World Cup 2018 - No Match Discussions

That’s awesome, thanks for linking it. Everyone go read that, football fan or not.

The Lukaku story also partially answers the question I wondered about in the other thread: What language does the Belgian team use to communicate with one another?

It’s not Flemish, so scratch that.

They apparently all speak French decently, and most players are bi-lingual Dutch/French. But a few key players (the Hazards, for instance) don’t speak Dutch at all. When all else fails, because so many on the side have played in England, they’ll go to English to be sure.

Actually that makes me think of the other great multilingual European nation.

What language does the Swiss team speak in? Probably not Italian, since that’s the smallest native population, but they also have multiple official languages.

That might be German? I’ll see what I can find, because I’m curious as well!

Yeah I’m having a hard time finding official answers, but I’ve seen indications it’s German, with French for some player groupings

New standings are out.

So, I have to come clean about a mistake I made. The Murawski Boys might have chosen Russia but I might have forgotten to add Russia to The Murawski Boys, thus depriving them of three points. That has been rectified in the new standings. I blame Patrick Murawski for the error.

You can find the standings here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1upheBSjU4W-yQajry_p6LBWX_2MGMupDDnx8oi7mbVU/edit#gid=0

edit nevermind. This doesn’t help your team question.

Slightly sillier than the Lukaku post…

So apparently the best answer is…Swiss players are bi-lingual (at least) and thus tend to switch as needed to communicate, without really thinking about it. German probably dominates, but French in the mix too.

Which is an interesting departure from the Belgians. The Swiss team members mostly play in France, Germany, Italy…and a few in English leagues. The Belgian team members have a lot of players who at least played some amount of time in the UK in the past, so English can be a default fallback between the French and Dutch.

Now that Group H has played their matches, this moment would be a good one to evaluate the pools, before Russia and Egypt start the second round of matches in the group stage.

Back of napkin math:

Current Pool 5

Lantz - 29
Triggercut - 28
Rock8man - 23
rowe33 - 20

Lantz and Trigger kicking ass in our pool.

I’m not. I’m just using the swarm picks our group made last week. I’d likely fare much worse on my own!

You’re a cheater and I demand that you are removed from this competition.

I have been scouting teams and players in person for the last four years straight while avoiding all media or analysis in preparation for this event.

hahaha

Think of it this way Lantz – you’re beating an AI made up of 30 soccer experts!

The introduction of VAR into the World Cup this year reminds me that there is a sport which is actually slower than baseball in making a rule change to embrace technology. MLB started using instant replay in 2008 for home runs…FIFA didn’t use goal line technology in the World Cup until 2012. MLB expanded instant reply into other game aspects in 2012…FIFA waited until 2018 for VAR. Even if you give FIFA a 3-year window to account for the World Cup only happening every 4 years, they’re still behind. I need to stop referring to baseball as the most hidebound and resistant-to-change sport in the world. Second place at best!

Standings after the first round of games, by my count:

Pool 1
Player P W D L GF GA Pts
Dissensus 15 10 1 4 23 12 31
Clay 15 7 2 6 16 15 23
CraigM 15 7 1 7 18 13 22
Ex-Swoo 15 6 2 7 17 20 20
Pool 2
Player P W D L GF GA Pts
Dave Perkins 15 9 2 4 22 13 29
Thraeg 15 9 1 5 16 12 28
Madmarcus 15 8 1 6 20 14 25
BellaConfusione 15 7 2 6 21 16 23
Pool 3
Player P W D L GF GA Pts
Seppey 15 9 3 3 24 15 30
ineffablebob 15 6 3 6 21 21 21
ddtibbs 15 6 1 8 17 20 19
Chappers 15 5 3 7 19 16 18
Pool 4
Player P W D L GF GA Pts
scottagibson 15 9 2 4 20 11 29
The Murawskis 15 9 1 5 23 15 28
rho21 15 8 2 5 19 12 26
Armando Penblade 15 7 3 5 21 15 24
Pool 5
Player P W D L GF GA Pts
Lantz 15 9 2 4 22 14 29
triggercut 15 9 1 5 23 15 28
Rock8man 15 7 2 6 17 15 23
rowe33 15 6 2 7 17 20 20

Thank you @rho21. I’ve updated the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1upheBSjU4W-yQajry_p6LBWX_2MGMupDDnx8oi7mbVU/htmlview

I had a slight math issue but have corrected it now I think.

The standings take into account each team having played one game. They don’t include the result of the Russia vs Egypt game.

@rho21 I’m showing Madmarus with 8 W 1 D 6L and BellaConfusione with 7 W 2 D 6 L outside of that i believe that our numbers match.

By the way, an interesting discovery I made, if anyone else is watching the World Cup on Hulu. Yesterday I didn’t watch my recorded DVR versions of the matches. I watched the on-demand versions available on Hulu after the games are over. And since I pay for the No commercial option on Hulu, there were no commercials to watch, not even at half-time, unlike on the DVR where I’m forced to watch 200 seconds of ads at half-time.

So don’t watch the DVR versions.

So did everyone enjoy the first set of games? There were some fairly interesting results and some big points dropped by the top teams. There could be some big teams heading home after the group phase if they stumble again.

I’m enjoying this World Cup even though the Germany match stung a fair bit.

I enjoy almost every game of soccer that i watch, even the so called bad ones. And i just love the World Cup - getting to watch 2 or more games a day is just bliss.

Watching Germany is torture for me anyways no matter how they do, but that defeat was certainly not excactly a mood enhancer.