World Cup 2018 - Group Round 2 - We've Beaten Panama - It's Coming Home!

"You Mean I Can't Fold Him in Half"

The second round of matches started with Russia against Egypt but forget that, it’s all about Mo Salah. At least the fucker is actually playing this time, well sort of. He was clearly protecting himself and I was just thinking, protecting himself for what? It’s a World Cup do or die game for Egypt. How many more times in his career are Egypt going to qualify? What is more important than this? Pre-season tour with Liverpool perhaps. Anyway, it was do or die and Egypt died with Russia comfortably winning 3-1. It’s still hard to know if Russia are any good or not because Egypt were fucking dreadful. Still, the chosen one scored a penalty in the last few minutes so everyone in the national media could tug one off and award him some sort of gallantry medal for being half arsed in the most important game Egypt have ever had. I expect Vladimir Putin’s influence will become greater, the further the Russians go in the tournament. They do look lively upfront with Cheryshev providing trickery and goals and Dzyuba just being a massive handful. Much fancied Uruguay laboured to a 1-0 win against Saudi Arabia with everyone’s favourite fat bucktooth psychopath scoring the winning goal. One thing for sure is that Uruguay won’t give a shit they only won 1-0 but the game against Russia coming next will be interesting to establish if these two sides are any good or not.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s mission to make this his World Cup took another step in the right direction as he was allowed a free header from about 5 yards the only goal as Portugal beat Morocco. He really has his work out to drag his team far into the tournament because Morocco on another day could easily have won this game if it wasn’t for some inspired goalkeeping by Rui Patricio and some wasteful finishing.  Spain beat Iran 1-0 in the evening and it was pretty tedious to be honest with Spain having all the possession and Iran showing no ambition whatsoever to try and score until they went 1-0 down to a fluke Diego Costa goal when a defenders clearance ricocheted into the net off the bastards knee. Iran did have a few moments after that and had a goal disallowed and also missed some decent chances. There was a quality comedy moment as in the 94th minute an Iranian player went to try and do the somersault throw in which I think is now illegal but the only shame was that he pulled out of the move before he finished it. Absolute quality nonetheless. If Iran have to got the guts to go at Portugal in the third game then we could be on for an interesting end to the group.

In Group C, where C is short for crap. Denmark and Australia played out an average 1-1 draw with Denmark‘s goal coming from their one quality player Christian Eriksen and Australia’s coming from the only way they are ever going to score, a penalty from Jedinak. Incidentally, the penalty award was a VAR one for handball from point-blank range... absolute fucking farce. France again looks pretty and inspiring, somewhat fortuitously beating Peru 1-0 with a slightly lucky goal as Giroud’s shot deflected over the goalkeeper meaning Mbappe couldn’t miss. France loked a more balanced side than they did in the first game but they still conceded a hell of a lot of chances against Peru who can consider themselves slightly unfortunate to be going home. If that guy scores the penalty in the Denmark game rather than smashing over the moon when I feel that they would still be there.

Look who Drew Croatia in Argentina's Group

Will the real Messi show up tonight for Argentina against Croatia? Nope. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do as defensively, Argentina are fucking dreadful. Willy Caballero bettered his fuck up in the first game with one of the worst bits of goalkeeping you will ever see casually chipping a ball straight to Rebic and the forward compounded matters by brilliantly volleying into the net first time. A further brilliant goal by Modrić and then a last-minute one from Rakitic to rub the salt in the wounds. Argentina really are in the shit regarding qualifying to the next round. The highlight for me was the third goal with Mascherano standing there appealing for offside whilst Croatia tried to make up their mind about who was going to put the ball in the net. Nigeria showed up against Iceland and put the Vikings in their place with a relatively comfortable 2-0 win.. Ahmed Musa scored two excellent goals with the Icelandic response being a penalty from Sigurdsson which he casually side footed over the bar. The implications of this result are that Argentina will in all likelihood, go through if they beat Nigeria in the final game.

It looked for 90 minutes that despite all of Neymar’s theatrics that Brazil we’re not going to beat Costa Rica but in injury time, Coutinho came to the rescue again and then Neymar finished it off with the tap on in the last minute, or the 97th minute as it’s known in this World Cup. Neymar managed to dive and get awarded a penalty by the referee, only for VAR are to comprehensively prove that he is a cheating fucker so free-kick to Costa Rica and yellow card to Brazil’s number 10. Serbia and Switzerland was a fantastic game with Serbia taking the lead from a Tadic cross and a Mitrovic header before dominating the rest of the first half. Switzerland equalised when the previously shit Granit Xhaka smashed in a ball from miles out but then refereeing ridiculousness took over as two Swiss players wrestled Mitrovic to the ground in a penalty area and the referee linesman and video officials somehow between them decided that it was a free-kick the other way. Needless to say Switzerland benefited after a dreadful bit of defending allowed one pass on the middle of the pitch put Shaqiri away and he showed enough pace to hold off the defender and roll it under the keeper.  Shaqiri went mental and pulled out the ‘double eagle’ celebration as Xhaka had done earlier.  Two players of Albanian origin giving it large to the Serbian fans who had been giving them dogs abuse over their Kosovan roots.  Politics and football… great.  It was a bit of a crushing blow to Serbia who are now going to have to get a result against Brazil to have any chance of going through. 

Mexico following up their win against Germany with another win again South Korea. It was only 2-1 but much more convincing than the scoreline suggests. Six points from six for Mexico and in all likelihood, through to the last 16 but you really can’t see them getting too much further as they are just too lightweight.. South Korea will be on their way home and hopefully will be taking Germany with them.  Germany against Sweden started really well for everybody outside of Germany when Toivenen gave Sweden to leave halfway through the first half. At half-time Germany were really looking at doing in England in 2014 and being out after two games but they equalised right at the start of the second-half through Reus and despite having the hopeless Jerome Boateng sent off, there was only ever one team that was going to get a winning goal and sure enough, 96th minute, Sweden stupidly giving away free kick, one touch to Kroos and bang, top corner meaning that Germany are probably going to get through now.  Wankers…. and their bench started a ruck by giving it the large one… wankers.  Without that goal there was a real possibility of Mexico And Sweden holding hands for 0-0 draw in the last game which would’ve put them both through and not the Germans out which in someway would’ve been revenge for the disgraceful carve up between Germany and Austria in 1982.

In England’s group, Belgium pissed past Tunisia who once they went a goal down to an early has a penalty, had to attack and they basically got brutally exposed with Lukaku scoring twice, Hazard adding another and then Batshuayi scored the fifth. A couple of goals for Tunisia but no one really cared and so on to England against Panama.

The build up to this game is been about the press filming the team sheet with a long lens on the coaches notepad. The atmosphere in this World Cup has been completely different with the press been invited into the England camp and playing darts and all that sort stuff with the players so there are two ways of looking at it. One is that the press have managed to get an exclusive and that’s what the job is. the other way of looking at it is that they have been given unprecedented access in this World Cup and they’ve just taken the piss. I must admit on leaning more towards the latter. Either way the pathetic childish response to being having their methods questioned has been what I have taken away from it. Anyway, the final punchline was that that wasn’t the team anyway Sterling keeping his place. In fact, the team was unchanged with the exception of Loftus Cheek coming in for the injured Dele Alli. To the game itself and it quickly became apparent that Panama couldn’t of been more out of their depth if they had been nailed to the bottom of the Caspian Sea. The marking at the corners was more like the wrestling that we had from Tunisia but whoever was supposed to be wrestling John Stones didn’t bother and he had a free header which he put away with aplomb. Jesse Lingard for some reason was the one player that Panama wanted to kick all over the place and they did but unfortunately for them he was in the penalty area. Harry Kane 2-0. We then went 3, 4, 5 in about 15 minutes as Lingard played a  neat 1-2 with Sterling before curling into the top corner.  Stones again was on hand to nod in after an intricate training ground free-kick move and then Kane was given another chance from the spot when the player who was marking him at a corner grabbed hold of him and then decide that he needed to do more so he basically folded Kane in half. Bearing in mind it was fucking hot, the second half was a bit of a non-event and was played at walking pace. It went to 6-0 when Loftus Cheek had a shot from outside the area which deflected of Kane’s heel and flew in the other side of the goal to give him his hat-trick.  Panama scored to keep us on our toes when shit marking at a free kick allowed a free shot from the edge of the box for 6-1 and that goal will have done them no harm whatsoever. So, England and Belgium go into the last game against each other with absolutely identical records with England being top of the group courtesy of having had one the booking less. So far so good for England. There are still some and answer questions with Raheem Sterling again not bring his club form to the international stage and Ashley Young bringing his club form to the international stage. Right-footed English left wing backs are never going to catch on I’m afraid. There was one point where it was a simple left footed clearance required and instead he turned onto his right foot and underhit a pass to Maguire and we ended up giving away throw-in roughly where Young was standing. All I can say is that Danny Rose must be really really unfit for Young to be a starter.

Japan and Senegal produced an excellent game in Group H with Senegal going in front twice, only for Japan to peg them back both times. A fair result and both teams move on to 4 points each which meant that the losers of Colombia against Poland or going home. There was only ever going to be one winner and Colombia basically tore Poland a new arsehole. It was only one team with any positivity, one team with any invention and one team with any intent and Columbia were all of them. 3-0 and easy.  Poland didn’t have a clue and have exited the tournament as easily the worst European side there. It’s actually quite funny that Poland spent the last two years manipulating their world ranking by not playing any friendlies so they were seeded for this tournament and were absolute gash. Perhaps if they had played a few friendlies, they might have a style of play and wouldn’t have thrown their formation in the bin after 45 minutes of the first game. Jan Bednarek played the whole game to them and certainly wasn’t the worst player and he will be better for the experience. Colombia on the other hand, look really good. They will need to beat Senegal in order to qualify and if they do that, will be a team that England want to avoid in the next round. James Rodríguez was back today and boy, did it make a difference, setting up the first goal for Mina and the third goal for Cuadrado with superb passes. Radamel Falcao got the other goal after being put through by their other outstanding player, Quintero.

All the teams that are next to the tournament after two games deserve to have done so with the possible exception of Morocco at least played some good football. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both complete shit, as are Tunisia and Panama from England’s group. Costa Rica and Poland won’t be missed by anyone either.

They may well all end up getting through but you can’t help but feel that one of the big boys is going to go out. Argentina are definitely the favourite to go out and hopefully it’s them and we’ve seen the last of the gurning coke added fat prick cheerleader they have but Germany and even Brazil still have work to do.

World Cup 2018 - Group Round 1 - Oh No Germany Lost.

"Now Comrade Infantino... England and VAR and the Salisbury thing...."

Away we go with the World Cup in the first game was nicknamed El Gassico because it was Russia against Saudi Arabia, the two lowest ranked teams in the competition. I expect that there was a big opening ceremony before the game and I say expect because I didn’t watch it. I expect it illustrated all aspects of Russian life like shooting down passenger jets, polonium darts and nerve gas. Vladimir Putin was in the ground, as was is counterpart from Saudi Arabia and they sat with FIFA chief Infantino. Nothing corrupt going on here…. nothing to see here.

To the game itself out quickly became apparent that Saudi Arabia were totally justified in their low ranking as they were absolutely shit. 2-0 down at half-time, 3-0 straight into the second half and then they chucked in another couple of late goals just to make the scoreline more reflective of the game. It’s hard to tell if Russia were really good or not but it was probably the result that Vladimir paid for. The following day saw the other game in group A with Uruguay and their bucktoothed psychopath Luis Suárez making heavy weather of beating Egypt 1-0 with a classic last minute header from a corner. The British media saw fit to make the reporting of this game solely about Mohammad Salah despite the fact that he sat on the bench for 90 minutes for the losing side.

In Group B there was another last-minute winner as Iran beat Morocco 1-0 with a spectacular headed own goal in the last minute. Not the way to start the tournament but the World Cup officially started in the evening with Spain against Portugal. I thought this game would be a bit boring with it being the first game of the group and featuring two heavyweight times but fuck me, what a game. It started off with Ronaldo suckering in the defender and winning a penalty in the third minute which he duly dispatched before Spain equalised when Diego Costa got away with a forearm smash on Pepe before making Jose Fonte look every one of his 58 years before scoring.  VAR or not – a forearm smash on Pepe is never a foul – ever.  It was now all Spain but then Ronaldo took a pot shot just before half-time and the media appointed best goalkeeper in the world, David de Gea , basically did a Karius and threw the ball in his own net to make it 2-1 at half time. Again Spain dominated start the second half and pretty soon were in front with a tap in from Diego the Bastard and a ridiculous half volley from Nacho which flew in off of a post. It really looked like it was playing out to a 3-2 win to Spain until Pique had a brain fart and trashed through the back of Ronaldo on the edge of the box and up steps of the magnificent beast to curl it over the wall into the top corner. Portugal are totally a one man team but they know this and has as they haven’t got another part remotely on Ronaldo‘s level, you can’t blame them for the way they go about things. Technically, Spain are absolutely brilliant. Totally on a different level to any other team in the world and are my early tip to win it.

"No Worries Lads, I've Got It"

Saturday brought some dull shit in Group C France labouring to a 2-1 over Australia which they barely deserved. France were shit, with no balance to their team whatsoever in spite having some pretty good players. Australia were good defensively but had absolutely nothing in the front half of the pitch. France won with a very dodgy VAR penalty which Griezmann scored before Umtiti thought that the best way to deal with hopeful cross into the France penalty area was to punch it away. Jedinak from the spot, 1-1. Carlton Pogba had been complete shit all game but he actually looked decent when he played a couple of quick one-twos and burst into the box but then he got incredibly lucky as an Aussie tackled him and the ball looped up, off the bar in just over the line. Somehow, Pogba got given the goal despite the fact it was the clearest own goal you’ve ever seen. Peru and Denmark provided an interesting game with Peru looking the better side but they blew it when they smashed a penalty at the moon after the guy decided to do a wanky stutter after he’d started his run up. Denmark, despite not being much good managed to pinch it with a header in the second half.

The main talking point on Saturday was Argentina’s opening game in Group D and of course it was all about Lionel Messi and how he would respond to Ronaldo‘s hat-trick from the night before. I’m sure that Messi himself doesn’t don’t give a toss about Ronaldo but in any case, he didn’t bother to compete in that particular competition. It’s easy to forget Argentina have some other very good players and one of them, Sergio Aguero turned the Iceland defence inside out to put Argentina in front before Chelsea’s Willie Caballero made two consecutive fuck ups present the ball to Iceland and Finbogason equalised. Argentina were awarded a slightly fortunate penalty in the second half and up stepped Messi to keep up his poor penalty record with Halldorsson making a decent save. Argentina really should realise themselves that they do have other good players other than Messi and there is no need for virtually every single pass to go to him or him to take the penalties when he is clearly not very good at them. He misses one in four for Barcelona which is a ratio of that I think of any relative competent penalty taker could beat. Anyhow, also in the same group, Croatia comfortably beat Nigeria without Lovren making any colossal fuck ups which was a bit of a shame. All the focus seems to be on the Nigeria kit, the memory of which will last longer than their team probably will at this competition.

Sunday and Group E with Southampton interest and Dusan Tadic playing against Costa Rica. To be fair, he had a really good game as Serbia ran out 1-0 winners with a tremendous free-kick from Kolarov. Serbia look at a really decent side it will be interesting to see how they get on against Brazil later on in the group. Talking of Brazil, they started well against Switzerland with Coutinho scoring a fantastic goal from outside the but went off the boil after that and Switzerland scored a goal from the corner which really should’ve been disallowed because of the blatant shove on Mirandha before the Swiss headed into the net. It was reviewed by VAR and deemed that two hands in the middle of the back and a big shove wasn’t enough to disallow it. Utter bollocks. I was wanting Brazil to play like they did in 1982 when they were brilliant and different to anybody else. Now, they are pretty uninspiring and average. Everything goes through Neymar who is really unlikeable diving little shit but to be fair to him, Switzerland were allowed to kick the crap out of him. Some of the magic is definitely gone from Brazil, with all their players being based in Europe.

The game of the day though was in Group F with Germany looking very old and pedestrian against Mexico especially in the first half when Mexico really should have scored three but they kept butchering the final ball. They had to settle for the one Lozano goal. Back came the Germans in the 2nd half but they just didn’t do enough and Mexico held out, despite looking half dead at the end. You don’t have to know anything about football to enjoy the Germans getting beat. You know that they will be there or thereabouts at the end but they looked really really bad for the majority of the game, lacking in energy and even lacking in structure which is absolutely unheard off from the German team. The ease with which Mexico broke on them is something that you really don’t see from Germany, like... ever. Hopefully this will be one tournament too far for this team and they will be embarrassing rubbish but I somehow doubt it.

Monday saw the other game in Group F with Sweden beating South Korea 1-0 with a VAR awarded penalty which was this time, correctly awarded. Like with Denmark, I’m never sure what Sweden really add to a tournament apart from colour. Dull team and no Zlatan anymore. Then we moved on to England’s Group G. It started with Belgium comfortably, in the end, beating Panama 3-0 with a superb volley from Mertens and two goals from Lukaku. Belgium still don’t really look like a cohesive team to me and I do wonder if they’re overhyped because of all their Premier League players.

Then it came to England in the evening. It didn’t get off to a great start when Ashley Young was selected and Southgate also picked Jordan Henderson, because he hates me but to be fair, Henderson had a really good game. England started brilliantly and should’ve scored twice before Kane put us into the lead, knocking in after ex-Saints goalkeeper Mouez Hassen pushed out the Stones header. We were totally in control until we had a pretty harsh penalty given against us as Walker tried to let ball run in the penalty area and caught a forward with his arm. 1-1. The second half was largely terrible with Raheem Sterling, Ashley Young and Jesse Lingard constantly taking the wrong option and giving the ball away. On came Rashford and Loftus Cheek for the last 20 minutes and made a huge difference. With Tunisia hanging on, quite literally as Kane was repeatedly wrestled to the ground when we took corners, a 92nd minute set piece won it for us with Maguire winning a header and Kane poaching from 3 yards out. A winning start and much to work on. From a Saints point of view, It was a tough 90 minutes watching Ashley Young be absolutely garbage at left back when Ryan Bertrand is sat at home and Danny Rose is obviously not fit. The main talking point of the game what’s the use of VAR. I’m sorry but that was totally corrupt. How England were not given two penalties when Harry Kane was basically the victim of one wrestling throw and one guy jumping on his back quite literally is astounding unless of course you subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Russia have not reacted terribly well to the fallout from the Salisbury incident.

V.A.R is B.E.N.T.

Group H finally got on the way with what were on the face of it to surprise results with Colombia losing 2-1 to Japan and Poland losing by the same score to Senegal. The Columbia v Japan game was incident packed with Colombia having a man sent off after three minutes for deliberate hand ball. Penalty and 1-0 until just before half time when Radamel Falcao reminding everybody what a fucking diving shit he can be, buying a freekick on the edge of the box which Quintero cleverly passed under the wall into the corner past at the flapping goalkeeper. Playing with 10 eventually caught up with Colombia though and Osaka score with a header in the second half to give Japan and our own Maya Yoshida a decent chance of making it to the next round. You would expect Colombia and a fully fit James Rodriguez to still have a large say in that however. More Saints interest in the second game with Jan Bednarek on the bench to Poland who were 1-0 down  to a deflection when he came on in the second half. Unfortunately he was involved in a classic incident where are Senegal player was being treated off the pitch and was waved back on by the referee at the precise moment that Krychowiak played a shit back pass.  On came the ‘injured’ player, sprinting straight from the dug out, past Bednarek, knocked the ball past Sczezseny and put it into an empty net. Classic shithousing. Krychowiak got a goal back with a header but it wasn’t enough for Poland who are now severely up against it with Colombia and Japan still to play.

So the first round of matches hasn’t had a single 0-0 draw and in the main so far, it’s all been decent. Empty seats in the grounds is not a surprise but if you think it’s bad this time round, wait till Qatar in four years time. For me, the team looking most likely to win it at the moment is Spain .... oh and Germany of course.