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

matuidi motm, pogba varane mbappe v impressive today

The performances of Pogba, Lukaku, even Lingard in this tournament pretty much demand that Mourinho is sacked on the spot.

And seriously France did an incredible job of keeping Lukaku out of the game tonight.

Lingard had the best season of his career this year in fairness

and Lukaku's all-round game has massively improved since he came to Utd

should still be sacked obv

mahrez to city announced

jose out

was Seri to Fulham mentioned? Bit of a coup

The bench's Riyad Mahrez?

varane/kane would be tasty

pipe down there in the back

lol Tim

would give mbappe a red for godawfull stalling those last ten minutes. am I missing some context? why was that tolerated?

didn't he get a yellow?

he got a yellow. You're not going to get a red for something like that

makes sense. still disappointing. tainted a deserved victory.

I'd make some allowances for him being 19

it was a stupid yellow to get tbh but nothing out of the ordinary

Vertonghen foul minutes later was significantly more stupid in context

OTM, he lost the rag because Mbappe was doing a bit of harmless showboating.

bouncebackability!

Pleased to see the summer break has done Loris Karius the world of good. #LFC pic.twitter.com/Pe6XLHrkqb

— Transfer Site (@TransferSite) July 10, 2018

watching everyone gun for karius is unedifying

he's definitely hurtled right past farce and back to tragedy

verts yellow also stupid

both stupid

Bit disappointed we're just going to have the one World Cup winner in our squad next season.

poch will have the pressure on levy i fully expect varane and mbappe to rock up before august

lol

idk, few things grate as much as a player not passing the ball to the other team for a corner kick and such

It blows my mind that not only wasn't Mbappe alive when France won the WC... he also wasn't alive when Hanson hit with "MMMBop"

MMMFlop

Tomorrow the three lions roar lads

sentimentality leads me to cheer for CRO

the prospect of losing to france in the final is not filling me with much excitement tbh, third place play off against belgium might be more fun

apparently quite a chilly atmosphere at the game last night? and indeed p much every france game, they've only had one good one

the prospect of losing to france in the final is not filling me with much excitement tbh, third place play off against belgium might be more fun

^ feeling this

some morning huevos are needed

the just match up would surely see croatia and france spinning a boring game into extra time, maybe punctuated by a couple of set piece goals before they finish it on penalties, while england lose 5-3 to belgium

3rd place game still counts towards the golden boot right?

it did for muller in 2010

It’ll be interesting to see who gets the Golden Ball. I’m not sure anyone has been head and shoulders above competition this time around. Mbappe is the favourite at the moment but a lot of that is probably down to one truly exceptional performance.

I genuinely think Trippier must be close to Golden Ball thinking.

Luka's still got 2 games to make a claim for it too tbf

I'm afraid Kieran Tripper is not a Golden Ball winner. It's simply not how things are done

Is the Golden Ball a new thing? Not heard of that before

i don't think i've ever been arsed to sit thru a 3rd place match and actually pay attention to it, it's perhaps the most pointless event in all of professional sport and i'm including cycling in there

It'll probably be Kante, result depending

Kante would be a good call but the first defensive midfielder to ever get it, I think.

they'll just give it to a big star that makes the final, probably mbappe tbf

^ not an endorsement obvs

Luka's still got 2 games to make a claim for it too tbf

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jul/11/luka-modric-croatia-world-cup-england-miracle-worker

huh, the last time it was actually awarded to a tournament winner was Romario in 1994

It does always go an attacking player (Oliver Kahn being the only exception) but there really doesn't seem to be an outstanding candidate this year

good piece. i've been getting mildly radge at British pundits endlessly parroting "they've got to move the ball quicker/get it forward quicker" as if it's the only way to attack. then i caught myself shouting the same thing at England, and it dawned on me - for some systems it's paramount, and it's really down to the talents and mentalities you've got available to you. an England has to move the ball quickly to succeed because they don't have a Modric.