rightback

Yeah, that's one of the things I held against him as well during his spell at Leeds but now I'm loving it...funny how perceptions can change.

They're both very impressive. I don't think anyone would want to play them...I hope we can keep up.

I kind of wish we were up against Uruguay...it'd be a hell of a learning experience. Venezuela and then possibly Argentina again will have to do 🙂

I watched most of Leeds games when he was manager and wasn't terribly impressed and wasn't too thrilled when his name was brought up as a possible new manager for Canada. However, after Biello's spell in charge and the long wait, I'm actually rather pleased now. We could have done much, much worse and I was kind of expecting that.

I don't understand the enthusiasm for Marsch. I followed his term at Leeds pretty closely and thought he was a disaster.

Interesting, Hermoso was my favourite player this WC...astonishing ability, too bad about the PK. Great team.

Spain, to me, is an enigma. They wait until the end of the game before deciding they might want to take a shot or two and possibly lose their precious possession. On the other hand, they're perfectly willing to take insane risks to play it out of the back 100% of the time. I guess it's nice to have an identity and philosophy of play but sheesh...

They really were...I don't know that I've seen them play so badly. I saw them beat Spain in September and I thought they had a good chance of getting by Portugal.

If the ball goes in because the keeper guessed the wrong way, the commentators always say that was a really well-taken penalty. If the exact same shot doesn't go in because the keeper guessed the right way, they say it was a really poor penalty. Drives me nuts.

I'd also like to see the keeper being unable to use his hands during extra time. I don't think you'd ever see the game go past extra time, there'd be lots of shots and the rest of the game would be pretty much the same. No one has ever agreed with my idea though 😞

No.

Hey, it's just my subjective observation, nothing scientific 🙂 According to ELO rankings, the weakest group this year was Netherlands, Ecuador, Senegal, Qatar, If we take Qatar's place, I don't see us winning any of those games and there's a good chance we lose all three based on the games I saw. I thought Ecuador and Senegal were pretty darn good and Netherlands is at another level above those two.

That's not exactly what I meant. I think if you put Australia (or a number of the other lower-tier teams) in our group, they get a point or more, and I think we've got at least as much talent as they have.

For me, a disappointing World Cup. We played at a level and achieved results below the talent available to us and that's on the coaching I think. A few things, a lot already mentioned: Davies as LB vs. more forward. I don't think he works very well more forward and I'd like at least to see how the team would do if he was played as LB. He's one of the fastest players in the world, that might come in handy in defence and he can still bomb down the wing to contribute offensively. We have better dead ball players than Davies, the coach should make sure they're the ones being used. This forum heavily favours a swashbuckling, attacking style of play...so do the players and the coaching staff. Exciting and fun, sure, but given our talent level, I'm dubious we'll ever get anywhere in a WC like that. WCQ, it's mostly OK...we've got plenty of firepower and pressing against that level of competition. I'm very disappointed for Piette, he deserved to get on the field in my opinion. Again, as to my point above, defensive play isn't much appreciated here. Losing Vitoria is going to be very bad news...I sure hope there's someone in the pipeline. I like Miller but he's not going to be getting any faster. Johnson's great and Celtic is a good level for him. Buchanan was the standout player for us I thought. David, nothing was working for him and he was great in WCQ, not sure what was going on there...a much higher level of competition I guess. Osorio exceeded my expectations in WCQ and WC. Hutch, love the guy but it was a bad call to put him in that Croatia game as it turned out...I can't really blame the coach for that but it was clearly a problem shortly into the game and Herdman should have pulled him early. As for Herdman, I'm not a fan. On the plus side, he's a good motivator, team-builder, he did good work getting some players into the program and he does show the ability to learn and adapt. On the down side, there's my opening sentence. I think we're stuck with him though, as others have mentioned, what's the alternative? I have to give him some credit that we got to the WC but, I think, he's had far more talent available to do so than historically so I'm not sure how much. I watched us play in '86, there's no comparison in ability. It's been a wake up call, the players should be better in 4 years, let's hope the coaching is as well. P.S. I thought that was a foul on Johnson. You can't do anything about a push when you're in the air and there's no way the defender was going for the ball. He should have been drawing that to the referee's attention, probably wouldn't have changed anything as far as getting a call, but it's worth a try particularly with VAR now.

Tastes differ, I don't like him, he gets way too carried away with his own opinions about things IMO. I like Martin Tyler personally but that might be because he's part of my youth from his days calling games on Soccer Made in Germany. It'll be a sad day when he finally hangs up the mic.