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FIFA World Cup Brasil 2014

yes but it´s not like Cassillas was a one season wonder when he was considered best, he is unconsistent only two years, and despite that he won real champions league with his saves.. he is a guy who won it all, multiple times... and was the best for a decade in spain.. and their nt..

maybe he is down now, but he certainly deserves all the praise he gets for his career.
 
PIPA23, you of all people should understand what I said. LFC won CL in 2005 with a fluke team that accomplished above ability through collective work. None of those were "best" yet they were the ones holding the trophy.
 
iosonoio said:
When you play with the best teams always is easiest...
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No, it's not. Maybe from a technical and or tactical standpoint, but there are so many other variables to take into consideration. For example, I would argue that it's very difficult to maintain team chemistry when you have a significant number of players that have achieved everything in the sport (e.g., Spain). It's also very challenging to keep the type of hunger and determination required to not only win one competition, but to win multiple ones in succession.
 
Chile need a new gameplan if they want to continue at this WC. Conceding this many great chances to Australia...they'd be dead and buried against a better team.
 
amineken22 said:
He's been playing there for almost two years, don't see what's wrong with it.
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He's a midget. You can't play a midget centre back against the best strikers. Might have worked with Chile scraping into the WC against S. American opposition, but that will get abused if they get out of the groups.

Cannavarro was always considered short and he's about half a foot taller than Medel!
 
Tim Cahill is one of the best headers in the world but he is only 1.78 which means you need either a Roberto Ayala or a slugger at 1.86+ to take him out. Cahill proved time and again that he's hard to mark though.
 
beachryan said:
He's a midget. You can't play a midget centre back against the best strikers. Might have worked with Chile scraping into the WC against S. American opposition, but that will get abused if they get out of the groups.

Cannavarro was always considered short and he's about half a foot taller than Medel!
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Maybe, but Córdoba or Ayala would say otherwise. Medel got that bulldog attitude, he's willing to fight for every ball. I think that's the reason Sampaoli's been playing him as such.
 
Pressure s on Spain now. Just got back from bar with bunch of others in Orange. Today makes being the runner ups one too many times feel a little less hurtful. Rvp, Robben and Sneijder.. Magical combination. Also impressed with Cilessen.. That young and starting his first WC game against the reigning champions.. Awesome keeping his cool. After the Costa trickery to get the penalty I thought this was gonna be another one of "those games". Glad I was wrong. "worst" Dutch team in many many years yet one of the best showings in recent memory. That deserves some credit.

P. S. Sup with Platini looking super pissed at the end of the game? Not the scripted result he wanted?
 
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Ryan has an excellent point. Chile has talent and is a good team but you will never win stuff with two midget CB's. It is a MAJOR weakness in their team and one that will be exploited by many more teams and many more players after Cahill.

They're playing two guys out of position as central defenders and both are short. Gary Medel is a Gattuso type defensive midfielder. He's athletic but playing him as CB is as ridiculous as playing Gattusso there. And Jara is not a center-back either.

Nice game by Alexis Sanchez, Aranguiz and rest though. Vidal clearly not 100% but he should be in second game.
 
PLF said:
Ryan has an excellent point. Chile has talent and is a good team but you will never win stuff with two midget CB's. It is a MAJOR weakness in their team and one that will be exploited by many more teams and many more players after Cahill.

They're playing two guys out of position as central defenders and both are short. Gary Medel is a Gattuso type defensive midfielder. He's athletic but playing him as CB is as ridiculous as playing Gattusso there. And Jara is not a center-back either.

Nice game by Alexis Sanchez, Aranguiz and rest though. Vidal clearly not 100% but he should be in second game.
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I think you make a good point, but to be fair to Medel, he is a much more technical player than Gattuso. I think his height disadvantage is the only major issue with playing him at center back. Maybe more importantly, he has a habit of going in hard for challenges which could see him pick up a yellow and then I'm not sure Chile can be as adventurous going forward.

I am excited to see how they play against the Netherlands because Robben and van Persie will be attempting to check into the spaces created by Chile's outside backs pushing so high up the field. However, I think Sampioli is counting on Medel's, Jara's, Diaz's, and Vidal's athleticism to zonally mark Holland's frontline and to track Sneijder's and de Guzman's late runs from midfield. That should be a great match!
 
People are seeing too much in the 5-1 result.
It could have been the other way round if Silva scored after that fantastic pass from Iniesta. A few secondes later RVP equalizer with that wonderpil goal.
In the first half i saw a very good Spain against a shaky Holland.

It wouldn't be thefirst time i would be completely wrong, but i don't think these teams are among the favourites for the tournament. Of course this will haunt me later...
 
Spain could have scored that second through Silva. On the other hand, Holland could have scored 7 or 8 past Spain (RVP hit the crossbar, Casillas made a double save against that Holland sub and then that Robben volley, and then Robben again was wasteful not passing the ball to a teammate).

We could only conjure up possible outcomes but the raw truth is that Spain got arse raped in broad daylight.

Kudos to Van Gaal and the Dutch players for showing that fighting spirit even after the 5th goal.
 
PLF said:
Ryan has an excellent point. Chile has talent and is a good team but you will never win stuff with two midget CB's. It is a MAJOR weakness in their team and one that will be exploited by many more teams and many more players after Cahill.

They're playing two guys out of position as central defenders and both are short. Gary Medel is a Gattuso type defensive midfielder. He's athletic but playing him as CB is as ridiculous as playing Gattusso there. And Jara is not a center-back either.

Nice game by Alexis Sanchez, Aranguiz and rest though. Vidal clearly not 100% but he should be in second game.
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I don't disagree with the height issue, which I already mentioned earlier myself but you're dead wrong about any of them being "out of position" because they're BOTH CB's and have played there for years.
 
ZeroTheHero said:
I don't disagree with the height issue, which I already mentioned earlier myself but you're dead wrong about any of them being "out of position" because they're BOTH CB's and have played there for years.
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I doubt we (Cardiff) would have paid millions for a CB and then play him midfield all season!
 
Rentboy said:
Spain could have scored that second through Silva. On the other hand, Holland could have scored 7 or 8 past Spain (RVP hit the crossbar, Casillas made a double save against that Holland sub and then that Robben volley, and then Robben again was wasteful not passing the ball to a teammate).

We could only conjure up possible outcomes but the raw truth is that Spain got arse raped in broad daylight.

Kudos to Van Gaal and the Dutch players for showing that fighting spirit even after the 5th goal.
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A seventh or an eight goal wouldn't have made any difference...if Silva scores that second, that changes the match.

All i want to say is that people read too much in this result. I saw two teams who have very clear weak points.

This happens all the time in football, i will give you another example. In the qualifications Belgiun won 0-3 in Serbia. After 10 minutes, Serbia could have been 3-0 up. Their foirst 20minutes were very impressive. Now this victory is seen as the best match of our natiuonal team (and yes they played superb in the second half).

All credit must go to Holland, but one can't conclude much on that single match...it might even be that the team that is most damaged by that result wasn't even on the pitch...Chile.
 
PU6HY said:
I doubt we (Cardiff) would have paid millions for a CB and then play him midfield all season!
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So you say a seaon in Cardiff erases all prior experience? You might be onto something though, Cardiff looked shit all season and I could swear some of those players had played football before...

Gary Medel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Defensive Midfielder / Defender
 
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ZeroTheHero said:
So you say a seaon in Cardiff erases all prior experience? You might be onto something though, Cardiff looked shit all season and I could swear some of those players had played football before...
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Where did I say that it erases all prior experience? He may have been a CB at some point in his lifetime. He wasn't CB at Sevilla who we bought him from though so I'm not basing anything on 1 season at all.
Headline stated we bought a midfielder (and IMO he clearly is).
Suppose Steven Gerrard is a right back as when he first played he had some games there? Gareth Bale is a Left Back? They can play there of course but I wouldn't call them fullbacks as they've moved on from that.

What has Cardiff's form or whatever have to do with anything anyway? Shit ALL season? Cheers for taking the time to watch every minute of all of our games.

Well done on the googling. I applaud you. What does that prove? He plays midfield and defence. No shit! His best position is DM. I wouldn't call him a CB... even though he does play there for his country.
 
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