Thoughts after the Group Phase of the World Cup

Davison Sanchez allegedly offside - but only because the computer imagines him wearing ludicrously outsized boots?!

I'll try to confine myself to just a few brief notes here on topics of interest that have come up during the first two-and-a-bit weeks of the World Cup (um, OK, not that brief; I'm not good at 'brief'...). I'm planning to write a little more on considerations for the Fantasy game going into the knockout stages later this afternoon.

The ball - This has caused quite extensive discussion (well, in a World Cup, it almost always does!). Former England goalkeeper, now BBC TV pundit, Joe Hart has been rushing to the defence of some of the goalkeepers who've let in shots that they probably shouldn't have, suggesting that the speed/trajectory of the ball is strangely difficult to read. That sounds to me rather like classic Goalkeepers' Union excuse-making, since the examples in question all seemed to involve keepers reading the flight of the ball just fine and getting at least one hand to it, but.... not a 'good hand'! UK newspaper The Guardian had a piece on this a few days ago. Some scientists have suggested that there is a 'drag crisis' associated with this ball, which seems to mean that the airflow around it rapidly becomes more chaotic at a certain threshold speed; but this is actually a good thing - at least for the kicker - since it appears to reduce aerodynamic drag behind the ball, and thus speed it up, or rather reduce the rate at which it decelerates. Balls hit very hard, it seems, may fly a bit faster and straighter than balls hit only very slightly less hard, and this may be bamboozling keepers who are as yet unfamiliar with the characteristics of Adidas's new 'Trionda' ball. We have certainly been treated to a feast of long-range pingers in this tournament so far - and nobody except goalkeepers is complaining about that! 

However, we've also seen a lot of efforts from distance flying high, and it has seemed to me that this ball seems to gain elevation more than you'd expect. I suppose it might just be an optical illusion caused by the alleged slower deceleration characteristics just mentioned above; if the ball doesn't slow down as quickly, it's not going to dip as quickly - and that may fool our brains into thinking the trajectory is actually curving upwards slightly. But I really think it is sometimes lifting more than we'd expect; and I wonder if these odd aerodynamic effects around the ball are somehow producing a little bit of extra lift at certain critical speeds (perhaps with the help of a certain type of spin on the ball??). 

The behaviour of the ball is not so erratic as to cause any major problems, I don't think; so, we should all be fairly happy with it. But I do also wonder if the constant rush towards novelty - sometimes, perhaps, rather than genuine worthwhile innovation - and a shortage of testing-time may lead manufacturers to produce some non-ideal equipment for tournaments like these.

The draw - It is strange, and obviously undesirable, that the lower-half of the draw contains none of the tournament favourites except Argentina. There was something very much amiss in the tournament design here. And it does indeed appear that FIFA are rather too nakedly trying to engineer another win - or at least another Final - for Leo Messi. I think the truth is a little different - equally shameful, btough probably not quite such catnip to the conspiracy theorists. I don't think FIFA are particularly concerned for Messi/Argentina to win another World Cup per se; I just think they want to maximise their revenues across the tournament as a whole. And Messi is a proven draw, he's got a reliable record of selling out US stadiums in the MLS (and last summer's Club World Cup!) on his own. So, there's no need to pair Messi with another top attraction to ensure good ticket sales. The likely Argentina v Australia 'Round of 16' tie will probably fill more seats than Spain v Portugal in the other half of the draw.

The Cabo Verde fairytale - I mentioned yesterday that it seemed rather cruel for the plucky little island nation to be pitched against Messi's Argentina in the first knockout round. But, given how relatively weak the rest of that half of the draw looks, if they do somehow get past that obstacle - the possibility of them going all the way to the Final will suddenly start to seem not so far-fetched. They have looked the second-best African team so far (after the superb Morocco), and possibly the best defensive team; but they also showed in their 2-2 draw against Uruguay that they can offer some attacking threat. The bookies are currently offering something like 15/1 against Cabo Verde progressing to the 'Round of 16',... 400-500/1 against them reaching the Final, and up to 1,500/1 against them winning the tournament. Those are probably the best value bets in the tournament. Well, since, in the unlikely event that they can get past Argentina, Australia or Egypt in the next round shouldn't be too much of a problem for them, I think it would be well worth having a little punt on them to reach the quarter-finals (25-40/1) and/or the semi-finals (80-100/1). Take those odds now; they will tumble if they can pull off an upset against Argentina.

The tiresome 'GOAT' debate - Yes, that's raging again (does it ever stop?) in social media comment threads. The great Italian former player Antonio Cassano added more fuel to this fire the other day when he averred that Cristiano Ronaldo was 'not in the conversation'. But that seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable and indeed incontestable statement. Because Beckenbauer and Cruyff and Zidane et al aren't 'in that conversation' either. If you're talking about a player whose technical abilities and lasting impact on the game are head-and-shoulders above every other player in history (so far), then.... even the greatest of the greats are not quite good enough. There are only three candidates: Pelé, Maradona, and Messi. For me, Maradona, whatever his undoubted skills, is disqualified by having been such a cheat and a thug and a nutjob - and by having almost always played the game with a scowl of seething rage on his face. And Messi - I feel we should probably wait until after his retirement to start fully appraising his achievement in a wider historical context. For me, the 'GOAT' is a silly concept: you can't meaningfully compare with each other players from different eras, or players in different positions, or players who might have had radically different styles even in the same position. But if you absolutely insist on nominating one player as standing above all others in history - it's always got to be Pelé, if only because he was the first: he created the very idea of a 'superstar player': none of the subsequent holders of that mantle would have been viewed in the same way if Pelé hadn't come before them; and even today, half a century after his retirement, every great player still has to bear comparison with Pelé - and is almost always found wanting. All the great players since Pelé have been trying to emulate him, and few have come anywhere close; I still don't think anyone has yet truly matched or surpassed him - although at least with Messi, there is a case to be made. With Cristiano there is not, not even remotely.

The Haaland outrage - The main point of complaint for World Cup Fantasy managers in these last few days has been the shocking decision of Norway head coach Ståle Solbakken to omit Haaland entirely from the 3rd Round game against France. In fact, he rested almost all of his usual starters (although their outstanding right-back, Julian Ryerson, had injured a hamstring in the previous game), presumably giving way to sentiment, thinking it would be kind to try to give as many of his squad as possible a taste of World Cup football. His proffered explanation that he wanted to 'rest' players ahead of the 'Round of 32' was less convincing; two not terribly hectic games spaced over nearly two weeks is not going to tire or stress anyone; and there's a four-day gap until they would play again. Spain didn't rest or protect the recently injured Oyarzabal or Yamal (admittedly, they did rotate much of the rest of their usual starting lineup; although their squad is strong enough that they can do this without really compromising team performance!), Messi at least got half an hour or so off the bench (and another scoring contribution), likewise Pulisic for the USA (although he didn't manage to score, despite threatening to do so multiple times), while Germany and France, to their credit, put out full-strengh sides, despite having already assured themselves of first-place qualification. Zlatan Ibrahimovic on US television castigated Solbakken's decision, accusing him of a lack of ambition or self-belief. I tend to think that Zlatan is a bit of a knob most of the time (like a more stylish Roy Keane...), but on this I'm inclined to agree with him: I don't think it's good for the psychology of the team to basically admit that you feel you have no hope of beating France (you'd have to beat them, or someone better than them, to get to the last rounds of the tournament) and that you don't care who you face in the next round,... and thus - impliedly, I think - that you don't fancy your chances of getting beyond the 'Round of 16', that winning just one knockout tie is the summit of your ambitions. [But then, perhaps I'm just bitter because I'd hung on to Haaland in my squad, expecting that he'd at least get some minutes off the bench, and might pick up another goal even from a short outing.]

This may be a harsh wake-up call for people who'd been fancying Norway as a possible 'dark horse' to go deep into he tournament, and possibly even win it - just because of Haaland's great form. But I don't think the City striker can do it for them on his own. Odegaard still seems to be misfiring rather, after his injury-ravaged season at Arsenal; and their second-best player, Ryerson, now looks set to miss next week's game. I'm not sure I even fancy their chances against the Ivory Coast; they'll surely get massacred by Brazil.

A feast of football - Although many of us suffered with the omission of Haaland, the short minutes for Messi, and the surprise defeat for Germany, we were blessed, really, that rotations were so few in this Round, even among the handful of teams whose first-place qualification was already secured, and that the Round was so surprisingly high-scoring - far more so than the 3rd Round usually is, as so many teams content themselves with playing out draws. We've again seen some banging goals, and some last-minute changes of fortune. And thus far disappointing teams, Belgium, Senegal, and even Turkiye (though too late to save themselves), finally woke up and showed what they're really capable of. And damn, Colombia v Portugal was one of the best games we've yet seen in the tournament, and possibly the best 0-0 game I've ever seen! Colombia, who only needed a draw to top the group, went after the game from first to last - an effort which should endear them to all neutral fans and make them one of the favourite 'underdogs' going forward.

VAR, etc. - In general, I have found the standard of refereeing in this tournament very impressive. There have been only a handful of moderately contentious big calls; and, as far as I can recall, I think only two penalty awards (or non-awards) looked as if they were incorrect. This is so, so, so much better than the weekly fiasco that the refereeing in the English Premier League has become in recent years. Really, we've seen at least 2 or 3 really egregious errors almost every week in the last few seasons in the EPL, in each batch of 10 games; we've now had 72 games in this World Cup with hardly any. That is a remarkable achievement. The standard of recuitment and briefing for referees at this tournament really seems to have been exemplary. I hope PGMOL has been taking notes.

I've also been mostly impressed with how rapidly VAR is delivering its decisions (although they did blot their copy-book rather today by taking over 4 minutes to rule out an apparent late equaliser for Ghana's André Ayew against Croatia). The computer-graphic renderings of offside decisions are far more readily intelligible than the ones we've been having to suffer in the Premier League; but they're still taking 2 minutes or more to be generated (or to be shared with fans, anyway), which is far too long. And I've found that all of the calls so far looked accurate and convincing (so often in the English domestic season we've seen graphics that differ so drastically from what we saw with the naked eye that we have to suspect something amiss with the timing of the 'freeze-frame'), though there haven't been many really tight decisions - well, again, until today.  Davison Sanchez had looked well onside to the naked eye, but his early goal for Colombia was ruled out for what the graphic appeared to show as the length of the toecap of his left boot (the picture at the head of this post). However,... that graphic did appear to be showing him standing rather nearer the goal-line than he had actually appeared to be, and depicted him in clown-boots that looked at lest 3 inches longer than the ones he was actually wearing. Something going wrong with that one....

The Fantasy points scoring?? - I don't think any of my players have yet earned any of the 'extra points' available under the special rules of this game. (Well, OK, I picked up one 'scouting bonus' on Aaron Hickey in the opening game. And I think a few of my forwards have earned an extra point or two for 'shots on target' - but that's it.)  And in scanning through other leading players, I haven't noticed that anybody else has either. Of course, it's pretty much impossible to count 'tackles' during the course of a game, and FIFA hasn't deigned to explain to us how it defines 'chances created', so we're completely in the dark about whether our midfielders should have earned such extra points or not. But I have now spotted several instances where forwards definitely had two or more 'shots on target' and weren't credited by the game with any, so... I'm afraid I just don't trust how the game stats and points are being tallied.

A few small improvements - But there is some good news for the Fantasy game itself. The overall UI design is still horrible, and it is maddeningly fiddly to make adjustments to your team, and there are almost no stats available to help you with your player selections, and, no, the site cannot be trusted to not sometimes lose your team information, but... two of the most irksome bugs in the layout do appear to have been fixed for the knockout rounds: you can now select 'Date of next game' as the key data point to be displayed in the player panels on your Team page during the MatchDay (to help you with planning the order of rotations from the bench, and the pass-the-parcel of the constantly upgrading captaincy selection...), and you can now switch your vice-captain directly to become your captain (or vice versa).  [I doubt if that was just down to me complaining about it. But I hope I may have been of some small help in the struggle...]

BE WARNED:  There is again no break in the hostilities - the 'Round of 32' kicks off immediately on Sunday; so, we have very little time to rebuild our squads for the knockout phase of the tournament. Don't get caught out!!