World Cup Takeaways: Semifinals

Photo from EuroNews

We have our World Cup Final, and it’s one I predicted before the tournament.

I got a lot of my picks wrong, but I said it would be Spain vs Argentina for all the marbles, and here we are.

Here is what we’ve learned from the semifinals.

Spain defeats France 2-0

Spain only has one World Cup trophy, and it came in 2010.

And that 2010 team is widely regarded as one of the best defensive teams in World Cup history.

They only scored 8 goals the whole tournament, but they only allowed 2.

It’s somehow possible that this Spanish team is better defensively than that one.

Opponents are averaging 0.31 expected goals per game against Spain, which is the lowest in 60 years.

Unai Simon has the most clean sheets in World Cup history now with 6, and yet he only has 10 saves the entire tournament.

They faced a France team that seemed impossible to stop, and never even gave them a sniff of an opportunity to score.

I get that it’s hard to say they’re better than the 2010 World Cup team considering the amount of legendary talent that team had, but they sure look like it.

Argentina defeats England 2-1

There is a lot of history between Argentina and England, on and off the field.

The Hand of God goal, Beckham’s red card in 1998, and of course the Falkland Wars.

So everyone knew this game was going to be a bit physical.

And it was, and neither side really pulled out an advantage over the other.

That is, until Anthony Gordon scored to go up 1-0 in the 55th minute.

They had their goal. Now Argentina need to push, England can muck the game up a bit, and possibly hit them on the counter and put this game away to get England to the World Cup Final for the first time since 1966.

Instead, they were more cowardly than Cape Verde was against Argentina.

Cape Verde sat back and defended, but at least they also attacked and pushed.

From the Gordon goal until the end of the game, Argentina had the ball 88% of the time.

88%!!!!!

Even DR Congo, who was holding on for dear life against England in the Round of 32, had 40% possession.

England completely turtled for almost an entire half against Lionel Messi and the defending World Champions.

It was just a ridiculous strategy, and it’s no surprise that it bit England in the end.

World Cup Final Prediction

Argentina in the knockout round has 2 goals before the 79th minute.

They have 7 after the 79th minute.

They have been playing with fire the entire tournament, but they’ve gotten away with it.

This Spanish team isn’t Cape Verde, Egypt, Switzerland, or England, though.

Argentina will not find the late goals they’ve found against everyone else against a defense as good, and as well coached as Spain.

They’ve been playing with fire, but the Final is where they’ll get burned.

Spain Wins the World Cup.