Anybody else watching?

Young from Venezuela is holding it down in goal. Dude plays for Milionarios in the Colombian league. He was on fire against Peru and also solid against Brasil. Venezuela came away with a 0-0 draw and VAR did more in two minutes for Venezuela than Guaido has so far by nullifying a late goal from Brasil after a painfully conservative sequence from the vino tinto. Venezuela has a great shot to advance now. If they take care of business against Bolivia, all they need is a winner in the Brasil-Peru game (that winner and Venezuela will advance). Brasil has the most talent in that group but we'll see what they do with it; I didn't think they looked solid in the lead-up games I saw.

Uruguay looks pretty sharp and should advance without issue. I think they have a pretty solid shot to win the tournament.

Colombia is already into that second round after a resilient performance against Argentina and a late goal that got them past a cantankerous Qatar squad today. James is looking magnificent, playing a creative game that included a brilliant 70-meter, cross-field setup in the first game and a nice pass in tight today for the winner. He's dribbling with flair, too, and looks as good as he has since 2014. The back end looks solid for Colombia and guys like Martinez and Zapata have played with some jump. Argentina might not get out of the group stage, they dropped the first game 2-0 and are down 1-0 to Paraguay right now. Their defense is trash. Messi should consider obtaining dual citizenship IJS.

dude has played 22 minutes of meaningful soccer for Argentina since the day before last year's WC

They made some tweaks ahead of today's game and considered others. I don't think he was on their radar though.

Update in the game it's 1-1 after a bullshit penalty kick was awarded (what exactly is the point of VAR if calls like that happen?) and Messi buried it. Paraguay earned a PK of their own and Gonzalez muffed it.

The ARG press and fans want him to do EVERYTHING and he's never been that
he'll never win a tournament with ARG cuz he can't handle that kind of pressure
truthfully, few can

They'll squeak by just like in the last WC then get swiftly sent packing in the KO stage

I see either Uruguay or Colombia lifting the trophy

Looks like they will move on here but just barely. Qatar has missed opportunities in this game. Argentina has outplayed them but not by much, and the early goal is all that stands. I could see them losing to Venezuela, seriously, one mistake in their net could end them or they could go scoreless to penalties. We'll see if the matchup stands but it would be ARG-VEN as of now.

But here's the thing
Venezuela is this bipolar team that could play a perfect defensive game (like they just did against Brazil- haters will say they parked the bus but who could do that against the penta and come out 0-0?)

Against ARG, they could steal a goal or two on a counter and shock the world (ARG's defense isn't exactly world class)

OR

they shit the bed and Messi and co. run all over them

Either outcome is plausible, it's truly 50/50 at this point

Yes I could see Argentina getting an early goal and keeping pressure on but I could also see the game going scoreless and being a coin flip on penalties or Venezuela flat-out winning the game. They have just enough scoring punch to do it.

I dunno if they played a perfect defensive game against Brasil but pretty close. I wouldn't cricitize them for parking the bus exactly but they did play their final possessions too conservatively and it almost cost them on a counter (thank you, VAR). Peru they made plenty of mistakes but their keeper bailed them out.

The big thing is that they are playing pretty well as a group. I still don't see that out of Argentina. They'd played maybe 25 good minutes out of 270 so far.

Seriously.

Looks like he'll head to Napoli, which should be a great situation for him. Reunited with Ancelotti and possibly Ospina (we'll see how his situation gets resolved between Arsenal, Napoli and whomever). Ospina is not just his teammate with the national team, he is also his brother-in-law.

I'd love to see him flourish at the club level but as long as he can play strong in this WC cycle for Colombia, I don't care all that much. He was awesome in 2014 and really in 2018 for the game and a half that he was fit. He's been great so far here.

Venezuela is through by virtue of a win over Bolivia (who was trampled in this tournament) and Brasil's shellacking of Peru.

The knockout round is looking pretty firm. Chile and Uruguay face each other for their group tomorrow with Chile holding a lead (six points to Uruguay's four); Colombia and Brasil already won theirs.

I'd love to see the Vino Tinto make some noise here with all the shit going on back home. Their goalie gave up one goal (that stood) in three games, and it was a meaningless one. They have some action up front, MLS fans will certainly recognize Martinez's bleached locks out there. I don't think they can win it but advancing even a round would be big.

Colombia has looked great thus far. Brasil rolled today but it kind of snowballed on Peru. Otherwise they have been just decent, but they haven't really had to be great. Chile-Uruguay should be a nice match to check the temperature of both sides.

I'm eager to see Chile-Uruguay tomorrow. So far los Cafeteros have been the best team here but I haven't seen much of that group because of the TV schedule.

https://i.redd.it/yjybh0sazh531.jpg


This is why Argentina are terrible.
This is the game plan.

They were better against Qatar but it's hard to see them going much further.

early goal was most of what they needed. qatar had some chances that most other teams would have cashed in on. i could definitely see argentina falling to venezuela, and certainly they won't advance beyond the semi finals.

they all say they know not to do exactly that, every coach says it, teammates say it and then they all just rely on messi. Lautaro is pretty much the only one who doesn't.

and barca's more direct system (aside from dembele, who tries to rely on himself) is getting more and more similar. eto'o and pedro were always underrated for how much they worked to help messi by making runs (villa got credit for it. suarez sometimes does, sometimes doesn't). i'll end there to avoid turning this into a barca thread but messi deserves teammates who DO THE FUCKING WORK

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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

I was watching a documentary on the great Brasil teams and some Brasilian journalist was saying that the difference between those teams and the teams today is that they were a team that included Pele whereas today it's Messi plus 10, Ronaldo plus 10, Neymar plus 10, etc. That the teams rely upon the star so much that it doesn't engage the other players and it also makes things easier to organize for the defense, basically.

They can't just seed it by record? How the fuck is it reasonable that the top overall team in group play faces the No. 3 overall team? What was the point of winning those games?

I been watching on Telemundo, the announcers are pretty funny.

so, i just assumed this was the Gold Cup post w/out reading.

my bad.

How is my boy Rodriguez from Colombia playing? Thanks for this post, I'm going to start watching these.

He hasn't done a whole lot in the flow of play but he's certainly opened up space for others and he buried a penalty kick against Paraguay that was big for Argentina.

James has been awesome. Watch the highlights from the win against Argentina, he made an absolutely fabulous play that has been the best of the tournament to set up a Martinez goal (he also put in work on the play). He had a very nice assist the Qatar game as well and a third against Paraguay that got nullified by VAR. He is loose, looking how he looks in the Colombian uniform. He's also relishing his role as a playmaker. Cuadrado had a little bit of a slow start, kind of too pumped up and he is slowing down a little (though he's still pretty fast), but he's played better as it has gone on. Falcao hasn't made much noise but I bet he has one big game in him. Martinez and Zapata are picking up any slack though. Mina and Sanchez have been awesome on the back end and Ospina has been reliable, though he missed the third game (went to Medellin to visit his ailing father).

Cavani is still dangerous for Uruguay. They look like they have some adjustments to make in the lead-up to 2022, team is getting older.

Esp when Luisito misses the first

The play-on and rely on VAR thing is weird and needs some refinement. The officiating has similarly focused on letting play continue and they've let some bad fouls ride. The draw setup is fucking terrible. How did Colombia have the top overall performance in group play and get stuck with either Uruguay or Chile? Pointless and unfair. Seed the teams for fuck's sake. Credit to Chile for outplaying them through 90. I knew Tesillo was going to screw Colombia at some point, I said it to my jawn during the game against Qatar and then we watched him muff that one yesterday. Would have been nice if Ospina had come up with a save but I dunno. Chile was roofing their penalties.

The goal was pure sex. Messi remains Jesus,

>

If you drew up the perfect player for what we need, it’d look a lot like him.

He ain't worth the hype. Slow twitch unathletic and uninteresting, don't see much further growth for him beyond being a decent player.

Lol he's already 25 smh

No disrespect to any peruano on here, but as a neutral, c’mon.

Overall this tournament has been pretty meh. Some tight games but few entertaining ones. Probably the best match was Argentina-Colombia early in the group stage. Venezuela-Peru was also kind of exciting in that Venezuela seemed to have nine lives between great goalkeeping and VAR.

officiating was all over the place in the semis and finals but they were the best side in the tournament. Peru had a chance, but those last twenty minutes were a disaster (no possession being up a man, then that shoulder charge penalty for no reason to seal it).

Jesus was ridiculous the last two games.

Once Brasil had 10 men they really tried to bait challenges that would turn into fouls or otherwise kill clock.

The penalty was a little iffy to me but they obviously reviewed it. At any rate Peru wasn't getting anything going offensively anyway, even with the man advantage.

Brasil was the best side consistently in the tournament. I was surprised to see Chile flop in the semi-final. Colombia got an absurdly unfair draw with them in the first round given that the Cafeteros were by far the best team in the group stage.

There was a lot of CONMEBOL fuckery in this tournament, but that's to be expected. Good games were few and far between though, which sucks.