With Cavallini being released by the whitecaps today, it just feels right that Canada will have someone with the unattached club status at the World Cup. Fun reminder of where Canada soccer was 4/5 years ago.
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The introduction of two modern young centre-backs, RB Leipzig’s hugely talented Josko Gvardiol, 20, and his successor at Dinamo Zagreb, 22-year-old Josip Sutalo, helped Dalic push the back four higher up the pitch, meaning Modric and/or Brozovic don’t have to drop so deep to pick up the ball during build-up, which often caused a very visible gap between midfield and forward line.
Now, Croatia take control of possession more comfortably, and those three with the ball at their feet means imminent danger for the opposition.
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A seasoned motivational speaker, he [Dalic] will be hoping to keep team spirit high heading into his third major tournament with Croatia, equaling the records of Miroslav Blazevic and Slaven Bilic.
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If anything, 2018 taught Croatia to take it one step at a time — an approach that almost made them world champions.
Yup. Don't think anyone is surprised. Wondering if they're targeting the Danes specifically or harder given their very public display of disdain for Qatar.
I'm expecting controversy on and off the pitch. If they can buy a tournament or team I don't see no reason why they or the Saudis can't buy a ref or two.
World Cup organisers have apologised to a Danish television station whose live broadcast from a street in Doha was interrupted by Qatari officials who threatened to break their camera equipment.
Journalists from the TV2 channel “were mistakenly interrupted” late on Tuesday evening, the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy acknowledged in a statement. “Upon inspection of the crew’s valid tournament accreditation and filming permit, an apology was made to the broadcaster by on-site security before the crew resumed their activity,” organisers said. Reporter Rasmus Tantholdt was speaking live to a news anchor in Denmark when three men drove up behind him on an electric cart and tried to block the camera lens. “You invited the whole world to come here, why can’t we film? It’s a public place,” Tantholdt was heard saying in English. “You can break the camera, you want to break it? You are threatening us by smashing the camera?”
The incident five days before the World Cup starts revisited a subject that has been sensitive for tournament organisers who have denied claims there are strict limits on where media can film in Qatar. Organisers said they later spoke to Tantholdt and also “issued an advisory to all entities to respect the filming permits in place for the tournament.”
Denmark’s football federation has also been one of the biggest critics of Qatar among the 32 World Cup teams over the emirate’s record on human rights and treatment of low-paid migrant workers. They were needed to build massive construction projects since Fifa picked Qatar as hosts in 2010.
Danish players will wear match shirts that have a toned down badge and manufacturer’s logo as a protest in support of labour rights when they play France, Australia and Tunisia in Group D. A third-choice black shirt option has been included as “the colour of mourning” for construction workers who have died in Qatar.
Yup. Don't think anyone is surprised. Wondering if they're targeting the Danes specifically or harder given their very public display of disdain for Qatar.
I'm expecting controversy on and off the pitch. If they can buy a tournament or team I don't see no reason why they or the Saudis can't buy a ref or two.
Not a coincidence that Qatar drew one of the weakest teams in the tournament in Ecuador for the opener. I'm almost willing to bet a ton we see at least one penalty awarded to Qatar. Can't have the world think anything negative about the hosts or that they are a weak football team now can we?
Man... after watching that docuseries, I had no idea how really, really bad CONCACAF was. Corruption all over the place moreso than any other federation. FIFA itself, at its best image, seemed like a bloated organization full of old men doing nothing but grifting pay cheques.
I highly recommend watching the new docu-series "FIFA Uncovered" that was recently released on Netflix ahead of the World Cup.
FIFA is a vile, vile organization.
It's done some good, like spread football all over the world but raked a bunch of money off the top. Before 1974 is was Euro-centric and broke. FIFA ran tournaments but was not in it to make money. The 1966 and 1970 World Cups had 16 teams, 1 host, 9 european, 4 south american, 1 CONCACAF and Asia-Africa had one combined spot.
Coloniaism died and suddenly there were more members in FIFA. Africa went from 4 to 40 members. And every member get's one vote. Havelange campaigned like a mad man and became President in 1974. He spread football across the world, brought in advertising and of course, raked all the money off the top. It's estimated he took 50 million for himself.
But on the flip side, he broke the Europe-South America stranglehold and we now have youth tournaments, both regional and international and of course the growth of the women's game with the first World Cup in 1991. It's actually helped a nation like Canada develop.
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Man... after watching that docuseries, I had no idea how really, really bad CONCACAF was. Corruption all over the place moreso than any other federation. FIFA itself, at its best image, seemed like a bloated organization full of old men doing nothing but grifting pay cheques.
Dare I say, the fact that they installed a Canadian as President of the federation certainly helped our qualification for the WC, via being able to be scrapping the previous qualifying system and hitting the reset button which favoured Canada.
While it seems and seemed logical to do given all the challenges and logistics around Covid, if the President was Honduran, as Honduras held the last spot in the old qualifying system (points) over Canada, they would've figured a way to keep that intact in some way.
I'll try to find that video again of the "England fans". A couple days ago I saw "fans" of Germany also. I don't know what the deal is, but all I can say is that rendition of "it's coming home" was hilarious. Also, not a single guy with a firework stuck inside him, so it seems questionable as to whether they were actual English fans in the first place!
They can pay me to be a fake fan if they want to fly me over and give me tickets to games.
You couldn’t pay me enough to step foot in that country. People supporting the Qatari regime are scum. It’s despicable that people are cool with mass murder “because World Cup”.
Watching it on tv is bad enough, actually pumping money into fifa and their economy is straight up legitimizing their government’s abhorrent behaviour.
It’s sad that sportswashing is so successful. I really wish any team, country, federation had the balls to boycott. But they won’t because blood money is, after all, still money and we all know cash is king.
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