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

my kids, who are French citizens, and both massively into football, stopped watching this after approx 40 minutes "because it was boring"

v proud dad obv

That's exactly what I'm saying, the last time they didn't qualify from the group stage was 1978. (The same year Peru beat Scotland 3-1). (xp)

Iceland vs Argentina showed it isn’t about just cheering for non-Euro sides, it’s about resources and hoping that talent, teamwork, etc, can level the field.

They qualified ahead of Belgium and South Korea from the group stage in 1998. (The year Morocco beat Scotland 3-0).

Oh yes. Indeed. My bad.

But yeah generally the let's support african/latin american teams spirit is more for teams like Paraguay, Togo or Trinidad. I think people just like underdogs, which is far when speaking about entire nations battling each other, say you had hypothetical match between Iceland and Argentina and Iceland managed to get a draw out of it people would go bonkers over the Icelandic team.

It's not about sentimental national stereotypes for me, I just wanna see ball-playing teams win

Not the best tournament for that so far

And fuck an underdog if they succeed thru attrition. On some small theoretical level respect for maximizing your resources, I just don't wanna watch you do it

9 of 21 matches with a 1-0 scoreline in this tourney so far

Believe me, there's been worse than that over the years.

messi looked so unhappy pre-game, I wld like this WC to have some therapeutic value for him at least

that stat about messi covering less distance than any other outfield player in the first round (and less than two goalkeepers!) was depressing

1978 was the year I watched the entire world cup with my gran (from glasgow) (lol actually from rutherglen, she was quite posh, she nearly became an opera singer)

anyway she was unimpressed at the skills on show from ally's tartan army, at one point screaming "I COULD HAVE STOPPED THAT" after a particularly egregious keeper's blunder

(many xps to tom, i've been making and eating supper)

it might have been the peru match in fact

Be a surprise if there weren't quite a lot of goals now. Argentina can't defend, and we'll see whether Messi is up for this.

This match looks...promising. For all kinds of fuckups.

Maybe if Pochettino managed Argentina they'd win the thing.

Too bad Croatia has the collective touch of an elephant in the box

Couple of rough moments already - if we can't see goals maybe a couple of red cards would be nice.

fuck lawro already

I'm in the theatre and can't watch the game but yes, always and forever

you: prisons are bad and should be abolished
also you after listening to Lawro for 5 mins: maybe...they are ok, sometimes.

wtf!!

sgotta be a contender for miss of the tournament

fucking hell what a chance Croatia now

another contender

So near and yet etc

This is like watching two sides managed by Martin Allen.

Argentina are there for the taking but, not untypically, Croatia aren't looking like taking em

VAR nearly looking at a red card there?

ridiculous, what a waste of a killer pass by Modric

lol @ this finishing 0-0

two gutless teams, each trying to hack the other to pieces. weird game

only half-listening as i blog abt punk but hurrah for the interstitial news story on "gareth southgate's revolution" setting it up with a reference and lightning sketch of reasons for the russian revolution in 1917 lol

Blokhin smoke up his arse, morelike!

lol

fab

lol

unbefuckingliveable

at least it wasn't a penalty

Oh my

yaketysax.wav

nice finish

Lol forever.

'kin hell!

Haha well

Goal that sums up the Cup

Croatia pressing here - corner

god goalkeeping errors just make me feel awful

caballero deciding to put his pals out of their misery

Romero injured, killing them now.