Group B: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Iran

Sideshow Bob

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Friday, 15th June 2018
Morocco v Iran, 16:00
Portugal v Spain, 19:00

Wednesday, 20th June 2018
Portugal v Morocco, 13:00
Iran v Spain, 19:00

Monday, 25th June 2018
Iran v Portugal, 19:00
Spain v Morocco, 19:00​
 
Spain have just sacked their manager. 2 days before their crucial game against Portugal.
 
Portugal v Spain - 15th June 2018

Looking forward to tonights game will be the first one I've actually had a chance to watch as been working during all the games so far.
 
I've not missed one yet. Just got this one on in the office.
 
That was amazing from Ronaldo. As I said earlier he means business
 
Ronaldo is still just the most incredible player. The class of the man to step up and deliver that free kick in the final few minutes.

We were very lucky to have him grace our stadium for so long.
 
Ronaldo was just phenomenal. When he got that free kick I said, he'll never get that in, it's too close :) guy is a one off.
 
Ronaldo is the greatest of all time. People can argue that with me until the cows come home, I won't change my mind in it.

But who would have thought after round one that Iran would be top of the group!
 
I still think this tournament is going to be won by a team who defend well enough and have a guy to win them games. I'm not saying it'll be Portugal but they are one side who fit that.
 
The team with the best defence normally wins the tournament and that's also normally the case in the league as well because you will get days where your attack doesn't click and if the guys at the back keep it to 0 the worst that can happen in knockout football is extra time and pens.

I don't think that Portugal defence is that good Spain put 3 past them in the opening game but Portugal are the masters of counter attack football it's what there culture has been based on for your keep it tight at the back and break with speed down the wings and it's how they won Euro 2016. To me the Spain game acts as a warning for them because a good side put 3 past them quite easily even if one of them was an absolute worldie.
 
Well Spain and Portugal are through but there is nothing to fear from them. They were both average tonight and to be honest if Iran hadn’t missed that last minute chance Portugal would have been gone.

Oh and the use of VAR tonight was farcical. Not quite how sure how he interpreted Cedric’s handball as deliberate. VAR is only as good as the officials and from what I’ve seen at times, the refs are not good at using it.
 
How mental was that?

The ref in Iran vs Portugal totally lost control and the VAR officials didn’t help him he didn’t need to check the Ronaldo elbow or the penalty as it was obvious both weren’t clear mistakes.

I agree neither side looks great Spain’s still look a bit in shock having lost their manager, I wouldn’t fancy playing Portugal though they’re a nightmare in knockout games as with Ronaldo they’re never beaten and they’re awkward to play against.

Big fan of William Carvalho in their midfield be surprised if he’s not on Mourinho’s list of ones to keep an eye on just bosses the middle of the park and keeps his passing simple.
 
Entertaining farce tonight.

On VAR, think it's been mostly good up until tonight, there's been issues with it but mostly positive. I've been saying for ages that i'd prefer the captain to be able to request a review rather than the ref be told by someone to review. Players know if it is a pen or something has been done and if they've got a limit on unsuccessful reviews they'll use them wisely. Taking it out of the ref's hands should stop players screaming at refs for VAR and cards. I think referee conversations need to be more transparent, i'd really like to know how they reached that decision tonight. I'd also like to know what they define as "clear and obvious". The Iran penalty wasn't, the elbow from Ronaldo is either a red or nothing, how they came to the conclusion it was yellow i'm not sure.
 
I think the system works but tonight the VAR operative was to afraid to just move on and wanted the ref to make the call himself, I think as the tournament goes on I think it’ll be more like this as the stakes are much higher than it was in the first few weeks.

The laws of the game may need to be changed to suit VAR as VAR can only really deal with black and white decisions like offside when it comes to penalties or red cards it’s still open to a lot of opinion and interpretation.
 
I think make it so the player ‘fouled’ can ask for a review. If he’s wrong then it’s a yellow card.
 
I don't think players or managers should have any say in what gets reviewed the ref needs to remain in charge.

The way VAR works is everything is always being reviewed in the background so there's no need for challenges or anything like that because last night none of those decisions would've been made any different. Last night for me was VAR officials in Moscow being scared to make a decision the only time VAR needed to be used last night was the Ronaldo penalty as the ref clearly missed that. The red card and the Iran penalty were marginal calls that VAR shouldn't try to over rule on but once you ask the ref to go and watch it's very hard for him to stick to his original call as he's under so much pressure.

They need to stop the players crowding the ref during VAR it got out of control last night.

Also, it's the same thing I've always said VAR is terrible for the people in the ground because they don't see the replays, they know something is being reviewed but they don't know what so the people who've paid the most to be at the event are the ones least in the know. We're all going to end up having to buy VAR ear pieces so we can get the comms during the game like you can do at Rugby or Cricket where you can listen into the ref.

I thought VAR worked well in the first 2 rounds of games but I think it's going to start going over the top now.
 
any player making a rectangle sign should be booked instantly.

That decision yesterday was a joke, but his arm was raised in the penalty box. It may not have been intentional, but the pundits don't make it easy for us the viewer. When the Tunisia penalty was given they all said he shouldn't have his hand raised in the box so they can see why it was given. Yet in this instance they opted for a different view. It's clear VAR or no VAR it's down to interpretaon. So fo me it should only be used for offside or when the ref is unsure about a penalty. The Kane one should never have been reviewed, the ref should be all over that.

The BBC have some good pundits, Rio, Lampard, Cesc but Shearer not only has poor English, he is an awful pundit. He's like a know it all I know best blah blah. I don't like Murphey in commentry either.
 
I think that's already the case but there's communication problems because the refs and players are from different countries so don't always speak the same language.

Apparently in Italy after a few months they actually said the amount of diving, cheating and harrassing the referee reduced massively because players realised it was no longer in their interest to do it, so it might be once people get more used to it behaviour will improve.

The issue for me with VAR is it's really good at doing black or white decisions like offside not offside or in the box outside the box for the penalty but everything else is still open to intepretation because the laws of the game can be intepreted differently by different people. I get the impression in sports like Rugby or NFL where TV replay has worked well the rules are a lot more clear and therefore easier to apply. It's obvious in cricket or tennis where you're just looking at what a ball did.

With VAR once you have it it's going to be hard not to use it to double check everything especially in games last night where the losers are going home so the temptation is there to check things that maybe don't need to be checked just in case the ref might want to change his mind. Last night reminded me of the times we've seen VAR used in England and it quickly decends into a bit of a farce because no one knows what is going on as we aren't used to it.

There's also big pressure once you've used VAR once to give a team a decision that you will need to use it for the opposition to level things up if they've been wronged.

One of the big problems is the pundits they hire don't know the laws of the game and they don't all know how VAR is supposed to work, for some of them sadly ignorance is bliss rather than educate themselves to know what they're actually talking about they'd rather just talk drivel about back in my day that wasn't a foul blah blah blah.
 
Spain consider dropping Man United man in surprise change - Football365

Think this is a bit of a problem for Spain because De Gea isn't a modern sweeper keeper he isn't mopping up behind Ramos & Pique in the way their club keepers do. He's a stay at home style keeper more of at traditional English style keeper, he can get involved in the play but he isn't going to come rushing out of his box as he never has to do it for his club side.

Be a huge call to make the change but the way they're defending they're going out and if the other keeper can do the sweeper keeper role they might have to put him in.
 
To drop the best keeper in the world because the defence aren't going their job would be ridiculous.

Other than Ronaldo's second which goal can be blamed on De Gea? He made a mistake but that was no worse than mistakes made by Iniesta and Pique yesterday.
 
no way they are dropping De Gea, apparantly he made a mstake becasue he was rooted to the floor on some shot that hit the bar, didn't see it. Sounds like fake news.
 

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