WHAT THE JEFF JUST HAPPENED: CRO-FRA Final

[loose cannon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDJr1VSWDo

Voila a French video medley of the path to the trophy
(for as long as youtube does not notice it)

[loose cannon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDJr1VSWDo

Voila a French video medley of the path to the trophy
(for as long as youtube does not notice it)

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Memorable moment from the celebrations

https://twitter.com/FutbolBible/stat...81115103371264

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Northern Ireland

[Wouter D]

If we're to call this cool, and fresh, and praise them, we might as well aim for EIM's possible dream where the World Cup 2022 is being played in Bullwell, not a ball being kicked a single time, instead 22 people clad in pink balaclava meet up on the pitch to see who can throw a biscuit the furthest and VAR is brought in to decide what's actually a proper biscuit and what isn't while the England band play Oasis songs on xylophones in the background.

Excellent. Which country would be most likely to show up with Jaffa Cakes?

[linus]

Kante picked up an early yellow card, that made him a prime candidate to be subbed, especially given his role on the pitch.

I think it was discussed earlier, somewhere else. I forget the outcome, but apparently it's all a big misunderstanding and similar to singing a song that isn't about slaughtering Serbs as sung by other nations. I think.

Vida singing about Belgrade burning was a bad look as well. It's too bad they can't put that nationalist tribal sectarianism behind them, maybe in a decade or two things will get better on that front.

[multipleman78]

I would give Deschamps a little bit of credit for the 2nd half on Sunday. The first 15 minutes saw France pinned back and the usually brilliant Kante being overrun, making him look really off the boil. Deschamps didn't perservere with him, he hooked arguably his most important player in the tournament and put on N'Zonzi. After that, Croatia found it harder to get through and France began to emerge on the counter.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Incidentally, why can't the VAR whisper in the ref's ear that Griezmann dived, and have the ref review it? Would have been a yellow card for Griezman and free kick for Croatia.

The argument would obviously be that we'd be reviewing things all day long. That would be the case in the beginning, of course, but once people understand that diving is finished, they'd stop doing it. And the game would be better for it. As it stands, we had VAR in the world cup final, and diving still delivered a world cup trophy.

If there was no VAR, Griezman would have gotten the dodgy free kick but Croatia would have gotten a goal kick for Perisic's handball. The two situations would have cancelled each other out. As it stands, VAR has made things more unfair in this particular match.

The most important part they need to sort with VAR right now is for it to not affect the ref's authority and not allow ref's to use it as a way to escape from responsibility.
If more power is given to the VAR room, what use will there be for linesmen in a near future when the ref can just get a blip in his ear from the control room?
For very tense moments, why would the ref take any responsibility in the end? He could simply refer to VAR at any given moment when it's supposed to be used no matter how sure he is what the decision should be, ahead of calling on VAR. There will always be one team who questions the decision, no matter what. It could become a scenario where some ref's use it all the time and when the players come complaining he can simply point to a bunch of chaps sat in a secret chamber the players can't start chasing.

One thing with VAR, it certainly escalated this WC with players gathering around the ref demanding the decision goes their way. I've never seen as many games with clusters of players around the ref so many times. Yet at the same time, once there is a VAR decisions, they instantly calm down and stop complaining. But they do need to start giving yellow for that bloody sign the players learned to make in the air.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

modric only covered about 10km a game, which isn't really all that much. particularly given that half those games went to extra time. There was a lot less running about in the england croatia game than you'd think. Croatia covered 89km, and england covered 92km, over 120 minutes. That's a lot less than you'd see in most club games in most leagues.

[anton pulisov]

But it's very difficult to look at the raw numbers for distance covered by footballers in general since 2000, and particularly around the 2006-2010 period without looking askance at the entire sport. The increase in physical output by every player on the pitch is pretty extraordinary. I wonder what we're going to find out eventually about a lot of the biggest stars at this most recent tournament.

While I love Luka Modric, I am wondering the amount of metres he ran at this tournament. He does have the build of a marathon runner. So it's not like he's covering loads of metres AND muscular as well. Like the French manager used to back in his playing days. Olympique and Juve in the 90s. He really picked a lovely pair of teams to play for...

edit: On a side note, loving the gallery of Olympique legends displayed as you scroll through the text of their club history on wikipedia.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The penalty call was 50/50. If France were Ireland, I'd have been screaming for it. If Croatia were Ireland, I'd be arguing it was accidental and non-consequential.

Just gone back to look at the Griezman dive for the first time. He's clearly launched himself before contact is made. So yeah, if that free-kick is not given and Croatia end up being the team that goes 1-0 up, then you have a different ball game altogether.

The flow of the second half was a direct consequence of the first half, so France's second half goals are kind of irrelevant to whether Croatia wuz robbed or not.

I'd feel a bit more aggrieved about the free kick if brozevic didn't just plough into him while he was still in mid air. If he hadn't dived for a free kick, he was about to get one. a team as wed to canny tactical fouling as croatia can't complain if a canny tactical forward like griezmann does something like this. It's merely the flipside of the same coin.

[anton pulisov]

Incidentally, why can't the VAR whisper in the ref's ear that Griezmann dived, and have the ref review it? Would have been a yellow card for Griezman and free kick for Croatia.

The argument would obviously be that we'd be reviewing things all day long. That would be the case in the beginning, of course, but once people understand that diving is finished, they'd stop doing it. And the game would be better for it. As it stands, we had VAR in the world cup final, and diving still delivered a world cup trophy.

If there was no VAR, Griezman would have gotten the dodgy free kick but Croatia would have gotten a goal kick for Perisic's handball. The two situations would have cancelled each other out. As it stands, VAR has made things more unfair in this particular match.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

You missed out 2006, when he dragged them to the final. Euro 2000 can't just be waved through in one sentence. He was phenomenal there, as was the team.

Drugs, I agree, but How clean were Man U?

Oh he was great in Euro 2000, and he was great in the 2006 world cup, There's no denying his enormous talent, but that's just two really important months in his career. The 2006 world cup came after three pretty unimpressive seasons at club level. That's not how players are judged nowadays. It would be very difficult for a player to establish the level of reputation or acclaim that zidane did, so much on the basis of two and a bit good international tournaments, and surprisingly few good years in club football. The relative importance of the two is so completely reversed now.

I'd say man utd were pretty much completely clean until at least 2000. It took them about that long to stop drinking, and there's no point before that. I'd look at the Appointment of this guy with a certain level of suspicion. And I think that there are questions around carlos quierroz's sacking by portugal that need answering.

Look at it this way. There are four basic reasons why clubs/ players dope.
a) making unathletic players athletic. (Zidane)
b) Allowing older players compete with younger players. (milan labs)
c) allowing players play enormous numbers of games (by managing chronic injuries) (we're looking towards spain here)
d) recovering from injury is probably the main one. (every player who is injured everywhere is going to be tempted by this)

The thing is that English only gave up on heavy boozing around 2000 so there was no point before that. Then clubs primarily select players based on their athleticism first and foremost, so that rules out a) Then under ferguson Man utd hardly ever bought a player over 25, rotated a lot from early on, and players got less athletic and more injury prone over time, broadly as you'd expect. So there's not really any of the tell tale signs. But as for players returning from injury, that's really an unknowable, as you don't know how badly injured a player was. I would say though that if a Man utd player was coming back from injury, it was usually pretty easy to tell. though I point you back to my earlier suspicions.

But it's very difficult to look at the raw numbers for distance covered by footballers in general since 2000, and particularly around the 2006-2010 period without looking askance at the entire sport. The increase in physical output by every player on the pitch is pretty extraordinary. I wonder what we're going to find out eventually about a lot of the biggest stars at this most recent tournament.

[anton pulisov]

but I personally feel that a team of gifted, fast youngsters beating wily, relatively more ponderous veterans (in the final third particularly) was good for the game.

The great thing about football is that it is not rugby or the Olympics. In football it's less about being fast and more about letting the ball do the work. France didn't want the ball in most of their matches. It's a bit depressing really.

Football goes in waves. Spain in 2010 was the peak of wanting the ball. They went too far in that, in many ways. Now Deschamps devised a new system to counter tiki-taka. It seems to involve not wanting the ball at all. I don't think it will last too long. Croatia (and to a lesser extent, Argentina) exposed all of France's weaknesses.

Croatia, to me, represented a nice balance between Spain's possession for the sake of possession and France's set piece football.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Heh, I guess I'm in trouble.

[EIM]

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

I was sat at home watching the game with my mom, dad, sister, nephew and better half. When they came running onto the pitch I actually shouted "not these fucking Croatian idiots again. Fucking throw them in jail"

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

I don't think Croatia was robbed. If they had been a better side up front and on the day had been more effective with the last pass through, they could have managed on their own regardless of one free-kick against them there or a penalty there. But they weren't good enough on the day.

What I'm against are these PR-muppets, now also being praised in papers as if they actually do something good at all or are making any difference apart from being invited by other muppets who want to take a photo with them for their own PR's sake.
I called the Croatian muppets who ran in against Czech Rep 2016, muppets.
These are also muppets.
Jimmy Jump is a muppet.

If we're to call this cool, and fresh, and praise them, we might as well aim for EIM's possible dream where the World Cup 2022 is being played in Bullwell, not a ball being kicked a single time, instead 22 people clad in pink balaclava meet up on the pitch to see who can throw a biscuit the furthest and VAR is brought in to decide what's actually a proper biscuit and what isn't while the England band play Oasis songs on xylophones in the background.
There's nothing good with people running onto a pitch. Ever.

[Satchmo Distel]

I feel that Croatia's defending at set-pieces was always likely to cost them against a team as clinical as France; and if France had not won these two decisions, there would have been others eventually. It was unlucky for Croatia that set-pieces have been a much bigger factor at this tournament than previously due to VAR and the change of referee preferences to favour the attacking side as much as possible. Had this been the 2016 final, the outcome may have been different, but I personally feel that a team of gifted, fast youngsters beating wily, relatively more ponderous veterans (in the final third particularly) was good for the game.

[anton pulisov]

The penalty call was 50/50. If France were Ireland, I'd have been screaming for it. If Croatia were Ireland, I'd be arguing it was accidental and non-consequential.

Just gone back to look at the Griezman dive for the first time. He's clearly launched himself before contact is made. So yeah, if that free-kick is not given and Croatia end up being the team that goes 1-0 up, then you have a different ball game altogether.

The flow of the second half was a direct consequence of the first half, so France's second half goals are kind of irrelevant to whether Croatia wuz robbed or not.

[Jah Womble]

Even before we arrive at your amusing Panini scenario, I think you're overplaying this somewhat.

For one thing, the invasion was (very briefly) disruptive to the game per se, not just to Croatia. They have my sympathy as regards the first-half free-kick and penalty, sure, but a) they defended the former appallingly, and b) I strongly suspect that they'd have been claiming said pen had it occurred in an opposite situation. (It worked against them, so that was unfortunate, yes.)

Noticeably, only Lovren has come out and suggested that Pussy Riot might be the reason for their losing the World Cup. (And he had some cojones to do that publicly, if you ask me.) He also claimed that Croatia were the better side throughout, which is nonsense.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Your post suggested that Croatia had lived and died by this same particular sword.

But my point was more that it really didn't make a lot of difference either way, given that they were getting a second-half trouncing. As indeed others have suggested since.

We'll never know now, will we.
It was the third incident working against Croatia. And yes, the third mattered more against Croatia since they were chasing a goal. I'm sure the French players wouldn't have smiled if they were the ones 2-1 down.
The Griezman dive which led to the free-kick and goal
The bullshit penalty

When the second half started Croatia were attacking in wave after wave. They were only 2-1 down and France hardly had the ball. If Croatia had scored one there, 2-2, we don't know how the rest would have played out. Maybe the game would have died into extra time and penalties. France at that point or any minute after certainly didn't look like they could score a goal by controlling the passing for longer spells. They won on counters, which wouldn't have existed at 2-2.
The pitch invasion interrupted the momentum Croatia had in the second half. While one of the Pussy PR-machines was high-fiveing Mbappe, the Croatian players lost a lot of their concentration. And if you've had one free-kick which shouldn't have been against you, an own goal, one penalty that you feel shouldn't have been, then this on top of all, I can't imagine you just shake it off like some EIM superhuman with the possibility to shake everything off, and not put your head down, sigh, and think "not this on top of all the other shit"

You can not say it didn't matter because France scored two more later, as little as I can say Croatia would have scored an equaliser then won on extra time or penalties. We'll never know now. Maybe after VAR and when that's set we can introduce pitch invaders in all league games and every single one in Champions League. They can jump in randomly under any given minute and run around like headless chicken. Some obviously think it's oh cool so why not make every game more cool. We can even throw out the mascots and replace them with Jimmy Jump's. One in every side and when they play away, are trailing, they send in their Jimmy Jump filled with ecstasy who interrupts in the midst of the home team trying to score. Maybe they can even get their own set of collectable Panini stickers.

[Satchmo Distel]

You missed out 2006, when he dragged them to the final. Euro 2000 can't just be waved through in one sentence. He was phenomenal there, as was the team.

Drugs, I agree, but How clean were Man U?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

One flippant remark (water carrier), by a player who achieved maybe a quarter of what Deschamps has in the game has blighted his whole career.

I regularly watched him as a youngster for Nantes and he was a superb, creative no. 10.

He was the absolute motor in the OM team, who I also had the privilege of watching regularly (if only for the quality of the football). Without him that team would just not have worked. Juvuntus saw this.

Britain, in general, never understood the Aime Jacquet France. They were too busy looking through their Cantona/ Ginola bifocals. Maybe after they won in 98 when a few premiership players had come into the team. Vieira, Petit.

I remember constantly telling people between 94 and 96 that this bloke Zidane was a much better player to base a team around than Cantona.

And I really loved Cantona. We'll, before he left Leeds.

Anyway, 4 clear wins without the need for extra time, in the tough half of the draw is enough to merit being worthy champions.

Feel very sorry for Croatia though. One of those great teams which you will always remember the names from 1 through to fictitious 11.

Particularly sorry for my football loving daughter, who on holiday, dragged her friends of schedule to Croatia because she said she couldn't miss being part of the wildest party ever seen on the planet.

I think that people in the UK understood the Aime Jacquet team very well. 16 out of the 22 wound up playing in the premier league (and one in scotland) There's not that much to understand. they were a really defensive team, not blessed with pace, or remotely functional centre forwards. They had a bunch of experienced players playing a very conservative game, and while it didn't work out for them in euro 96, they got the bounce of the ball when they needed it at their home world cup. In six knockout games, they drew three 0-0 and went to penalties. won one game 1-0 with a header from a corner in extra time. when they went a goal down they got out of trouble with two brilliant goals from a full back who didn't score in his other 141 games for France, and in the Final Zidane scored two headers from corners, and went from having done next to nothing for Jacquet's france, to being the symbol of its glory.

I thing perhaps one of the greatest question marks over that French Team was the shock that everyone had when Desailly turned up at chelsea the following season and gave a passable impression of a man in his forties. That really came as a surprise to everyone. He spent a lot of his time being beaten semi conscious, or being outpaced by players he had no business being outpaced by. it was pretty extraordinary.

Ginola was only ever really a bit part player for france, and jacquet did give him a go. It just didn't work out very well. He was a bad fit for a team that rarely got players into the opposition box. And he made Cantona captain at the start of the qualifiers for Euro 96. With cantona at the wheel, france drew their first three qualifiers 0-0, and picked up a 2-0 in the fourth game. Then at 29 and on his last chance Cantona found himself obliged to teach someone a lesson, which may have been completely the right thing to do at the time, it did rather make it rather tricky for Jacquet, who still had 6 qualifiers to play. I can completely see why he wasn't that keen to bring cantona back. The other thing is that Cantona was a bad fit for that French team. At Man utd Cantona was a slow player, who was surrounded by two of the fastest wingers anyone had ever seen, and two of the most athletic box to box midfielders in europe. Cantona moved around within this framework and influenced the game. At France he was a slow player in a team where the players around him barely moved. This is a completely different challenge entirely. One that Zidane didn't even manage to properly get the hang of. The French team of 2000 had plenty of players who could run like maniacs.

Looking back at the french teams for the early qualifiers for euro 96, I sometimes found myself wondering who the fuck some of these players were, because despite having a load of oldish players at france 98, and a team seemingly set in stone, they had a largely different squad in 94. Fair dues to you if you spotted that zidane was the one to take over from cantona, because that really wasn't obvious at the time. Everyone in europe knew who he was in the 95-96 season, and literally every club in the premier league had a good long look at him, and the consensus was always the same. A really skilful player, but a bit weak, and a lot slow, and he was usually running on fumes shortly after half time. Kind of the french version of Charlie Adam. And that's the player that played at Euro 96. Imagine the shock on everyone's face when he turned up to play man utd a couple of months later having deleted the 2 from the start of his body fat percentage, looked like he could have been in 300 if you stuck a spear in his hand, and could suddenly run all day. Juventus were visionaries. they could see past the jowls and the oxygen tank, and saw that if you pumped this guy full of steroids and EPO that he could be quite something. A bit like Inter when they got a hold of Ronaldo, and decided that he would be truly perfect if he put on 2 stone of muscle in a couple of weeks.

I think Zidane is a fascinating example of how our way of perceiving players has changed. The World Before Messi and cristiano ronaldo was a more forgiving place for top level footballers. To even be in with a hint of being the best footballer in the world, you have to score a goal a game for a decade. Back then no-one noticed that Zidane's club career basically took a four year snooze after the Juventus pharmacy got raided, and his reputation was largely based on his set piece prowess at france 98, a really good euro 2000, and a great goal in the 2002 cl final which silenced the increasingly noisy complaints that for a galactico, he didn't really do very much. He was really good again in 2002-3. Then again this was also the golden age of doping in spanish football. Everyone is now always being watched all the time, and they have to be producing all the time, otherwise they fall away very quickly, and that's just not how things used to be.

[Satchmo Distel]

Be fair, she was more than keen to get on the pitch in the final. Big game player, obvs.

John Terry in drag