No Irish, No Yanks, No Clogs - FIFA World Cup 2018

Costa Rica played with 11 men behind the ball for pretty much the whole game, they were extremely organised and difficult to break down. Suspect a lot of other teams would have drawn that one 0-0.

1966 was good

yr pal,
methu$elah

(i didn't realise i'd watched it till years later, when i asked my mum -- we didn't have a TV then. she said "yes, the whole watched it, on the staff TV -- but you read a book the whole time")

obviously germany was robbed

FRA-ARG: 2-1aet
URY-PRT: 3-1
BRA-MEX: 1-1, MEX pens
BEL-JPN: 4-1
ESP-RUS: 3-2
HRV-DNK: 1-0
SWE-CHE: 1-1, SWE pens
COL-ENG: 1-3

FRA-URY 1-2
MEX-BEL 0-2
ESP-HRV 0-1aet
SWE-ENG 0-1aet

URY-BEL 2-3
HRV-ENG 1-3aet

(URY-HRV 3-4)

BEL 3-1 ENG (0-1 on 85min, then Stones (og), Pickford fumbles De Bruyne daisy-cutter, Batshuayi in off post DYS)

Golden Boot: Kane (9); Lukaku (8) subbed on 75min in F

(ISO3166-1 forever, except "England/ENG" doesn't exist)

Jeez guy

If all that happens then we'll presumably nuke Brussels

Also, have two nations ever played each other twice at a World Cup before?

Yep e.g. Brazil and Sweden in 94, Brazil and Turkey in 02

Most of these are too close to call, unusually so for a second round even if it's more because nobody's looking strong enough to win the whole thing. Still
a bit of a shame there's no Costa Rica v Greece battle of upsetters too though.

France seem uninspired compared to two and four years ago but win on penalties AET 1-1
Uruguay beat Portugal 2-1
Brazil to beat Mexico boringly and unconvincingly 2-1
Belgium to thrash Japan, De Bruyne and Hazard run the show - 4-0
Russia beat Spain undeservedly 2-1
Croatia struggle to break Danes down but Mandzukic nods winner in extra time 1-0
Swiss have been better than I expected and perhaps 'due' a QF appearance - penalties AET 0-0 tho
Been too long since England won a knockout game and feel it must be time esp. with James unfit, ideally a 3-2 classic

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg7heq3WkAEzymk.jpg

he's ready.

Most famous instance of meeting twice in same WC surely Hungary v W Germany; 8-3 in group stage, 2-3 in final.

Apparently, 5Live just said ARG-FRA had never met in WC before? 1978 group stage, late Luque goal, come on.

Arg
Uru
Bra
Bel
Spa
Cro
Swi
Eng

Fra
Por
Bra
Bel
Spa
Cro
Swe
Col

Sweden, ultimately, to win the thing.

just reading some discussion about VAR over and the Express and Star and i've come to the conclusion that there's a kind of gammony rhetorical outrage about diving and all of the non-violent assault forms of gamesmanship and i just don't give that much of a shit, at all. NB cheating is bad, yeah.

anybody fancy a sweep on what minute Maradona dies?

whichever minute maximally trolls online ENG fans, i imagine

86 then

You heard it here first, speculative ghouls

Do you think Danny Murphy is deliberately mispronouncing 'Umtiti' to prevent himself from laughing?

shocker

Rojo you cock

this kid is why football

holy shit, that run

ball had got away from Mbappe a little bit, that was just dumb

I don't think I'll ever forgive Rojo for just ruining the goal of the tournament.

yeah, he might not have scored had he not been fouled

Whichever Argentina midfielder allowed Mbappe to just run through the middle of the pass and pick the ball up there was a moron as well.

still rooting Messi though. the blame he takes for his national team's failures is stupid af

It was definitely a lower chance than the penalty but it looked to me like he had a pretty clear path if he wasn’t fouled.

Amazing run.

yeah I mean the yellow was a right call for that reason

Di Maria is awful

omg what

mbappe is the best player in the world

Terrorizing Argentina.

lol stick a fork in Argentina

Ok so just give Mbappé the ball and wait for Argentina to have no defenders left on the pitch

This is a complete tactical disaster from Argentina.

a new Argentina
a defensive breakdown
cannot be
and will not be
denied

can Suarez and Ronaldo both lose in the next match? find a way FIFA

Looking at Argentinian body language this could become a battering

how is this a surprise to anyone

Argentina with nearly 70% possession but France just look like an insanely effective counterattacking team. Looking at those rapid Kante forward passes to Mbappe reminds me of watching Ranieri's Leicester but like ten times better. And it underlines how stupid Chelsea have been not to buy a player with enough pace to take advantage of them.

not even a SOG yet for Argentina

if I was Deschamps I wouldn't be entirely happy if they're only 1 up at half time

lol

Hahaha

Angellllllllllll

well, the first SOG was a good one