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

Pundits possibly otm, i'm generally against the cult of the manager in modern football

Altho lol frank de boer, there are limits

you only feel that way cos you've have had a succession of utterly shite managers!

i'm not all or nothing but it's a very PFM move to downplay the coach's input

transfixed by Varela's arse since he's playing on this side tbh

Pearce and Keown just DIE DIE DIE FUCKING DIE sorry breathe I'll stop

The American coverage isn't much better.

This isn't a great match but this isn't the result so far I was expecting either.

Separately:

According to The Guardian, there are 35,000 Peru fans there, not 15,000. Most of the reports from Muscovites I’ve seen suggest they’re the largest / most visible fan contingent by far.

Yeah this fits. Long story short but besides the 'haven't been in the WC in decades' factor, Peruvians really can next level. My girlfriend's been calling up any number of clips from fans over there. (Her father lost his best friend from childhood last year to a heart attack, and they had been planning on going if Peru qualified, so emotions tomorrow at the get-together will be a little higher than normal.)

Two best teams in the group being cagey with each other and starting slow, not very surprised tbh

Surprised by how ponderous Uruguay have been with the ball given this new generation of highly-rated ball-playing midfielders they've got

Sobhi!!

nabbed it, moitherfuckers

Ugh

Booming header

telemundo guy delivers tho

Yeah you felt that goal was coming.

oh fuck this!

Uruguay are so evil!

I hate Pearce's habit of triumphantly stating "They've won it!" when any team goes ahead in the last 5-10 minutes - that's come back to bite him in the arse so many times.

A+ smurf cosplay from that Uruguayan fan.

Egypt - Russia should be a good clash of styles now

obv Uruguay were disjointed and slow but they'd've took a point here i'm sure

Not feeling for Egypt or anything lol, and Uruguay grind it out

Uruguay took an age to get going, Egypt didn't do anything much tho

Egypt good until the last third, Salah will start against Russia unless he's less fit than they're letting on, totally understand not risking him today

Sitting that deep is never good, all underdogs to be mercilessly put down

lol questioning whether Maguire or Cahill when Maguire is head and fucking shoulders the best centre half in the England squad

Head & Fucking Shoulders didn't make the squad

yay Saïss is starting for Morocco altho he plays as a centre half for them, anyway that's my team for this game sortedd

xp lol

can't be doing this cooking food malarkey when there is a 4.00 ko, I'm getting a takeout from the chippy today.

brother and sister-in-law coming round for a chinese and Spain-Wolves later

Lovely to hear Mustapha Hadji's name, not thought about him in years

i think about him every day

lovely pronunciation of wolverhampton by the telemundo lad here

immediately smitten with morocco and espesh benatia just denying everyone

Yay vuvuzelas!

this game is three times faster than the previous two. ziyech seems to be in a completely free role

Yep, I know I'm mildly biased but this has been the best game so far

Iran working their way into it as the half went on has set things up nicely

Yeah, excellent so far

Has there been new guidance for refs cos I swear that's at least twice that this clown has stopped play for clearly non-dangerous injuries

Three games in and the Premier League being mentioned at every opportunity is already beginning to fray at my nerves.

I found the "no commentary" option on my sister's telly but what I really want is a commentary where they just tell you who's on the ball and then stfu

Marco van Basten's colonialist bullshit quoted approvingly

... and don't tell you want English club they play for, they have played for, they might play for, they might have played for, they could play for, they should play for etc etc (xp)

... they will play for, they won't play for, they've played against, they might play against...

RTE commentator has just informed us that the national sport of Iran is wrestling

Frustrating lack of quality from both teams

Glad I stopped off in the pub to see that roll.

Football the winner here.

omg og