then only Kroos and Khedira as cover was bound to end up in disaster against this Mexico team. They needed one more midfielder.

This one was on Low but Kimmich has to adapt throughout the game too, if he's constantly too far up to be able to recover for the counters then he needs to be more careful too, don't think it's really fair to not blame him at all and claim he was just following the coach's instructions.

He also started trying to claim for a penalty that wasn't whilst Mexico attacked down his wing and nearly scored. Can't blame the coach for that.

 

[do.ob]

I think it's fundamentally wrong to blame Kimmich like that. It was his job to push high up the pitch, it was another player's job to cover the space behind him and it was Löw's job to adjust the tactics.
The team is following a bigger concept if every player just deviates from it as he feels like you lose cohesion and get chaos

 

[Always Up]

Neymar was once again brilliant

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[Peyroteo]

 

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[jimorrison]

according to Mexican national team coach, several of Mexico's players played vs Germany with the flu, that some players contracted in Russia due to the cold weather, which only makes Mexico's win even more impressive if true. he also explained that was one of the main reasons for the substitutions he made through out the match.

link : https://lospleyers.com/rusia-2018/jugadores-seleccion-mexicana-enfermos-gripe-alemania/

 

[Scarlet_Emperor]

I'm not sure I follow all of the 'brazil always starts slow' or 'brazil always starts tournaments like this'. They may not always play well but they ALWAYS win their first match of a World Cup. At least as far back as 1998 if not longer. They usually find a way to win even if its a tight game. Today was just not good enough. They have work to do if they want to top the group. They can certainly get out of it but Tite is going to have to make some changes.

On the other hand, Brazil had never faced a team as tough as this Swiss squad before according to FIFA ranking for the last 28 years. In addition, not always was our victory fair and square. We took advantage of refereeing mistakes which assured our first 3 points in some matches like Spain'86 and Turkey'02. Not that I'm turning a blind eye on the Brazilian performance and think that everything's fine, but we must analyse the whole context firstly.

As far as I could see, Brazil performed decently at first-half against a respectable squad.

• LEFT BACK: Marcelo gave enough support for the left side on the midfield. An attacking threat for sure, but he didn't leave to desire as a defender. Lichtsteiner didn't scare him. Although it wasn't his best game, but he played decently well.
• RIGHT BACK: Danilo, on the other hand, was inneffective offensively as a right back and he is far from being brilliant defensively too. Our another option, Fagner, is not better than him. We really missed a world-class player like Daniel Alves there.
• DEFENSIVE CENTRAL SECTOR: Thiago Silva and Miranda weren't as secure as they used to be, but it wasn't enough to interfere with the defensive system at first-half. On the other hand, Casemiro did a good job in this department. Switzerland didn't create anything with quality at first-half.
• CORE OF THE CREATIVE SYSTEM: William couldn't play that well even because he was sacrificed by the lack of creativity on the right side. Brazil focused a lot their actions on the left side of the field with an offensive Marcelo, great Coutinho and individualistic Neymar. Coutinho was the best one there regardless his goal. Neymar commited the mistake of holding unnecessarily the ball out of the goal area instead of supporting more his teammates. He should, at least, try to be fouled there and provoke a penalty, even though I'd rather stress him the importance of good teamwork.
• JESUS WAS NOT THE SAVIOR THIS TIME: Unfortunately Gabriel Jesus made his worst performance in his national team and Tite should have replaced him with Firmino sooner.

• I thought Gabriel Jesus was rubbish, he is very overrated overall. No idea why Firnino doesn’t start ahead of him.

I know it's beyond many non-Brazilians fans here why Gabriel Jesus is the main starter, but it's good to stress that he has done an excellent job for Brazil NT, and his weak performance in this game doesn't describe all of his contributions before the WC. It's crystal clear Firmino is in better shape currently and played much better in 15 minutes than Gabriel had done all the time there, but it's totally understanble for someone who attending the Brazil NT for some time.

• COACH: By the way, I thought Tite quite pragmatic with his choices in the last match. He didn't dare to change the panorama of the match.

Despite our disappointing performance at second-half (the worst under Tite's command), that draw isn't a full disgrace taking into account that I've seen below-average exhibitions like our debut against Scotland in 98 and Croatia in 2006. Brazil was saving the energy after leading comfortably the match and only lost the control of it at second-half.