TheSpecialJuan

@Werner It’s insane to me that people are comparing Morocco to Paraguay (who setup incredibly defensively and prayed for pens). Morocco have very good players and a great system. They outplayed the Dutch clearly

It was a disgrace. Morocco deserved to win, as the Dutch played not to lose. With a depleted midfield, there was no feeding of the forwards. If you have 9 Premier League players in the starting 11 you would expect they could handle a physical playing opponent better. No guts, no glory...

@NickMiller79 Pulling off an upset by parking the bus is way more doable in a WC knockout round vs a CL 2 legged tie for example

@NickMiller79 The new format is gonna bring an amount of late stage matchups between mediocre teams that will shock people. There’s loads of sides in the RO32 that wouldn’t have even qualified previously. They’re all gonna setup super defensive to frustrate higher ranked opponents

We thank Germany and the Netherlands for their sacrifice at the narrative altar, but I think that will do for heavy hitters being knocked out early, please. All good fun until you get a Paraguay vs Bosnia semi-final.

@ademir2z There’s not really a better alternative available but it’s weird how many people online try to insist these are great matches. I watched the full Germany-Paraguay match and wouldn’t rewatch the first 120 minutes if you paid me

@ademir2z The new format is gonna make this much more apparent. Teams that wouldn’t previously have qualified can now sneak through to knockouts and play ultra defensive low blocks for 120 minutes and hope for pens

A lot of people criticising an article in which almost everyone says to keep penalties. Personally I hate them. Not so much because of the shoot-out itself but because it allows teams like Paraguay to avoid playing football and hope they can hold on for a draw.

@fedesimio @nic_amadio That’s just Europe in general imo. Here in Ireland our entire economy is dependent on a handful of big tech/pharma companies paying massive tax to subsidise social welfare, healthcare, roads etc. But there’s still a vocal group online who want to drive them out the country

@nic_amadio Mainstream Italian culture is to hate successful companies and guess what you need to provide high quality jobs

Many of my ex uni colleagues in Milan are still making 1500-2500 euros per month (net). This is people who went to Italy's best engineering school, worked hard af, took great grades, got "good" local jobs. And they have 5-10 years of experience.

@ConnCFC The Eze pen in the CL final by far the worst of the 3 imo. Horrific pen

Gabriel missed a penalty in the UCL final, Havertz misses one in the World Cup knock out rounds. Football is healing

@EiFSoccer 1st time Germany lost a shootout in WC history

After one of the wildest penalty shootouts in recent memory, Paraguay advance! So much fight and courage, and a good bit of a luck. Wild.

@MC_of_A Dunno why lads keeping trying them, especially in high pressure shootouts. Don’t have data but feels like they often fail and looks ridiculous in the process

love to see a stutter step penalty get stuffed

Poor pen from Havertz. #Paraguay keeper seems to be in the Germans heads

@kashish_cfc Japan set up very deep 2nd half and let Brazil control the game. Still heart breaking for them to go out on that last minute goal

I hope Japan hold on to the lead vs Brazil. This could be the biggest moment for Japan (and Asian) football. It would be heartbreaking if they lose from here and go out in RO32 after a brilliant WC. I recall in 2018, Japan took a 2-1 lead over Belgium but Belgium produced a brilliant comeback to win 3-2. I was happy because I was supporting Belgium (because of Eden Hazard) but lowkey felt bad for Japan who gave their best.

@HearnsOfficial @SS66199 If you don’t think stuff like this (bbc.com/news/articles/…) is going on here then I have some ocean front property in Cavan to sell you

@SS66199 Name 185 of the worst ones

What is the right's obsession with their imaginary dictatory NGOs?

@TubaronAzul @TheFallOffIsNow @beamerboiZ3 I say this with €5 on Cape Verde to knock Argentina out at 12/1

@TubaronAzul @TheFallOffIsNow @beamerboiZ3 Yeah Cape Verde setup with a perfect game plan and played brilliantly against Spain. But Spain still had complete control and all the chances. If that game is played 5 times that’s the best result Cape Verde get imo. Which isn’t a bad thing

The World Cup is really stupid because of its qualification process. Italy or even just Wales are much better teams than Congo or Cape Verde, but because euros play other euro teams, they lose out. Should be 90% Euro if this was a merit based WC and make quals worldwide

@TheFallOffIsNow @beamerboiZ3 Italy had a horrible qualifying campaign and have been insanely inconsistent for decades at this point. But Cape Verde could play 100 tournaments and not do what Italy did at Euro 2021. Which isn’t to say Italy “deserved” to be at this WC

@TheFallOffIsNow @beamerboiZ3 A wider variety of teams adds a cool feel to the WC so not really against it. But the nature of football is that any tiny team can setup an ultra low block and try to frustrate a much better team. Cape Verde setup perfectly and got very lucky

@jake_northwest @PaulSkallas The US has leveraged the markets via the 401k system. European pensions are just a massive pyramid scheme that no government has the balls to change

@jake_northwest @PaulSkallas For example the riots in France recently when they tried to push out the retirement age to fix the completely broken pension system. Incidentally while the US pension system has issues it’s in a vastly better place to the European system

The paradox of Europe. - no real growth for the past 15 years. - some of the smartest euros move to America (brain drain) - their Gross domestic product per person fell from 20% to 14%. Yet, the top 50 most liveabale cities are in Europe. It's not even particularly close. Massive improvements happening with quality of life including recently with bicycles, trams and walking replacing cars. Europe possesses something culturally other places do not have.