Group D Thread - Iceland, Argentina, Croatia, Nigeria

[Mr Pouya]

SEE IRAN 2014 THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT SMH

Stfu.

[Zamboor]

impressive by iceland, no doubt a good effort and i think they might get out of the group

by the way if argentina had called up icardi they would have won this, who is higuain?

[Leicester City]

Stfu.

It's true!

[OFFSIDE_1]

So? They still relied on Messi back then as they do now. It doesn't matter if they barely qualified they are still miles above Iceland's quality and Iceland are putting up a fight. Hopefully you see the difference.

The 2014 games were played in BRAZIL, which for the Argentina team, it was as close as you can get to being a home game. South American teams historically have always done much better in their continent. You had a 27 year old Messi in his prime who took that team to the 2nd spot in the world. Today you have a 30 year old Messi that missed a penalty kick. This team is only a shadow of that 2014 team. Nothing to take away from this Iceland team, because yes, they played great, BUT you cannot compare what Iran did in 2014 versus what Iceland did today. Different times, different players.

[Mr Pouya]

It's true!

Not really. We had a 100% pen and Messi saved them whereas today he chocked. Don’t be spreading BS about that game.

[Leicester City]

The 2014 games were played in BRAZIL, which for the Argentina team, it was as close as you can get to being a home game. South American teams historically have always done much better in their continent. You had a 27 year old Messi in his prime who took that team to the 2nd spot in the world. Today you have a 30 year old Messi that missed a penalty kick. This team is only a shadow of that 2014 team. Nothing to take away from this Iceland team, because yes, they played great, BUT you cannot compare what Iran did in 2014 versus what Iceland did today. Different times, different players.

Ok fair, a question.

Do you think Iran can beat Iceland as of now?

[KasraKhan]

How come the media loves Iceland but detests Iran's style of play? They're pretty similar. Tight. Defensive. Cohesive. Organized.

Maybe the population has something to do with it, but so does good ole fashioned propaganda..

[Leicester City]

How come the media loves Iceland but detests Iran's style of play? They're pretty similar. Tight. Defensive. Cohesive. Organized.

Maybe the population has something to do with it, but so does good ole fashioned propaganda..

I think it's politics, but most Americans were backing us and Aly Wagner said we were the better team going into the 2nd half yesterday. But I agree Iceland and Iran play similar, like today they made good counter attacking football. Though you have to respect the Iceland team because football was not the main profession for all of them. Their coach was a dentist and their GK was a film director (something to do with Eurovision also).

[Bi-honar]

Guys, keep it clean please. Learn to respect other opinions and exchange in a friendly and polite manner.

At the end of the day, the opinions you are expressing on either side of the debate are just that, opinions and highly subjective.

Factually, (i.e. not subjective) football is NOT new in Iceland and they tried qualifying for their first WC long before Iran did - having said that they're level of investment, interest and commitment to having a GREAT national team is very recent and we're obviously seeing the results now.

As far as population, success in football is not directly correlated to population size but in case of Iceland the population is so small that it does limit the pool of available talent (hence a first division with only 12 teams) and that makes their achievement that much more impressive.

As far as Iran playing anti-football, we'e getting into a highly subjective issue... I hope we can agree that was not pretty fluid football - it lacked the fluidity, excitement and and attacking desire that we've seen in most other matches and from all other teams with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

Our distance traveled is the lowest in the tournament so far as are our number of passes both attempted and completed and if I'm not mistaken also attempts on goal. Having said that, I think we can all agree that outside the 1st 15 minutes we shut down Morocco pretty good, if not completely.

I think where the opinions diverge is whether our focus should be in shutting down our opponents (especially when they're at the same level us or even lower) - this is what some of you are referring to as anti-football - rather than committing more players to attack and creating scoring opportunities.

It would obviously be foolish to do that in the matches against Spain and Portugal, as it would have been today for Iceland, but IMHO we've got to stop making giants out of nobodies (like Morocco) and then playing that was against them.

The good news is that our next two opponents are very good teams, so none of us should be worried about using those tactics (call them anti-football if you want) if we want to get to the second round.

We all want to see TM play better and win and there's definitely room for improvement in all areas, I hope we can all agree.

[Zamboor]

Guys, keep it clean please. Learn to respect other opinions and exchange in a friendly and polite manner.

At the end of the day, the opinions you are expressing on either side of the debate are just that, opinions and highly subjective.

Factually, (i.e. not subjective) football is NOT new in Iceland and they tried qualifying for their first WC long before Iran did - having said that they're level of investment, interest and commitment to having a GREAT national team is very recent and we're obviously seeing the results now.

As far as population, success in football is not directly correlated to population size but in case of Iceland the population is so small that it does limit the pool of available talent (hence a first division with only 12 teams) and that makes their achievement that much more impressive.

As far as Iran playing anti-football, we'e getting into a highly subjective issue... I hope we can agree that was not pretty fluid football - it lacked the fluidity, excitement and and attacking desire that we've seen in most other matches and from all other teams with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

Our distance traveled is the lowest in the tournament so far as are our number of passes both attempted and completed and if I'm not mistaken also attempts on goal. Having said that, I think we can all agree that outside the 1st 15 minutes we shut down Morocco pretty good, if not completely.

I think where the opinions diverge is whether our focus should be in shutting down our opponents (especially when they're at the same level us or even lower) - this is what some of you are referring to as anti-football - rather than committing more players to attack and creating scoring opportunities.

It would obviously be foolish to do that in the matches against Spain and Portugal, as it would have been today for Iceland, but IMHO we've got to stop making giants out of nobodies (like Morocco) and then playing that was against them.

The good news is that our next two opponents are very good teams, so none of us should be worried about using those tactics (call them anti-football if you want) if we want to get to the second round.

We all want to see TM play better and win and there's definitely room for improvement in all areas, I hope we can all agree.

Oh look a good post! PFDC is saved!

[Leicester City]

Guys, keep it clean please. Learn to respect other opinions and exchange in a friendly and polite manner.

At the end of the day, the opinions you are expressing on either side of the debate are just that, opinions and highly subjective.

Factually, (i.e. not subjective) football is NOT new in Iceland and they tried qualifying for their first WC long before Iran did - having said that they're level of investment, interest and commitment to having a GREAT national team is very recent and we're obviously seeing the results now.

As far as population, success in football is not directly correlated to population size but in case of Iceland the population is so small that it does limit the pool of available talent (hence a first division with only 12 teams) and that makes their achievement that much more impressive.

As far as Iran playing anti-football, we'e getting into a highly subjective issue... I hope we can agree that was not pretty fluid football - it lacked the fluidity, excitement and and attacking desire that we've seen in most other matches and from all other teams with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

Our distance traveled is the lowest in the tournament so far as are our number of passes both attempted and completed and if I'm not mistaken also attempts on goal. Having said that, I think we can all agree that outside the 1st 15 minutes we shut down Morocco pretty good, if not completely.

I think where the opinions diverge is whether our focus should be in shutting down our opponents (especially when they're at the same level us or even lower) - this is what some of you are referring to as anti-football - rather than committing more players to attack and creating scoring opportunities.

It would obviously be foolish to do that in the matches against Spain and Portugal, as it would have been today for Iceland, but IMHO we've got to stop making giants out of nobodies (like Morocco) and then playing that was against them.

The good news is that our next two opponents are very good teams, so none of us should be worried about using those tactics (call them anti-football if you want) if we want to get to the second round.

We all want to see TM play better and win and there's definitely room for improvement in all areas, I hope we can all agree.

Good post!

[Babak agha]

How come the media loves Iceland but detests Iran's style of play? They're pretty similar. Tight. Defensive. Cohesive. Organized.

Maybe the population has something to do with it, but so does good ole fashioned propaganda..

Cause Iceland defends, but like Iran did against Argentina still plays quality football (always).
Iran obviously doesn't always play the same quality football it played against Argentina.

Also Iceland's population is as big as an Iranian village. The fact that they'l have even made it to the World Cup (in the most difficult region) is already amazing.

[Zamboor]

Cause Iceland defends, but like Iran did against Argentina still plays quality football (always).
Iran obviously doesn't always play the same quality football it played against Argentina.

Also Iceland's population is as big as an Iranian village. The fact that they'l have even made it to the World Cup (in the most difficult region) is already amazing.

One of their players work in a salt factory to make a living. That speaks for itself.

[Leicester City]

One of their players work in a salt factory to make a living. That speaks for itself.

Though with all due respect to our players, ours was a car washer, pizza boy, and homeless.

[Zamboor]

Though with all due respect to our players, ours was a car washer, pizza boy, and homeless.

baba he works today in a salt jar factory, he didn't leave it behind him. he is going back to work after world cup at the same time as his hobby is football.