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CSM posted:Our manager succesfully got us to the quarter finals after 12 years of nothing. Give hime some credit. Forget the last 12 years. They no longer matter. If you have to compare our current performance to the past, compare it to '86. If that team managed to get to the semis, our current team should be getting at least that result, especially considering how poorly other teams have been performing. And people seem to be forgetting our qualification campaign. Sure, the results were impressive, but that's about it. We were playing against a bunch of Bad Teams and Croatia (who were playing like poo poo and don't have half the talent our team has) and in many a match we struggled. People seem to have forgotten that several of these matches were close as hell and were decided at the last minute when someone like De Bruyne or Hazard decided they had enough and popped in a shot. Or the friendlies, where we couldn't even get past Ivory Coast or Japan - both decent teams, but not world-beaters. Or how we struggled with Tunisia and learned nothing from the experience. And then we got dropped in a group with Bad Teams, struggled past it (in no small part due to luck, by the way.), beat the US-of loving-A and got beat by this Argentina and we're supposed to be impressed? Because I'm not. Also, Walh: I'm judging Wilmots harshly but you're setting the standards for a possible replacement so high Wilmots would never even meet them himself. Wilmots is a clogger just like the other managers you wouldn't want managing the team. So frankly, if we can't get someone actually good to manage them, we might as well switch cloggers and hope we luck into one that does well.
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Jul 6, 2014 14:55
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Walh Hara posted:Hah, except for Robben and Van Persie (and maybe the fullbacks) no Dutch player would play or even make the bench. In a few years Robben and Van Persie will be too old and we'll have better players on those positions as well. 
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Jul 6, 2014 15:03
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I hear he's a football genius.
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Jul 6, 2014 15:14
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R. Mute posted:We've truly set the bar as low as possible. Do we really get to look back at the last 12 years when our team was downright pathetic and say 'well, at least we're better than them!'? No. We've got a downright frightening squad, including multiple players which are considered some of the best players in their position. Yet we still can't play proper football, unless our opponent graciously let's us do whatever we want - and even then it's difficult. If you just look at the strength of the squad you have to conclude that Spain, England, Portugal and Italy all should have gotten out of the group and that Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium and Colombia all should win the WC. I agree that by looking at the squad Belgium should have been capable of getting to the semi final, but at the same time I think Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal, Man United and Liverpool all have a squad that should be capable of winning the premier league next season yet at most one of them will. When a team underperforms, which is something the majority of the football teams has to do because that's how football works, it's just not always the fault of the manager. quote:And people seem to be forgetting our qualification campaign. Sure, the results were impressive, but that's about it. We were playing against a bunch of Bad Teams and Croatia (who were playing like poo poo and don't have half the talent our team has) and in many a match we struggled. People seem to have forgotten that several of these matches were close as hell and were decided at the last minute when someone like De Bruyne or Hazard decided they had enough and popped in a shot. Or the friendlies, where we couldn't even get past Ivory Coast or Japan - both decent teams, but not world-beaters. Or how we struggled with Tunisia and learned nothing from the experience. We played pretty good football though? We certainly deserved to win every match and did so except for a draw against Croatia (2 years ago and there has been plenty of improvement since then) and the last match (when we didn't care). It's because of the success in that qualification round we were getting called "a dark horse" and that the expectations were so high. We played excellent football in most matches (in serbia, against scotland and in croatia especially) and grinded out results professionally in the others. In the WC we deserved to win all our matches and did so. We had the bad luck that the opponent kept parking the bus against us, but except for maybe Colombia not a single team in the WC played well when the opponent parked the bus. We also missed a ridiculous amount of chances. I agree we played like crap against Argentina and I feel cheated that we went out in such a boring way, but you can't underestimate the capability of Argentina to destroy a match I guess. They were the favourites regardless. Plenty fo bad things to say about Wilmots and the team, but some good things as well and I'm not convinced we can't improve anymore under Wilmots. quote:Also, Walh: I'm judging Wilmots harshly but you're setting the standards for a possible replacement so high Wilmots would never even meet them himself. Wilmots is a clogger just like the other managers you wouldn't want managing the team. So frankly, if we can't get someone actually good to manage them, we might as well switch cloggers and hope we luck into one that does well. Eh, this seems like personal preference to me. I prefer someone that has given us great results (and pretty good football), good progress above somebody that may or may not do better. Besides, it seems like you expect us to win the next European Cup and do better at the next World Cup so you're the one who's setting the standards for a possible manager so ridiculously high. I'm just telling you that if you think that the manager is the only thing keeping us from that kind of glory, you'd actually need to set high standards for that manager. You can't just say "we might as well get another clogger as manager" and "the manager is the only thing keeping us from winning this WC", pick one. When Wilmots started I'd have been happy with any poo poo clogger you could name and overjoyed with Preud'Homme or Daum or whatever, now any potential manager has to be able to show with his past results and accomplishments that he's actually better than Wilmots. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 15:32
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http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/FIFAWK/Rode_Duivels/140706_RD_Vandenbempt_na_Argentinie "Dat gemor hoor je af en toe vanuit de spelersgroep: er werd te weinig tactisch getraind en dat er niet op stilstaande fases geoefend is." It's starting.
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Jul 6, 2014 15:43
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Walh Hara posted:We played pretty good football though? We certainly deserved to win every match and did so except for a draw against Croatia (2 years ago and there has been plenty of improvement since then) and the last match (when we didn't care). It's because of the success in that qualification round we were getting called "a dark horse" and that the expectations were so high. We played excellent football in most matches (in serbia, against scotland and in croatia especially) and grinded out results professionally in the others. After the qualifiers we had one good game, against the States, and even that game we lost in motivation. What the Americans showed the extra-time, Belgium never did. We never seemed to be able to push extra. Our defense is great, but we are just poor on offense. Maybe Benteke was a greater miss as I thought. I also dislike Wilmost saying that they "locked the match". Yeah, they did, but Belgium didn't (and never has) have an answer for that. Great teams and players can make that difference, even in a locked match. Belgium couldn't and if nothing chances they won't be able to do it in the EC either. uXs posted:http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/FIFAWK/Rode_Duivels/140706_RD_Vandenbempt_na_Argentinie Maybe that's why Dries decided to give away a free kick by kicking it next to the goal instead of dropping it in the 16.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:29
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Punc posted:After the qualifiers we had one good game, against the States, and even that game we lost in motivation. What the Americans showed the extra-time, Belgium never did. We never seemed to be able to push extra. Our defense is great, but we are just poor on offense. Maybe Benteke was a greater miss as I thought. I agree completely, really. Only difference is that I just don't think of any of these problems will be magically solved by appointing some random clogger as manager instead (nor by going full Chelsea and keep trying out managers till we get lucky). edit: to clarify, when I say "at least we got this far", I don't mean "we should be happy with this", I mean "if we change badly we risk doing even worse". Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 20:49
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I think we - at the very least - should acknowledge that the biggest problem we face is managerial and Wilmots' cluelessness when it comes to tactics. Once that's acknowledged, we can look for a solution and as I said earlier, it doesn't necessarily have to be getting rid of Wilmots. Having him train on tactics or bringing someone in to help him on that front would be a great solution, but it's not going to happen without us cutting the bullshit about inexperience or time-wasting or 'well, at least we got this far.' We can either learn a lesson from this or we can continue falling short of our potential.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:01
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walh hara seems to have some insane ideal of a manager that doesn't really exist rather than someone who is just better than the current manager
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Jul 6, 2014 21:48
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What the Belgian team needs is more of Vital 'Brommerke' Borkelmans
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Jul 6, 2014 22:05
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belgend posted:What the Belgian team needs is more of Vital 'Brommerke' Borkelmans The world would surely be a better place with more people like him in it.
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Jul 6, 2014 22:14
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Jose posted:walh hara seems to have some insane ideal of a manager that doesn't really exist rather than someone who is just better than the current manager And some posters have the insane idea that getting any other manager would be certain to make our team better. I know the names I gave are probably not possible, sadly, but I honestly believe we'd need someone like that to be certain of (or be able to have confidence in) improvement. He doesn't have to be a champions league winner or similar, just some success in a non poo poo league using an attacking side or with an other national team really shouldn't be too much to ask for a manager we expect to win a world cup for us (i.e. Rudi Garcia or Martinez would be perfect). Some help or training for Wilmots would be great since he does need it. I'd actually be surprised if Wilmots doesn't somewhat take the criticism into account and trains freekicks/corner more from now on, although I'll never understand how somebody like Mertens or De Bruyne manages to forget how to kick on a stationary ball in 5 weeks time, lack of training or not. quote:The world would surely be a better place with more people like him in it. I had to cringe every time I saw him in the "bloed geven" campaign. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 22:30
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Belgium could really use a Dutch-style manager, as hilarious and unlikely as that would be.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:57
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Walh Hara posted:Some help or training for Wilmots would be great since he does need it. I'd actually be surprised if Wilmots doesn't somewhat take the criticism into account and trains freekicks/corner more from now on, although I'll never understand how somebody like Mertens or De Bruyne manages to forget how to kick on a stationary ball in 5 weeks time, lack of training or not.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:16
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R. Mute posted:We've truly set the bar as low as possible.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:05
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It is if you look at the context in which it happened, how it happened, how we got there, what we could've done, etc.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:03
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R. Mute posted:That's just it, though. That's what he'll do. He'll try to make his players better at set-pieces and maybe that'll help us, but we'll still be useless in attack. You can't win a game on set-pieces alone. Or you shouldn't count on it. Our set-pieces are, admittedly, absolutely rubbish no matter how many times commentators keep repeating that we had the tallest team in the tournament, but that's not our main problem. Few teams actually scored from set pieces in this tournament and less so than other editions, IIRC. Also your negativity is really becoming absurd at this point. Could we have done better? Certainly. But we could have done much worse as well, disregarding imaginary low bars. I'll take this achievement with this team any time over "playing well" and still losing, hearing for years how talented our squad is and still losing, or scraping by because of questionable ref decisions. A team that reaches the quarter finals isn't useless or rubbish. Like Walh Hara said, every team except the winner is going to underperform relative to their potential strengths at some point (and even so, many winning World Cup nations had a spotty record in the run-up to their eventual victory). Is there any national team in living memory with the combination of talent, victories and consistently attractive football play? The combination of these three is exceedingly rare. I'm not saying it isn't possible for the Belgian squad and we should be content to settle for less, but I get the feeling that nothing will please you unless Belgium wins the Eurocup by defeating every opponent 5-0 in a display of stunning football wizardry. You might as well learn to live with this or be prepared to be consumed by your own bile.
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Jul 7, 2014 07:50
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R. Mute posted:e: will wilmots be found out after this world cup or will we blame it on inexperience Turns out it's the first!!! belgend fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 08:37
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the jizz taxi posted:Few teams actually scored from set pieces in this tournament and less so than other editions, IIRC. I don't even want to see attractive football (although it would be a plus, I guess). I want to see good football. An attack that works in theory would be enough. If we have trouble getting it to work in reality and don't always get our way, that still would be better than what we currently have - which is an attack that doesn't even work on paper and doesn't work in reality I want a team I can be proud of, win or lose. Sometimes you'll run into teams that are just plain better, or just luckier, than you and you get knocked out, despite playing and doing well. That's fine by me. That's just how football works. But this Argentina wasn't that team. Our first competent opponent, our first real challenge and we failed. I'm sorry I'm not happy about it. If we had performed any worse than we did, it wouldn't have been a disappointment, it would've been a disgrace à la Spain. e: also, didn't wilmots himself once say that anything less than the semis would be a disappointment? belgend posted:Turns out it's the first!!! Also: quote:Bondscoach Wilmots vroeg Hazard naar binnen te knijpen, waardoor er ruimte kwam voor Jan Vertonghen. R. Mute fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 14:30
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R. Mute posted:I'm sorry I'm not happy about it. I think Wilmots and the whole team aren't either. They are a bit disappointed and ashamed and Wilmots said there's no reason for a big welcome back party celebrating a poor performance. It's just that most fans are happy with even as little as that, and secretly hope the team will only get better from now on.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:53
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I don't know if you can really be disappointed by a quarterfinal finish at the World Cup. Ostensibly that means Belgium is one of the eight best teams in the world. I understand the concerns about the manner of the wins and the squad underperforming, you do have a lot of big names and good players on the Belgium team. But the team is obviously a work in progress, and fitting all those good players into a system that works and utilizes them to the best of their abilities is going to be a hard ask for anyone, and something that takes time. To go from not qualifying for Euro 2012 to the quarterfinals of the 2014 World Cup is good progress, though, and this Belgium team is young enough that they still have a lot of time to improve. If you think Wilmots isn't the person to lead the team to that improvement then fair enough, but acting like a quarterfinal finish is not a good result seems a bit overdramatic. There are very few countries in the world that would consider a quarterfinal to be an outright failure, and most of them have both longer traditions of success, and more recent success, than Belgium.
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Jul 7, 2014 15:03
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R. Mute posted:You know, for all those posts you made about the Belgian mentality, this must be the most Belgian post there is. In any other country, they expect their country to do well. They expect their country to win. And most of those other countries don't have a team like we do. But here we are, patting ourselves on the back for a completely underwhelming performance, while I'm being overly negative for asking us to play on our level. Again, as I said earlier, when I say things along the lines of "we did get the quarter final and deserve to win, etc", I don't mean "be glad we got this far", I just mean "it'd be very easy to do worse so be careful when you advocate drastic changes". When I say "the majority of the teams has to underperform because that's how football works", I don't mean "underperforming is fine", but rather "even if we had the best manager possible and even better players we could still very well have underperformed because football is not a sport where the best team always wins". In fact, even the best team+manager combination in the world will often fail to impress and fail to play good football (see: this WC). Personally I don't really mind you giving criticism, since it's honestly quite correct. I just think it's not correct to put all the blame on Wilmots or to think firing him would directly result in an improvement (it might, but it could just as easily get us a return to pre Wilmots form). The manager deserves some blame, but if you ignore all other problems (i.e. Hazard being utterly poo poo to give an example) or attribute all those problems to the manager alone you'll just become Chelsea. Perhaps we are unlucky that Wilmots didn't fail more, because as it is now he still deserves enough recognition for what he did accomplish (huge improvement in our defense, gave chances to players that deserved it, discovered Benteke and Origi before the general population did, kept the players happy, occassionally very good football against good teams, ridiculously high winrate) that he still looks like our best bet for further improvement. quote:
Agreed. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 15:13
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this thread is turning into england_fans_2004.txt, enjoy the next decade of your golden generation, it turns out great, trust me 
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Jul 7, 2014 15:20
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Eau de MacGowan posted:this thread is turning into england_fans_2004.txt, enjoy the next decade of your golden generation, it turns out great, trust me THIS!!! yeah, it's dangerous to label players a 'golden generation' before they've actually won anything.
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Jul 7, 2014 15:21
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Walh Hara posted:Again, as I said earlier, when I say things along the lines of "we did get the quarter final and deserve to win, etc", I don't mean "be glad we got this far", I just mean "it'd be very easy to do worse so be careful when you advocate drastic changes". When I say "the majority of the teams has to underperform because that's how football works", I don't mean "underperforming is fine", but rather "even if we had the best manager possible and even better players we could still very well have underperformed because football is not a sport where the best team always wins".
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Jul 7, 2014 15:27
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JFairfax posted:THIS!!! And I wouldn't really be disappointed if this team never really won a tournament. I just want them to play well, become an actual contender and when I'm old and our team's poo poo again, I want to be able to look back at this team with some pride.
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Jul 7, 2014 15:34
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I've already read two articles (well, opinion pieces) today, primarily criticizing Wilmots. They go into quite a lot of detail, mainly about how there was no tactical training whatsoever, and that his substitutions were nothing more than position for position, except for bringing Fellaini and Van Buyten to the front at the end of the Argentina match. They also mention how they knew before the last practice game against Tunisia that there was no plan to break down defensive teams. After that game, nothing happened to rectify that. Again: no tactical training, no full 11-on-11 practice games, and no practice for set-pieces. Wilmots' tactical plan was and is basically to put players on the field and let them figure it out for themselves. That may work against lesser opponents, because after all there's a lot of talent: defensively they know how to defend, and with Hazard, De Bruyne, ... you have players that can decide games all on their own. But against a stronger team that no longer works: you get Hazard wandering around aimlessly, and against a well-organized defense and without practiced patterns for attacking you can't break that defense easily. The easiest way to do that then becomes when the opponent isn't organized => on a counterattack. But when you eat a goal in the 10th minute and the opponent spends the last 80 minutes defending, you're not going to get a lot of opportunities there. The result is a predictable 80 minutes of basically doing nothing. The players like Wilmots because he's a nice guy: he has a lot of experience as a player himself, he apparently gives all his players a fair chance to prove themselves, not playing favorites (except with Hazard maybe, but who wouldn't), and players probably like being able to just go out on the field and enjoy themselves. Compared to what Van Gaal is doing with Sneijder, that must be a lot of fun. But that won't last when players who actually want to win something start to realize that not having a tactical plan is a bad idea. And according to the media, players have already realized that and are now saying it too. After all, Sneijder is now in the semi-finals and they're not.
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Jul 7, 2014 15:58
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Jul 7, 2014 17:45
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I loving love Axel Witsel I wish he'd move to a loving non garbage league.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:46
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Same.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:56
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R. Mute posted:You know, for all those posts you made about the Belgian mentality, this must be the most Belgian post there is. In any other country, they expect their country to do well. They expect their country to win. And most of those other countries don't have a team like we do. But here we are, patting ourselves on the back for a completely underwhelming performance, while I'm being overly negative for asking us to play on our level. It's your problem and the Belgian press's that's they've endlessly hyped up the Red Devils, only to then be disappointed. There's probably stuff that could have been done better, but in the end Argentina was probably better and Belgium not good enough. Here's what they think of a quarter finals place in Columbia:   
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Jul 7, 2014 21:17
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Difference is that Columbia played incredibly well and were knocked out by the host country in a match that was basically a war. Also showcased what an amazing player James is, even in that last game he showed great class. Belgium played in 4 terrible games and only played well against the US, who played a style that was exactly what Belgium wanted/needed. Player performances were mostly underwhelming, especially Hazard.
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Jul 7, 2014 21:27
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The fact that you're now comparing the Belgian response to getting to the quarter finals to the Colombian response is utterly telling. For one, their players - while pretty good - aren't of the same calibre as ours. They had exactly one world class player before the tournament and he got injured. Everyone knew they had a decent team, but nobody expected them to tear it up as much as they did. And that's what they did. They played incredibly well, despite their road to the quarter finals arguably being much more difficult. Not only did they exceed expectations, they also played as well as they could - they arguably even played above their level. If our team played as well as the Colombian team did, relatively speaking, we'd have won the world cup. If they had played as well as we did, they wouldn't even have gotten a point in their group. That doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate getting to the quarter finals. The decision not to do a fan day or a welcome back party is dumb as poo poo. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be seriously concerned about why we didn't do better. R. Mute fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 21:40
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Maybe you're overestimating the skills of the Belgian players.
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Jul 7, 2014 21:57
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R. Mute posted:For one, their players - while pretty good - aren't of the same calibre as ours.
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Jul 7, 2014 22:04
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CSM posted:People keep saying stuff like this, but when has Belgium proven to actually have a consistent record against somewhat better football countries? We won against the Netherlands two years ago, sure. And we won against Sweden without Ibramovic a couple weeks ago. We had one victory against Croatia, and one tie. But then we lost to Columbia, Japan, England and now Argentina. And we tied against France and Ivory Coast. Just because some of our young players are playing in good teams (actually playing, not keeping the bench warm) doesn't suddenly make us one of the best football country in the world. At least not yet.
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Jul 7, 2014 23:16
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serves you right for leaving nainggolan at home
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Jul 7, 2014 23:20
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Belgium drew with a Wales side with no Bale and a literal child on the field for more than half an hour so clearly you ain't actually all that and making it out of the groups was a great accomplishment.
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Jul 7, 2014 23:47
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Belgium have a bunch of talented young players who were never going to make much as a team. You can fire Wilmots and hope to get a dark horse top top manager, but it would have taken a SAF or Mourinho to get the kind of results Belgians seem to have expected.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:16
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sassassin posted:Belgium drew with a Wales side with no Bale and a literal child on the field for more than half an hour so clearly you ain't actually all that and making it out of the groups was a great accomplishment. Wonder who was manager for that game. Which is pretty much exactly the point.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:32
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