Topic: Sportsbet.io's FIFA World Cup 22 Prediction Pool Discussion thread - page 11. (Read 10837 times)

I don't think that's going to happen. Even if they do, it will be a great mistake. Portugal will of course break their defense regardless of their bus parking and that will cost Morocco get out of the tournament. Very few team gets benefit from bus parking.

I don't think Santos will make a huge change on the squad. Maybe Cancelo will come in which I think Santos should. CR7 will be benched once again.

You can't really afford to that at this stage. Portugal's attack will likely be too strong to just hope they can do that for 90-120 minutes and hope to win it on penalties again. I don't think Portugal will make the same mistake of underestimating Morocco either. I think Portugal are a better team/squad than Spain as well. It's going to be interesting to see if Ronaldo is benched again. I guess they proved that they don't need him but it's still a balsy move. If it pays off it will be commended but if not I'm sure he will be criticised. Personally I don't think they should have brought him on at all in the last game. They were 5-1 up at that point and could have risked injuring him so they should have left him off and send home the message that he's not above being left out completely. 

It's precisely this thing about football I love. To watch, when the first team I followed was the whipping boys of my local league. Then to play, when my team was always bottom of competitions but one particular event we went just 2 games short of actually winning something... on a day when everything clicks for the underdog and not for the favourite, it's amazing.

Croatia's got a great team, and a style that's not terrible to watch, I honestly wouldn't know what to do if I were coach. You can't really frustrate Brazil (their players are better at that game). You can't be patient with them, as they're so fast now this team, probably fastest Brazilian team I can remember. You can't pressure them either, because they're better at turnovers.

0-0 half time would be ideal... early goal, I agree, will kill the spirit.

I got pretty ok money on Croatia as a hedge against my Brazil outright... and a cheeky Lovren goal (I forever remember his header against BVB). Footballing gods, hear our prayers haha.


Good luck to you. I think whomever in the top 10 who gets 2 exact scores today gets a nice boost, but the aim for me is just to get 2 close scores. I'll be ruined if both games end in draws


Tennis would be something very different for sure. I don't follow it as much these days, and never really in as much depth as football but it'd be something special, a pool and a quiz format. No more Slissy there hopefully heh.

Starting to get a bit nervous about the game.. I don't really give us much chance, but the beauty of football is that you can always win against the run of play.

We have a decent team and we'll be able to control parts of the game - but I do not feel we are capable of putting Brazil under any kind of continuous pressure.

If they do score early, I'm afraid the game might turn real ugly real quick for us - so I hope our defence will be better than ever. They are in for a rough day.

These are smaller miracles than Saudi Arabia and even Japan wins I would say, so I would definitely not count those things out from happening. The tricky thing is to pick whether they do so through penalties or through shock regular wins. The worst is picking draw (for penalties) and they win in normal time or picking upset and they go through on penalties, cause you get no points in either scenario.

Both Croatia and Morocco will be expected to try penalties so... smart choice is draw if you want to go against the pool

I don't see Croatia scoring in the first half unless some fluke happens. We are not even that good on counter attacks so I am expecting us to defend until the moment we concede.

If we still have 0:0 in second half, then we will maybe start to test Brazilians more as they are getting more and more nervous. I am thinking best chance for Croatia goal is around minutes 60-75. After that Brazil has much longer bench than we and it will just be waiting for penalties.

Sounds a whole lot difficult for both teams to score in the first half especially in the Brazil game where Croatia will most likely try to defend and to make the game go to additional time and have a luck trying to qualify with penalties which can be anyone's game.

For the other game that is highly probable that even the first half both teams to score as both are strong teams with strong attacks,nevertheless I hope you win your bet.

Both South American teams have a decent chance of qualifying to the semis today. Croatia haven't shown much quality in the tournament so far. They are awful going forward and haven't created much except in the Canada game. Brazil on the other hand shone in the attack and fullbacks (to my surprise) have played amazingly. Brazil taking this one with a difference of 2-3 goals.

On the contrary, Netherlands vs Argentina is much more poised. Before the tournament started, the Netherlands looked an average team but they have shown the quality and dominated every game they played. But Argentina won't be an easy team to beat. Argentina improved by at least 20-30% in every game since Saudi defeat. All the four teams which played against Argentina so far sat back and didn't let Argentina create much. Argentina attack shines when the opponent tries to score and leaves the spaces open. So it will be interesting to see if the Netherlands will continue their strategy from the US game and don't let Argentina progress easily with a low block and less possession or they will start attacking from the first minute. The result will be largely dependent on this.

I will watch both games I think but the first one I might miss 1st half so I had to place mega risky bet ...thinking that if this won't be a win , I might skip this world cup until the end as I'm just losing money and besides this , I have extra time to work which is mega frustrating...



We barely had only 2 games were both teams to score in 1st half so I guess it's time to have another 2...

I am not interested in the first match, as I expect it to be a one-sided outing. Brazil in all probability will have an easy outing against Croatia. The second one is where the sparks are going to fly. Netherlands and Argentina are teams of almost equal energy, and it is very difficult to predict the winner. Argentina will be having the slight advantage obviously. In case Netherlands is going to win, then a lot of people will be disappointed including the Brazil fans. Because they will never get to watch a Brazil vs Argentina match in this edition of the world cup.

I think in the game Brazil vs Croatia if Dalic the coach of Croatia is smart will put a team in a position to hold back and why not counter attack Brazil and I think he is smart so more than players game it is a coach game this one,Brazil never played against a strong opponent so far and Croatia is the strongest they will face compared to the teams that they already played.

The main event is in 8 a clock Pm Netherlands vs Argentina,the real test for both teams as they never have played against strong opponents so far,most likely for me Argentina to pass through because of Netherlands "bad" defending.

Sure, Morocco is a very diciplined team and that's a great quality against a team like Spain with overally better individual players. They calculated it very well making Spain tired from their own game.
Morocco had some bright moments as well and I expect them to have some good attempts as well against Portugal.

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Croatia needs to avoid what happened to South Koreas last game. Brazil scored 2 goals very quickly, so South Korea was already out of the game. But even a 0-0 at half-time would favor Brazil for the second half as Croatia will get tired. Going into 90+30 mins already against Japan doesn't really help Croatia in terms of fitness.

I think this Netherlands is worst than the 2014 by far, and this Argentina its at the same level or above than the Argentina in 2014, so i think Argentina can go to semis in a good match.
But this its football and all can happen, more in a World Cup.

For today the day to assemble the christmas tree (i dont know if in the northern pole its the same) the AFA (Asociation of Football Argentina) make a really good video mixing the christmas the WC and Messi, and change the PAPA NOEL (Santa Claus here) for PAPA LIONEL in alusion to MESSI, and what are your wishes to this christmas/WC. I share with you the video.

https://twitter.com/lucasmalarcon/status/1600868993883164672

This 2 days break was great thing indeed to recharge batteries. We had very intensive marathong of football for past few weeks. And now it's time for most delicious part of World Cup.
Dear Croatians, sorry to say, but I don't see how your team can eliminat such force like Brazil. It's only pair in 1/4 finals where we have such big favorite. Against all other remaining teams Croatia would have much better chances.
It's most important to not concede early goal, but still, it will be so difficult to defend for whole 90 minutes. Offcourse, I don't pretend to be right.

Probably nobody would be very surprised if this game would go to extra time and penalties. But I agree that chances for Argentina is bigger, just because of Messi factor. I didn't liked how Argentina looked in group stage, but against USA they showed different face.

There are a lot more points in play in next eight matches so anything can happen and leaderboard can change quickly.
Well done Slissy for keeping first place but we are all coming for him, so he must ne under pressure.
I think this Superbru world cup competition is very interesting, and we should do it again for next big sport event, maybe for Australian Open in January.

Really rough match for Croatia against Brazil,they will need to defend really hard and Croatia`s defence isnt at the very top. If Brazil scores first it will be gameover fast but at least they can make it hard for them. Argentina also has a difficult opponent and i think Argentina need to step up if they want to win

I sure hope we (Croatia) will rise up to the occasion and make it though for Brazil. They are much stronger side but I feel like we have our shot. This is the time when final goal justifies all means necessary and if I were in charge of Croatia I would try to provoke them and stop the game as much as possible. Not very popular tactics but could be very effective with some Brazilan players. Of course all that can only work if we stop Brazil from scoring in first 60 minutes or so.

I see Argentina getting trough tomorrow. I just believe Messi factor will be enough to tip the scales in the end.

Great performance so far buddy. You're right, anything can happen in the last eight matches. The gaps in our pool are so narrow... one result is enough and everything is shuffled again. I also hope to end up in the top 10. But even if not. The round has been a lot of fun so far - even without prize money.  

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I won't rule it out yet. Good luck for the last matches buddy.  

^^
If a miracle happens and Morocco and Croatia qualify for the final, who will be the champion? I know that the Brazilian national team is the favorite on paper to win the championship. What do you think, is Croatia capable of overthrowing the Samba team?

Who do you think will qualify for the semi-final match between Argentina vs Nederland?