FIFA WORLD CUP 2018?

[Wendigo]

Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka are of Albanian descent, but they have chosen to represent the national football team of Switzerland. What they did in that match was very unethical for the Swiss fans who travelled to Russia to support their team. I think the Swiss football association should decide what to do with those 2 and whether or not they should be allowed to play for Switzerland on international level. I wouldn't go as far as to say the gestures ware racist though, nationalist signs of the Albanian flag they are fond of more likely.

They were nationalist signs. But their usage during the match against Serbia can open the Pandora's box. These signs were extensively used by the KLA of Kosovo, and this organization is accused of murdering thousands of Serbs during the 1990s. Will the reaction be the same if the Croat players use the Ustaše signs or if the Serbs use the Chetnik signs?

I don't know what to tell you, mate. I am not very much into politics and I don't know what any of these signs mean or what the geopolitical climate of the Balkans is, but I can say with certainty that there is no place in sport for politics and people should leave their grudges at home.
I don't condone such provocative behavior and I think the Swiss football association should deal with the offenders as they see fit. I am not sure if a player could be banned from playing by FIFA for such an offense though. They could be banished from the national football team.

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[onrise]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

Considering the tournament has progresses people where expecting another upset in the final but just do not know it did not happen. I am sure many gamblers would have bet for Croatia as the rate was high for this team and also the chances of another upset may have being possible.

[Sithara007]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

Considering the tournament has progresses people where expecting another upset in the final but just do not know it did not happen. I am sure many gamblers would have bet for Croatia as the rate was high for this team and also the chances of another upset may have being possible.

Well.. I heard rumors that many of the gambling sites took heavy losses, after people won money betting on teams such as Croatia, Iceland and even Russia. It will take a long time for them to recover this much money.

[BitcoinMarshal]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

Considering the tournament has progresses people where expecting another upset in the final but just do not know it did not happen. I am sure many gamblers would have bet for Croatia as the rate was high for this team and also the chances of another upset may have being possible.

Well.. I heard rumors that many of the gambling sites took heavy losses, after people won money betting on teams such as Croatia, Iceland and even Russia. It will take a long time for them to recover this much money.

This happen in events like this but they will recover soon because now we are just nearly one month away from European Football season which is really profitable for them as they can recover all loses with these leagues results

[dado7]

Maybe VAR refs should just tell the ref what to do and skip the bit where he runs off for 10 minutes to watch a tiny screen.

Even the VAR decisions turned out to be the wrong ones. The best example was of the penalty kick for Serbia, which was turned down by the VAR ref (Mitrovic kicked down inside the penalty box).

You are referring to that notorious Switzerland - Serbia match, right? The German referee Felix Brych was sanctioned and excluded from refereeing any more World Cup games by the way. The Serbian football federation made a complaint to FIFA after the match about the controversial penalty.
I don't think the VAR referees can tell the main referee what to do. They can only advise him on the situations, but they can't influence his decision. The main referee could refuse to watch the replays altogether as it happened in a couple of matches in Russia.

OK.. The referee was sanctioned and excluded. But that could do little to quell the sense of anger among the Serbs. They still feel that the match was stolen from them. On top of that, previously Serbian teams such as Partizan Belgrade were sanctioned for displaying Serb symbols. But when Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka openly displayed racist Albanian gestures, they were let off without any match ban by the FIFA.

I always look at those kinds of situations in a bit different way. In that game, Serbia may have been damaged, but  Swiss were a better team on the field. Just a little bit, but they were. They did deserve to win. It might be wrong of me to speak about their game since I am Croatian, but I really didn't have anything against them winning, I never do. I always get furious about the games where the referee damages one team that was better on the field, or was equal, or was here-there but was a "smaller" team.

I also agree that it was very wrong from Swiss players to use politics in the game.... from that point of view - maybe they didn't deserve to win after all? The players should use their charisma to calm down the political atmosphere in the stands, not to ignite it up.

In any case, VAR helps a lot but its use is still far from perfect.

[Initscri]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

I wasn't okay with the upsets, but yeah, in a tournament full of upsets, it would have been nice to see a team which hasn't won before win via upset.

[Vishnu.Reang]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

I wasn't okay with the upsets, but yeah, in a tournament full of upsets, it would have been nice to see a team which hasn't won before win via upset.

A country of just 4 million people winning the world cup? That would have been historic... BTW.... around 20% of the world population reside in my country and we were not able to qualify for the tournament. On the other hand, Iceland (with a population of just 300,000) managed to qualify.

[Mahmoud87]

FIFA announced on Wednesday (July 25th) 2018 the goal of the 2018 World Cup winner of the 2018 World Cup, which France won by beating Croatia 4-1 against two goals.

The selection of the Frenchman Pavard in the match against the Argentinians in the 16-team match ended with a four-goal winner.

[BitSat]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

I wasn't okay with the upsets, but yeah, in a tournament full of upsets, it would have been nice to see a team which hasn't won before win via upset.

A country of just 4 million people winning the world cup? That would have been historic... BTW.... around 20% of the world population reside in my country and we were not able to qualify for the tournament. On the other hand, Iceland (with a population of just 300,000) managed to qualify.

We have many issues not only in soccer in many other fields its need time and hard work which is not good enough right now most of peoples not doing our duties if we have good structure then this make happen Iceland and Croatia have good enough system from where world class players coming and giving best for their nations

[STT]

A country of just 4 million people winning the world cup? That would have been historic... BTW.... around 20% of the world population reside in my country and we were not able to qualify for the tournament. On the other hand, Iceland (with a population of just 300,000) managed to qualify.

How did Iceland do that, its not even the size of a large city in population so they must have some amazing strategy or training in place there.  Or was it purely lucky and poor performance by the opponents along the way ?

[BitcoinMarshal]

The French winning the final match was almost like an anti-climax. I was expecting another upset after the countless upsets we had during the first round, second round, QF and even during the semi-finals.

I wasn't okay with the upsets, but yeah, in a tournament full of upsets, it would have been nice to see a team which hasn't won before win via upset.

This was on as Belgium and Croatia done more then expected but at the end France was much better and stronger enough to win this years title they was really well organized and play like champions specially in final because they have much better team then opponents

[Wayan_Pedjeng]

A country of just 4 million people winning the world cup? That would have been historic... BTW.... around 20% of the world population reside in my country and we were not able to qualify for the tournament. On the other hand, Iceland (with a population of just 300,000) managed to qualify.

How did Iceland do that, its not even the size of a large city in population so they must have some amazing strategy or training in place there.  Or was it purely lucky and poor performance by the opponents along the way ?

Even my country is having a population of 260,000,000 and we couldn't qualify for the world cup. Icelanders have the natural advantage as they are strongly built (they are Scandinavians, so have an average height of more than 6 ft).

[Wendigo]

A country of just 4 million people winning the world cup? That would have been historic... BTW.... around 20% of the world population reside in my country and we were not able to qualify for the tournament. On the other hand, Iceland (with a population of just 300,000) managed to qualify.

How did Iceland do that, its not even the size of a large city in population so they must have some amazing strategy or training in place there.  Or was it purely lucky and poor performance by the opponents along the way ?

What's even more impressive is that the head coach of the Iceland national football team is a practicing dentist and some of the players have other jobs outside football like their goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson who is a filmmaker and I think there is at least 1 more footballer with a 2nd job I can't remember the name of at the moment. It's just crazy how semi-professional footballers can compete against football superstars and beat them at their own game haha  I think Iceland has quality over quantity and the whole country, as small as it is, is very fond of the football game. And their Viking Clap is simply awesome!

[Juggy777]

A country of just 4 million people winning the world cup? That would have been historic... BTW.... around 20% of the world population reside in my country and we were not able to qualify for the tournament. On the other hand, Iceland (with a population of just 300,000) managed to qualify.

How did Iceland do that, its not even the size of a large city in population so they must have some amazing strategy or training in place there.  Or was it purely lucky and poor performance by the opponents along the way ?

What's even more impressive is that the head coach of the Iceland national football team is a practicing dentist and some of the players have other jobs outside football like their goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson who is a filmmaker and I think there is at least 1 more footballer with a 2nd job I can't remember the name of at the moment. It's just crazy how semi-professional footballers can compete against football superstars and beat them at their own game haha  I think Iceland has quality over quantity and the whole country, as small as it is, is very fond of the football game. And their Viking Clap is simply awesome!

Football is not about having millions of population it's about the level of dedication you have for it, the talent and the urge to play at the biggest level that's what counts. I'm sure next time round many teams will find inspiration from Iceland and Croatia.

Do you think it's fair for ozil to just walk out of Germany forever I thought we would hear from Messi and Ronaldo not continuing and suddenly ozil drops a a bombshell I, bit confused by the way things took place, none of his team mates have spoken for him and nor has the coach it's bad I think.

[Wendigo]

Ozil and Gundogan took a controversial photo together with the Turkish president Erdogan which sparked quite the debate in Germany and ultimately angered a lot of people. They have never taken a photo with the German chancellor Angela Merkel for example and yet they did so with Erdogan despite the unstable political situation in Turkey. Then after the scandal broke and Germany was eliminated from the World Cup in Russia Ozil said he was tired of being the scapegoat and was fed up with the 'racism and disrespect' in the German national football team and he finally quit the team as expected.

[Sukut]

Ozil and Gundogan took a controversial photo together with the Turkish president Erdogan which sparked quite the debate in Germany and ultimately angered a lot of people. They have never taken a photo with the German chancellor Angela Merkel for example and yet they did so with Erdogan despite the unstable political situation in Turkey. Then after the scandal broke and Germany was eliminated from the World Cup in Russia Ozil said he was tired of being the scapegoat and was fed up with the 'racism and disrespect' in the German national football team and he finally quit the team as expected.

As expected? I didn't know people were expecting this. That also means they dis it on purpose and expect him to quit then.

[Initscri]

Ozil and Gundogan took a controversial photo together with the Turkish president Erdogan which sparked quite the debate in Germany and ultimately angered a lot of people. They have never taken a photo with the German chancellor Angela Merkel for example and yet they did so with Erdogan despite the unstable political situation in Turkey. Then after the scandal broke and Germany was eliminated from the World Cup in Russia Ozil said he was tired of being the scapegoat and was fed up with the 'racism and disrespect' in the German national football team and he finally quit the team as expected.

Yea, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. While I don't believe Ozil played his best, he was instrumental in our last win, and I was hoping he'd stick it out through this whole political mess. He 100% definitely wasn't the worst player on the team, and I do believe he was scapegoated a bit.

I understand the politics behind it, and I know why people feel upset/angry. Im just of the belief that political/sports have gotten wayyyy too intertwined.

[STT]

Its not a footballers job to be a politician, however Erdogan probably knew what he was doing.  A politician will get a photo with anybody if it somehow lends him a positive association to trade support on despite Erdogan's otherwise harsh regime many do not agree with.
  You cannot really blame Ozil for taking a slight misstep and not realising the wider repercussions, he is far too young to be retiring and so its a mistake on his behalf also not to shrug it off or give some short apology.   Thats why its a job, he has to put up with alot of crap from people expressing an opinion as he is a national representative, its an honour and burden I guess

find inspiration from Iceland and Croatia.

They both did a great job in advancing football in their countries and proving that internationally.   England also I know is hopeful of building on their success despite the obvious disappointment here it was still a great achievement, definite progress forward from previous world cup attempts

[greeklogos]

I didn't expect that this topic is still discussed on the forum. I thought all discussions ended together with the cup. The thing I wander about is how the cup truly passed and were there any incidents about which Russia is trying to stay silent. All the month while the cup was going the presentation of the invent was so positive and successful that it is even hard to believe. Does any of you have a source for any independed reports from the cup? Thanks.

[Bdstar]

Franch was my favourite team for winning the greatest show on earth. That team was fully balanced and was capable to beat any strong opponent and they showed how to play in any situation. I loved their game. Especially, Pogba and Mbappe were outstanding. I think these two was the difference between their opposition. I hope this squad will dominate another four or five years undoubtedly.