**** 2018 WORLD CUP THREAD ***

Anyone notice that one side of the draw looks decidedly better than the other?

England may benefit most by losing today.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Anyone notice that one side of the draw looks decidedly better than the other?

England may benefit most by losing today.

Yea, it's a bit lopsided. Part of that is because Germany did not advance and Sweden gets the spot they were anticipated to win. But it could be some minnows in the semi-final matchup on that side.

vivalarepublica wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

Anyone notice that one side of the draw looks decidedly better than the other?

England may benefit most by losing today.

Yea, it's a bit lopsided. Part of that is because Germany did not advance and Sweden gets the spot they were anticipated to win. But it could be some minnows in the semi-final matchup on that side.

Also, Argentina would have been in the "weaker" bracket if they won their group. But Croatia has shown themselves to be the better team this time around.

The weak side of the bracket is wide open. I think Spain, England, and Croatia are the favorites there. Colombia will have a tough time without James. Although they got a goal yesterday, they had trouble creating chances without James. It's hard to assess England because they beat up on minnows and put out the B team against Belgium. Spain looks vulnerable. But Croatia looks like they can compete against anyone.

This tournament is wide open, but Belgium looks good, and I still like England.

Brasil is Brasil.

WE shall see.

NativeSon wrote:

I wasn't aware that Messi and Mascherano make the decisions (or are currently making them).

What beats me is why thi sguy calls up Dybala and Giovanni Lo Celso and then, almost never plays them. Even Pavon is usually an afterthought. No wonder this team struggles too much.

The fact also that he never called up Inter Milan's Mauro Icardi is stunning.

I think they will go past France but with this guy, nothing much will happen. I hope I am wrong.

A

Scorpion_runner wrote:

This tournament is wide open, but Belgium looks good, and I still like England.

Brasil is Brasil.

WE shall see.

I imagine whoever wins, you're gonna claim you knew it all along.

Typical AFE.

Group H must have been tough for you, given how far beyond goal difference it went.

-Icardi isnt on the team because Maxi Lopez (icardi's former teammate and close friend of Mascherano and Messi) wife cheated on him with Icardi.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3522528/Mauro-Icardi-Maxi-Lopez-feud-continues-refuses-shake-Inter-Milan-star-s-hand-grabs-crotch-instead.html

Dybala isn't having big minutes because he is similar to Messi. If you put Messi+Higuain, there's no place for Aguero or Dybala.

So the lineup against france is at

Armani

Otamendi

Rojo

Mercado

Tagliafico

Mascherano

Perez

Di Maria

Pavon or Higuain

Messi

Ben L Wrong wrote:

-Icardi isnt on the team because Maxi Lopez (icardi's former teammate and close friend of Mascherano and Messi) wife cheated on him with Icardi.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3522528/Mauro-Icardi-Maxi-Lopez-feud-continues-refuses-shake-Inter-Milan-star-s-hand-grabs-crotch-instead.html

Dybala isn't having big minutes because he is similar to Messi. If you put Messi+Higuain, there's no place for Aguero or Dybala.

So the lineup against france is at

Armani

Otamendi

Rojo

Mercado

Tagliafico

Mascherano

Perez

Di Maria

Pavon or Higuain

Messi

So Icardi, successful international footballer, married a woman 8 years older than him with 3 kids? Come on, bro.

Also, your lineup for Argentina only has 10 players. They could replace one of the wingers with Pavón. Might see it, consider Argentinaś lineups were completely different in each game so far.

Also, Ever Banega next to Mascherano was the best midfield combo they had. I think the wingers need to be someone that makes few mistakes and can get Messi the ball and create some of their own opportunities.

NativeSon wrote:

St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

Wow! Messi's control as he receives this pass (about 0:17 into the video) is gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC4Hg0sHlr4&feature=onebox

St. Ignatius of Antioch,

Have you read the book 'FOUR WITNESSES: THE EARLY CHURCH IN HER OWN WORDS'?

Hey NativeSon,

I've not read that one, though I see it is highly rated in reviews on Amazon.com and have had my eyes on it. I have read a fair amount on early church history and the writings of the patristic era which is often dated from the end of the New Testament writings until the death of St. John Damascene (St. John of Damascus) in 749 AD, nearly the midpoint of the 8th century. I'm currently reading J.N.D. Kelly's Early Christian Doctrines. I've also read Henry Chadwick's The Early Church, a fairly short history. And I've got the first three volumes (of five) of Jaroslav Jan Pelikan's The Christian Tradition on my bookshelf, though I've only read Volume 1 and a bit more than half of Volume 2. Interestingly (to me, anyway), these three were all non-Catholic authors: I believe Kelly and Chadwick were Anglican; Pelikan was Lutheran and later converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, though I think he dedicated at least one of his books to a Catholic order. Reading these works, it is easy to see Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox beliefs (which are very similar) and practices (which are not quite so similar) in the early church, and not much Protestantism insofar as Protestantism disagrees doctrinally with Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

I've been through the entire three-volumes of Fr. William Jurgens' The Faith of the Early Fathers which is often required reading in Catholic seminaries and contains excerpts from not only the luminaries of the early church such as Tertullian (who is not a saint, may have been a Catholic priest and probably died outside the Catholic Church), Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome and Saint Chrysostom but also many of the minor authors and even some of the heretics.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote several popular works on the early church fathers. I read one and would like to pick up the others.

I've also got Johannes Quasten's four-volume set Patrology, though I've used it only as a reference and haven't scanned it all in.

And I read Peter Brown's five hundred plus page biography Augustine of Hippo. (Brown is yet another another Protestant. Having read quite a number of Protestant works on the early church, nobody can easily accuse me of being drunk on Catholic Kool-Aid or a victim of Catholic brainwashing.)

So, what do you think of Four Witnesses which you mentioned?

I think you were the first person to notice that.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Anyone notice that one side of the draw looks decidedly better than the other?

England may benefit most by losing today.

Scorpion_runner wrote:

This tournament is wide open, but Belgium looks good, and I still like England.

Brasil is Brasil.

WE shall see.

Did England deliberately lose?

Subway Surfers wrote:

Scorpion_runner wrote:

This tournament is wide open, but Belgium looks good, and I still like England.

Brasil is Brasil.

WE shall see.

Did England deliberately lose?

I don't think so. Both teams started their subs. Quality was on par with the bottom of the EPL.

Belgium's 2nd team >England's. Both could meet again in the final with different result.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Scorpion_runner wrote:

This tournament is wide open, but Belgium looks good, and I still like England.

Brasil is Brasil.

WE shall see.

Did England deliberately lose?

Yes. They didn't go for the win, and were not really pressing or attacking. There were a couple of chances here and there, but nothing threatening. Belgium's 2nd unit wanted the win, which was evident in the celebration after they scored. Belgium could have scored 3 goals, but they weren't clinical enough.

Hell , Fellani looked like a top 5 midfielder in that game.

Belgium just looks really seasoned. They came into the 2014 WC as a very young ,talented side, lacking experience, so they failed because of it . Hazard was 23. Lukaku was 21, and the team was just very young. But now, after going through that, plus dealing with euro 2016 as a young team, they are mature and bright in their abilities. England and France still lack experience to me, because both teams have quite a few young players : Stones, Kane, Sterling, Loftus Cheek, Rashford, Dele Alli for England.

I think players become mature for a World Cup title run around the ages of 25-27. However, the problem with that is, that is the same reason why it is so difficult to repeat as champions. Those players who win it at the aforementioned age become

old during the 4 year duration until the next World Cup. They go into the next world cup at the age of 30/31, and the next generation of players are too young, so the cycle starts all over again, and the team has to wait until those young players become seasoned.

It's damn near impossible to repeat as champions.

vivalarepublica wrote:

So Icardi, successful international footballer, married a woman 8 years older than him with 3 kids? Come on, bro.

Also, your lineup for Argentina only has 10 players. They could replace one of the wingers with Pavón. Might see it, consider Argentinaś lineups were completely different in each game so far.

Yes, I forgot Banega, who will be next to Mascherano in the midfield.

And Pavon was confirmed in the starting lineup.

For France, the best player for me is Kante. He reminds me of Makelele (former Real Madrid star)

Subway Surfers wrote:

Scorpion_runner wrote:

This tournament is wide open, but Belgium looks good, and I still like England.

Brasil is Brasil.

WE shall see.

Did England deliberately lose?

Not sure how easy that is (without it being really obvious). Did he tell them to defend and pass well but just not worry about hitting the goal? He may need so use some of these guys later on, what good would it be then if he'd told them to deliberately play badly in this game?

The problem for England now is that we've seen two games beating minnows and one where they fielded all their reserves. Not exactly a plan to strike fear into the stronger opponents imho.

Having said that, should be able to get past Colombia.

Harder than you think wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

Did England deliberately lose?

Not sure how easy that is (without it being really obvious). Did he tell them to defend and pass well but just not worry about hitting the goal? He may need so use some of these guys later on, what good would it be then if he'd told them to deliberately play badly in this game?

The problem for England now is that we've seen two games beating minnows and one where they fielded all their reserves. Not exactly a plan to strike fear into the stronger opponents imho.

Having said that, should be able to get past Colombia.

It's hard to read England at this point, for the reasons you stated. I think Colombia would be the favorites against England with a healthy James Rodriguez, but without him, they look tame and seem to have trouble with creating goal scoring opportunities. That's why I think England will win this one and be able to beat the winner of Switzerland or Sweden to get to the semis. It will be a tease, though, because I see them losing to Spain or Croatia in the semis. (Croatia is my dark horse finals pick, I think they have the talent and quality of team play to make it that deep).

This is England we are talking about, so they will pull off some giant choke and probably look to Colombia on an own goal or goalkeeping error or something like that.

Ben L Wrong wrote:

vivalarepublica wrote:

So Icardi, successful international footballer, married a woman 8 years older than him with 3 kids? Come on, bro.

Also, your lineup for Argentina only has 10 players. They could replace one of the wingers with Pavón. Might see it, consider Argentinaś lineups were completely different in each game so far.

Yes, I forgot Banega, who will be next to Mascherano in the midfield.

And Pavon was confirmed in the starting lineup.

For France, the best player for me is Kante. He reminds me of Makelele (former Real Madrid star)

I have total faith that Sampaoli will defy logic with another nutty lineup and change all this before the start of the game. I simply cannot see France lose this game because Argentina has looked so bad on defense and midfield and France will shred them in that part of the field. The only chance for Argentina is some magic from the attack and France someone blowing most of their goal scoring chances. Which could happen.