World Cup 2018 World Cup 2018: Brazil vs Belgium

[goatwack]

The big egos of messi, ronaldo, neymar etc can't deal at country level with having to play with players who are not top class, Salah may not be prima donna but he must be pissed off that the other Egyptian players are not up to the standards of him and he has no chance of winning a world cup.

Belgium have a number of world class players who can work together Hazard, De Bruyne etc which is probably why they have progressed further.

Yes, that's true. Although it's taken Belgium a good number of years to do this, a lot of these players have majorly flopped in tournaments before. I think a lot of credit goes to the manager for putting their egos in place and shifting attention on team ethic. They're due a win, and if not here then the Euros in two years, surely.

And Salah for sure he's frustrated. He's lost in that team, and it shows. Last I heard he considered quitting international football for the reason you mentioned

 

[mcgameboy]

Salah will just have to accept that the only tournament he can win while playing for his country is the African Nations Cup.

Yes, in the pre-expansion era 1970 I would count 6/6 as the same as 7/7 in the modern era. I remember Argentina needing to beat Peru by 4 or 5 goals in 1978 and they won 6-1, the biggest rigged game ever. 1982 always leaves a bitter taste - England won 3/3 group games including smashing a very good France side. They then managed to draw (somehow) with both Spain and Germany in the second group of 3, both of whom had lost a group game to Northern Ireland and Algeria respectively. So we went home unbeaten having conceded only 1 or 2 goals.

Yeah I think that England team in '82 probably felt the same way as the Brazilians in '78. Very hard done by, if not actually robbed. Although to be fair to the Brazilian team, once they failed to beat Argentina, they had no control of their own destiny. England on the other hand, did in '82. Because the Spain game was the last game in the group.
So they knew what would get them into the semis. Any two goal victory or a one goal victory that was 3-2 or higher. And that Spain team was actually crap.
How the hell it finished 0-0, well I have no idea. Keegan trying to score the best headed goal of all-time (and failing miserably) didn't help though.

I've never liked the idea of a second group stage, even one with four teams in each group (like they had in '74 and '78).
But the concept of a second group stage with only three teams in each group is just horrible.

FIFA finally got the format right in '86. But it took two scandals in '78 and '82 to help get them there.