The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

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pk500
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by pk500 »

RobVarak wrote:Now, now, boys. Let's not start denigrating each other's intoxicants of choice.

France were somewhat fortunate in the match, but it's an overstatement to say they don't deserve to be champions. The proper call on the Griezmann dive and a better break on the PK call and the it is easy to see Croatia rewarded with a result that fit their quality. Croatia's only real break was self-made, with Meathead Mandukic forcing the Lloris error.

But breaks seldom even out over 90' and like I said, France had the talent to win while being outplayed for long stretches. That's not a skill per se, but it's attributable to them being really, really good.

I couldn't be more biased. I've seen every major tournament game played by Croatia since 1998 and almost all of the qualifiers. They're the team that made me fall in love with the game and my fondest childhood memories include old Croatian men slipping me sips of slivovic as they tended to roasting whole lambs on a spit. Yet, I don't begrudge France their victory.

As for the PK, and PK's position regarding said PK: :)
A handball occurs if any player, other than the team's goalkeeper within his own penalty area, deliberately handles the ball when in play. A ball can be handled with any part of the arm, from the tips of a player's fingers right up to the shoulder.
Paul says "intent doesn't matter," but the law says differently. It's "deliberately handles", not "deliberately moves his arms."

I believe it is unreasonable to expect that a defender who leaps in a natural manner is going to be able to keep his hands behind his back. I believe that if his hands are away from this body, even intentionally, it is only a handball if he arrays those hands in a manner so as to deliberately touch the ball. Did. Not. Happen. Here.
Perisic got nailed because his forearm was at a 90-degree angle from his upper arm and directly impeded the flight of the ball. If his arm was along his side or even slightly off his hip, no penalty. But the arm was outstretched like an outrigger on a catamaran.

Players tuck their arms defending set pieces all the time -- mainly to cover their nuts. But they're trained to do that. I saw a sh*t ton of defenders during this tournament hold their arms to their sides while jumping in the box. Perisic did not, and he and Croatia correctly paid for it.

You simply can't judge intent with any objectivity. How do we know Perisic didn't knowingly extend his arm just the slightest bit, almost like a subtle shirt tug or Vida gently shoving a charging Mbappe in the box today without tugging his shirt or wrapping him up?

I'd rather have strict enforcement of plays like hand balls in the box and diving then a looser interpretation of intent. But that's just me.
Last edited by pk500 on Sun Jul 15, 2018 7:08 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by XXXIV »

May or may not have been a penalty.

The point is they got a pk from VAR while VAR ignored an obvious NON penalty and gave them a free kick which they got their first goal from.

You gonna VAR asshole? VAR.

Dont pick and choose its disgusting.

Really disgusting.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by pk500 »

XXXIV wrote:May or may not have been a penalty.

The point is they got a pk from VAR while VAR ignored an obvious NON penalty and gave them a free kick which they got their first goal from.

You gonna VAR asshole? VAR.

Dont pick and choose its disgusting.

Really disgusting.
Stuart Holden said during the FOX telecast the Griezmann dive couldn't be reviewed via VAR. I have no idea why.

Can anyone illuminate when VAR can and can't be used?
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by wco81 »

Rodster wrote:
10spro wrote:If there’s anything every nation needs to learn from this WC, is to nourish the under 17 young players program to their full potential, be patient and be young, very young.
Please forward your memo to the USMSNT because obviously the US is going about it all wrong and congrats to France.
Well in France, they get the best athletes to play futbol because it's their primary sport. They're also developing good basketball players but not yet like they are with soccer.

Presumably the players with the most potential are routed to the academies of the top clubs in their teens?

US simply has no comparable pipeline and even if they were able to find talented players, they're likely going to go to college rather than sign with some club, even a European club. Pulisic must be the exception, not the rule?

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by RobVarak »

pk500 wrote: Can anyone illuminate when VAR can and can't be used?
FIFA limited VAR use to 4 circumstances: goals (which is liberally construed to include offside play leading to them), penalties, straight red and mistaken identity.

I didn't watch much Serie A, but from what I've seen in the WC, I think it would be better to expand what can be reviewed while limiting what is actually reviewed by using challenges as in baseball or American football.
You simply can't judge intent with any objectivity.
Then you have to change the rule, because as it exists today the ref has to judge intent. And at the risk of belaboring the point, one can do all kinds of s*** with your arms without deliberately handling the ball. Yes, defenders are trained to lower their arms in an attempt to limit calls like this, but that doesn't mean that their failure to do so is a violation of the rule.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by Rodster »

wco81 wrote:US simply has no comparable pipeline and even if they were able to find talented players, they're likely going to go to college rather than sign with some club, even a European club. Pulisic must be the exception, not the rule?
And they probably will never have a decent pipeline when stud MLB players are make 10's of millions, second string NBA players are making $12-15 million per year and the NFL brings up the rear. Which supposedly the NFLPA rep said she plans on pursuing the NFL for guaranteed contracts in the next CBA like they have in the NBA which is about damn time. The one sport where you play to blow up your body gets the crappiest contracts.

So if I was a stud athlete, soccer would not be my choice if I had to choose a sport. Now if by some miracle the NFL one day implodes then I could see more college players choosing soccer as their profession. We definitely have the talent it's that they are bypassing futbol.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by wco81 »

I think kids from well off families won't be allowed to play football, kind of like they stopped boxing.

Baseball may not be very popular now but you would know by the time you finish high school if you're a prospect or not. Teams will scout you and you have an idea whether they'd draft and sign you.

College baseball seems to be doing well, maybe not as big as football or basketball but CWS doesn't seem to be in danger of going anywhere.

Prospects drafted out of high school will turn down a couple of million signing bonus and decide to go to college for a year or two.

Local sportscasters were saying Jeff Samardjia on the Giants could have played in the NFL but chose baseball and has earned over $100 million, even though he's not a very good pitcher. No way he would have earned anywhere near that in the NFL.

Soccer superstars can earn tens of millions a year but it has to be much more competitive than any other team sport since you're competing against kids who grow up playing the sport in Europe, Africa and South America.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by Jimmydeicide »

I thought it was 100% handball. He moved his arm down towards the ball and stops a goal scoring opportunity, it has to be called surely despite how the annoying rule is written.
As far as VAR is concerned it has to be expanded, whether its by challenges or within a certain yardage of goal.

The Griezman free kick led to a goal how is it any different than a guy being offside.

As far as deserved winner, just because Croatia has more possession doesnt mean they deserve to win, its the most meaningless stat in the modern game.
Created chances is more important and without looking id say it was even .

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by pk500 »

Jimmydeicide wrote:I thought it was 100% handball. He moved his arm down towards the ball and stops a goal scoring opportunity, it has to be called surely despite how the annoying rule is written.
As far as VAR is concerned it has to be expanded, whether its by challenges or within a certain yardage of goal.

The Griezman free kick led to a goal how is it any different than a guy being offside.

As far as deserved winner, just because Croatia has more possession doesnt mean they deserve to win, its the most meaningless stat in the modern game.
Created chances is more important and without looking id say it was even .
Bull's eye. Could not agree more with all of this.

As I believe Rob said, France doesn't need to worry about foolish possession stats when it has the depth of talent to capitalize on its chances better than its foes.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by 10spro »

Jimmydeicide wrote:I thought it was 100% handball. He moved his arm down towards the ball and stops a goal scoring opportunity, it has to be called surely despite how the annoying rule is written.
As far as VAR is concerned it has to be expanded, whether its by challenges or within a certain yardage of goal.

The Griezman free kick led to a goal how is it any different than a guy being offside.

As far as deserved winner, just because Croatia has more possession doesn't mean they deserve to win, its the most meaningless stat in the modern game.
Created chances is more important and without looking id say it was even .
Yep, as I mentioned earlier the hand ball was not necessarily deliberate, far from it, but VAR shows clearly that the ball hits his hand and you gotta call it. And he took his damn time to try to make the correct decision too, being a finals and knowing that many would disagree too. Imagine if he didn't, and your typical non calcio aficionado criticizes that the system is total crap. The video review is there to dissipate any doubt the on field refs have missed or support the original call with evidence.

To me, you gotta make that call. Now, because VAR is there, you just can't overuse it and question every single call that you don't agree with a ref. One of the reasons in my opinion why this WC has been so enjoyable to watch is because the new technology has kept the middle man honest and many key calls have been overturned. Is it perfect? Of course not, there's room for improvement and we'll see those grey areas erased soon.

Dives will always be in the game, always. But not everyone dives and I wouldn't use the technology outside the penalty area to review them.

Also, I agree with your statement on ball possession. Strong possession teams have bitten the dust quickly in this tournament, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Brazil. If you can't execute on your chances at scoring, you don't deserve to win no matter how much you got the ball. I haven't looked at the stats either but from what I saw Croatia definitely had the ball more in the first half, things even up in the second but I wouldn't be surprised if overall they controlled the ball more once the game was over.

At the end of the day, it wasn't a stellar finals, it was weird in its own way but entertaining. And France was a just winner.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by RobVarak »

Jimmydeicide wrote:it has to be called surely despite how the annoying rule is written.
This is borderline insane to me. This isn't how rules work. Refs don't get to make de facto alterations to suit their needs. The only thing that makes organized sports work is the agreement that the rules are, in fact, the rules. If every single fan, pundit and referee agrees universally that a player inadvertently moved his hand in a way that made contact with a ball, it doesn't matter. It's not a handball because the rule is the goddamn rule!
Jimmydeicide wrote: Created chances is more important and without looking id say it was even .
Shots were 15 to 8 in favor of Croatia. Opta's clear cut chances were 6-3 in favor of Croatia and xGoals
(which for my money is the most accurate measure available these days) was .3 for France and 1.3 for Croatia. So maybe look next time. ;)

Image

I'm sure you'll dismiss all this as basement-dwelling stat nerd wankery, but by any of these measures, traditional or innovative, Croatia made significantly more chances for themselves than France did.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by dbdynsty25 »

RobVarak wrote:I'm sure you'll dismiss all this as basement-dwelling stat nerd wankery, but by any of these measures, traditional or innovative, Croatia made significantly more chances for themselves than France did.
If France had been an entire team of Raheem Sterlings then that might be worth something. But they actually finished two difficult chances with higher class players. Take away the BS calls and fluke Lloris goal and it's still a 2-1 victory. Wankery shmankery...still finished more of what chances they had.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by pk500 »

RobVarak wrote:I'm sure you'll dismiss all this as basement-dwelling stat nerd wankery, but by any of these measures, traditional or innovative, Croatia made significantly more chances for themselves than France did.
Listen here, love child of Billy Beane and Daryl Morey: The only metric that truly matters is the final score. :)
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by RobVarak »

pk500 wrote:
RobVarak wrote:I'm sure you'll dismiss all this as basement-dwelling stat nerd wankery, but by any of these measures, traditional or innovative, Croatia made significantly more chances for themselves than France did.
Listen here, love child of Billy Beane and Daryl Morey: The only metric that truly matters is the final score. :)
I agree with that. OTOH, one of our fellow DSPers suggested that France had more chances...
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by Jimmydeicide »

Rob If your referring to me i said i thought they would have been about even, i never looked because i didn't need to justify the scoreline or look for a reason my team didn't win.

The hand ball tho . The player made a move with his arm downward to the ball after the attacker missed it, a natural reflex yes but it was hand to ball not ball to hand.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by XXXIV »

10spro wrote: At the end of the day, it wasn't a stellar finals, it was weird in its own way but entertaining. And France was a just winner.
It wasnt the best game but it was entertaining...It got me pumped up for sure.

The tournament on the whole was great fun to watch.

Gratz to France for winning.

Gratz to Croatia for making one hell of a run

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2017/18

Post by RobVarak »

...mis-posted.
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