If Brazil plays with the Croatia the same way Brazil played with the Koreans, then probably Croatia will have little chance, because even if the entire Croatian team sits on defense, it is unlikely to help, Brazil will still find a way to score.
Apparently, the Croats will have to try to play second-string first and look for chances in counter-attacks.
The Netherlands have a better chance against Argentina. A lot will depend on Messi, if he can score a couple of goals alone, then most likely Argentina will pass, if not, then the chances are equal.
There is no doubt that Brazil will qualify for the semifinals if Croatia plays like they played with Koreans then also Brazil will defeat them but it will be a little tough match for them. The match between Argentina and Netherland is very unpredictable any team can win the match. If Messi is in action mode on the match day then their is a chance for Argentina to qualify for the semifinal. I know a lot of people see Argentina as the favourite, in the Argentina-Netherlands game. The Netherlands has a very good defensive line. You definitely need to think about this. Argentina could be knocked out by the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a very strong team. It will be a game where both teams will be aware that they have to win this match to claim the championship. In the term of goals productivity Netherlands is more good than Argentina although they weren't good from ball possessions but i have to says for each matches in this competition Netherlands has playing more effective and their forward lines is very sharp and i didn't see Argentina more superior than Netherlands even in my opinion both of teams had equal chances to qualified to semifinal but Argentina should be carefull to Cody Gakpo because this player is on fire and as Netherlands top scorer and Argentina probably still playing without Di Maria but Alejandro Gomez who playing well while against Australia will be replace Di Maria position and regarding match result i am thinking this match will ended draw at normal time again |
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I think Sevilla must guard Yassine Bounou with the high price before the winter windows transfer opens, As we know how Yassine Bounou save his team and make the history world cup by zero conceded, which I think many clubs will interested to recruit him with high salary and bonus. As I remembered how he can be saved Raul Jimenez's penalty in 8 round Europe league, that was history because Jimenez never missed penalty from 18 shoots.
Yassine Bounou is the hero of Morocco on world cup so i am not surprising if later there is big club who want him and actually he is penalty saver specialist and he did it plenty with Sevilla and Morocco and during defend Sevilla he has 53 cleansheet this also makes him recognized as one of the best goalkeeper on Laliga so it's normal if other clubs want to bought him but last time i heard he was linked to premier league team Aston Villa even this team will attempts to gets him this January and Unay Emery confirmed Aston Villa will make an offers to gets him and Sevilla also apparently will allow him to left so lets see whether this rumour will became true or not |
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It takes a long time and it takes a lot of money if you really want something like this to happen, we know that Dortmund always have some talented players but it's not enough because there has to be someone who is really experienced there and when it's wanted the higher ups always let the player go with big sales money so I personally don't really feel that something like adopting a style will be done because they must be aware that the risk of loss is quite a lot if they intend to compete even though at this time they are often said to be rivals.
Dortmund often prints a lot of good players and has a lot of money, but if they want to buy new players again, it seems they will do it when the transfer market opens, so far they have not provided any information about their new players and there have been no rumors circulating. Dortmund have lost again in their last 2 matches and this is very sad because they should have stayed in the top three of the standings. Dortmund are currently three points adrift of the top three positions in the standings. Seeing the level of difficulty of the opponents that will be face in the next three matches, Dortmund should have had a great opportunity to add to its collection of points. Augsburg, Leverkusen and Mainz has a pretty bad showing record this season. This weakness must be put to good use by Dortmund to return to compete at the top of the standings On the paper Dortmund upcoming opponents is weaker than them and it shouldn't be any problem to collect points from those teams but Dortmund still cannot performing consistent this season even few months ago they were lose from Hertha Berlin which is categorized as weak team in Bundesliga so this indicate Dortmund can be slipped even from against weak team And Dortmund current manager should be evaluated these records and indeed difference points between Dortmund with the team in the top 3 is not too far and very possible to chased but they should be improved more their performance however from all of Dortmund opponents i will be wary of Leverkusen because they were performing well lately with gets 3 winning streak and this indicated Leverkusen has able to bounce back |
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Well after the jesus injury, I do agree that it would be a lot harder for Arsenal to win the tournament as well. I am not saying that it would be impossible, but it would be a bit harder than usual and it would be a bit more difficult.
I do agree that they do have a big chance, between Juventus, United, Barcelona and Arsenal, these four teams are the big clubs that could have a chance at the title but aside from them I am not sure if there are any teams that could win the title and it could be quite difficult to achieve. Long story short Arsenal is not the biggest candidate to win, whoever wins out of United vs Barcelona will be the biggest chance to win, but Arsenal is not too far from it neither.
First of all I should give some information about Jesus' injury. I have seen on some news sources like Jesus' return will be in early March. If this is true than it is really sad news for Arsenal. However Arsenal have already proven how strong they can play in Jesus' absence also. Jesus couldn't score any goal after the last match he did on October 1. But Arsenal still didn't get affected by that in a negative way. They still continued to get very positive results by scoring many goals in total. They lost only once which was in a Europa League match. They won nearly all of their Premier League matches in this period of time. This is a proof for how strong they can play as a team even in this kind of situations. Therefore I'm still seeing Arsenal as the biggest favourite here also. He has successfully knee surgery several days ago and still struggling to recover his injured but there was no exact information regarding how long he cannot play for Arsenal that some of people says 1 month or more than it and admitted or not Jesus is the key player for Arsenal and losing him will have bad impact for Arsenal performance but there are still few months remaining before round of 16 started so maybe he will be recover before February so there is a chance for Arsenal to playing him This season Arsenal don't have any players who can be suitable to replaced his position and i have to say there were no players who had equal quality to him for forward lines so Arteta have to find best solution to solved this issue and this is the risk why world cup is held in the middle of a regular competition because the players possibly can got injured because of tight schedules and i think other clubs might be will suffers the same consequence |
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Several reports say that at this time Diaz is recovering faster and it is hoped that he will be able to return after the international break is over.
I think this is good news again for Liverpool, especially with their condition which is not very good this season. On the other hand there are already a number of players they are eyeing on in this transfer and I'm pretty sure there will be some additions that will occur and they will not be as passive as before in this transfer.
Luis Díaz has started training again on the field and it is likely that he will return to competition again in the near future. What Luis Díaz needs to do is to keep training but maintain his health because so far Luis Díaz has not fully recovered and still needs good treatment. Luis Díaz has a young age as an attacker who is eagerly awaited by Liverpool to make a comeback. I am glad to hear Diaz has return to training again after recover from his injured but probably he is still unavailable in the friendly matches against Lyon and AC Milan in Dubai and this indicated Liverpool have any chances to improved their performance after premier league starting again because Diaz is important player for Liverpool even i still believe when Liverpool was defeated by Arsenal several months ago it because Diaz was got injured on that match and if he didn't got injured i think the possibilities Liverpool to gets win result or at least draw is quite high at that time and after Diaz didn't playing Liverpool seems cannot performing well and lose several times against mediocre teams such as Leeds and Nottingham Forest |
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Brazil vs Croatia match is going to be played on 9th December. Although Croatia has come a long way but can they keep up with Brazil? Because the best Brazil team in the world is still the best in the world because it is almost far ahead of Croatia in the FIFA rankings. But I think Brazil will win here because Brazil can score more than 2 goals against Croatia. In the few matches that have happened with Croatia in the past, Brazil have won almost all of them. However, considering this aspect, the chances of Brazil winning are high.
Croatia is far behind Brazil in the FIFA ranking. At the same time, comparing the gameplay and squads of these two teams, it is easy to see that the Brazilian team is much stronger. Brazil will easily win against Croatia if there is no accident. However, the Croatia team will want to draw the match by playing a defensive strategy. Croatia's defense is strong. If Croatia can score first against Brazil, they will play completely defensively. Still, I expect Brazil to win this match. Hopefully, Brazil will not make any mistakes in this match and will be able to win. Obiously Brazil is the favourite because the recent meetings from both of teams is Brazil can able to wins 3 times from 4 latest matches against Croatia but besides that Brazil also had poor records in the last 3 edition of world cup that everytime they were fight on quarterfinal matches Brazil always be lose against european teams so this is big challenge for Brazil whether can they step further in this competition or failed and Croatia isn't too performing well while against Japan and this shouldn't be happend anymore because Brazil clearly better than Japan and Brazil has dangerous several players who possibly can scoring goals in this match such as Richarlison or Vinícius Júnior |
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Besides Cody Gakpo there is one more Netherlands player who targetting by big clubs because of playing well at world cup and reported Inter Milan player Denzel Dumfries was targeted by 2 England clubs Chelsea and Manchester United and actually Inter don't mind if he moves to other clubs because basically Inter needed money and Inter have to sell several players to solved their financial problem but Dumfries agent hoping Inter wouldn't provide high price to them because he fear those clubs will withdraw to gets him because of Dumfries price is overpriced
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well, Portugal can still play well even though in the first round Cristiano Ronaldo was not played. overall every player has a very good skill. but the individual skills of the Brazilian players may be superior. and in teamwork Portugal and Brazil are really solid.
Portugal manager has learn from his previous mistakes that when Portugal defeated by Tunisia on group stage actually Portugal has gets several good chances to scoring goals but unfortunately Ronaldo at that time who played as striker cannot utilized that even he was displayed poor performance and wasted those chances and after that Fernando Santos realized one of Portugal weaknesses is their forward lines has failed to performing well and yesterday he has decide to put Ronaldo on the bench and the results is Portugal without Ronaldo can playing more effective although Switzerland has slightly dominated the match but Portugal is good in the term of Shots on goals |
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Inter Milan is 11 points behind Napoli, who are already at the top of the temporary standings in the first half. This is clearly a very long distance for Inter Milan, because the Inter Milan team itself is still in fifth place in the temporary standings so they still have to fight hard to beat more other teams such as Lazio, Juventus and AC Milan who have also found consistency again before half hiatus because of the world cup.
With bad performance of Lukaku and Lautaro in World Cup, Inter Milan might get problems when Serie A returns in January. Lukaku and Lautaro are so important for Inter Milan and they need these players at best forms in order to compete with so many other clubs in top four race. Lazio, AC Milan, Juventus, Roma and even Atalanta won't give Inter Milan too many chances to enter top four if Inter Milan continue to lose more points. Lukaku and Lautaro did play too much in World Cup and maybe they will be less exhausted than other players. That can be their advantage to come back with club matches. Their disadvantage can be their poor performance and lack of confidence after World Cup. Lautaro has performing well with Inter Milan before that's why he was choosen to defend Argentina on world cup even so with Lukaku but indeed both of players has failed to showed impressive performance during world cup but don't mean they will resumes their poor performance after world cup and there is no guarantee the players who playing poor in this competition will playing poor again at their clubs and one thing for sure Inzaghi have to overcomes defensive lines from Inter because conceded 22 goals from 15 matches showed there is a serious problem with Inter defensive lines and i have been noticed until international break Inzaghi always be playing with different players in every matches on that lines because i am sure he hasn't satisfied with the current defender players |
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I have heard that Manchester United are in talks with Yann Sommer these days. His contract with Gladbach is going to expire next summer. He is not so much different than de Gea in terms of age. I wonder if this is a signal that de Gea might leave the team at the end of the season. Because there is still no contract extension for him.
I don't think Yann Sommer is a goalkeeper that deserves to be a backup player. I assume he would accept their offer on the condition that he won't have few chances in the starting eleven. To be honest, I hope de Gea doesn't leave the team soon. The team still owe him too much and need his services a lot.
De Gea probably will not left Manchester United because currently he is main goalkeeper for this team and why Manchester United wants Yann Sommer this because their second goalkeeper Martin Dubravka only loan status so he will left this summer return to his clubs and indeed Manchester United still have Dean Henderson who currently loaned to Nottingham Forest but confirmed he status will be permanently by Nottingham Forest at the end of this season because he want to gets more minutes to play at that team and apparently this news was valid because Gladbach representative has talking about this to the media and this winter Yann Sommer possibly will arrived to Manchester United |
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I'm actually worried about Manchester United more than Liverpool in the rest of the season. The reason for it is that I find Manchester United's attacking performance quite weak especially on the recent weeks of the league. They can't score goals comfortably. Their attackers are wasting so many goal opportunities which has cost them two or three points from time to time. Manchester United should find a solution to this problem. Maybe signing a striker would be helpful. They have parted ways with Ronaldo already.
Rashford and Martial seemed worrying in the recent times. If they don't show some positive performances after this break then they will really need the help of another striker. Garnacho is also there to help of course but we never know how consistent he can be. I can't fully trust him just because he saved them in a match. He is still a very young striker.
Forward lines is one of the biggest weaknesses from this team before because from all of strikers which Manchester United have only Rashford who can playing consistent and Martial last scoring was on October at Europa league but after that he never been scoring goals again and Antony in my opinion he was performing well but his real position is not centre striker so it's normal if you worried about this team but that's why Manchester United confirmed will looking for new striker on January and several names was appears and mostly world class strikers so lets see who is the next players will arrived at Manchester United later |
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During the match Morocco seems very discipline to guard Spain players and almost no mistakes from them which make Spain was hard to created the opportunities to scoring goals besides that Morocco players has showed they have strong mentally than Spain and apparently Spain players looks weren't ready to ended the match with penalty kick even their captain Busquets was failed as penalty taker unfortunately poor records from world cup 2018 was repeated again yesterday and for Morocco finally they can break their records from this tournament and so far quarterfinal were their highest achievement but they had strong opponent on quarterfinal that Portugal seems could be serious contender in this tournament after humiliated Switzerland with huge scores
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Liverpool are currently 6th in the table with 22 points compared to Arsenal who are on top with 37 points. I have to say that the point margin is quite large, but they still do have a chance to decrease the gap and move on top. I think it is going to be really challenging for them to win the league but they can surely make the top 4
Lets be realistic that 37 gap points with Arsenal is near to impossible to be achieved and Liverpool don't have any chances for race title against Manchester City and Arsenal but for now Klopp have to improved Liverpool performance for each matches to get the better positions on standings league but for the title i think this season is not belongs to Liverpool but i feel like they still can able to achieved at least top 4 this season and after world cup ended some of the players will recover and return from injured and this is good because finally Liverpool can play with their key players for every matches because they have tight schedule even less than 1 week after world cup Liverpool have to fight against Manchester City on Carabao cup |
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Morocco will be though opponent for Spain today that they have capable to became an dark horses team and not easy to beat Morocco and it proven from group stage that Belgium and Croatia weren't able to beat Morocco even Belgium has lose from them and meetings statistics from Spain and Morocco showed both of teams has been meet each other on world cup 2018 and the results from that match is both of them has been playing draw and for today match although Spain has slightly the favourite but Morocco will attempts to steal goal early and for betting option over 2.5 goals might be good considering Morocco and Spain are quite productive on group stage
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Schalke are still a big disappointment for their fans. They relegated to the Bundesliga by having a really terrible season before. But they fought hard in the 2nd Bundesliga to come back again. I was expecting a Schalke that solved its issues already and well-prepared for a more serious challenge in the Bundesliga. But there is nothing changed since the season they relegated as it is seen clearly. They are still weak in defense and offense both. They should have done something about their defense at least.
After successfully promoted to Bundesliga 1 Schalke hoping they will going to survive this season but unfortunately Schalke has spend 10 matches early in Bundesliga with only once times win and this also makes their previous manager Frank Kramer got sacked because Schalke performance under him is quite poor but the current manager Thomas Reis also still cannot able to overcomes this situation even at DFB Pokal Schalke have to eleminated after lose with big scores from Hoffenheim And their current position at the bottom of standings league makes they have to do hard attempts to avoid relegated zone and Thomas Reis have a very hard job for this team besides that i have been noticed Schalke during this season has poor statistics from ball possessions it seems their players has failed to cooperate together as a team and maybe this also the main issue why Schalke cannot playing well |
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Chelsea coach Graham Potter is not very experienced. The most renowned club he has coached in his career is Chelsea. So it would be foolish to expect him to bring the Chelsea team to the title, or to improve Chelsea's performance very quickly. We are not sure if Graham Potter will be able to do anything good at all. So I don't have much faith in Graham Potter. Thomas Tuchal was more experienced than Potter. He could not stabilize the team this season. Chelsea need talented players now. I don't think Chelsea's performance will improve if they don't add talented players to the team.
It is understandable that we wouldn't see them succeed on their first year with him, and he didn't even controlled the transfer window neither, he wasn't here, and he was put in charge a lot later which is a proof that Chelsea is not ready to play his style just yet. However, if given enough time I believe that he could turn the team around and be a lot better, will be a bit difficult to handle but he can totally do that if given the chance. They will have a bit of bad results until they settle, but if given the chance for another year next season, he will do a lot better if you ask me, with all this money it is hard not to be a lot better. The question is, how much time did Graham Potter need to get Chelsea to the title? This is a problem of course, because if it takes too long Chelsea management and fans will get fed up with having to wait long, especially if Graham Potter can't quickly build Chelsea. Like it or not, he had to build Chelsea from scratch, because the squad he had was inherited from their previous coach, Thomas Tuchel. I hope that if Graham Potter is given longer chances in charge of Chelsea he won't let down those who put the faith in him. Because there are still many coaches who in my opinion are better than him now who are more trustworthy. Chelsea is similar such as Manchester United that their management can provide huge money to the coaches but they seems have no patience to the process and wants the trophies and it proven that from the last 10 years Chelsea has been changed manager 7 times so Potters also has in the hot seat that if he can not able bringing Chelsea to gets the trophies in the near future i think not impossible to the management to sacked him and for Premier League Chelsea might be have no chances considering Manchester City and Arsenal are too consistent and almost be impossible to chasing them but in champion league although it's hard but Chelsea still have opportunities to gets the trophy and first step is Chelsea should be able to beat Dortmund and qualified to quarterfinal along with Potters |
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It was so disappointing to see all the Asian teams going out of the world cup and failing to progress to the QF stage. Japan showed so much promise when they scored the first goal against Croatia. But in the end, the Europeans won during the penalty shootout. Australia and South Korea had much tougher opponents (Argentina and Brazil respectively) and no one really expected them to win. But this world cup showed how much progress the AFC and CAF teams have made. And it is quite encouraging for them, going towards the 2026 edition.
Asian teams have no representative anymore now that most of those teams has been failed to qualified but nothing they can do because Asian teams such as South Korea or Australia has been meet strong teams early which is on the paper and experience or the squad quality is above them and when Japan meet Croatia yesterday i was hoping this team can able to beat Croatia and qualified because from game sides Japan performance is not quite bad even they can able to score goals first before Croatia player Ivan Perisic can equalized the score but they have to lose from penalty kick and i have seen Japan players has lost their mentally when taking a penalty kick and this also caused Japan lost yesterday |
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Barcelona might be interested in Mohammed Kudus these days. However I don't think they would be free to sign new players in January according to the La Liga financial rules. They just need to sell unnecessary players in the team to raise some funds. They aren't in need of any transfer now as they already have a very qualified squad.
Besides it is said that Kudus is more eager to sign for a Premier League team rather than the others.
Rumors are circulating that Barcelona are interested in Mohammed Kudus and when Barcelona manages to get Mohammed Kudus it will be a good opportunity to strengthen the midfield line which may still be less good than the Barcelona side, so they are more trying to get Mohammed Kudus in the transfer market that will be will open in early 2023. I noticed this Ajax youngster was playing well on world cup so it's only a matter of time he left Ajax and moved to bigger clubs and no wonder if Barcelona want him because during playing in Ajax he has upgraded his skill and performance and after being an promoted from Jong Ajax gradually Kudus has became an key players from Ajax and 9 goals during this season in all competitions proven he is very talented player and unfortunately Barcelona is not alone who want him because Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton has joined the race to gets him even there is speculation AC Milan is the closest teams who will gets him this winter |
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 In less than 3 hours, the play off match between Japan and Croatia will begin. Japan was so stunning they looked so extraordinary in the world cup this time, especially the goals scored from quite difficult angles. On the other hand, Croatia is playing quite well even though Luka Modric is already 37 years old but he still has strong stamina in this very intensive match. I predict a draw in this match and hope there will be extra time to make the match more exciting. If there is a draw, then 0-0, I don't think that Croatia will give Japan many chances. Croatia did not even allow Belgium to score a very necessary goal, and Japan seems to be a weaker team than Belgium. I'm actually expecting Croatia to win in regular time, but to be sure, I bet that Croatia will qualify (whether on penalties or not). I know during group stage Croatia only conceded 1 goal in 3 matches but Croatia defensive lines isn't too special i think because Belgium can able to gets several chances to scoring goals but indeed Croatia was lucky at that time because Lukaku was playing poor and for today match Japan obviously underdogs but during this tournament Japan has several times being an underdogs but they can flliped people predictions and qualified to round of 16 but indeed for betting option i do not dare to pick Japan win because Croatia is more good from squad quality but not impossible for this match ended with draw at normal time |
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Villarreal's performance this season has drastically declined and the team is currently struggling at the moment. The international break should be an opportunity for every team to assess their performances so far this season and retrace their lapses and restrengthen before the league resumes so hopefully Villarreal will do same and get back to good form.
Since October Villarreal hasn't performing well and from their last 7 matches in La Liga they got 4 loses from it that this is not good for them and the situation are getting worse after Villarreal have to changed coach because Unay Emery has decide to left this team and joined to Aston Villa and this is quite risky for them because i was often to see there was a club who changed manager in the middle of competition but it cannot solved their problem and indeed Villarreal has got new manager Quique Setién and he might be can overcomes Villarreal performance later but i personally a bit doubt he can able to do that because his achievements doesn't so well even last time i heard he got sacked while train Barcelona |
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