FIFA World Cup 2018 - Group H (Poland, Senegal, Colombia, Japan)

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Poland
Colombia
Japan
Senegal

Poland continues their high ride through the group in top spot, after defeating Colombia in one of the top games of the group stages. Lewy and James each have a hat trick. Japan plays entertaining footie but is out-muscled and out-skilled by Poland and Colombia. Senegal enjoys the ride.
 
Japan with another upset, beating Colombia 2-1. Colombia with 10 men for most of the match after a handball in the box. Interesting to see if Colombia can come back from this, will probably hope for James to be fit enough to go 90 in their next match. Also, can the samurai get a result vs. Senegal or Poland?!
 
Another controversial goal, this time for Senegal after an awkward situation involving letting a previously injured player on at an interesting time, resulting in a shitty situation for Poland, and an easy tap in on an empty net for a Senegalese striker.
Even Poland's goal was questionable as the Assistant ref had lifted the sign for a substitution, making Senegal think there was a sub happening. However, Poland takes the free kick and scores, main ref doesn't acknowledge the sub that was going to happen?

This ref sucked.
 
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Senegal was so fun to watch. Even in the first half, before any of the controversy, they were fluid and fearless and looked more like a club side than an international side. Their touches were clean and their decisionmaking was quick. Also they limited Poland (and Lewandowski) to extremely few chances.

I wish them well in the rest of the group stage and hope to see them in the knockouts.
 
After having watched the first Senegal goal a few times, I think the criticism of the officials is off. I get that it looked strange, but the referee waived on the player when Poland was playing the ball forward in the Senegal half. Is that really a problem? Of course, two touches later, it is heading back toward Poland's goal, but to criticize the ref is to ignore a ridiculously terrible back pass and the lackadaisical way the Polish defender approached the ball - even after having glanced over to see the Senegalese player closing down.
 
After having watched the first Senegal goal a few times, I think the criticism of the officials is off. I get that it looked strange, but the referee waived on the player when Poland was playing the ball forward in the Senegal half. Is that really a problem? Of course, two touches later, it is heading back toward Poland's goal, but to criticize the ref is to ignore a ridiculously terrible back pass and the lackadaisical way the Polish defender approached the ball - even after having glanced over to see the Senegalese player closing down.
That's the second goal. Regardless of fault, I have not heard or read anyone who claims to remember having seen something like it before. The first score by Senegal was an own goal. The combination of both made this a hideously weird game to lose.

The play back from Poland was a ridiculously weak kick, and they have to be aware. That said, Poland was not exactly "playing the ball forward" when the player was waved on. The ball was in one of those ping-pong header situations where it keeps going back and forth a few times before someone eventually gets possession. The ref gave the signal to enter while the ball was in the air after a Polish player hit a long looping header that ended up going directly to a Senegalese player, who headed it to the Polish player who made the terrible back pass. No one had stable possession. To be honest, I don't know what the guidance is for refs in that situation. Should they wait until possession is stable? Or is it enough that the ball was about 75% away from the Polish goal and Senegal did not have clear possession? Even the supposed ref gurus are kind of vague on that point. My sense is the ref mishandled it but Poland had a chance to be better there and screwed up.

Also, if I'm honest, and I am, the ref also mishandled the game situation on the set piece when Poland scored so it pretty much evens out even if the ref messed up on that Senegal goal.
 
FIFA need to change the way they rank teams.

Poland gamed the system to get a higher FIFA ranking and they have been dumped out of the competition already.
The entire UEFA qualification is a joke. 6-7 teams in a group, but only two are capable of decent soccer and if there’s a lucky bounce or two in matches, an even lesser team goes through.
 
FIFA need to change the way they rank teams.

Poland gamed the system to get a higher FIFA ranking and they have been dumped out of the competition already.
They have changed it. The system Poland gamed was excessively stupid, even for FIFA. For top teams, playing a friendly was guaranteed to lower your ranking, so what Poland did was not play any friendlies between WC qualifiers and when the WC pots were settled. Poland came out of qualifiers with a legitimate high ranking, but not good enough for Pot 1. By just not playing friendlies they rose while England and Spain slipped out. And the results didn't matter. Under that system, you could play all your friendlies against top 10 teams and win all of them, and your ranking still would go down.

Still this performance is an embarrassment even for the Pot 2 team Poland probably would have been. They should be able to score more than 1 free kick goal, assisted by a poorly handled game restart, in 2 games. Lewandowski has never impressed me in international play. He doesn't get the open space and great service he is used to at Munich and can't really create for himself without other options teams have to deal with when playing his club.

Anyway, FIFA has switched to a modified ELO system.
FIFA Ranking gets overhaul to stop manipulation
 
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They have changed it. The system Poland gamed was excessively stupid, even for FIFA. For top teams, playing a friendly was guaranteed to lower your ranking, so what Poland did was not play any friendlies between WC qualifiers and when the WC pots were settled. Poland came out of qualifiers with a legitimate high ranking, but not good enough for Pot 1. By just not playing friendlies they rose while England and Spain slipped out. And the results didn't matter. Under that system, you could play all your friendlies against top 10 teams and win all of them, and your ranking still would go down.

Still this performance is an embarrassment even for the Pot 2 team Poland probably would have been. They should be able to score more than 1 free kick goal, assisted by a poorly handled game restart, in 2 games. Levandowski has never impressed me in international play. He doesn't get the open space and great service he is used to at Munich and can't really create for himself without other options teams have to deal with when playing his club.

Anyway, FIFA has switched to a modified ELO system.
http://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-wor...erhaul-to-stop-manipulation-for-draw-seedings

Thats good to know.
 
Senegal is a very fun team to watch! I can’t name anybody on the team besides Mane, but they’ve got flair to spare and are thoroughly frustrating the Colombians.
 
Japan right now losing 0-1 to Poland and go through on tiebreakers if nothing changes. If Japan concedes another and or if Senegal scores, Japan is out. Japan seems to be betting Senegal won't score because they're not trying to score against Poland. Poland also is happy to finally nab 3 points so this game is now quite ridiculously dull.
 
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I can’t believe Japan is going to go through and not Senegal. What an absolute cooler for that country.
 
FIFA need to change the way they rank teams.

Poland gamed the system to get a higher FIFA ranking and they have been dumped out of the competition already.

HAITI TIED A CARIBBEAN TEAM AND WENT UP 100 SPOTS IN THE FIFA RANKINGS TO 39TH IN THE WORLD.