Argentina v Croatia (Semi Final)

Think Argentina should focus on playing their football rather making tactical changes given the opposition. Loads better when Di Maria came on.

 

Wouldn't surprise me. Expecting a similar game to the Brazil one today with very few chances.

Fair play to Croatia, they are brilliant at what they do, but I hope Argentina win for the sake of the competition.

 

Hope Croatia win. For all the talk about Portugal and our on field antics in previous tournaments, Argentina were completely classless tonight and I’d love to see them beat by a very average Croatian side

 

Extra time please.

 

If it's a shootout Croatia to win

 

After the way the Argies acted in the quarters I wouldn't want to see either of these sides win it. The only upside is if Argentina did it would seal the debate on Messi V Ronaldo.
I actually think England would do better against Argentina and to be honest if we managed to get to the final I'd rather we lost to a side that outplay us than one who just sits deep and shit houses their way to a penalty shootout win.

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It was a tetchy game. Martinez said the Argentina player’s reaction at the end was in response to Van Gaal’s pre-match gamesmanship where he claimed the Netherlands had an advantage on penalties and if it went to penalties they’d win. Think he was probably trying to get in the Argentina player’s heads and you reap what you sow I suppose.

 

If that's the case it's even more pathetic than I thought.

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Just want to see Modric crying at full time.

 

There was quite a bit of context, Messi's celebration after the goal was in reference to Riquelme which goes back to some long standing issue between him and van Gaal. Both teams were playing silly buggers with regards the penalties, trying to put off/goad the next taker, think at least one Dutch player got booked in the process. It was extremely heated, only worsened by one of the worst refereeing performances I've seen and it spilled over into the celebrations and interviews after.

 

Then they (some of the Argentinian players) should address the taunting to LVG after the match and not to the players, they didn't make the comments, it was their coach. I've said my opinion about this already in the Arg-Ned thread, don't want to repeat this sermon.

I really hope that this bites them right in the arse the next game and that Croatia can give them their own medicine (without the taunting afterwards of course) and winning on penalty shootout.

On the other side this would mean that Croatia reaches a World Cup final by winning 3 consecutive penalty shootouts. Is that what I want? NO

 

Yes, I know Dirk. It’s not clever but I suspect there was a fair bit going on and just trying to apply a bit of balance to the goodies v baddies narrative.

 

Don't like what some of the Argentines did, but let's not pretend that the Dutch have some moral high ground here. Both teams were playing dirty, both teams were being disrespectful to each other.

 

Followed by even more of them doing it for the last penalty.



99% of people on here would be celebrating their team “giving them what they deserve” if they’d done it.

 

Can we stick to the dirty, cheating South Americans narrative, please? Thanks x

Also a sad way to find out you didn't even watch my video

 

Don't get me wrong I don't think that the Netherlands players were saints yesterday and I also said that it was only some of the Argentinian players, not all. It's just that I don't like such behaviour on the playing field.

I remember the Euro 1996 and before the England vs Germany match it was better that a German stays away from reading any of the english gutter press like Sun, Daily Mail or whatever. Lots of "Panzer" driving around and Gascoigne and Pearce "photoshopped" as Soldiers with the "martial" statement: "For you Fritz ze Euro96 is over" and such things.
Tbh I had a lot of Schadenfreude after the match that "ze Euro" was over for England not us . (And yet I didn't like Andy Möller's pose after the deciding penalty but at least there was no taunting of the opponent just a blatant pose to the crowd. Didn't like it, either). Yes, I'm a relic and still love fairplay and respect on the field during and after the match.

edit:

No I wouldn't. So I must be one of the 1%. It's like in the "Census" there I'm always one of the 1% who are selected of the whole population of Germany

 

Tbf, he also referred to the Dutch players doing a lot of "talking" on the pitch, which having seen the videos above I think we can probably guess what he was referring to. It doesn't really justify the reaction, but it probably at least explains what provoked it. It seems like the Dutch had a deliberate strategy to try and get into the Argentinians heads if it came to penalties, which they clearly did but not with the results they hoped for.

 

This is why I wasn’t bothered who won that game really. Probably slightly leaning towards the Dutch but both teams are classless.