Essential The Official Football (Soccer) Thread - We are SO back, the Premier League returns!

Liu Kang

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Giroud is a team player. He looks great for Arsenal because everyone understands their role and not try and be superstars. The French team is the exact opposite and he sticks out. Giroud tries to play people in, then Ribery just dribbles and fukks up the move.

Koscielny usually good for France but was a disaster today. He prone to stupid fouls too.
I really don't see why people are ruling out a win in France? Ukraine didn't look spectacular at all and if there's anything that France does, its perform when they're under the most pressure. 2-0 really doesn't seem out of the realm of imagination tbh and I actually expect it.

As much as I like Kos, he was awful, and Varane has looked better than him with France. Not sure why he didn't start today.
Come on brehs, Kos was good until the pen. I think he got fed up to be one of the few in the team to go HARD because we got roughed up since the beginning. Look at Abidal : he's the prime example of the physical fight we lost, he got abused all the match and if the ref could have whistled a pen against him because his fault was more obvious than Kos'. Sakho would have bullied some of the Ukrainians. Kos lost it but he was one of the best (with Pogba and maybe Matuidi) on the field until that. And that says it all : our defensive midifielders and one of our defenders were our best players. We can add Giroud but he didn't have too many balls and was consistently bullied because he's too nice. He should have had an assist if Nasri didn't shot that softly on the goal.

And Varane is the future, I like him. But he's not THAT good yet. Above all, lately with his injury he's kinda suspect... Did you see the Juve-Real match a few weeks ago. He was responsible on both goals...

this

might as well have moved Pogba to 10. Dead serious. I saw him create at least 2 chances. And that's with him playing real deep. And have him bully the box.
Nasri's passing :scusthov:
Nah bruh, Pogba is an 8, he can create chances because he's deep and got time, when he's high on the field, he goes for the goal. But he's smart and still improving, so maybe in the future.

The problem is that we always shone with a proper 10. It's stupid but this is our way : Kopa in the late 50's, Platini in the 80's, Zidane in the 90's/2000's. Yesterday, we didn't have a 10 because we simply don't have enough players with intelligence. Nasri could be but he likes to go deep to outnumber the midfield, therefore he slows down the build-up, Valbuena is burned-out after playing every possible games since august, Grenier is too young and isn't shining anymore, Gourcuff is too injury-prone and play on the left these days and so on.

Honestly I hope that we win and qualify on Tuesday but I don't believe it. And if we lose, at least I hope we'll do it guns blazing. Did y'all see the hunger in the Ukrainian team ? These dudes were out there to kill and that was the difference. I hope we go with only one holder in a fukkin 4/3/3, trying to score as many goals as possible with no regard to take some in the process. But Deschamps is a conservative dude, not sure he can do that.
 

BOBN

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French paper headlines dont play:lolbron:

BZLlWlbIYAANKIW.jpg:large


They love themselves a scapegoat these. So does this mean Kosielny is missing the worst of it? :lupe:
 

Kunty McPhuck

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its baffling to me seeing france struggle like this

Not really, barring the 02 qualifications, theyve always struggled

France has zero creativity in midfield + Nasri slows down play a lot.

Thats why I :heh: when I hear this Nasri WC talk, when he has 3 good games on the trot. The brehs just a basic ballhog, by the time he passes it, the space is :dead:
 
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Liu Kang

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French paper headlines dont play:lolbron:

BZLlWlbIYAANKIW.jpg:large


They love themselves a scapegoat these. So does this mean Kosielny is missing the worst of it? :lupe:
It's l'Équipe. basically the only sports newspapers, so they feel themselves way too much, thinking they are word of law.
And Nasri been the scapegoat since last year when he cussed a journalist out so it's nothing surprising.
 

Liu Kang

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its baffling to me seeing france struggle like this

the team looks strong when u look at it on paper :mindblown:
That's the problem. Man for man we are better, no questions asked. Our players play in better clubs, in better competition.
But a WC ? It's about the team. I don't know if you saw the game but I couldn't help to admire Ukraine, all out of fuel after being at 150% since the 1st minute but still gunning in counters for a third goal with a 3 against 1 at the 89th minute !!! These dudes wanted to finish us off and that collective fighting spirit is what we lack. Simple as that. We're too soft, we are too sure of ourselves, we are too arrogant. Hell, we are too french SMH.

As much as I dislike Evra, he was one of the few to reply to the Ukrainian aggressiveness and he was going hard as much as them. Deschamps is a leader and always was (since '96 in the Eurocup) and I really hoped that he would give the team the ruggedness, the aggressiveness and the efficiency that he gave Marseille or Monaco when they were on top. I thought he succeeded when we played beautifully in Spain. But we came back the same.

You may not follow french politics, but there is a STRONG dislike (almost hate) for the team here at the moment and that will be worse Wednesday. And that, since Knysna and that stupid bus strike. This shyt is 3 years old but people never forgot. We have incompetent old heads at the federation who are more preoccupied to be reelected than truly change the foundations. Honestly, quality football-wise, we are shyte since 2002 but people don't see it because of 2006 and the final after STRUGGLING like hell. I remember how SHOOK we were for the final group stage match against fukkin Togo (after drawing twice against Switzerland and SoKo !)

In 2002, we thought we were invincible but Zidane couldn't save us because if was injured in a friendly just before the WC. Everyday, news were talking about his thigh. We knew all about it.
In 2004, we lost to Greece like everybody and we almost lost the opening match against England but Barthez, Zidane and then Henry saved us.
In 2006, was the swan song of most of the '98 win and Vieira then Zidane saved us.
In 2008, the '87 gen (Benz, Ben Arfa, Nasri...) were not strong enough and there were still parasites from the '98 win which prevented us to evolve.
In 2010, utter clusterfukked shyte.
In 2012, we had Blanc setting a new wave, a new style of play : possession football and 4/3/3 but he fukked up against Spain with that 2 RB tactic and he lost his aura with that Quota scandal equating black people with strong and fast and white people with small and tekks. He couldn't continue because of the controversy and he didn't want to also. But I wouldn't have minded him continuing because he was making deep changes in our style.

No, the problem is bigger than just players. Since 2002, we must have had 10 memorable quality matches... We need to like watching our team play again, we need beautiful football.
I wish Wenger was available :noah:
 
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