Croatia - Portugal Match Thread

[slack11]

120 minutes, 1 shot on target. It was horrible. Waaaáááá

[startelver]

The bookmakers must have loved this match , including Unibet . :robotwink:

 

[Keyser]

@Apoxxy91 wrote:

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Thats what money and tactic done for FOOTBALL :(

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Well, I don't think that's the reason. In my head this is all about the mentallity.

I've seen some South American matches from the top leagues of Paraguay and the likes, and the lack of tactical understanding is laughable. Seriously. They don't understand basic things I understood when I was 11 or 12. As such; tactic on its own isn't a bad thing; it's how you use tactics that can ruin the game, and that's about the mentality towards it.

In my book it's really easy; winners want to win. Losers want to avoid losing. In Croatia-Portugal we watched two teams that wanted to avoid losing, and didn't care about winning at all. That's a weak mentality, and that's why both teams are losers as far as I'm concerned.

It's okay when you're a team like Iceland or Hungary. They haven't got the kind of players to play too naively different. It's even okay when you got a one star-team, like Sweden with Zlatan or Wales with Bale, and the players around them mostly are worker-bees...

It's not okay when you got players like Ronaldo, Pepe, Moutinho, Modric, Rakitic and Srna that are very experienced and plays on the best teams in big leagues. When you got players that play regularilly at sides like Real Madrid, Barcelona and whatnot, you got to do better. You got to want to win. You got to use the extreme skills to create things and beat your opponents that way, rather than try to avoid making mistakes that might cost you...

As Croatia can tell you today, that can be just as costly... and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the players. They are less likely to be as inspired and motivated next time around when thay've had such an experience.

As regard to the money; it's the coach' job to motivate these overpaid players to give their all for their country. If they won't, you have to pick other players... Yeah, money has ruined some aspect of the game, but I don't think that's to blame for what we watched in this game.