Topic: ⚽ FIFA World Cup 2022: Qualifying Games For Qatar - page 6. (Read 6085 times)

It will be a game that Croatia (losing finalists in 2018) will probably lose against Brazil (the team most media personalities have as favourites to win the tournament). In the top half of the draw, any one of Croatia or Brazil will play against any one of Netherlands or Argentina. I think Brazil should win their game without being tested and have a feeling Netherlands will win comfortably too. Brazil are probably the favourites to get to the final.

In the bottom half of the draw, one of Morocco or Portugal will play against one of England or France. Of those four teams France are probably the favourites to get to the final. Could Brazil vs France be the final?

I think Portugal will beat Morocco, but it won't be an easy game. After all, Morocco beat Spain and it could probably be the same game for Portugal. As for the Netherlands and Argentina I also completely agree that the Netherlands will not win this match. Probably a repeat of 2014 when Argentina won on penalties. But more likely they will win in 90 minutes.

I think this was the most appropriate time for Eden Hazard to get into his retirement as he has not been playing that well with Real Madrid. The main reason is that he has not been gaining as much game time because he is injured very often. According to my opinion, he had the best chance of winning the World Cup with Belgium in 2018 because the performance of Belgium has been below average during this time.

And about Cristiano Ronaldo, I have been hearing rumors that Chelsea are interested in him and he has also gained a huge offer from Saudi Arabia. But I think only time will tell where he will end up as he is aging and in my opinion, I think he has two years at most at his disposal.

Some people are believing that Croatia can resist Brazil but I think the opposite. We have all watched how Croatia played against Japan. They had really big difficulties and they just barely eliminated Japan by penalty shootouts. I can just see Croatia as a struggling team after watching that game. Brazil and Japan are completely different teams to deal with. Japan didn't have enough strength in their attacking line otherwise they could have even eliminated Croatia.

Brazil have one of the best attacking lines among the teams in this round. With Neymar's return from his injury, their midfield is much stronger again. I'm really curious about what Croatia manager is planning to do against that much attacking power. Will they play a defensive game maybe? It might be wiser for them to try to hunt Brazil with counter attacks.

Argentina are mediocre without Messi and an above average side when he is playing. To say they will sweep the floor against the Dutch is a bold statement. It is good to read your scores. We will compare them after the games have ended 

I am hoping that no matter how the games play out (and whoever wins), they will be exciting matches to watch. No team wants to go to penalties because even the best could lose and go out of the tournament, they all would prefer to end the within 90 minutes at best or within extra-time at worst.

Ah yeah...  Stale.  Man City was kinda the same before Haaland.  Sure they were winning matches and sure they were playing good football but if you watch the match it almost gets boring at times because of the lack of directness at the offensive.

Anyway, what do you guys think of Morocco and Portugal?  Morocco took down Belgium in the group stages and Spain in the round of 16.  Can they take down Portugal in the quarter finals?  :/

Here's my parlay for the quarters...  Brazil to win and over 1.5 goals combo, Netherlands +.5, Portugal to win and BTTS for England vs France at 8.15.

What do you guys think?

I agree about Portugal - they are definitely capable of beating Morocco in regulation time. People started to praise Morocco too highly after beating Belgium (where the players don't talk to each other lol) and shitty Spain who pass the ball to each other in midfield and don't know where the opposition's gateway is.
Brazil is also a clear favorite, and the rest of the games are random for me.

I would say that Portugal would beat Morocco if you ask me, and France will beat England, but aside from that I would agree with yours. First of all, Brazil and Argentina will definitely be decided on regular game, and I think Portugal could beat Morocco on regular game as well.

But, England vs France could go to extra time and in that extra time I am expecting France to beat England, this is of course just my guess, maybe they won't and maybe all games would be shootouts, or maybe none would, maybe we are all wrong. But at the end of the day France looks a bit better, definitely a lot more ready at the very least. England doesn't seem as ready as France from the games I have seen.

LOL.. so you are assuming that all the four matches will be decided in the regular time itself and it will not go into the extra-time and penalty shootout? I agree with your prediction for the first match, but not with the other three. Here are my predictions:

Croatia vs Brazil: 0-2 (same as yours)
Netherlands vs Argentina 1-3 (I would say that Argentina will sweep the floor with the Dutch)
Morocco vs Portugal: Will be 0-0 after regular time and extra time, Morocco will win during shootout
England vs France: Will be 2-2 after regular time and extra time, England will win during shootout (yeah.. I haven't forgot what happened during Euro 2021).

Can Brazil score two goals against Croatia? Croatia's defense is strong enough, as they have shown in the past few matches. So in Brazil vs Croatia match, my guess is Brazil will win 1-0 or 2-1. We will not see too much goal difference in this match.
It is difficult to pick a favorite team in the Netherlands vs Argentina match. I will refrain from betting on this match. I think the Netherlands are favourite. Because Argentina's defense is not strong enough. But I want Argentina to win this match. The World Cup will be more exciting and competitive if the semi-final between Brazil and Argentina takes place.

Hearing Hazard retired from international duty was a surprise but to be honest he is not the same player that was at Chelsea. He has not performed at all for Real Madrid because of injuries and confidence issues. He is earning £400,000 per week there and he is contracted until June 2024, they want to get rid of him but just like with Bale who will take him off their books with that salary?

Ronaldo could retire from international duty after the world cup becvause it would be perfect timing. Chelsea are said to be interested in taking him on in some capacity but he is holding out for a Champions League club. As a back-up he has the offer of $210 a year salary to play for Al-Nassr.

Back to the world cup, Morocco are flying the flag for Africa. The last African team to reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup was Ghana in 2010 therefore the whole of Africa will be behind Morocco when they play Portugal on Saturday 10th December in their quarter-final match. The winner of the Morocco vs Portugal game will face their toughest test of the tournament in the semi-final as they will face the winner of the England vs France game.

For the neutral fans watching the games it is always great to see the underdogs play well and go far in a tournament therefore I hope for that reason alone Morocco win their game. Having said that, if I had to choose I would say the semi-finalists would be: Brazil vs Netherlands and Portugal vs France  

Croatia 0-2 Brazil
Netherlands 3-1 Argentina
Morocco 1-2 Portugal
England 0-2 France

Morocco were far the better team against Spain, they have a team full of experience players and, as you said, I won't be surprised if they go on and win against Portugal, and as for Ronaldo being the bench, I think they are better off without him now, he used to carry the Portugal a few years ago but now the team is the one carrying him, and I will be surprised if he doesn't retire from international duty after this world cup, just like Hazard did. He recognized when it was time to call it quits and retire with pride. BTW, the momentum is long gone.

Spain came with qualities with only few experience players.

I am sure that people said the same thing about Morocco vs Spain as well, who would have thought that Spain would play this badly and lose to Morocco but they did and thats what happened.

Looking at Portugal and their 6-1 win, everyone thinks that Portugal is amazing and great and that is why we are going to see them dominate Morocco and will be an easy game, but let's remember what pundits were saying before the Spain game and what they are saying now, same thing, so the result could also be the same. Nothing in the world of football is guaranteed, all games start 0-0 and no team is at any advantage, anything could happen in that 90 minutes, and we should be ready for it.

Portugal will really prefer playing their quarter-final match against Morocco instead of Spain but it will not be an easy game no matter which team will end up winning. The majority of fans and commentators would be saying Portugal will win the game but put it this way, I will not be surprised if Morocco win and move forward to the semi-finals.

As for Ronaldo, even if he starts on the bench he will be an excellent option to bring on to the pitch in the second half especially if Portugal are losing the game because he has the ability to change the momentum of a game.

Spain played a shitty game. Possessing the ball and not taking risks in attack is stupid. It's worse than putting the bus in because the defending team's motives are clear. But the motives of an attacking team that has "reliable" possession of the ball and does not risk losing it by going to the dribble or to the struggle are unclear. Spain with its style of play is outdated for a long time, it just worked before, now it doesn't. And to be honest, even when it worked it was a sad sight - all those games were 1-0, if you remember the golden years of Spain. This is not football, but the torment of oneself, the opponent and the spectators.

Ronaldo does not care what others think about him, happy or unhappy, it is their problems, not his.

With the very high ego, Ronaldo has yet accepted that his career is going to its ending. Neutrally I should say things have changed too fast with Ronaldo and all of us. It's just one season ago, he was still a best player of Manchester United and belonged to one of best goal scorers in Europe. After a few months in the summer, he lost it all and with him, it is very hard to accept this fact.

However I very agree with you that Ronaldo behavior is unacceptable. It is bad for him and for any team he is playing for at the moment. He is very famous and his drama can affect his teams negatively with so much noise on media and on field too. In match with Morocco, when every players were singing national anthem, Cristiano Ronaldo got the spotlight

I only saw a glimpse of the video there, I didn't see the whole thing, I don't care how ronaldo behaves in the video because he has the right to do whatever he likes, after all we don't know maybe he wanted to go to the toilet so he left his team celebrating victory, think positive only  

Yeah I thought the same with the 0 - 2 but no...  Lol.  Looks like Morocco held and on they go to the quarter finals.  I didn't watch the match but I could imagine Spain being a bit stale with the tiki taka style of play.  There are days when everything works and they look brilliant and there are days when the opposing squad's defense is so solid that their attacking would look non threatening, just passing the ball around without any direct attacking threat.  Dunno...  

For those who watched the match, how did it look for Spain?  Stale or did Morocco luck out?

I still wanted to see Cristiano Ronaldo on the field.  He is one of the best in the world and one of the best in football history.  I believe he should play every game since he's had his last world cup.  I hope he takes the field against Morocco.  It would be great to see a Hat-Trick from him in a match.  The reason I support Portugal is purely CR7.  I hope they can win this world cup.

Regarding the matches this week the most interesting match was Portugal Switzerland match because Portugal played very well and they did an attacking style play also the young players who were playing instead of the old stars were playing very well, for example, Ramos did a hattrick and this showed us he had definitely been a replaced with Ronaldo in the future matches, also Ranldo showed us a good reaction even after he was not between the first elven players.