World Cup 2018

Roll on the WC, can't come quick enough when all you're getting on Callum Carson's twitter is cricket updates.

Can't believe it starts on Thursday and I really have no idea who I think will win.

I would really like Argentina to do it so Messi would have a bigger title than Ronaldo (even though he had no real on field influence in the final); but I don't think they will. Of course the fact they just scraped in should remove any pressure of expectation, but I just don't think they are good enough.

Brazil on the other hand skooshed qualifying & always have a weight of expectation.

I suspect it will come down to the usual suspects with the winner coming from Brazil, Germany, Spain or France, with Belgium, England, Argentina & maybe Uruguay giving them a run for their money.

Dark horses... Russia as the hosts & possibly Sweden & Denmark but none of them will actually win it.

Russia easily beating KSA 5 nil in the opening game, piss poor defence and not much better everywhere else, didn't even get a shot on the Ruskies goal.

Just watching Egypt v Uruguay and that's looking like a 0-0, good defending a goalkeeping by Egypt, stopping Suarez from scoring. Not much in attack, think they'd be happy getting a draw here.

Hoping the Spain v Portugal game is more exciting.

And Uruguay just scored in the final minute of the game.  Think they deserved it, hit the post just before that too and looked a lot more  threatening than Egypt.

Much better game this, Spain are just taking the piss out of Portugal now, short sharp passing in triangles like a training session.

Some start to the match, Portugal a goal up through a Ronaldo penalty. Not sure how much of it was a foul, and how much Ronaldo went over the player sticking his leg out against the defenders leg as he went down, clever play they called it, which is code for a cheating git.

Good direct play for the equaliser for Costa, Livi-esque Lithgow pass from Spain.  It's the Costa/Ronaldo show here, and Ronaldo just stealing the limelight with his hattrick, unreal. Cracking game.

Feck knows what De Gea was doing for Ronaldo's 2nd goal, hit straight at him, looked a bit dodgy for the free kick too, positional wise he was nowhere near it and didn't even move.

Agree on the pen incident, looked more like he made sure his trailing leg caught the standing leg of the defender, I hate it when those are given.

Also, if Karius made that mistake he’d have been slaughtered.

Lots of late goals so far, Russia with 2 in injury time, Uruguay in the last minute of normal time, Iran in injury time & I believe Portugal’s equaliser was about 88 mins.

Ronaldo is a good player but he's also a diving cheat who always seems to get he benefit of the doubt from referees. The pen incident was as you say Bertie. Interesting that the one time he was definitely fouled he was furious and did the old card giving gesture.
It's that kind of behaviour that makes me prefer Messi of the two of them.

That kind of behaviour & the fact he is a greedy git & he usually does the fancy dan showboating for the sake of it, he throws in millions of stepovers trying to entice a challenge so he can fall over & “win” a free kick or pen; why not just use his undoubted skill & pace to beat the opponent & blow past him?
He also stands around letting others do the donkey work until that gets them nowhere before taking over & throws a strop when he doesn’t get a pass even if the choice made results in a goal.

Messi on the other hand is every bit as delighted when a team mate scores & uses his undoubted skill & underrated pace to beat players from impossible looking situations.

So, a pen that IMO should never be given as in my view the attacker is the one making contact to go down. A shocking howler from DeGea gifting him the second & an outstanding free kick (DeGea looked suspect again, wasn’t central enough for me; but I don’t think he’d have saved it anyway). Hopefully the usual “anything you can do” mentality between him & Messi will inspire the latter to show his full array of talent & goal scoring prowess today.

De Gea reminded me of DJ standing three quarters of the way over to one side inviting the shot to the other side of his goal, then was stranded when the shot went exactly where he was inviting it to go. Think the commentator said that was 49 free kicks Ronaldo had taken without scoring, he picked the perfect moment to finally take a perfect one. He's a big heided show off that always wants centre stage and even poses like a prancing show pony before each free kick, and normally they go flying over the bar or into the wall. Hit that one perfectly though, but De Gea made it easy for him.

And WTF was Pepe doing for Costa's first goal, he's another cheating git pretending he was injured then jumped up when he had a look to see if the ref had fallen for his play acting. I don't like Costa either right enough, when he was at Chelsea he was an annoying fud that ran to the ref trying to get players booked after he had wound them up to get a reaction from them, but that was like a Ryan Hardie goal, strength holding off defenders and hit it sweetly into the net.

Still, what a cracking game it was, Spain are something else the way they fire the ball into players and can control it and zip it about so quickly in tight areas, and what a sweet strike by Nacho for their 3rd goal. Losing their manager 2 days before the Tourney hasn't affected them at all.

Iceland are playing very well in their style. They are preventing Messi from opening them up by not only double teaming him but doing it in such a way as he can’t just do his trade mark emergence I described earlier.

Great goal by Ageuro, shocking defence for the equaliser & a poor pen from Messi, but as he lined up to take it I said he wasn’t going to score.

Absolutely shames Scotland for being so useless at qualifying for these big Tournaments, no excuses from us about the size of our population when Iceland are showing the way. Get it sorted Scotland, bloody shameful.

Iceland reminded me of the way we played from time to time. Solid at the back & fast breaks forward with long throws into the bargain


Shocking pen miss by Peru; decent goal from Denmark

Yep can't afford to miss pens in the WC, shame for them they played well and would've deserved the draw had they scored.

Aye big strong and well organized, that's what Iceland are, don't have to be a team full of superstars to do well, shows these clowns don't know what they're talking about that dissed Livi for being the same.

Big win for the Mexicans. Looked like they deserved it too.

Looking forward to Brazil v Swiss - just about to start... can the Selecao bounce back after their humiliation in the semi four years ago?

Some surprising results today, Brazil played decent enough but the Swiss were always in with a chance at 1-0, and had an unchallenged header for their goal. Makes it interesting anyway, neither them or Germany can afford another slip up.

No team has captured my imagination yet. Possibly the most open tournament in quite a while. Based on what I’ve seen England have as good a chance as anyone, but of course we have yet to see them play.

Spain have looked the best team, and Ronaldo the most influential player, other than that I've not seen any team that's set the heather on fire. A few teams should be capable of upping their game with the players they have though so plenty of time for them to burst into life yet. Just need to get themselves past the group stages then we should really see the better teams shine.

See, I don’t buy the Ronaldo had a great game theory, he was pretty well on the periphery of the game for 90% of the match, during the 10% he was involved he made a couple of good runs & passes & conned the ref twice for the pen & equalising free kick & hit a saveable shot that DeGea made a ricket of. For a player to truly influence a game he has to do more than affect 10% of the game.

If you ask me he’s the luckiest player in the competition but based on the stats I would concede that he has had the biggest impact.

Isco was more influential.

Yeah but I said influential, he was involved in all 3 or Portugal's goals, created and scored the pen, scored the 2nd in open play, and scored the free kick, can't say he wasn't a huge influence in that game. Isco was def the better player and did a lot more work, and Spain were the better team too, despite that Ronaldo still managed to grab 3 goals and get them a draw with the 99th min free kick. Larsson used to be the same at Celtic, did sod all for most of the game then popped up and grabbed a last minute winner.

I try to be impartial watching England and just enjoy the game as I do when any other team is playing in the WC, if they play well then I like to see teams win no matter who they are, but that went oot the windae even before the game kicked off, then when they scored the ego's were starting to get out of control with their shit opinions, 'they've been the best team in the WC and are playing the best football' etc, so I cheered like feck when Tunisia got their pen and scored. Only way I could be impartial is to watch the game with the sound off and not listen to any pre or post match crap in the studios.

Bummer Kane scored in injury time. Why nobody was marking him at a corner though, ffs Tunisia.

Why Tunisia kept trying to pass the ball out of danger!! That was such an unnecessary corner to give away too. The ball should have already been in row Z.
Cannae wait till they play a half decent team.

Liviforever wrote:Yeah but I said influential, he was involved in all 3 or Portugal's goals, created and scored the pen, scored the 2nd in open play, and scored the free kick, can't say he wasn't a huge influence in that game. Isco was def the better player and did a lot more work, and Spain were the better team too, despite that Ronaldo still managed to grab 3 goals and get them a draw with the 99th min free kick. Larsson used to be the same at Celtic, did sod all for most of the game then popped up and grabbed a last minute winner.

I try to be impartial watching England and just enjoy the game as I do when any other team is playing in the WC, if they play well then I like to see teams win no matter who they are, but that went oot the windae even before the game kicked off, then when they scored the ego's were starting to get out of control with their shit opinions, 'they've been the best team in the WC and are playing the best football' etc, so I cheered like feck when Tunisia got their pen and scored. Only way I could be impartial is to watch the game with the sound off and not listen to any pre or post match crap in the studios.

So he had a bigger impact, which is not the same as being influential, he didn’t dictate the game (influence) but he made an impact with his limited interventions in the 90 mins...and he cheated twice... so he influenced the ref more than the game. And you are being harsh on Larsson (he’s been a good pundit so far). He put in a power of work off the ball, whereas Ronaldo just stands around flexing & trying to catch his on reflection on any reflective surface.

England deserved to edge it, I ignore the pundits when they speak about England unless they are wallowing in self pity.

I'd use impact as a player who comes on and changes the game in his team's favour, not one who started and played the whole game, scoring 3 goals at different stages, i'd call that having an influence more than an impact. I don't like Ronaldo either and said the same as you about his goals, but he was their most influential player and does make things happen for them. Without him Portugal would have lost.

orco wrote:Why Tunisia kept trying to pass the ball out of danger!! That was such an unnecessary corner to give away too. The ball should have already been in row Z.
Cannae wait till they play a half decent team.

Aye sometimes you just need to boot the ball to feck, and in injury time you really don't want to take any chances that may give your opponent an opportunity to score.

Your definition of impact is an “impact sub” - every player ought to have some impact on the game; some more than others.

Thought Tunisia were a lot better than some people gave them credit for.

Ignoring the first twenty or so minutes when their defence was all at sea they moved the ball around well. Were wasteful in front of goal and some of their defending in the penalty area was cavalier to say the least but generally I thought they were half decent.

I know its a young side but I wonder if scoring so early played against England with some maybe being guilty of thinking the game was going to be a lot easier than it was.