Topic: FIFA World Cup 2022 Group Stage Highlights - page 30. (Read 11659 times)

This world cup has been full of surprises, so far with some of the heavyweights going down. If Saudi Arabia can defeat Argentina, then it is possible for Croatia to defeat Brazil. But so far Brazil looked as if they are one level ahead of all the other teams in this tournament, both in terms of skills and team bonding. But no one can predict an assured victory for Brazil. Croatia do have some really good players and the outcome can become unpredictable if Luka Modrić or Ivan Perišić can score a goal in the first half and upset the match equilibrium.

Yeah, Croatia is a very complicated team. It is very difficult to predict their performance. However, in general, it seems that there is no chance for Croatia to win against Brazil. Still, Croatia has the potential to surprise. Luka Modrich is in the Croatia team. He has the ability to perform well and bring victory to the team when the team needs it. Modrich has to be careful with Brazil. I will say that if Brazil can stop Modrich then Brazil can dominate the match.

of course, the opportunity is there for Croatia. even in the previous world cup, Croatia surprised all the spectators. it is not impossible that Croatia can make Brazil carry the suitcase in the quarter-finals. although it's not what I expected.

I still bet on the odds of Brazil winning. although it won't be with a big score. I hope Brazil will qualify for the semi-finals and meet Argentina.

Yeah, I think not many people are confident that Croatia can beat Brazil, but it can actually happen.

Stranger things have happened already, Saudi Arabia win against Argentina for example, Tunisia win against France, Morocco win against Spain, South Korea win against Portugal, Japan win against Spain, Cameroon win against Brazil, etc...

I mean, if Cameroon was able to win against Brazil, then Croatia does have a chance.

Yes exactly, we have to not forget that Croatia as the runner up the world cup 2018 in Russia. He was able to beat 3-0 Argentina on the group stage, then won a penalty shoot versus Denmark (16 round) and Russia (8 round), then won versus England 2-1 in Semi-Final. So I think even they have the old squad, Croatia is still worth it as a tough opponent of Brazil. And if Brazil Underestimate them, we can see croatia will hold the match to be draw to make a strategy - Penalty shoot - like in 2018.

Exactly, Portugal has strong attacking lines, so, there is not enough to only focus on the defense. This will harm them when Portugal players will attack their defense lines strongly. They also cannot expect penalty kicks. We all know some players of Portugal are experienced and strong enough for penalty kicks. I believe that in this match, Marocco will use a different tactic to face Portugal. They need more than defense.

We have seen so many surprises during these football matches in World Cup. There is not impossible that Croatia also has a chance to win, for, Croatia was also one of the teams in the final of the last World Cup, right? But, to this day, Brazil is also strong in any element. They have strong attacking lines, midfielders, and also defenders. However, their goalkeeper is experienced enough. So, this will be quite difficult for Croatia to face. But once more, nothing is impossible in this football match. 

Because as we all are aware of the fact that in football, we never know what's going to happen. I do agree that it's not going to be that easy for them to end up with a good result, and 90% chance that Brazil will have an easy win, there is no argument there.

But that small 10% chance tells me that Croatio could play badly against Japan because they underestimated them and that was the result, barely got out of it, whereas they would end up playing much better against Brazil and could end up with a win if they play hard. Not saying that is what we will see, as I said before that is the small chance, but it is also not impossible neither and we should not see this game as piece of cake.

If Morocco still adopts defensive strategy in the match against Portugal, they might not be able to withstand the attacking pressure of the later. I am suggesting the come out and play the game like the Ghanaian side. Defending should be their major focus, but they should also focus on the attack using counter attacks and the flanks. If the Portuguese observe that the Moroccan pose a threat up front, the pressure on the Moroccan defense would reduce because they would want to be very careful defensively. But if there is no pressure on the Portuguese defense, all Portugal players, including defenders would forcefully open the Moroccan defense.   

Setting  aside sentiment, Goncalo Ramos performed far better than Ronaldo in the match against Switzerland. Ronaldo is in that team because of his experience and the respect the country has for him and not because of his performance. It is true that the Swiss team defended very poorly but Ronaldo's absence was not felt at all.

There are speculations that Ronaldo was benched because of his wrong gesture when he was substituted. Portugal coach Fernando Santos is very matured and experience, hence he cannot be intimidated by Ronaldo's achievement.  I am even suggesting that he should still remain in the bench against Morocco. He needs to learn humility and selflessness.    

From the analysis when Morocco played against Spain before, in the 2 main halves there was very little hard attack on target and they played more defensively to prevent goals from Spain. So if Morocco doesn't improve the team's play for positional possession and not a lot of attacks on target then they will play the same style to defend the bottom line. Portugal's performance in the last match was very impressive, so Morocco must complete the big task of planning a strategy for the chance to win against Portugal.

Morocco can be said to have a solid defense. In the group stage they only conceded 1 goal and so far in the world cup they have one of the best defensive record, winning their last three matches including the knock-out stage. Portugal has a good attacking formation and will win the possession against Morocco but if they fail to penetrate Morocco's defense it might end in another penalty shoot out or a lucky goal could separate the two teams

Morocco's task will remain the same as defending their position against Spain because it is unlikely that they will be too aggressive in terms of attack but rather their defense so that there are no more goals, while Portugal will have more control in their game. I admit that all lines of Portugal are very adequate for mastery the ball and attack will be much scarier than Spain, that's what I imagined.
Morocco will definitely look for opportunities when the Portuguese players are off guard, maybe that's what they should take advantage of, but regardless of all that, Morocco will definitely have a better strategy, although I don't believe the results will be the same as the previous game.

Morocco won't be as comfortable as they were against Spain this time. Spain had a big percentage of ball possession maybe but Morocco were still able to keep things in favour of themselves until the penalty shootouts. However Morocco's job is going to be much more difficult against Portugal. Because they will face a team which have newly destroyed Switzerland by a huge score.

Besides Portugal have a much different game plan than Spain. They don't aim to keep the ball in their feet too much. They are just looking for fast attacks by great passes from the ground or the air. I don't think Morocco have the strength to keep up with this.

On the contrary it seems to me that betting on France winning in the main time with odds of 2.5 is just a gift from bookmakers... But as the play-offs often have extra time and penalty shootouts, especially in this game where England will probably play the bus, you can bet that France won't lose... England played well in my opinion, but France had stronger opponents...

To be realistic, Croatia have a too low chance to eliminate Brazil. Especially after watching how ambitious and passionate Brazil players were, it would be a huge surprise if Croatia somehow advance to semi finals. Croatia had a big difficulty against even Japan. I don't want to underestimate Japan of course. I just want to compare them to Brazil as an opponent for Croatia.

Neymar is back in the team which is another good news of course. They have a very strong midfield and attacking lines and Croatia defense will have a very hard time defending those fast attacks by Brazil.

It is really difficult to say who will win the match between Brazil and Croatia. Because we have seen a lot of surprising matches in this year's World Cup in Qatar, good teams have been beaten by lesser teams. As the match between Brazil and Croatia is a quarter-final, neither team should be taken lightly in this match.

We will treat England and France like a final. Because England and France are both very strong and promising teams. The attack and defense of both teams are performing well in this World Cup. I am sure this match will be very competitive.

It is not a matter of the CR7 not being in the match and the Portuguese scoring that high number of goals, rather I think Switzerland is not a better side at yesterday's match and they Portuguese capitalized on that. They barely had shots on target at the first half, Portugal did all the attacking and of course the reason for the goals. Well whatever was the reason for not playing Ronaldo worked for them.

England VS France game is a type of game that will make one to loose, no matter how the two teams strong one must drop out for the other to move forward which it will be difficult for France to allow England to lock them out at this stage. I predict for the favour of France to beat England 6:1 like the way Portugal beat Switzerland 6:1 yesterday to move to the high stage that will make the whole world to believe that France players are doing a good work.

Portugal didn't feel CR7 absence at all in yesterday's game and that was an important message to send to their opponents!
I am quite shocked by Switzerland performance yesterday.. That was one of the worst matches played by them and one of the worst defeats in the actual World Cup.

Spain got off to a great start with a 7-0 win over Costa Rica in the first match. But soon their performance started to deteriorate. They did not win against Germany and Japan. They were lucky enough to qualify for the round of 16. But I am not satisfied with Spain's performance against Morocco. Spain's players felt helpless against Morocco's defenders. We predicted that Morocco will play defensive strategy. Spain coach Enrique should have chosen his match strategy correctly. He was defeated by Morocco's defensive tactics.