**The World Cup 2018 Official Thread**

[African Peasant]

Actions speak louder than words..




These "French" kids are singing in Lingala, the language of the Congo.

They probably have more relatives back in Africa than in France.

They are still playing for the glory of France. It's not different from when african soldiers used to sing in african languages while fighting fo France in Indochina.

Most of them are more french than african.

And most of these kids have a huge superiority complex toward africans from Africans.

 

[concise]

The problem with the A-League is it's completely artificial and that's had a flow on effect on the national team.

Before 2005 we used to have the NSL, which was comprised mostly of ethnic teams. My local clubs are Marconi Stallions (Italian), Bossy Liverpool (Bosnian) and Bonnyrigg White Eagles (Serbian). These clubs have history and established links with the local area, but the A-League was purposefully created to remove the influence that ethnic clubs had on Australian football, because of bullshyt fears about rioting and violence and all that. So now they play in local leagues and have no pathway to the top flight. It's hard to feel any type of way about franchises like Sydney FC or Western Sydney Wanderers because they don't have any real community links or history.

Pretty much all of the Australian golden generation of footballers in the 90s and 00s came out of ethnic clubs. Christian Vieri and Harry Kewell started their careers at Marconi Stallions, Mark Viduka and Josip Simunic at Melbourne Croatia, Brett Emerton and Tim Cahill at Sydney Olympic (a Greek club), and so on.

Since the A-League switch the ethnic clubs have diminished in significance, and the talent has begun to dry up which reflects in the performance of the national team as well as the lack of Australian footballers playing at top European clubs. Our best player today plays for Crystal Palace, 20 years ago the majority played Champions League football.

So you guys mostly just watch highlight shows and replays? Are any of the leagues from N or S America easily viewable where you are?

 

[concise]

If Australia ever hosted a WC

How old were you in 2002 when Korea/Japan happened?

 

[Sukairain]

I have seen some shyt in here like "the white nationalists will be supporting Croatia, so we have to support France otherwise it's a win for them"

The problem with that is you literally cannot win with these people. If France win they'll find some way to claim it. They'll say that it was because of the white players, who were the "brains" of the team. Or they'll say it was the white manager. Or they'll say it was because of the white blood in the mixed race players. Or they'll say it was because of the advantages of French society and infrastructure, without which the guys from the "shythole" countries wouldn't have done shyt. Or they'll say....

You get the point. No matter what happens, they'll find a way to discredit the diversity at the heart of the French team and turn their win into an example confirming white supremacy. After all, they do this with everything else. Consider the whitewashing of Egyptian history and the denial of the existence of sophisticated and developed African societies pre-colonialism. Consider how they invented the bullshyt Aryan Invasion Theory, which holds that white people are responsible for the achievements of ancient India. These people go out of their way to deny and discredit any notion of racial equality. Why would football be any different?

The only move here is to not engage with them at all. They're fukking morons. You can't reason or argue with them because they're too stupid and will come up with all types of outlandish Juelzing whenever they're confronted with something that obviously disproves their ideology.

The fight against white supremacy will not be won or lost over which team wins at football. So give that shyt a miss and just focus on celebrating the beautiful game

 

[Sukairain]

So you guys mostly just watch highlight shows and replays? Are any of the leagues from N or S America easily viewable where you are?

America is worse man! Australia's east coast is 16 hours ahead of New York.

I don't know how people watch foreign football in Australia. There's nothing on in a favourable time slot. The best is Champions League which kicks off at 4:30am, you can get up before work or whatever and catch the game. And even that is a pretty shyt deal

 

[thatrapsfan]

 

[BlackBall]

yeah he's not a smart player by any means

 

[Sukairain]

God damn, it's like watching a Steven Gerrard compilation from the 2010 tournament

 

[concise]

America is worse man! Australia's east coast is 16 hours ahead of New York.

I don't know how people watch foreign football in Australia. There's nothing on in a favourable time slot. The best is Champions League which kicks off at 4:30am, you can get up before work or whatever and catch the game. And even that is a pretty shyt deal

I thought it was like 12 or 13?
lol, Liga MX could work, they love playing Saturday night games like 9 or 10 pm Saturdays on the East Coast which would be like 11am/noon in Sydney. Even then, language barrier and all that.

 

[Sukairain]

I thought it was like 12 or 13?
lol, Liga MX could work, they love playing Saturday night games like 9 or 10 pm Saturdays on the East Coast which would be like 11am/noon in Sydney. Even then, language barrier and all that.

You're right, my bad, it's 14 hours right now. 7am in NY, 9pm here.

Daylight savings makes it 16 hours during our summer/your winter

 

[Liu Kang]

Was thing about this, even when France did badly it wasn't down to talent but shooting themselves in the foot. They've had the best talent in the last 20 years easily.

Finals
Brazil: 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2007
France: 1998, 2000, 2006, 2016, 2018
Germany: 2002, 2008, 2014
Spain: 2008, 2010, 2012

no one is above france for recent history (say past 2 decades).

it does seem like we may have the best resume in the past 20 years with Brazil Didn't expect that tbh. I do think Germany's consistency sets them on the same level as us and Brazil though. They have less finals but more semis, from 2006 to 2016, they reached semis in every competition.
- 2002 : WC final lost
- 2006, 2010 : WC semis
- 2014 : Wc final won
- 2008 : Euro final
- 2012, 2016 : Euro semis

They have been good with the exception of the post Zidane years. Germany made at least the semis in 6 straight tournaments from 2006 to 2016, that has to be exhausting at some point.

That generation is definitely burned out because there resume since their 06 WC is crazy. I didn't expect this to be so blatant and I mistakenly thought they were favorites

spain didnt do all that much in that tome outside of 08-12 but three championships in a row?
i hated that team so much

I kinda liked them from a footy perspective
The talent it takes to play the way they played was outstanding. If I take a step back and look at their 08-10, they were monstrous and the ability to take the ball hostage while 10 opposite players chase it and can't get it is undervalued. Their negative tiki taka from 2012 will always overshadows this though. But I blame Del Bosque's doble pivote and Fabregas as a false 9.

 

[Montez]

 

[Black Nate Grey]

Talk that shyt, Grizou


This arrogance from Belgium is astounding.

 

[TobiOT]

 

[TobiOT]