The top 4 teams in FIFA rankings entering the tournament are the last 4 teams standing. Boring? Exactly right? Let’s talk about it.
Quarterfinals Roundup
So, my quarterfinal predictions were better than my Round of 16, rebounding from 50% correct to 75% correct (but still lower than my predictions for who would make the knockouts and the Round of 32).
- France over Morocco ✅
- Belgium over Spain❌
- England over Norway ✅
- Argentina over Switzerland ✅
The only game I missed was Belgium over Spain, which I admitted was a reach and it took a Spanish 88 minute winner for Spain to take home the W, so maybe it was closer than I initially thought. Spain’s defense continues to be the story there, as they gave up their first goal of the tournament, which is nuts. They’re going to need that vs their semifinal opponent, France (I’ll talk more about the semifinal matchups in the next section).
France comfortably beat Morocco 2-0, a good Moroccan team, while England won a thriller vs Norway, again aided by a Jude Bellingham brace.
Argentina, again drawing the easiest of opponents relative to their direct competitors, won on a somewhat controversial second yellow card given for simulation. I’ll talk more about this below in the VAR section, which is still kind of crazy that we’ve needed a VAR section in these posts, pretty much all tournament!. The main point to highlight here is that Argentina will more and less have to play their first real tough opponent of the tournament (England), as Switzerland was the highest ranked FIFA opponent and only top 20 team so far…a team ranked 19th…
Semifinal
Semifinals! Here’s what I got:
- France over Spain
- England over Argentina
France to me still looks like the best team in the tournament and it looks like they get to test that against the World Cup’s best defense in Spain. Spain can also score in quick succession so will this game stay tight where their defense really locks things down, or will France pry them open and we get a shootout? I’m going to say it’s going to resemble or more open game than Spain’s defense might suggest. I think there’s too much attacking quality in France’s attack to crack this game open, so I can see something like a 3-2 winning score line.
The England-Argentina game reeks of a wide open game and goal fest. I think Argentina is the weakest team left and they’re going to finally get challenged and their defense is not going to hold. I mean hasn’t really held so far and they haven’t played anyone! I don’t like England but it’s hard to not like Jude Bellingham and it’s been fun to watch him dominate. While I don’t want England to win it all (I think…), I’ll be rooting for them in this game (plus, you know, all the Argentina fascist/Nazi/shunning of Latin/native populations stuff…not exactly endearing).
VAR and Red Cards
The big story coming out of quarterfinals on the VAR/refereeing side was the second Embolo yellow for simulation on a VAR review of a foul initially called on Argentina. Embolo absolutely flopped and the responsibility falls on him for putting his team in bad position in a game they absolutely could have won.
Some people have argued VAR shouldn’t be used like that, and some even want it vanquished from the game entirely, but we all hate and want simulation/flopping eliminated from the game along with other important calls like handballs in the box and so on.
I don’t get wanting VAR removed from the game and I don’t believe those stating they would rather live with the wrong decision perhaps deciding the game. Like many things with VAR, stuff I’ve mentioned in previous posts here and here, I want the call right and the rule book needs to be updated to account for modern day technology. Make the application of the rules clearer and more fair.
Wrap up
That pic above is for Rabiot! I swear!…
Should be some great games. The cream really did rise to the top. Enjoy the games.
gillis