Poland v Colombia match thread

[ithuriel]

Just now, Col city fan said:

I rate this Polish performance as possibly the worst of the tournament, relatively speaking.

How many Col demerits does it earn?

[Webbo]

Sounds like I made the right decision to turn over to Antiques Roadshow at Half Time.

[The Doctor]

Just now, Bert said:

Serves Poland right for cheating their way to a top seed. 

How? I know Switzerland scuzzball their way up there by not playing friendlies but Poland have been

[Nalis]

ITV overhyping this Colombia performance and the goals, it's like they are trying to make up for not getting the England game.

 

Hope Senegal grind out a draw.

[kingfox]

Good to see the Colombia of four years ago turn up tonight, quality side on their day.

[CosbehFox]

2 minutes ago, Nalis said:

ITV overhyping this Colombia performance and the goals, it's like they are trying to make up for not getting the England game.

 

Hope Senegal grind out a draw.

The quality of their build up on all three goals was as good as any so far. Absolutely liquid football

[Nalis]

2 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

The quality of their build up on all three goals was as good as any so far. Absolutely liquid football

 

Goals were easy on the eye but defending was pretty awful and made it fairly easy for Colombia.

[SouthStandUpperTier]

9 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

How? I know Switzerland scuzzball their way up there by not playing friendlies but Poland have been

Radio commentator said Poland had played just 1 friendly since Euro 2016.

Edited 24 June 2018 by SouthStandUpperTier

[Bert]

17 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

How? I know Switzerland scuzzball their way up there by not playing friendlies but Poland have been

Same as the Swiss, play very little friendlies. 

[whoareyaaa]

Roy Keane smiling I do like him straight to the point, good laugh with Wrighty n Neville then 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

29 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

How? I know Switzerland scuzzball their way up there by not playing friendlies but Poland have been

 

20 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Radio commentator said Poland had played just 1 friendly since Euro 2016.

 

Just did my own research. Poland did indeed play just 1 friendly between Euro 2016 and when the seedings were set in Oct 2017 for the World Cup draw.

Edited 24 June 2018 by SouthStandUpperTier

[MC Prussian]

37 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

How? I know Switzerland scuzzball their way up there by not playing friendlies but Poland have been

 

18 minutes ago, Bert said:

Same as the Swiss, play very little friendlies. 

Eh?

Greece - Switzerland 0-1

Switzerland - Panama 6-0

Spain - Switzerland 1-1

Switzerland  - Japan 2-0

 

Yep, no friendlies.

Edited 24 June 2018 by MC Prussian

[Max Wall]

Swiss embassy on line 1

Edited 24 June 2018 by Max Wall

[The Doctor]

41 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Radio commentator said Poland had played just 1 friendly since Euro 2016.

 

Beebs got them playing two in march and November...

[Blue ROI]

54 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

I rate this Polish performance as possibly the worst of the tournament, relatively speaking.

For a side with some decent players Argentina on Thursday was as bad as it gets.

 

Dire from Poland all the same. Age caught up with them. Could have done with Kapustka progressing with us 2 years ago.

[Guest Col city fan]

26 minutes ago, Blue ROI said:

For a side with some decent players Argentina on Thursday was as bad as it gets.

 

Dire from Poland all the same. Age caught up with them. Could have done with Kapustka progressing with us 2 years ago.

Oh yes, forgot Argentina

[Bert]

55 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

 

Eh?

Greece - Switzerland 0-1

Switzerland - Panama 6-0

Spain - Switzerland 1-1

Switzerland  - Japan 2-0

 

Yep, no friendlies.

 

Yep, little friendlies is exactly the same as no friendlies

[TheHitman™]

10 hours ago, MC Prussian said:

 

Eh?

Greece - Switzerland 0-1

Switzerland - Panama 6-0

Spain - Switzerland 1-1

Switzerland  - Japan 2-0

 

Yep, no friendlies.

 

Those were all after seeding for the World Cup. Poland played a ton of friendlies after World Cup seeding as well.

 

[MC Prussian]

49 minutes ago, TheHitman™ said:

Those were all after seeding for the World Cup. Poland played a ton of friendlies after World Cup seeding as well.

There were hardly a lot of opportunities for teams to chase after friendlies before the World Cup seeding last December.

Last qualifying match for Switzerland in the group was played on the 10th of October, then were the two playoff matches against Northern Ireland in November. This was the period in which other nations already qualified, such as England, played two friendlies.

 

Besides, leading up to the 2018 World Cup qualfiiers, Switzerland for instance did maybe take on one friendly less than England, but to suggest it was a considerable amount couldn't be much further from the truth.

Edited 25 June 2018 by MC Prussian

[MC Prussian]

9 hours ago, Bert said:

Yep, little friendlies is exactly the same as no friendlies

Yep, we definitely played only a few friendlies - as insinuated by yourself. 

[Finnegan]

It goes both ways, you could argue England were playing more friendlies to try and boost their seeding. Surely not playing friendlies only works if your ranking is high to begin with? 

 

I mean the world rankings are a load of shit, we all know that, and England are definitely a better side than Poland. 

 

But being fair, they did still smash their qualification group scoring a lot of goals in the process. 

[The Doctor]

36 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

It goes both ways, you could argue England were playing more friendlies to try and boost their seeding. Surely not playing friendlies only works if your ranking is high to begin with? 

Didn't they muck around with the formula for calculating them after USA were ranked 4th in the world for yonks because they mostly played sides like Barbados? I'm pretty sure when they did that they added weighting to each match based on quality of opposition and type of match (friendly, qualifier, tournament), so now friendlies can actually drag down your coefficient.

 

Edit: yeah. Calculated like this: https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/procedure/men.html and qualifiers are weighted much more heavily than friendlies so playing friendlies as well as qualifiers reduces average points 

Edited 25 June 2018 by The Doctor

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

Didn't they muck around with the formula for calculating them after USA were ranked 4th in the world for yonks because they mostly played sides like Barbados? I'm pretty sure when they did that they added weighting to each match based on quality of opposition and type of match (friendly, qualifier, tournament), so now friendlies can actually drag down your coefficient.

 

Doesn't that sort of lend itself to my point though, given England seeking friendlies against Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain etc knowing full well these teams will rotate their squads and try things out? 

 

I'm genuinely not just trying to dig at England, just suggesting that whilst Bert is almost certainly right about Poland and Switzerland, it'd be naive to believe the FA don't also consider these things when scheduling. 

[The Doctor]

32 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Doesn't that sort of lend itself to my point though, given England seeking friendlies against Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain etc knowing full well these teams will rotate their squads and try things out? 

 

I'm genuinely not just trying to dig at England, just suggesting that whilst Bert is almost certainly right about Poland and Switzerland, it'd be naive to believe the FA don't also consider these things when scheduling. 

No. So, running a quick calculation. Say Switzerland and England end up together in a qualifying group alongside Ukraine (35), Scotland (42), Albania (58) and Luxembourg (85). They draw against each other and beat the other four, that'd give an average points for the year of 953.865 for Switzerland, 957.33 for England. Switzerland then don't play any friendlies while England play and beat Brazil (2) and Netherlands (19). Switzerlands points average stays at 953.865, England's drops to 845.46. Switzerland pull clear of England in the world rankings. 

 

Edit: even if you swap in Germany for the Netherlands it makes little difference. In that case it'd be 853.09. You can beat the best two sides in the world according to the rankings in friendlies and it'll only ever make your score worse

Edited 25 June 2018 by The Doctor

[Finnegan]

That's ridiculous. I get weighting by type of match but surely ranking of opponent should trump that metric? 

 

Utterly bizarre. 

 

You should never go down for winning, that's absurd. 

 

You completely sure? 

 

 

Edited 25 June 2018 by Finnegan