Mr Gogolak
Ilie Dumitrescu
Outside of individual matches/results, are you enjoying this World Cup? Personally, I found the new 48-team format extremely boring. I don't know if it's time catching up with me or something more global (up until the second part of the 90s, the World Cup was also about finding out about new players/teams), but I laboured through the group stage, finding little to no stakes in games - you have to be an extremely poor or unlucky team to be eliminated this early in the tournament.
The round of 32 was also a drag, with some incredibly boring/poor (South Africa vs Canada) or one-sided results. Of course, you get the odd balanced game here and there but, on the whole, you could predict the results even if you didn't watch the first round at all.
It got slightly more interesting as it went on, but having to wait halway through a tournament to feel some measure of excitement isn't a great thing. All the way back in 1990, the games were poor and incredible boring, but they felt important. Now, it seems they've added more games to allow players to break records but with zero intensity. The hydratation breaks (or whatever they're called) didn't help either.
Maybe World Cups just aren't my things anymore though, so I'm curious to read about differring opinions.
The round of 32 was also a drag, with some incredibly boring/poor (South Africa vs Canada) or one-sided results. Of course, you get the odd balanced game here and there but, on the whole, you could predict the results even if you didn't watch the first round at all.
It got slightly more interesting as it went on, but having to wait halway through a tournament to feel some measure of excitement isn't a great thing. All the way back in 1990, the games were poor and incredible boring, but they felt important. Now, it seems they've added more games to allow players to break records but with zero intensity. The hydratation breaks (or whatever they're called) didn't help either.
Maybe World Cups just aren't my things anymore though, so I'm curious to read about differring opinions.
You lost because you wasn't good enough, your only goal was a fluked cross and your star striker could barely get a shot on goal all game. England had the better xG, double the shots on target, your keeper had to make double the amount of saves, about the only metric you beat England on was corner kicks.