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

Heard McCoist on STV say he was cheering on England, fwiw (same commentary where he admired Stalin's choice of summer retreat)

Reminds me of a story of a friend of mine who was living in London at the time of Italia 90 and his friends were all big England fans, they watched the Eng v. Ger semi in a pub in Soho and when England lost, he was trying to be sympathetic and his mates were all, "Yeah yeah, we know you really wanted us to lose, you Scots git". My friend got all indignant at this, got on his high horse and chided them for doubting his loyalty and friendship and "How dare you say such a thing, I can't believe it!" and stormed out of the pub, heard the distant noise of celebrations coming from another pub full of German fans, went in and joined the celebrations, had a great night.

Just noticed England's next competitive fixtures are in a couple of months against Spain and Croatia (home and away) in that new Nations League thing

xp doing celticity right

aiden mcgeady reference? must be nakh

incredible footage doing the rounds of rashford and lingard taking a leaf out of panama's books and trying to kick off after croatia's winner

https://i.imgur.com/oy0eBzI.gifv

https://i.imgur.com/oy0eBzI.gifv

incredible footage doing the rounds of rashford and lingard taking a leaf out of panama's books and trying to kick off after croatia's winner

yeah Dutch commentator mentioned this too, unfortunately offical coverage did not show it. Would have been amazing to see that.

Hrvati so blizu finala pic.twitter.com/vJMuRSLdYf

— Vlasta Jeseničnik (@VJesenicnik) July 11, 2018

CHADWICK MATLIN4:20 PM
I forget where I read it, but I loved somebody’s idea to do penalties before the match, so players know what the outcome is before they play. Maybe even wait to reveal until after regular time.

All fans -- inlcuding Eng ones -- have songs they like to sing, it seems:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44811549

Also, like the Croatians, it's not even their song!

we (ie me) didn't do the result of the quarter final predictions

actual  FRA BEL ENG CRO
shari   FRA BEL ENG CRO 4
neand   FRA BEL ENG CRO 4
cajun   FRA BRA ENG CRO 3
tomd    FRA BEL ENG RUS 3
bison   FRA BEL SWE CRO 3
koogs   FRA BRA SWE CRO 2
lbi     FRA BRA SWE CRO 2
dan w   FRA BRA ENG RUS 2
menca   URA BRA SWE CRO 1
noodl   URU BRA ENG RUS 1
nash    FRA BRA SWE RUS 1

I woulda been 0 for 2 in semifinal picks lol

Got 1 out of 2. England let me down. Yet again.

3 out of 4. thought the russians would do it

Next WC to run from November to December.

That's going to lead to some interesting rescheduling of the domestic leagues and European competitions

Maybe half of europe doesnt need to participate just a thought

maybe qualify

Maybe it getz moved or the world ends before 2022

ok i cant be the only one getting excited. today is the day. third best IN THE WORLD

Today's match is the most unnecessary idea in the world cup.
A burden for both teams.

Why not make in interesting? Like maybe winner has a free ticket for next world cup or something..

winner goes to Disneyland

Winner is killed

Winner gets ‘84 Lada Niva hatchback and as many potatoes as u can carry

In the hatchback?

Reports of Southgate watching the whole Croatia game again at 4am are just grim.

Some of the third place playoff games have been a blast fwiw. Germany Uruguay in 2010 springs to mind.

xp not if its part of the growth that enables him to become southgate t-800

there's probably a fuck-ton of money involved.

https://www.totalsportek.com/football/fifa-world-cup-2018-prize-money/

$24M vs $22M (on top of all the other money)

> (on top of all the other money)

not ALL the other money, but some other money

i don't think making two teams of probably disheartened losers sit around for another 3 or 4 days when they could be getting some down time in the very brief window before they're back in pre-season training is good for anybody tbh

You wait til 2022.

third place play off is fantastic idk what you're moaning about, it's like a pressure valve where people just get to let rip, it averages about 4 goals a game and w belgium & england it's probably going to be a much better game than tmw

Yes, I'm right into 3rd/4th place playoffs

commentator acknowledging -- by unavoidable implication -- that ENG squads for many years prior to this one were not "likeable"

Reasonably likeable up until the point when EBJT and TWP become fixtures, grim after that.

Lukaku vs Kane makes this a game with some actual stakes at least.

actual world cup winner Ray Wilson used to pump embalming fluid into dead bodies, what's not likeable about that?

it's the one acceptable place to pump it!

oops

xp

well, that's what you say!

Could use some of that fluid right now tbh.

this team is madness, deserve to get shredded

Ashley Young would have hacked the shit out of Meunier there.

Just switched on and what the actual fuck?

Be good if Belgium could break some kind of scoring record for the play off match.

kane looks haunted, is that new?

do any cards in today's match carry over to the next FIFA international match? or can they just kidney punch each other all game if they want to?

lol Sterling looks like Tyrion Lannister next to Kompany

rose another that shouldnt really be left defending back post

tottenham sickness that

this feels like an international friendly. I can dig....