World Cup 2018

[ray245]

There's probably far less interest in the forum due to US not qualifying for the current world cup, but it's been quite a good tournament so far. With all the major teams underperforming, this really is a world cup that is up for grabs.

It's crazy to see Germany ending up in such a mess even though they have one of the best teams on paper, apart from France and Belgium.

[Crazedwraith]

In England we got out of the group stage by beating two nobody teams. So now of course people think we are actually going to do well.

Happens every time we don't fail amazingly horribly.

[Captain Seafort]

In England we got out of the group stage by beating two nobody teams. So now of course people think we are actually going to do well.

Happens every time we don't fail amazingly horribly.

To be fair, that happens so rarely that it might be justified, and "doing well" by English standards means reaching the quarters.

Besides, this time round the "nobody teams" seem to include Germany, Brazil and Argentina.

[Crazedwraith]

Defending champions, Germany are out! It's a topsy turvy world.

[wautd]

Yeah... this WC makes it hard to predict which team will become champion.
Based on the first selection, Germany didn't deserve to go through though. Kinda happy for Sweden to go through, they deserved more with their match against Germany.
I'll be rooting for Belgium (offcouse me being belgian) who'll have their first real test against a strong England tonight. Although I don't expect a good match when people are saying it would be tactically better to loose this one.

PS. Hats of to Iceland. A population pool of 300000 people going to the World Cup twice in a row? Impressive to say the least.

[Captain Seafort]

a strong England

The fact that that phrase can be used without a very long string of these -> or these -> sums up this world cup.

PS. Hats of to Iceland. A population pool of 300000 people going to the World Cup twice in a row? Impressive to say the least.

This is Iceland's first world cup - you're thinking about the Euros.

[wautd]

a strong England

The fact that that phrase can be used without a very long string of these -> or these -> sums up this world cup.

Yeah well, they played some very decent first two matches and they were better at not wanting to win the 3rd game

PS. Hats of to Iceland. A population pool of 300000 people going to the World Cup twice in a row? Impressive to say the least.

This is Iceland's first world cup - you're thinking about the Euros.

Oh right, indeed

[Captain Seafort]

Well, this tournament has just gone from weird to off the fucking chart.

England have won a penalty shoot out. Expect the collapse of the universe shortly.

[Crazedwraith]

England have won a penalty shoot out. Expect the collapse of the universe shortly.

I was going to be dick. But well done to them, I guess, they've now got further than the last what is it twelve years and done better than when the team had big names in it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yeah, good thing we didn't bring Rooney along this time. I hadn't heard of (Harry) Kane until this tournament but he's now the leading goalscorer in the tournament. All the more impressive since the other greats in the tournament (like Ronaldo and Messi) didn't do enough to put their respective teams through and were eliminated.

Looks like Southgate's decision to field a B-squad playing against Belgium (who did the same) actually paid off. Not for the last 16 games though, Japan gave Belgium a really hard time and they only just managed to win. Watching England playing vs Colombia was pure torture, the last England game I actually enjoyed was the 6-1 curb-stomp we gave Panama in the group stage.

Sweden next, and we're under no illusions that it's gonna be a difficult game. If we do win, we're guaranteed two more games no matter what since there's the 3rd place playoff. On the other hand, the alternative would have been playing Brazil in a rematch of 2002, but they're Belgium's problem now!

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I never thought I'd be saying this, but Belgium just sent Brazil home!

[Vendetta]

So, Russia's run has ended in another penalty shootout. Given that they were ranked 70th in the world before the competition and so should have been destined to exit in the group stages I think they can hold their heads up high this year.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

As can England, I still can't quite believe we managed to send Sweden home 2-0, and in normal time too! Far less brutal than the Colombia game- just reaching the semi finals (Sweden had done so four times to our two) is the best we've done in a generation. Wherever we finish now we can say it's been a success!

[Vendetta]

Yeah. And call it wishful thinking but Croatia have been run ragged by two knockout games that both went to 120 minutes. They were definitely feeling it at the end of the game with Russia.

[ray245]

We might get a England-France final at this rate.

[wautd]

I think Belgium has a good chance against France. If we can beat France, then the World Cup should be ours

[EnterpriseSovereign]

It will be interesting to see whether we play France or Belgium after Croatia, and if it's the Saturday or Sunday game we're in.

Only now that we're in the last four can we really get excited about the result. I think Southgate's job for the next couple of years is safe whatever happens next!

[wautd]

Sad to see that the anti-football team won yesterday

[Vendetta]

Well shit.

Good first half for England, but then they fell to shit and Croatia found their legs.

[Captain Seafort]

Look on the bright side - for an hour, England were leading a World Cup semi-final for the first time in 52 years.

[Vendetta]

Yep.

And now we can't lose to France, who would have been insufferable about it.

[Gandalf]

As someone from Australia, the lack of insufferable England fans is a definite bonus.

[ray245]

As someone from Australia, the lack of insufferable England fans is a definite bonus.

But it would have been so much fun if England lost to France in the final of all the countries.

[Crazedwraith]

Oh man, football is just that lovely unifying thing where everyone lets you know how much they hate your country

[Gandalf]

As someone from Australia, the lack of insufferable England fans is a definite bonus.

But it would have been so much fun if England lost to France in the final of all the countries.

Nah, because then it's a lot of "We would have won if..." scenarios.