Best group stages I can ever remember
The underdogs have shown they shouldn’t be underestimated
True. But mostly due to the fancied sides underperforming. France & Brazil both resting half the team in the final game & both getting beaten by rubbish. Tunisia did at least look a capable side but ****ed themselves by somehow losing to a completely wank Aussie team that offers nothing more than graft really.
Cameroon though were utterly awful in the 2 previous games.
The "big" teams need to start turning their dominance into goals though or there's a real major shock coming.
Spain should have had Japan on the plane home by half time but couldn't turn possession into goals & then showed that it doesn't matter how good your plan A is if you don't have a plan B. Sometimes you're going to NEED a plan B.
It doesn't matter if your plan A is the best version of that plan in the whole ****ing world...it's not going to work every day, every minute,every game. You need to be able to change things. Man City have found that out in every Champions League campaign so far.
Enrique was a twat against Japan. Taking Morata off only meant they doubled down on Plan A.
No target man meant it was pointless playing the ball out wide as there was nobody in the box to make it worthwhile so the only way they were going to score was by playing through them, which they never managed to do & the Japanese were happy to watch them from their 2 banks of 4 playing their pretty little passes & creating 2 half chances in half an hour.
& all this despite the fact that the Spanish goal actually came from a cross from out wide !
Just rank bad management.
Seems to me that a lot of these supposedly top coaches are only actually any good when things are going their way. Adversity shows them up as not having a ****ing clue most of the time.