The Football Thread - 17/18 Season

[Wyrdness]

RolStoppable said:

Wyrdness said:

Actually no Italy aren't, Italy just won't lose it's what they've done for decades it comes down to style of play they've never really been high scoring, I know for a fact teams like Nigeria, Ivory Coast and such have no issues dispatching lesser teams more convincingly as they've done it many times before. Italy would outscore these teams if they were facing the elite but against minnows the 1 and 2-0s stops becoming a hurdle for these teams to get past.

Nigeria and Ivory Coast had some good showings in past tournaments (not every time they participated), but... weren't you talking about bad African and Asian teams before? Now it's even an issue if nations that are clearly above minnow level could win a group?

They're sometimes bad, Egypt are a good example of the type of team I'm talking about as they smash minnows but freeze against harder opposition.