World Cup 2018 - Russia

jowner wrote:

Spain, that's extremely random.

By all accounts the Spanish FA were annoyed by the announcement having come before the tournament. Though I'm not sure how they think that firing the guy before the tournament isn't going to, y'know, add to the distraction.

Spain's players have now basically got a Get Out of Jail free card for any underperformance.

On another note, I can't wait to see how he goes on at RM. Particularly considering that when asked about which one of Ronaldo or Messi was better, he apparently answered 'Messi' without any hesitation.

Not to derail too much but since North America won the bid, when do tickets go on sale? How does that process work since I would be bummed if I miss out. I am curious because it would be nice to attend it in person as part of my bucket list

I am so excited to take my family to the 2026 World Cup! My kids will be teenagers then, so it should be great timing.

What a stupid move by the Spanish FA. A ton of coaches move on after the World Cup. Seems like a bit of a childish, wounded ego move on the part of their president.

On the other hand, if RM made the announcement without the coach's consent, they just dashed his World Cup dreams and poisoned their own relationship with him. Reminds me of how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sabotaged Bo Jackson's college baseball career and somehow thought that he'd be a good little employee once they drafted him: both sh*tty and short-sighted.

whispa wrote:

Not to derail too much but since North America won the bid, when do tickets go on sale? How does that process work since I would be bummed if I miss out. I am curious because it would be nice to attend it in person as part of my bucket list ;)

You can start saving now if you wish, but you have got a while yet - the first WC tickets for this year's tournament went on sale in Sept 2017. They don't usually go on sale until qualification is over, otherwise people won't know whether to bother.

Mind you, there's still plenty going for Russia, even though it starts tomorrow. Travel considerations and the general impressions of Russia have kept many away.

davet010 wrote:
whispa wrote:

Not to derail too much but since North America won the bid, when do tickets go on sale? How does that process work since I would be bummed if I miss out. I am curious because it would be nice to attend it in person as part of my bucket list ;)

You can start saving now if you wish, but you have got a while yet - the first WC tickets for this year's tournament went on sale in Sept 2017. They don't usually go on sale until qualification is over, otherwise people won't know whether to bother.

Mind you, there's still plenty going for Russia, even though it starts tomorrow. Travel considerations and the general impressions of Russia have kept many away.

Thanks!

Don't thank me til you've seen the prices. Even the group games are eye wateringly expensive, because they are set by FIFA (hey, bribes and backhanders don't pay themselves y'know).

In this year's WC, the tickets were priced as follows.

Ticket prices for non-Russian residents (Categories 1-3)
Opening match: $220-$550 (£168-£420)

Other group matches: $105-$210 (£80-£160)

Round of 16: $115-$245 (£88-£187)

Quarter-finals: $175-$365 (£134-£279)

Semi-finals: $285-$750 (£218-£573)

Third-place play-off: $175-$365 (£134-£279)

Final: $455-$1,100 (£348-£841)

At least you've got time to be saving up.

whispa wrote:

Not to derail too much but since North America won the bid, when do tickets go on sale? How does that process work since I would be bummed if I miss out. I am curious because it would be nice to attend it in person as part of my bucket list ;)

For the Womens WC in Canada in 2015 I bought tickets a year out by just keeping on eye on the website. So just make a calendar event for 2024 to reminder you.

I am looking forward to this and hopeful some games are played in the SF-Bay Area. I really would prefer not to travel down to L.A.

North America won? Noo. Silly timezones!
Oh well, in all likelihood Denmark wont qualify anyway.

Yeah the ticket prices will be crazy so I hope there are at least some east coast games so we don't have to travel far.

Yeah, ticket prices are going to be expensive, (plus there will be a lower allocation of cheap seats than the usual for a World Cup) From the bid book:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/upTgjA0.png)

As for Spain, I get the feeling Barcelona's golden generation masked a lot of underlying rot of their FA but that's based entirely on the women's team demanding they sack the manager after the 2015 World Cup after he had been in the job for 17 years or something ridiculous.

I know Houston is part of the bid, and given our size and proximity to Central and South America I assume we'll get some games. We usually do, and we got the USA - Argentina beatdown from the Copa America Centenario.

I can only assume you could buy a car for what it would take for a family of four to attend all the USMNT games in the various cities they end up in.

I'm presuming that CAT 4 in this case will be for US/Mex/Can nationals, as with this WC.

Spain's decision to sack their coach now does look very odd. Apparently almost all of the players spoke against it, and Hierro has less than 40 games experience of managing any team, and that was in the Spanish lower leagues. It's also said that some players are not over keen on him - he's RM through and through, of the 'ultra sur' persuasion in a way that current RM players like Ramos are not.

He also spent a season at Bolton (the first time I saw him on the tv, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I could believe what I was seeing). Anyone want to bet that if they do well, BFS will be on TV telling him he taught him all he knows ?

davet010 wrote:

He also spent a season at Bolton (the first time I saw him on the tv, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I could believe what I was seeing). Anyone want to bet that if they do well, BFS will be on TV telling him he taught him all he knows ?

A lot of people here aren't going to know your pet names for football people you hate dave, but Big Sam getting indignant about a job beyond his ability is something to look forward to.

I mean, I don't even hate him, but I am familiar with the splendid ambition of Large Chunky Samuel.

Anyway, I'm quite glad that Spain has decided to take on the mantle of this edition's "Team that should do well and then has a drama-filled meltdown."

.... that or they're going to win the whole damn thing. No inbetween.

On the Planet Futbol podcast today, they explained how some Spanish journalists put all the blame on the coach, and felt that he'd put the Federation in an impossible position. Basically it was down to the RM/Barca rivalry and the need for the Spanish coach to appear neutral. I was very surprised.

And you can bet that if he'd announced he was off to join Barca, then a different set of Spanish journalists would be criticizing him.

The neutrality thing I can understand, but the guy replacing Lopertegui is Hierro, who is proper old school RM and has no managerial experience. I still think the Spanish FA might have been better gritting their teeth and going to the end of the tournament, but I guess they were on a hiding to nothing - even if it hadn't been announced until afterwards, their success or otherwise would be reanalysed with 'Aha ! That's why he didn't use player X'.

Apropros of nothing I remember a story of Hierro when he was Captain at Real.

Some youngster approached Hierro in Madrid for an autograph and when asked his name said "Jordi", which is a popular Catalan name. Hierro signed the autograph to "Jorge" instead and when the boy pointed this out Hierro said "Yes, but you're in Spain now."

Are the Saudi players all fully observing Ramadan today? Or can they get a special sort of relief from it? I presume the majority are Muslim and It doesn’t actually end until sundown tonight (I think?). I can’t imagine playing a top level football game while fasting, absolutely amazing endurance if they are! Saying that, I did see one player having a drink of water before.

I did see in the friendly warm ups before the tournament, the Tunisian goal keeper would go down pretending to be injured when sundown happened, allowing the whole team to go to the side line and get plenty of water.

Clusks wrote:

Are the Saudi players all fully observing Ramadan today? Or can they get a special sort of relief from it? I presume the majority are Muslim and It doesn’t actually end until sundown tonight (I think?). I can’t imagine playing a top level football game while fasting, absolutely amazing endurance if they are! Saying that, I did see one player having a drink of water before.

I did see in the friendly warm ups before the tournament, the Tunisian goal keeper would go down pretending to be injured when sundown happened, allowing the whole team to go to the side line and get plenty of water.

Hakeem Olajuwon famously fasted for Ramadan during the Rockets' postseason games. He seemed to pull it off. Of course, I imagine those games were at night.

I must congratulate myself for lasting 55 mins of Russia vs SA. It was of similar quality to the last English live match I saw on TV, although to be honest I'm not sure that the League Two playoff final is something that you should need to strive for.

So, now that it's on, here's my WC predictions.

Winners - Germany
Runners Up - Brazil

Dark Horse team - Colombia

Disappointment - Belgium

Golden Boot - Messi

Man, I'm hoping for anyone but Germany to win this thing. Someone new would be great. Colombia would be fantastic - James is obviously a thrilling talent, but I'm also a big fan of Cuadrado.

That Saudi Arabia side would get relegated from the Championship (and could be in trouble even in League One).

I did like the AuthoritarianCam with reaction shots of Putin / Platini / Saudi Crown Prince, though.

So Paddy Power (a betting company in the UK) have pledged to donate £10,000 to charites tackling homophobia in Sport for every goal Russia score during the World Cup - love it

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Man, I'm hoping for anyone but Germany to win this thing. Someone new would be great.

Yeah had a bar trivia question this week to name the 4 teams besides Brazil who had won multiple cups. Didn't realize there were so few.

New champ or even old champ who hasn't won in a while would be fun.

Wow, that was the bad against the awful.

Russia: "Let's stand here and wait for Saudi to kick us the ball. Then we'll attack and kick it in their net."

Saudi Arabia: "We are Barcelona pew pew. Watch us go! Oops. We just kicked the ball to Russia. Oops. They attacked and kicked it in our net."

Oh god, don't absent-mindedly leave the TV on Fox after the games. I have now learned that there is still a TMZ show.

That was super boring but some good matchups to watch tomorrow.

Marcel Desailly at The Guardian: "Pogba has to accept he's not the star of this France team."

Well, there's pretty much zero chance of that happening, huh?

Also, good GOD Saudi Arabia were terrible. Best gag I've seen today: "Maybe not allowing women to watch saudi football is an act of compassion."

Does Vegas have a prop bet for how long it takes before Suarez bites someone?

davet010 wrote:

I must congratulate myself for lasting 55 mins of Russia vs SA. It was of similar quality to the last English live match I saw on TV, although to be honest I'm not sure that the League Two playoff final is something that you should need to strive for.

So, now that it's on, here's my WC predictions.

Winners - Germany
Runners Up - Brazil

Dark Horse team - Colombia

Disappointment - Belgium

Golden Boot - Messi

Belgium have been disappointing us for the last few tournaments. I'll be surprised if they do something great.

Brazil and Germany are also my favourites. I think I'm more into Germany winning.