AgreedSo the Aussies are through after today's playoff
Keeper is a clown
Please...Croatia defeated France yesterday. That result plus the result yesterday in Honduras means Canada will be seriously challenged getting out of its group.
What do you mean???Please...
The results this window have absolutely no bearing on form going into the WC.
First off, Canada was always going to be "seriously challenged" to get out of its group - they are the lowest ranked team of the four.
As for these results, Croatia had a decent window but only scored four goals in three games. They are solid and Modric, on his day, remains world class, but this was a team of European based players finishing off a season before time off. Let's wait and see who is healthy and in form come September/October.
Case in point, Belgium got smashed by Holland, turned around and stomped Poland and then drew Wales - what does that tell us? Absolutely f*ck all. Let's see where Lukaku ends up in the offseason, let's see if Alderweireld and Vertonghen are playing regular football next season.
Canada, essentially, wasted their window. The Iran friendly was the key game and we all know what happened there. Then they had the labour dispute, so they axed the Panama tune up. They rolled Curacao but that was the minimum expectation with the Caribbean side playing their third game of the window having already got a split home and away with Honduras and then travelling across the entire continent to play a fresh Canada side at home.
If you are trying to take anything out of that Honduras debacle your are foolish. That game never would have been played if it was not mandatory. Maybe you can conclude that Canada was stubborn in not adapting their game for the conditions, but then you have to consider what, if anything, they were trying to get out of the match. Do they want to throw out the systems and tactics they trained all window to try and win this match or do they want to try and get some miniscule feeling for how they might approach Qatar? The whole thing was a fools errand.