Day 5: Hungary vs Portugal | France vs Germany

Berbaclass said:
To be fair. The very act of him moving the Coke is pretty much free advertising to them. It's going to get shared and shown everywhere. I think they're probably pleased he did it :lol:
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The Firestarter said:
Is it though ? This is one of the world's most recognised brands. It looks more like drink water, not coke. Which I fully endorse by the way.
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Berbaclass said:
"There is no such thing as bad publicity" or something along those lines.

People will look at it subconsciously and be like I want a Coke..
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The Firestarter said:
Yes, if you dont have brand awareness. Which coca cola has plenty.
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Berbaclass said:
Of course but it will drive sales not reduce them.
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I agree with @The Firestarter here. Bad publicity for Coca Cola here as it's basically Ronaldo telling everyone, including the millions of children that idolise him, not to drink Coca Cola but to drink water instead.
 
Cancelo was a huge blow in our aspirations as outsiders to the title, even though our chances are very slim. We lost height, power, speed and a valuable ball carrier. No other fullback can do what he does.
 
Gotta love how ze germans are always so pessimistic everytime. :lol: I actually think Germany will do well in this tournament because they have no pressure at all. Amazing how no one is giving them any chance when bar the 2018 World Cup, they've never finished lower than 3rd in any major tournament under Joachim Loew. Won't even be surprised if they beat France tonight. France always meltdown when they come into a tournament being heavy favourites.
 
TheReligion said:
I agree with @The Firestarter here. Bad publicity for Coca Cola here as it's basically Ronaldo telling everyone, including the millions of children that idolise him, not to drink Coca Cola but to drink water instead.
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I don’t agree. More people are thinking/talking about Coke if that’s even possible. I doubt it will have any effect anyway to be honest.
 
Raredaredevil said:
Gotta love how ze germans are always so pessimistic everytime. :lol: I actually think Germany will do well in this tournament because they have no pressure at all. Amazing how no one is giving them any chance when bar the 2018 World Cup, they've never finished lower than 3rd in any major tournament under Joachim Loew. Won't even be surprised if they beat France tonight. France always meltdown when they come into a tournament being heavy favourites.
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Well, we have every reason to be pessimistic.

- 2018 the worst performance in world cup history for Germany.
- Struggling against any opponent ever since.
- 0:6 to a young Spain (biggest loss in german history) a few months ago.
- we even lost to Macedonia
- and due to Covid our starting 11 never could play together (Kroos for instance)

However, we are a classic tournament team (hopefully we didn't lose this magic in 2018 though) and our squad is still stacked with class players.

I just thought about it, France has probably one of the greatest squads ever seen in modern history. But if i compare their first eleven to ours, the difference is not that huge. Only the front 3 is a big advantage on their side, in midfield i think we are slightly better (Kroos, Gündogan, Goretzka, Kimmich, Havertz, ...) and in defense it might be even or a slight advantage on their side. However our GK is much better than theirs. So it's basically a 2:2 for that matter. We just need to keep their front 3 in check, then we can succeed.

If Löw tries his best not to feck up our team, i think we have a chance to beat any team in the world. Especially at home (which I still believe is stupid :lol: ).

In my opinion we need to try to dominate possession in midfield and isolate their strikers for the most part of the game. However, i fear Löw will try to "play it quick & safe", sitting back and try to play on the counter. But that would be a huge mistake, as our defense is not good enough to shut their strikers down. If we do that, i see us losing comfortably.
 
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OutlawGER said:
Well, we have every reason to be pessimistic.

- 2018 the worst performance in world cup history for Germany.
- Struggling against any opponent ever since.
- 0:6 to a young Spain (biggest loss in german history) a few months ago.
- we even lost to Macedonia
- and due to Covid our starting 11 never could play together (Kroos for instance)

However, we are a classic tournament team (hopefully we didn't lose this magic in 2018 though) and our squad is still stacked with class players.

I just thought about it, France has probably one of the greatest squads ever seen in modern history. But if i compare their first eleven to ours, the difference is not that huge. Only the front 3 is a big advantage on their side, in midfield i think we are slightly better (Kroos, Gündogan, Goretzka, Kimmich, Havertz, ...) and in defense it might be even or a slight advantage on their side. However our GK is much better than theirs. So it's basically a 2:2 for that matter. We just need to keep their front 3 in check, then we can succeed.

If Löw tries his best not to feck up our team, i think we have a chance to beat any team in the world. Especially at home (which I still believe is stupid :lol: ).
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Does that really matter when Goretzka is injured, Kimmich plays as a wingback and Havertz is in attack though? Kroos and Gundogan are both great players but I doubt they'd make up a great two-man midfield against Tolisso, Pogba and Kante.
 
The Firestarter said:
Yes, if you dont have brand awareness. Which coca cola has plenty.
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It’s not like people don’t know coke is bad for you though. Ronaldo’s influence on social media is mind boggling - I don’t have social media but I googled #cocacola and it’s literally everywhere already.

The other option was the bottles just sat there like normal and no one really cares. Now everyone’s talking about it.
 
RobinLFC said:
Does that really matter when Goretzka is injured, Kimmich plays as a wingback and Havertz is in attack though? Kroos and Gundogan are both great players but I doubt they'd make up a great two-man midfield against Tolisso, Pogba and Kante.
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I don't know how well Kroos-Gündogan will work. We will see. But they will probably be backed up by 3 CBs. And the Hummels-Gündogan pairing in build-up play worked extremely well for Dortmund back then.
 
OutlawGER said:
I don't know how well Kroos-Gündogan will work. We will see. But they will probably be backed up by 3 CBs. And the Hummels-Gündogan pairing in build-up play worked extremely well for Dortmund back then.
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Absolute monster of a match. Can’t wait
 
KirkDuyt said:
The anomisity has died down a bit over the last 2 decades. Sure they're still rivals, but no longer hated rivals. I just really dislike the French team and the crap football they manage to play with the most stacked squad in history.
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France learned the lesson :be practical = win tournaments.

Playing beautiful is fine, but it doesn't win you trophies, they played beautiful football in WC 82 and 86, but got eliminated by a very practical german team which got dominated in both matches and still won.

I would take playing practical and winning trophies over playing beautiful and not even reaching the Final.
 
Wolf1992 said:
France learned the lesson :be practical = win tournaments.

Playing beautiful is fine, but it doesn't win you trophies, they played beautiful football in WC 82 and 86, but got eliminated by a very practical german team which got dominated in both matches and still won.

I would take playing practical and winning trophies over playing beautiful and not even reaching the Final.
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As a Frenchman, sure. But you could see why neutrals would rather they not go all the way again after 2016 and 2018. Their antics against Belgium still make my blood boil if I think back about that game.
 
Wolf1992 said:
France learned the lesson :be practical = win tournaments.

Playing beautiful is fine, but it doesn't win you trophies, they played beautiful football in WC 82 and 86, but got eliminated by a very practical german team which got dominated in both matches and still won.

I would take playing practical and winning trophies over playing beautiful and not even reaching the Final.
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This is true, sadly. The last team to win a World Cup or Euros actually playing entertaining football was probably Brazil in 2002.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
This is true, sadly. The last team to win a World Cup or Euros actually playing entertaining football was probably Brazil in 2002.
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Spain and Germany were great too during their wins in '08-'14. Maybe not entertaining for everyone but still VERY different to France 2018.
 
Wolf1992 said:
France learned the lesson :be practical = win tournaments.

Playing beautiful is fine, but it doesn't win you trophies, they played beautiful football in WC 82 and 86, but got eliminated by a very practical german team which got dominated in both matches and still won.

I would take playing practical and winning trophies over playing beautiful and not even reaching the Final.
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Hehe yeah, you don't have to tell me practicallity beats flair. Im Dutch after all :)
 
RobinLFC said:
Spain and Germany were great too during their wins in '08-'14. Maybe not entertaining for everyone but still VERY different to France 2018.
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Germany were decent yeah. I hated watching the “1-0 to Spain” era of international football from 08-12. I don’t think they were quite as boring in 2012 but their World Cup win in 2010 was a chore to watch.
 
Tonight is almost a Bayern home match, at least almost the whole Bayern squad will be playing at home in Munich ;)
 
RobinLFC said:
As a Frenchman, sure. But you could see why neutrals would rather they not go all the way again after 2016 and 2018. Their antics against Belgium still make my blood boil if I think back about that game.
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Then they shouldn't support Portugal either, which win was worse.
Just look at how they won Euro 2016, dominated by France the whole game(with a hit on post in the 92 minute by Gignac after a nice combination with Griezmann) but somehow Eder scored in extra time and they won.And aside from Wales, they didn't win a single game in the 90 minutes.

This is what Football is about for big teams : winning trophies...if you play offensive, and don't win as a big team, no one will give a crap how beautiful/offensive you played.
 
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Be just like Germany to turn up and slap every team in this group and finish top, after seemingly being written off by everyone. Going for a France 2-0 win, myself.
 
RobinLFC said:
Spain and Germany were great too during their wins in '08-'14. Maybe not entertaining for everyone but still VERY different to France 2018.
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Germany 2014 was a very practical team, their tiki-taka was only in group stage, nowhere near to be seen against Algeria, France and Argentina.
And they should have lost against Argentina(that was the worst match they played in the whole tournament,) if it wasn't because Higuaín became Higuaín and Palacios choked.

But that's what football is about for big teams : Winning.
Germany won : got praised

Argentina lost (despite playing better than Germany in the final) : people called them chokers.
 
Wolf1992 said:
Germany 2014 was a very practical team, their tiki-taka was only in group stage, nowhere near to be seen against Algeria, France and Argentina.
And they should have lost against Argentina(that was the worst match they played in the whole tournament,) if it wasn't because Higuaín became Higuaín and Palacios choked.

But that's what football is about for big teams : Winning.
Germany won : got praised

Argentina lost (despite playing better than Germany in the final) : people called them chokers.
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Argentina were shaky in the group stage, needed an ET winner against Switzerland, weren't impressive against Belgium in the QFs and needed penalty's in the semis. I don't remember them playing better than Germany in the final either just because they fecked up some big chances, if anything that shows that they were poor to me. I don't disagree that being practical gets you further in tournaments or anything, but it's definitely not mutually exclusive with trying to play good football. France didn't do that in 2018.

Germany were incredible in the semis and beat Brazil 7-1 in their own country. They were more an efficient team than an exciting one maybe, but still a thousand times better than what France showed in Russia three years ago.

Anyway I hope Germany gives them a proper trashing tonight but I fear the opposite is more likely.
 
Goretzka and Musiala are not included in today's squad, apparently because of issues that would make them risk injury if played.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Be just like Germany to turn up and slap every team in this group and finish top, after seemingly being written off by everyone. Going for a France 2-0 win, myself.
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It's always said that you write the Germans off at your peril. They are a tournament team.
 
RobinLFC said:
Argentina were shaky in the group stage, needed an ET winner against Switzerland, weren't impressive against Belgium in the QFs and needed penalty's in the semis. I don't remember them playing better than Germany in the final either just because they fecked up some big chances, if anything that shows that they were poor to me. I don't disagree that being practical gets you further in tournaments or anything, but it's definitely not mutually exclusive with trying to play good football. France didn't do that in 2018.

Germany were incredible in the semis and beat Brazil 7-1 in their own country. They were more an efficient team than an exciting one maybe, but still a thousand times better than what France showed in Russia three years ago.

Anyway I hope Germany gives them a proper trashing tonight but I fear the opposite is more likely.
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Germany wasn't impressive either against Algeria and France.
They only trashed the worst Brazil in the history of World Cups, a team who also got trashed by a non-impressive dutch side later.
Thing is that doesn't even matter, Germany went to WC 2014 to win it, as they were the biggest favorite, had they lost to Argentina, all the praise would instantly disappear.

France wanted to win WC 2018, and they got it, as based on history they deserved one more WC trophy after choking in 82 and 86 playing "fantasy football" against a defensive and practical german side.
Deschamps is a winner, he likes to win so he is not going to change the style to please viewers, probably he does in Group Stage, but won't do it in Knock outs..
 
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