The International Friendlies thread

[mistermagic]

It's back for the first time under the 1FF era. Germany are playing Australia this evening while we're hosting Brazil tomorrow night.
Another juicy encounter is Scotland playing Northern Ireland tonight.

 

[Libertadores FC]

We're playing Venezuela next. Important friendly. I assume Gareca is just gonna experiment since he was just recently appointed but I just think we need to begin winning against South American opposition. I was really impressed with our home friendly against Paraguay back in October (I believe it was then) our second half was one of the best Peruvian performances I've seen in a while.

I don't know who has been called up from abroad yet. I just read one article and will assume they are correct. I know for a fact Farfan and Pizarro won't be there. I think we should continue testing our young players because they looked really good against Paraguay in Lima. We'll definitely need some experience in the team as well however

I don't know what formation Gareca will use but I'll take a guess and say we should line up like this.

Gallese

Advincula - Zambrano - Ramos - Yotun

Ballon
Tapia - C. Gonzales

Hurtado - Avila - Carillo
​

Put on Lobaton as a sub throughout the game.

Venezuela have gotten worse. Should be ours to win, and we need to begin winning again for the sake of our international stature. In reality we're better than Mexico but it won't look like that just because winning in South America is tough! I don't care if Mexico went to the World Cup and we didn't. Everyone seems to use that excuse in order to say we aren't as good, but how exactly does that make you a good team if you play against the likes of Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama? Where as we play the likes of Chile, Colombia, and Argentina to qualify. We shouldn't be 59th in the rankings and the only reason we are is because of our bad form after the Uruguay loss.

If we lose, I won't get angry at Gareca though as its his first game, but fucking hell just win.

​

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

France at home to Brazil tomorrow. Should be an entertaining game!
Think we'll line up like this ;
Mandanda - Sagna, Varane, Sakho, Evra - Sissoko, Schneiderlin, Matuidi - Valbuena, Benzema, Griezmann

 

[You Orns]

Huge attendence at Hampden it seems

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Matt Ritchie starting, so he found the way up to his new nation in the end!

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Ritchie assist for the goal I see

 

[SALTIRE]

Last minute win against NI, I'll take that. Lets hope Scotland could put a few away against Gibraltar to help with the gd in the qualifiers.

 

[mistermagic]

France at home to Brazil tomorrow. Should be an entertaining game!
Think we'll line up like this ;
Mandanda - Sagna, Varane, Sakho, Evra - Sissoko, Schneiderlin, Matuidi - Valbuena, Benzema, Griezmann

Not quite sure why Evra keeps getting called. Give the LB spot to Kurzawa and Digne so that they can prepare for Euro 2016 and then Russia. Evra is still a very solid and reliable player but a younger solution would be better imo (especially since we're only playing friendlies for 18 months).

Germany drew with Australia 2-2 at Kaiserslautern last night. Löw tried something new with a 352. Zieler was in goal and was quite poor. Both goals could have been saved (they weren't bloopers though) and he tried to go all Neuer coming out of his goal and almost conceded a third.
Still don't know what Löw sees in Mustafi. The guy was a passenger the whole game. He was asked to play on the right of a 3-man defence and played as a RB and when Germany switched to 451 he was still playing far too right for a CB.
The midfield wasn't great (Kündogan especially was poor) while the attack was uninspired. It's a good thing Schürrle came on as otherwise Germany would have lost the game.

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

Yep agree. Think it's time for Evra and maybe Valbuena to go.
Kurzawa and Fekir are the 2 players who I'd swap with.
France u21 won 6-0 last night. Haller with 3!

 

[mistermagic]

Yep agree. Think it's time for Evra and maybe Valbuena to go.
Kurzawa and Fekir are the 2 players who I'd swap with.
France u21 won 6-0 last night. Haller with 3!

Wut? Valbuena's only 30 (gosh, time flies) and one of our most creative players.
Had to look up who Haller was playing for. Good on him to play in the Dutch League.

 

[mistermagic]

Lulz

 

[blademan89]

Italy away next tuesday ,cant wait. Is anyone else on here making the trip

 

[Alty]

O'Neill made it clear he was looking at the Scotland game as a chance to give some fringe players an opportunity. And let's have it right, Scotland have been very good for a while now. A narrow defeat to a late goal isn't the worst result.

Massive game against the Finns on Sunday. Win that and it really looks like qualification is on.

 

[GodsGift]

How is Casillas still getting picked ahead of De Gea for Spain?

 

[blademan89]

O'Neill made it clear he was looking at the Scotland game as a chance to give some fringe players an opportunity. And let's have it right, Scotland have been very good for a while now. A narrow defeat to a late goal isn't the worst result.

Massive game against the Finns on Sunday. Win that and it really looks like qualification is on.

Hope you do be brilliant if you qualified

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

Right. The French midfield without Pogba is so poor.
Schneiderlin and Sissoko aren't international standard. And as for Evra...
Fekir and Kon looked bright but no sign of Lacazette who is better than Benzema.
Onto Sunday v Denmark

 

[SALTIRE]

How is Casillas still getting picked ahead of De Gea for Spain?

Indeed, I laughed when I saw him coming through the tunnel as captain. Its a joke alright, De Gea is now light-years ahead of him.

I predicted a 1 - 0 victory for Spain and thats how it finished.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

I'm sure they'll switch to De Gea once he's starting for Real Madrid.

 

[mistermagic]

Right. The French midfield without Pogba is so poor.
Schneiderlin and Sissoko aren't international standard. And as for Evra...
Fekir and Kon looked bright but no sign of Lacazette who is better than Benzema.
Onto Sunday v Denmark

Time for those not sure if serious gifs...

Thought Brazil were good in midfield. Neymar aside, the 5 of them sat quite deep and were quick to get forward to support Firmino (how many countries are lacking proper CFs these days? First Germany now Brazil). Looked much better than at the World Cup obviously. They still can't defend corners though...

Denmark should be fun.

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

Benzema has had his time with FFF and has failed IMO. Doesn't score enough goals and it's time for the younger players to replace him.
Ok maybe jumped the gun a little about AL being better, but I'd rather have him in the team instead of Benzema.

 

[mistermagic]

I'll let him lead the attack until at least Russia 2018 before replacing him with a younger guy. He's only 27, most players peak at that age. I doubt he'll break Henry's record but should be in and around Platini's amount of 41 once he retires.
He'll certainly be around for a while and should reach the 100 caps. He's been a good servant to the shirt although granted his goals to game ratio sucks.

 

[Libertadores FC]

Mistermagic and Ligue 1 Fan are one of the best posters on here in my opinion. They both offer something different to the forum and I must say I seriously enjoyed reading their posts.

Anyways, the South American teams have been less than impressive. Chile lost to Iran. If I have to take a guess, the defence is to blame as usual. 3 at the back may have been fun to watch at the World Cup but they are too disorganized to play like that. This is all guessing though as its the problems I've noticed with Chile. I didn't watch the match.

Venezuela lost to Jamaica. They've gone so downhill, its unreal. Losing 5-0 to Chile is embarrassing, and losing to Jamaica is as well. Venezuela may have never been the greatest of all teams but they were certainly better than this 2 years back. This means that if Peru can't beat them tomorrow, we may well deserve to be so low in the FIFA rankings friendly or not. I still disagree we are below the likes of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, but our international stature is getting extremely poor at the moment. I won't be happy with anything other than a win.

Argentina took a while to break through against El Salvador which they should have been winning much earlier seeing as how Colombia and Ecuador crushed them.

Uruguay won through a Cavani penalty. Again I didn't watch the game but for the people who don't watch South American football, the result may not look like it was a great performance on paper.

Lastly, Paraguay drew with Costa Rica. The success Costa Rica found in the World Cup was down to their manager and I can't see it happening again in 2018, so its no surprise Paraguay got a draw against Costa Rica (I actually thought Paraguay would win).

Mexico vs Ecuador is interesting. I expect Ecuador to comfortably win the game as Mexico are the most overrated team in the World.

 

[mistermagic]

There is one thing that I went on about during the Brazil World Cup qualifiers which was Paraguay not qualifying for the finals for the first time since... actually I can't be arsed to look it up it's late but it's been a seriously long time (before I got into football back in 98).
To me Paraguay were always be an extremely hard-working unit who have a great defence and score the odd-goal when it mattered. Real tricky opponents for the Europeans teams in a way. Of course, my knowledge is restricted to the World Cups and the odd Copa America game but the fact is not only did Paraguay not qualify, they were shit! They even finished behind Peru! What happened and do you think they'll bounce back and qualify for Russia in 2018?

Can't wait for the Copa America to start me. Proper tournament.

 

[Libertadores FC]

There is one thing that I went on about during the Brazil World Cup qualifiers which was Paraguay not qualifying for the finals for the first time since... actually I can't be arsed to look it up it's late but it's been a seriously long time (before I got into football back in 98).
To me Paraguay were always be an extremely hard-working unit who have a great defence and score the odd-goal when it mattered. Real tricky opponents for the Europeans teams in a way. Of course, my knowledge is restricted to the World Cups and the odd Copa America game but the fact is not only did Paraguay not qualify, they were shit! They even finished behind Peru! What happened and do you think they'll bounce back and qualify for Russia in 2018?

Can't wait for the Copa America to start me. Proper tournament.

Not too sure what happened, but they'll qualify now I reckon. Lots of young talent coming through like Derlis Gonzalez and Tony Sanabria and they have also massively improved at club level. They also have a great match mentality like Uruguay.

I would be more concerned they finished behind Bolivia as we actually had a decent qualifying campaign before the Uruguay game.

 

[LeoRahi]

Why can't Oscar play like that for Chelsea ??????

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

France team to play Denmark;
Ruffier - Jallet, Varane (c) , Koscielny, Tremoulinas - Schneiderlin, Kondogbia, Payet - Lacazette, Griezmann , Giroud.

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

1-0 France. Lacazette

 

[mistermagic]

Highly enjoyable success tonight. It was only Denmark but strong performance.

 

[Ligue 1 fan]

2-0 France full time. Lacazette and Giroud.
Those 2, Payet and Griezmann adds more attacking options and Ofcourse Kondogbia who was excellent.
Denmark were limited but the first half performance from France was enough.

 

[Libertadores FC]

Got my dates wrong. We play Venezuela tomorrow. As I said we HAVE to win for the sake of our international stature.

One thing I like about Dunga so far is he isn't making the same mistake Scolari did and that is he isn't stubborn and actually tries out new players. I saw Firmino score against Chile which is great to see him try out new players. I still think Brazil will lose eventually in the Copa America. Most likely in the Semi-Finals.

Paraguay should beat Mexico. They've improved massively. Mexico is the most overrated team in the world.

Argentina vs Ecuador I expect will actually be close. I expect quality to win though, Argentina 2-1.