Cymru World Cup 2022 - Group B

[rushy]

Nov 27, 2022 9:06:19 GMT jbt95 said:

Just wanted to say the Ahmed Bin Ali stadium is fantastic, such a shame we can’t take it back to Cardiff!!

Wonder how many died building it .

[vvm]

Funny how there was so much uproar over Gunter and Jonny being picked, the 25th and 26th man but in the end it looks like only around 15 will see game time.

[marsvolta]

It won’t stop them being blamed though haha

[conwy10]

Was always going to happen which is why I'm OK with it. Most are selected to be the competition in training. Why not take an old head who knows the system.

[allezlesrouges]

This was always the reality, but people like to be upset and moan because it makes them feel good. Nothing to do with actually caring about seeing us do well

[hooky]

A horrible thought crossed my mind.

We are losing 2 or 3 nil to England with 10 mins to go and Page calls over ..... Gunter to give him an appearance in the WC.

He would not do that would he?

[dai]

Of course he would! 

Gunters' been there from the very start, and it will only be fitting for him to join his friends, Bale, Wayne, Ramsey in appearing at a WC.

Whether you you think that's right is entirely down to opinion.

[marsvolta]

Trouble is, that would give the social media mob the opportunity to blame Gunter, even though we were clearly already out before he stepped on the pitch. (Not that I think Page should base his decisions on what social media says, god knows who we’d have to name in the squad)

[robin1864]

It'll happen, and be reminiscent of when Simon Church got a run out when we were chasing the game against Portugal in 2016.

Bellamy lived through the genuinely shit years and bowed out without any sentimentality, not sure why we should bring that into a WC performance.

[allezlesrouges]

Nov 28, 2022 22:09:36 GMT hooky said:

A horrible thought crossed my mind.

We are losing 2 or 3 nil to England with 10 mins to go and Page calls over ..... Gunter to give him an appearance in the WC.

He would not do that would he?

I wouldn't have a problem with this scenario. Especially given it would likely be his last ever appearance for us

[jimexotic]

This World Cup has been a reality check for us. I really thought we'd get out of the group, I really thought our togetherness would drag us through situations. I thought we'd play like we did in the qualifying games at home to Belgium, Austria and Ukraine, with desire, heart, organisation and energy. I'd started to think that on our day we could go toe to toe with most, that we had a system that worked in such a way that different players could come in and it would still function properly because everyone knew what their job was. The second half today was awful. We crumbled at the first bit of adversity, we completely fell apart and never recovered enough to do anything in the game. Most of us had waited all of our lives for this, most of us thought we'd never live to see it so while I take comfort from the fact that I've seen us in a World Cup I'm saddened by the manner of our exit from a tournament that I thought would put us on the map for all the right reasons. A lot of work is going to have to go on now, I hope we learn from this, I hope that in three and a half years time we return better, less naive, better prepared and with a hunger to show what we can really do.

[allezlesrouges]

I wonder if the Nations League dented our confidence at the worst time. As you say we put in really good battling performances against Belgium, Czechia, Austria and even Ukraine off the ball. None of that was on show here, such a shame

[fiveattheback]

I feel like, on balance, that could have gone better

[1gwaunview]

Y Wal Goch, brilliant as usual and the best supporters at WC2022.
Team-wise it pains me to say this, but a bit shambolic over the three games. The signs were on the wall during a poor Nations League campaign and should have been sorted by the coaching staff during preparations for the first game.
We only turned up for one half of the three games, and the nightmares returned of the 'bad old days' lol. Cymru as a team has definitely over performed since 2014, but surely, we're better than the last couple of weeks?
Time for Page and the coaches (if they're able) to re-assess everything and hopefully come up with a much-needed plan before March. We could still qualify for Germany with a bit (lot) of luck.
We're not a pool 'A' team at the moment for anything. 

[jimexotic]

Just looking at the first half against USA, the Iran and England games, that was as big a return to the dark days as there has been in the last 8 years, I just really worry that there's a "that will do" attitude now as opposed to us having the hunger and drive of the Coleman era or the the work that Giggs did.

[futbolguru]

I wanted to say it was a pleasure to interact with everyone here. I will be following your team hoping you can qualify for 2026. If you do I will definitely catch a match to support your team (chances of being in same group pretty low). Good luck with the Euro qualifiers and introducing some new blood into the squad.

Cheers

[morg]

Thanks for your take on things leading up to the WC. Always found your posts interesting and well informed.

Good luck for the next round. Won't be easy but you definitely have the attributes to trouble the Netherlands as you did England.

Will watch your build up to 26 with interest.

Hwyl

[saints19]

Nov 30, 2022 12:09:57 GMT futbolguru said:

I wanted to say it was a pleasure to interact with everyone here. I will be following your team hoping you can qualify for 2026. If you do I will definitely catch a match to support your team (chances of being in same group pretty low). Good luck with the Euro qualifiers and introducing some new blood into the squad.

Cheers

Congratulations on making the last 16, pob lwc (means "good luck").

[welshrover]

Was a waste of time taking the white shirts😌

[dai]

Japan are leading Spain, and Cost Rica have just drawn to Germany! Safe to say we’d be 3/4 nil down in these matches.

Why on earth couldnt we press like Japan and CR have done this second half? Why such negative tactics employed by Page? Why just sit back and offer nothing? Im feeling so bitter about how piss poor our performances were in comparison.

[insertname]

Again I don’t get why people are holding up Costa Rica as a positive example after they basically threw the game against Spain. Germany are going home in large part because Costa Rica said “here you go Spain, score at will” and Iran did much the same to England. Plenty of teams have picked and chose their battles in this group stage but at least Wales, rubbish as we are, didn’t run scared from anyone and meekly accept a beating.

[cadno]

Wtf are you on about? Apart from the 2nd half against USA we have been a shambles!

[insertname]

We’ve not played well but we’ve not gone into any game with the same attitude that Costa Rica showed against Spain. They couldn’t have been less arsed, stood off them the entire time. Saving themselves for their next two games. Let them score 7 goals without breaking sweat ffs. Shameful.

[dai]

What? They beat Japan and gave Germany a proper fright tonight. This makes no sense at all? We basically threw every single game pretty much, showing up for 20 mins against ths USA. They’ve left a much better mark than us

[cadno]

The squad went in to the tournament with a ‘happy to be there and make up the numbers’ attitude! Rubbish

[CrackityJones]

You're just making things up now. How do you know and I quote 'The squad went in to the tournament with a ‘happy to be there and make up the numbers’ attitude.'

Ive only saw our players and staff say things to the contrary, did you have special access behind the scenes at the camp or something?

[cadno]

Rob Page and Bale have both said ‘We’ve done well to get here, need to be proud of getting here’ this interview with Connor www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/63810360

It’s cool we got to a world cup, but ffs we lacked ambition and a good plan. If the last 3 games is the level of performance we expect then we haven’t set the bar high enough. I wouldn’t have minded 1 point as much if we gave a better account of ourselves. Canada can be proud of their effort, they got to a World Cup and they had a go!

[CrackityJones]

They did well to get there and should be proud of it, what's your point? I havent got the impression they were happy to make up the numbers.

Also this Cymru team have set the bar a lot higher than they performed, hence the level of disappointment we all feel.

[majorraglan]

Some of the results of the last few days have surprised a lot of people. The “smaller” less fancied teams triumphing against the bigger nations has shown there are no easy games and that nothing can be taken for granted, that said my personal belief is that Wales should have been a lot more competitive in our 3 games than we actually were. I don’t believe for 1 minute the players were just happy to be there, I think the target should have been the round of 16. I didn't expect much from the England game and while I had no expectations of strolling to a result against the US or Iran, I expected us to be competitive and I’d never thought we’d be as poor as we were.

I’ve no idea as to what’s gone on whether it’s a case of being under prepared, over confident, unfit, poor management decisions in terms of selections, poor tactics, just not being good enough, issues within the squad etc etc or a combination of all the above, all I know is that we weren’t at the races in some of the games and it hurts, it really hurts. As the man in charge Page has to shoulder some of the responsibility.

edit - typo

[cymro]

Dec 1, 2022 22:25:07 GMT majorraglan said:

Some of the results of the last few days have surprised a lot of people. The “smaller” less fancied teams triumphing against the bigger nations has shown there are no easy games and that nothing can be taken for granted, that said my personal belief is that Wales should have been a lot more competitive in our 3 games than we actually were. I don’t believe for 1 minute the players were just happy to be there, I think the argent should have been the round of 16. I didn't expect much from the England game and while I had no expectations of strolling to a result against the US or Iran, I expected us to be competitive and I’d never thought we’d be as poor as we were.

I’ve no idea as to what’s gone on whether it’s a case of being under prepared, over confident, unfit , poor management decisions in terms of selections, poor tactics, just not being good enough, issues within the squad etc etc or a combination of all the above, all I know is that we weren’t at the races in some of the games and it hurts, it really hurts. As the man in charge Page has to shoulder some of the responsibility.

Hard to put your finger on it. The first half against the USA I thought was down to nerves, which you can forgive. We did a lot better in the 2nd half and earned a respectable point to get us up and running. Problem with not winning our first game then was we were facing a must win game against an Iran side in 32 degree heat in what was basically their home game, and just like that it was curtains. I'm convinced a bit of complacency came in thinking Iran were crap after their 6-2 loss. The way our fixtures fell and kick off times did us no favours, that's not an excuse, just pointing out that a team like ours works heavily on having momentum and confidence. We looked so desperate against Iran and frankly just shell shocked that 1. They'd turned up. 2. The heat and 3. Their fans.

The most disappointing part for me was how easy we made it for England in a game we had to win to stand a chance. The belief and momentum had just gone by this point. Not going to throw the baby out with the bath water as I'm hopeful we can bounce back well from this experience but my assessment is we cooked our goose by not winning the opening match and it was always going to be an uphill battle from there. The USA game was always the one that we needed to win in my eyes.