1.oh God!! Germany out.
2. Brazil scrapping through. Japan gave Good fight.
3. Morocco hanging on. Netherlands out. What a game!!
4. Can’t believe and understand why grown up men should wear pink boots.
5. Kick and run northern European football is out, south European irritating tiki-taka is the normal now.
6. People are commenting on the large number of African-descended individuals in the game.
I’ve been a keen football-watcher since Italia ’90, and I’m not sure what “kick and run” means. There used to be something called the “long ball” strategy, often used by English teams, which was ridiculed by basically everybody else (including Northern European countries).
As for tiki-taka, I don’t even see it being practiced by the present Spanish team (whose predecessors perfected the move), let alone becoming the norm for various teams in this competition. When executed properly, it can actually be quite entertaining to watch; I for one didn’t find it irritating. (Any pattern of random aimless passes is not tiki-taka, which is what the above comment seems to imply.) And sorry for my pedantry, but literally no other southern European country (beside the Spanish) ever practiced tiki-taka. The Italians, Portuguese, French, play with very different styles.
A couple of world cups ago, everyone was rueing the fact that Brazilians in particular and South Americans in general were only showing glimpses of the famed samba style.
The absence of finese was attributed to the European style which the players were playing in European clubs. Now the games appear behind slow, less of long ball game and more ball tapping.
Let’s see if England will maintain their style.
the Morocco vs. Netherlands upset is quite interesting
so is Paraguay vs. Germany
Norway, Mexico and France in. Equador played well, but…
England game in an hour..
and a meaningless Ind-ENG T20 cricket game in about 90.
Meanwhile, a rare voice of caution and reason on the Vaibhav Suryavanshi hype machine – https://www.cricinfo.com/story/let-vaibhav-sooryavanshi-be-a-boy-before-we-make-him-a-legend-1543551
I think the BCCI needs to have some guidelines in place for protecting young kids from ambitious parents and coaches wanting to ‘make’ the next Vaibhav.
Only read half the article as we are on the move but very interesting. Will expand further