2014 World Cup Betting / Discussion thread

[arbboy]

sure i get your point but he has played on a well rested, one game a week (no cup/champs league/europa league) liverpool team which over achieved (imo as much as they under achieved the year below stats wise - just short term variance across two seasons ironing itself out) as a unit because of the freak that was suar last year and how well prepared and rested they were compared to their EPL rivals last year because of their favourable schedule.  I am not saying he wont be as good as you say next season and going forward but its not a certainty that you seem to think it is and my opinion is that the vast majority of teams above England in the betting pre event wouldnt have started him in their first 11.

[mulhuzz]

On the subject of experience....

Stat from BBC commentate about Germany:

Müller, Özil and Götze have smt like 130 caps between them and all u25.

Schweinsteiger, only 29, has almost that many on his own (103).

Henderson has 13 and is 24.

So the question is, why isn't Henderson playing for England earlier, if he's potentially as good as a Müller or a Schweini?

The answer is the Premier League.

[pleno1]

lol come on marc, if either of them were english they wouldnt have played either.

lampard and gerrard were in their prime, no amtter how much they underperformed they were absolute definite starters.

scholes used to play left wing ffs

[mulhuzz]

Yeah they were so prime that Germany outperformed England througout that period.

They were just examples, you can pick any position and any player and compare to, roughly, any of the big teams and fact is they get more experience earlier. I'm sure eg you already know how youth football works in Spain so won't bore you with details but it's so obviously better than England set up.

[mulhuzz]

Also, would you now drop Gerrard pre euro2016 qualifiers?

What would team look like for first euro qualifier? (Away to Switzerland, an prolly the hardest 'paper' game in group)

[pleno1]

its actually the opposite imo. the young players in the other international teams actually play together in the u20 world cups, we take players like walcott, luke shaw and others with no intention of playing them then the next 4 years when they could get tournament experience they are told by their clubs they cant go. spain, germany et al say fuck you.

next year we could take

Ross Barkley
Luke Shaw
Jack Wilshere (yes he's available)
Raheem Stirling
Phil Jones
Jon Flannagan
Tom Ince
John Stones
Wilfred Zaha
Alex Oxelaide Chamberlain
Jonjo Shelvey
Saido Berahino
Connor Wickham

but we will maybe take 1 or 2 at the most, spain will take all of the equivalent players. imagine if we took that team, wed surely be favourites going in, but we wont, we will take kids 2-3 years too young and lose a penalty shootout and gareth southgate will say we were unlucky.


it doesnt matter about germany outperforming england you asked why henderson had so few caps and blamed it on the premiership when every single manager in world football would have played them over mueller and schweinsteiger.

more on the above

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/05/stuart-pearce-ross-barkley-england

the experience they should get is playing with eachother in younger squads where they will get to know eachothers style, also a huge thing that you and nobody else has mentioned is that in spain there is abrcelona and real madrid who have all of the players in the international team so they know how to play together, in germany its the same with bayern and dortmund. in england we have chelsea, arsenal, liverpool everton and man united with an equal amount of players its a free for all.

[mulhuzz]

its actually the opposite imo. the young players in the other international teams actually play together in the u20 world cups, we take players like walcott, luke shaw and others with no intention of playing them then the next 4 years when they could get tournament experience they are told by their clubs they cant go. spain, germany et al say fuck you.

next year we could take

Ross Barkley
Luke Shaw
Jack Wilshere (yes he's available)
Raheem Stirling
Phil Jones
Jon Flannagan
Tom Ince
John Stones
Wilfred Zaha
Alex Oxelaide Chamberlain
Jonjo Shelvey
Saido Berahino
Connor Wickham

but we will maybe take 1 or 2 at the most, spain will take all of the equivalent players. imagine if we took that team, wed surely be favourites going in, but we wont, we will take kids 2-3 years too young and lose a penalty shootout and gareth southgate will say we were unlucky.


it doesnt matter about germany outperforming england you asked why henderson had so few caps and blamed it on the premiership when every single manager in world football would have played them over mueller and schweinsteiger.

more on the above

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/05/stuart-pearce-ross-barkley-england

the experience they should get is playing with eachother in younger squads where they will get to know eachothers style, also a huge thing that you and nobody else has mentioned is that in spain there is abrcelona and real madrid who have all of the players in the international team so they know how to play together, in germany its the same with bayern and dortmund. in england we have chelsea, arsenal, liverpool everton and man united with an equal amount of players its a free for all.

yah agree with the u21 etc comments. players in England don't ever play for both teams, not so in ES, DE etc etc.

also the real/barca comparison is spot on - this never happens in england though because English players are too expensive relative to their skill and big clubs tend to hoard and then not play them. very very important issue imo.

[MANTIS01]

As an England fan I don't rightly care if Henderson's good enough to captain Cameroon or be the star player for Japan. What really matters is how he stacks up against England midfielders I've watched over the years. This is surely a better barometer for the current ability of the England side. I have grown up watching Ray Wilkins, Bryan Robson, Paul Scholes, Paul Gascoigne, Glenn Hoddle, David Platt, Stevie G, David Beckham, Paul Ince etc.

So if we consider the class of midfielder England are used to producing then I'm afraid Henderson is a long long way short of that quality. He is about the same level as David Batty. He was put in so we were solid and yet we conceded 4 goals in 2 games. He offered zero creativity going forward and often looked panic stricken at the back. Even aside from the aimless balls he looped into nobody in the box it was his refusal to pass to Ross Barkley which really got my goat. Why do you keep passing to Glenn Johnson instead Jordan? He is the full back and he is not very good!!

[youthnkzR]

Wow Algeria. Played so well this first half.

[TightEnd]

Next door's punting firm seem way ool with some of their prices. Just whacked some on for Golden Ball; Muller 40/1 (20 - 33/1 elsewhere) and Negredo 100/1 (40 - 50/1 elsewhere).
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Only surprised by 2 of your list there Tighty:

Greece lowest scoring team? Colombia, Ivory Coast + Japan. I can see them scoring at least 2, plus Samaras is a beast.
Algeria. Assuming we are thinking Belgium to top the group comfortably and Algeria to see off Russia? Interested about this one.

Love the world cup. This is going to be by far the most I have outlayed pre tournament before. Gulp.

Greece.

Very defensive team. Recent friendly has them with Mitroglou the Fulham flop up front (though he did well in the play offs for them

"Portuguese coach Fernando Santos took over in 2010, but admits the legacy of predecessor Otto Rehhagel, under whom Greece won Euro 2004, remains "an identity that is not easy to change. We've tried to play a different way [but] then we slipped back into our comfort zone, our defensive strength." "

Very competitive Group, no pushovers to score goals. Japan and IC amongst the toughest teams in their seeding groupings. no iran, costa rica etc here

think its far too simplistic to look at the front of the market in lowest scorers...got to look at the most competitive groups where there isn't a pushover...



Algeria. One of the groups where I think second place is up for grabs. there is no natural goalsscorer in the russian team (kerzakhov and dzagoev out of form and favour with Capello recently), south Korea a shadow of the team of 2002-06

Algeria, v technically gifted and completely under-rated because they haven't played outside africa since 2010. I got to talk about them with a friend of a friend who translates for riyad mahrez who came over from france to lcfc, not speaking english and is in the world cup 30 for algeria. rates a player called Sofiane Feghouli, 23, highly

so i went and researched him "is an attacking midfielder or winger who was described by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger a year ago as "exceptional" and "a physical beast"

so, possibly under-rated team, certainly an unknown team, in a group it looks possible to get out of. obviously you wouldn't fancy them to get out of a brazil/croatia/mexico or germany/portugal/ghana draw, but belgium/russia/korea and 6-1? speculative bet 

sweating no greece goal v ivory coast and algeria in the third game!

[millidonk]

Looking very good. wp sir.

[mulhuzz]

that 6/1 on Algeria looks incred tipping now mind. wp Tighty.

[Jamier-Host]

Really like the top 2 in this market. They are in the hardest groups and don't have any outstanding goal threats.

Think you could back both ew profitably, think we would be really unlucky to be outside the top 3.

I can see both teams scoring maybe 1 goal.

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/world-cup/lowest-scoring-team

Like the 15/2 Bet365 are offering on Iran myself. Interesting market, although remember the odd random set of results. e.g France scored none one year.

I'm in a similar boat to Richard but anti railing Iran against Bosnia (annoying they can still qualify!) and hoping for Cameroon and Greece to find their scoring boots. Dead heats suck.

[Omm]

For some reason it really gets to me how little effort the players put into the national anthem, it's not as if it makes them better at football.

[Ironside]

got to love the announcement of englands 3 latest sponsors