KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Should England throw the Belgium game to avoid Brazil/Mexico

Possibly but I think this is the worst World Cup ever played in Europe. The last one in Brazil was awful after the group stage with the exception of Germany hammering Brazil to give everyone a laugh. The ones in South Africa and Japan/Sth Korea were dreadful.

The African nations have all failed to reach the last 16. Germany have been absolute dog$hit and a poor French team at last woke up and beat Argentina who had the worst defence they have ever had at a world cup. In that game every attempt on target went in until the 80th minute when Messi hit a backpass to Lloris.

England get to the last 8 and that will be seen as success at a time when everyone else has been so bad themselves.

A few good goals but this is not the highest level of football. That is still the CL by a country mile.

There were 3 sides who got through without dropping a point Croatia and Uruguay are not the most entertaining but they could yet take down one of the big boys given the chance. Belgium played the same weak opposition as ourselves. There are no standout teams which makes it interesting but not necessarily good. Its OK for the neutral fan who maybe wants to see a different team win it but there have been few classic matches and VAR is killing the atmosphere of goal celebrations and there have been few players who have put their mark on the tournament.

The next one in Qatar could kill International football before the Mexicans get to host it for the THIRD TIME in 40 years.

South Africa the worst one for me blowing them stupid trumpet things

So your criteria on a football competition is how fans are supporting their teams, that's stupid IMO, I rather think it should be based on the quality on the pitch.

So what's a good world cup for you?

Good question. For me it was Italia '90. I agree with what ecnirp 98 says about it being more about tactics now and for me at least the knockout stages in recent tournaments have been very poor.
Perhaps my view on it is similar to his only back then there were nowhere near the number of foreign players in the English game so it was a great chance to see what everyone else was all about. Now expectations are higher and star players do not perform as well in teams that generally play 6 or 7 times a year.

I was in my mid 20's for what was my favourite World Cup. I wonder if my view is due to that? Back then Cameroon were the first African nation to arrive at world level and Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia had not been broken up.