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

Tom's attempts to jinx already have him sounding like a belligerently overconfident hackett shirt inglan guy tbh

lol tom. my advice - try and sell your team for a tenner, if only to keep your dignity intact

lol i actually kind of agree with phitch?

viz
1: supporting ENG is in no way an index of patriotism (as an internationalist i naturally think patriotism is bad not good,but that doesn't invalidate his argument)
2: the nation's "standing, liberty, wealth and security" are p much unrelated (the premiership is much more important to standing and wealth, the latter being the only really daft bit of his claim re the WC -- and even then it's surely largely an indirect effect)
3: "covertly violent game full of cheating, ham acting and sneaky assaults" how is this inaccurate? it just made me think THIS IS WHY I WATCH IT, I LOVE THAT STUFF

obviously he's a hateful weirdo who shd go away, but it's not as if he has a high opinion of the politicians who currently "represent" the country either, he utterly despises them and hates the direction everything is headed

There's been no violence at this World Cup - either off the pitch (thankfully) or on the pitch (sadly).

Imago if you could get Nilmar back for the QFs it would be appreciated, I'd be interested in his take on this England generation.

(On that note I looked up the 2012 squad yesterday and dear oh dear)

The papers always babble about an economic boost as a result of England doing well in a tournament. Last ten years, do that math.

There's been no violence at this World Cup

the tournament is ruined

Also I'd guess that England are reasonably well-supported and followed in quite a few countries that never get near the World Cup? I'd guess that eg Brazil are way in front (and god knows why you'd choose England in that scenario) but the Premiership factor must come into it.

The England team in general and England fans in particular are almost certainly detrimental to the standing of the UK.

Not convinced that Tuesday's result did much for productivity yesterday.

English football teams and footballers were popular abroad, long before the EPL, of course.

the difference between this england side and all predecessors is that kieran trippier vaped before the penalty shootout pic.twitter.com/EPKrg2pJsb

— hua hsu (@huahsu) July 5, 2018

(^^^hua hsu the only person as far as i know who's written for the wire AND the new yorker)

that's our boy

Aaron Mooy is another confirmed World Cup vaper, not that it did the Aussies any bloody good!

One of those working class lads whose culture Corbynistas refuse to acknowledge or understand...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/05/son-former-royal-aide-forced-apologise-england-graffiti-moscow/

my local district league club is the type of thing Stuart Maconie would probably think is grass roots and working class because the mostly m/c gammon that frequent it's sports bar swear and have regional accents, tribal tats etc, after they have parked their £20 g cars, working class culture my arse!

lol £20 k cars, obv a £20 would be very w/c!

Rufus Hall, 20, a business management student, was on his way back to Britain last night after being fined £35 by a Moscow court for scrawling ‘England’ in red face paint over the statue in honour of a dead Russian footballer.

Hall appeared in a video apologising for the graffiti.

“I love this country for the two days I've been here,” said Hall, standing in what appeared to be a stadium corridor, while still wearing his England shirt and with a flag tied around his head. “I would never disrespect the country. I respect the history and had I known this would offend people I would never have done it, and I wholly apologise.”

poll. options:

rufus
business management student
£35
with a flag tied around his head
had I known this would offend people I would never have done it

+ I wholly apologise

remember ppl complaining about our discussing a belgian footballers performance in a game in this world cup itt

now its just ppl rightly unbothered about uk politics thread doing it here instead

it's fifa's fault for not organising games on all days

if i had my way this would be the only thread on ilx

ever

is marouane fellaini doing enough to promote england and english values during this world cup?

Today I discovered that Fellaini has an identical twin and I just don't know what to do with this piece of knowledge.

does he play football? even if he doesn't, you could still throw him on in the 80th minute to stand in the box if you need a plan B. for a fraction of the price i'd imagine.

Maybe he sends him to matches in his place on occasion

Doppelgängly.

He's not a footballer, so no-one could tell the difference.

reminds me of this story:

http://www.espn.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=6265329

https://image.ibb.co/m4co9y/fellaini.jpg

his brother looks a bit shorter, so i'm guessing he would be an entirely useless version of marouane

He just happened to be walking past the word TOWER huh

clearly not identical, this has all been based on a fiction

guy on the right is actually Garfunkel

Mr Hyde and Mr Hyde

his brother looks a bit shorter

He's just standing further away.

Belgium just need to have Fellaini warming up on one touchline and get his brother to do the same on the other side. Cue hilarity and high jinks.

what if the reason Fellaini is only good in the last 5 minutes is because his twin is actually the soccer prodigy but due to work commitments, can't arrive to games until there's ten minutes left

I reckon what happens is Fellaini comes on with 10 minutes to go, elbows someone in the ear causing a massive stramash on the pitch, diverting everyone's attention, and allowing his brother, all this time secreted somewhere in the crowd, to sneak on the field - so there are actually two Fellainis and he's twice as effective in the last 5 minutes.

Plan is flawless because even if he gets sent off for elbowing someone in the ear he'll still be on the field in the form of his identical twin.

Fellaini scores a decisive own goal and his brother gets a load abuse in the street.

If nothing else they have a great future as decoys in an elaborate heist.

OK I'm FPing every mention of Fellaini's twin from now on

Going to see if D Squires has sequestered him into his unimpeachable ouevre.

http://www.gossipextra.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Marouane-fellaini-1-feature.jpg

What if Squires had a twin....who couldn't draw? He could borrow David's media pass and sneak into The Guardian.....but once there, he wouldn't be able to produce a cartoon! He'd have to do....something else! like....find unattended computers and make alterations to the articles!

Yankee kids practicing "the Neymar"

https://www.facebook.com/NBCSportsSoccer/videos/1702286803159998/UzpfSTEzOTU5NzYxNjk6MTAyMTcyMDI5MjkwOTA3MzQ/

whats goin on with footie

Suarez was killed