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

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

i kno when my pubes are being pulled

that usually helps with the experience, yes

highfellatin language if ever i heard any

プロレス界初！VARを採用で判定が覆る！
男色ディーノ＆大石真翔 vs 石井慧介＆梅田公太https://t.co/HxXor6r0io#ddtpro #DDTマジ卍 #ddtuniverse pic.twitter.com/nybSY0n0zK

— DDT UNIVERSE (@ddtuniverse) July 3, 2018

When you see obvious infractions that would otherwise go unpunished like this, VAR does seem increasingly appealing, but it still just feels like something intrinsic to the sport has been lost idk

loool

People complained when Hawkeye was introduced in tennis and cricket but it's generally accepted now. When the stakes are this high any help from technology is welcome.

The perils of having a big screen TV clearly visible in your front room on the walk home from @Wimbledon ... pic.twitter.com/EVvrGGsMM1

— Felicity Baker (@Felicity_Baker) July 3, 2018

Nooo felicity not the sun

there is definitely a balance between having as perfect an interpretation of the rules as possible and having an efficient, enjoyable game. the var in the fa cup was a total disaster, this stuff has been much better

I was concerned about where my grinding frustration at the injustice of it all was going to come from, but happily it's still available from refs' failure to use VAR consistently. Everyone's a winner.

there is definitely a balance between having as perfect an interpretation of the rules as possible and having an efficient, enjoyable game.

yeah it's just the extremists on either side of this position that annoy. i guess i exaggerate my dislike for VAR because i worry about it killing flow and enjoyability, but people who dismiss those aspects as unimportant compared to absolute perfect "fairness" at all times are just.fucking.idiots. who must hate football really.

still, if world cups and their ILX threads teach us anything it's that different people want/get really, really different things out of watching pro sport.

ignoring the chance that cheating cunts will start to weigh up increased chances of detection and punishment there tbh

some incredibly tasty & hard to call QFs. there's been an absurd amount of mbappe hype but uruguay have a proper defence and I imagine their designated big giroud is more likely to make the difference for them. love to see uruguay go further, there's a sobriety to them I find irresistible.

a brazil who have yet to get into top gear versus this motley & ill tempered belgium team is hard to work out. could be a crushing victory full of goals or a tight frustrated game but I am v hopeful for drama in either case.

the other two games are more likely to be excruciating exercises in negation. sweden are at least not totally craven and seem more likely to cause england problems. croatia have the big guns to take pot shots at russia but they seem quite a miserable bunch and have accrued an impressive amount of cards. a sweden-russia semi final would be quite something.

i for one salute the newer, subtler layers of cheating being opened up by technology

any quick QF predictions now we know the full fixtures?

FRA BRA SWE CRO

Fra
Bel
Eng
Cro

FRA
BEL
ENG
CRO

Lol dammit xpost

FRA BRA ENG CRO

FRA BRA SWE CRO

URA BRA SWE CRO