World Cup 2022 Part 2 - Groups A-D

Serious Football Heritage Country

Group A – Qatar, Netherlands, Senegal, Ecuador

20/11/22
So, all eyes will be on the games involving Qatar, playing in their own government run tournament. A government that appear to think nothing of throwing money at things to get what they want.  Qatar versus Ecuador. I have absolutely no desire to watch the opening ceremony or any of the build-up shit so 4 pm it is for the opening game, which is of course Qatar’s easiest game on paper against the South American minnows. I’m actually looking forward to when Qatar play the Dutch because if there’s anyone at this World Cup involved with any of the teams who is going to say it as it is, it’s Louis van Gaal. Partly because of his age and the fact that he has had health issues but mostly because, the man don’t give a fuck.

Anyway, the game was basically League 1 standard and it was pleasing to see that Qatar were absolutely shit and got easily beaten 2-0. It was also amusing to see banks of Qatar fans who had obviously all been given the same T-shirt to wear and it was amazing to see the load of them fucked off as soon as they went a couple of goals behind. In the second half they were massive gaps in the crowds where the fanatical Qatari football fans should’ve been. It was comforting to see that Qatar are not going to be around the tournament for very long.

21/11/22
A potential last 16 game for England is against a team from a Group A. It seemed likely on the face of it that the top two were playing in the next game and oh my God it was shite. Senegal had no ambition beyond getting a point and the Dutch didn’t seem to have the quality to do anything in the final third and so it came to an 80th minute goal to break the deadlock from Cody Gakpo who, before the goal had been fucking dreadful along with the rest of the Dutch attacking players. Senegal woke up and went for it but got done with Davy Klaassen scoring a second which almost certainly means that the Dutch will win the group.

25/11/22
Qatar got the second round of games under way with a match against Senegal which they of course, really had to win and to the delight of everybody outside Qatar, they lost 3-1. The first goal was hilarious as a Qatar defender controlled the ball in the area and then sat on his arse. To be fair, Qatar probably should’ve had a penalty which may well have levelled the game up for once it went 2-0 at the start of the second half, they were dead in the water, or the desert.

Senegal of course gave themselves a really good chance of making the next round especially with Netherlands and Ecuador playing out a 1-1 draw in the other game in the group. Cody Gakpo once again found the net for the Netherlands and it was the former West Ham straiker Enner Valencia who once again came to Ecuador‘s rescue. All Ecuador need to do to reach the second round is of course avoid defeat against Senegal. I would back the Dutch to record the biggest win of the tournament so far against Qatar who are officially out of their own World Cup, probably never to be seen again on the world football stage.  It’ll be interesting to see how many of their ultras turn up for it.

29/11/22
There was nothing much riding on the Netherlands v Qatar game as we all knew that the Dutch would win and it was just a case of ‘how many’.  Cody Gakpo scored for the third game in a row and a Frenkie de Jong goal meant that Man United fans would have been going to town on themselves over both goalscorers.

Senegal found themselves in front early against Ecuador but the game was decided in 5 minutes in the second half as Ecuador equalised, thus putting themselves through as it stood, but then conceded straight away, which ultimately knocked them out.  They won’t really be missed and Senegal at this stage looked the most likely opponents for England in the last 16.  Their manager used to play for Portsmouth you know…

Fuckin' Have It

Group B – England, Iran, USA, Wales

21/11/22
England against Iran is the 1 pm kick-off. England have been concentrating mainly on virtue signalling since they got out to Qatar. A training session with some migrant workers and the commitment for our captain to wear a One Love armband. FIFA then said that Kane couldn’t wear it and so we completely caved in like the pussies that we are.

To the game in Southgate picked what was for him and adventurous 4-3-3 formation which still found room for Harry Maguire and the major disappointment for me was Mason Mount starting ahead of Phil Foden. Iran came into the World Cup with the reputation of being hard to beat and hard to break down with a good defence. I don’t know what teams they have been playing to build up that reputation and to rise to 20th in the world in the FIFA world rankings but they were absolutely fucking dire. Once England went ahead and the 35th minute through Jude Bellingham, it was simply a case of how many England would get. In the end it was six with Iran replying with one Maguire assist as he dozed off and one penalty in the last minute which was absolutely hilarious. In the first half, Maguire had been wrestle-thrown to the ground without VAR getting the referee involved but in the last minute, the slightest shirt pulled by John Stones saw the referee go to the pitch-side monitor and give the penalty.

Media folk were going overboard about England being potential winners a problem for England has never been against the shite teams as we’ve always been able to beat them. Will Southgate maintain his bottle and his bravery when we play someone decent and will the defensive side of our game stand up? Jude Bellingham was the star of the show today and to have a 19-year-old with that all round game and the amount of composure playing in the centre midfield is an amazing thing. Purely in terms of putting on a performance in the first game of the tournament and beating who is in front of you, it was an excellent start for the Three Lions with the other goals by Saka (2), Sterling, Rashford and Grealish.

Next up was Wales, 1958 and all that and a game in England’s group against the USA, who are always ranked highly but are never anything much more than a very functional team who are relatively difficult to beat. USA actually play pretty well in the first half and thoroughly deserve their 1-0 lead, given to them by Timothy Weah, son of George, second cousin therefore of Ali Dia, Southampton legend.  Wales pressed the ‘big man’ button at halftime with Kiefer Moore coming on at front and his presence rattled the Americans so much that they gave away an absolutely brain-dead penalty with 10 to go, which Gareth Bale comfortably converted. It was more or less the only time that Bale kicked the ball in the right direction all game but he was hailed as a genius by the commentators in a moment of ridiculous over exaggeration. If you were going to mark Bale out of 10 for the game that you would be struggling to award more than 5 for his overall performance. However, it does give Wales a great chance for making the last 16 because you would like to think that Wales should comfortably see off Iran but stranger things have happened…. And they did…

25/11/22
Wales played Iran, no doubt buoyed by the fact that England had thrashed them so easily but this was a different Iran that showed up. Not that different however… it’s just that Wales were all kinds of shite. The big change to their game plan against the States was to play Moore from the start but if they thought Iran’s defence was going to buckle as easily as it did against England, and they were sadly mistaken and aided by some somewhat lenient refereeing, Iran got stuck in from the first whistle. It was 0-0 with 10 minutes to go until Wayne Hennessey came donkeying out of his goal like a twat and carted over to Taremi, the Iranian centre forward, and after VAR check, it was decided that wellying a forward in the head when you are last man and 40 yards from goal is a red card offence.  In the 90th minute, Iran scored after Joe Allen had given the ball away with a shit clearance and it was Allen again with the assist as he gave the ball away up the pitch which allowed Iran to break free to seal the win in the 98th minute.

The main take away from this game was that Gareth Bale is absolutely done as a top-level footballer. He can’t run anymore and that was what his game was all about. He’ll probably put on a masterclass against England in the third game but you would have to say the odds are against it. I do hope that when Wales go out of the tournament that no one from England is tempted to make a tinpot arrogant celebration video. That would never do.

Southgate picked an unchanged team and England were expected to beat the USA but England didn’t turn up and we are slightly fortunate to go in at half-time at 0-0 with Christian Pulisic having hit the bar. The second half was turgid in what turned out to be a really crap substandard game. For all of the USA’s huff and puff, they didn’t threaten Pickford’s goal at all in the second half and England didn’t do a thing either. It was a spot of redemption for Harry Maguire he was by far and away England’s best player. Luke Shaw wasn’t bad, but Southgate needs to have a good old look at the rest of them.  England never got going with the forwards players that sparkled so much against Iran, being nowhere to be seen. Saka, Sterling, Kane, Bellingham and particular Mason Mount - all shit.

There was some hope from the bench in the shape of Jack Grealish but Mason Mount stayed on the pitch for 90 minutes whilst Phil Foden watched on. I can understand Southgate picking the same team that played against Iran but there was nothing in this performance, so he has to change it against the Welsh. He said himself that those 11 players who played so well, deserve to start and there’s a case for that, but likewise, the same 11 do not deserve to start against Wales, having stunk the place out today. Mason Mount will probably still start the fucking game. 

I don’t feel that there is much tolerance of Southgate anymore.  Despite our last two tournament performances (semi-finals and runners-up) there is a feeling that he’s held us back in some way because we’ve limped out of both tournaments with a whimper, just sitting back and waiting to get beat.  A point today isn’t a bad result in the context of the group but performances like that won’t do him any favours.  We’ve played an organized hard-working team and done nothing really.

29/11/22

More Wales Goalkeeper Shenanigans

In the build-up to the game, Iran against USA threatened to turn into the political shit fest that it was always going to. There was one particularly aggressive interview by an Iranian journalist of Tyler Adams, the USA midfielder but he handled it exceptionally well. I know this has nothing to do with Qatar but it seems to be a theme of this World Cup that very young footballers are having to be politicians whilst the politicians don’t say or do much at all.

England played Wales with Wales needing a win of any kind and hoping that USA and Iran ended in a draw.  The first part of the equation of course was Wales beating England. England didn’t really have anything to fear with regards to qualification for the next round, in fact they would’ve had to have lost by 4 to give themselves a chance of being knocked out. I don’t know what the odds were but there’s never been more of a certainty than England not losing by 4 to this Wales team.  Southgate changed the team a bit with Trippier, Mount, Saka and Sterling all left out having been crap against the States and being replaced with Walker, Henderson, Foden and Rashford.

The first half saw endless England possession with Wales barely getting out of their half and it got even worse for Wales at half-time when Gareth Bale failed to emerge for the second half. Apparently, he had a tight hamstring, I mean, what is he saving himself for?  Frightened of getting injured for golf? This is Wales in the first World Cup since 1958. Not exactly going out on his shield, is he?

In the other game, the USA were winning 1-0 courtesy of a goal by the cringingly nicknamed Captain America Christian Pulisic so as it stood, they are going through in second place.

Whilst the first half was frustrating from an England point of view, with Rashford missing the one good chance of the half, he more than made up for it in the second half when England were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box and Rashford superbly conned Danny Ward in the Welsh goal into taking one step to his right as the ball flew past him to his left. Great strike, poor goalkeeping.

Foden Points the Way Forward

From the kick-off, Wales tried to keep possession but merely succeeded in giving the ball away at left back when Ben Davies was tackled by Rashford. The ball broke to Kane and he hit a superb first time cross along the ground which Foden rammed into the net on the back post. Game over. England scored a third with Rashford cutting from the right wing before smashing the ball through an embarrassing attempt to stop it by Danny Ward and the rest of the game is extremely comfortable as England brought all the fringe players on to give them some minutes and rested the likes of Kane, Rice and Shaw.

Meanwhile in the World War 3 game, despite nine minutes of injury time which must’ve given everyone the shits a little bit, USA managed to hold on to their 1-0 lead and therefore qualify in second place. The USA go onto play the Netherlands whilst England face Senegal.

Once more, there is a euphoria around England but the note of caution is that we have once more comprehensively put away a very poor team and England can always do that. Senegal will be a tougher test because they are a decent side, they play with a hell of a lot of spirit and knockout games always raise the levels because it’s do or die.  It was a good night for the manager though and Gareth Southgate got everything right from the selection at the start right on through.  England are a better side without Mount and Sterling so let’s keep it that way.

As for Wales, well ultimately it was all rather disappointing, and they finished deservedly bottom of the group without a win. This was a knockout game for them and given the ‘Do-or-Die’ options, they chose to just curl up and die.  I was amazed that they didn’t even have a go. At 2-0 they could’ve got the next goal and then who knows, but they just sat back, let in a third and then settled for getting beat 3-0.

There will surely be some players heading into international retirement and a bit of a rebuild. Gareth Bale indicated after the game that he wanted to carry on but seriously, he can’t carry on as a forward because it just looks like he simply can’t run anymore and that his legs are gone, which of course happens to everyone at some point. With his game at his prime all being about his strong running, maybe he has to reinvent himself as a defensive midfielder or something so he can still be on the pitch, still be an influence in games and to younger players and still be there for those big moments that he’s still good at - free kicks and penalties. It’s a shame when great players can’t do what they used to do but it happens to everybody but it looks like a combination of getting older, not playing for Real Madrid for the best part of three years and then playing in America, has caught up with him and in fact, he’s gone a hell of a lot further downhill since his spell Tottenham a couple years ago.

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

Group C – Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Mexico

22/11/22
Messi, Argentina, tournament favourites up against Saudi Arabia. The major first-half  surprise was Argentina only being one up due to having a couple of goals disallowed for very tight offsides. The goal they did get was courtesy of a very dubiously awarded Messi penalty when it looked like Palacios grabbed a defender and then threw himself to the floor. Having barely set foot in the Argentinian half in the first half, it was therefore amazing and bloody funny to see the Saudis be 2-1 up after the hour mark. From now on it was a case of whether Argentina could break down the massed ranks of Saudi defenders and they did fuck all really and fell to one of the most embarrassing defeats imaginable. This wasn’t funny at all.  Argentina may well recover because it’s a poor group but I’m not having some of their players when you’re talking in terms of winning the tournament.  Otamendi, Tagliafico, Di Maria to name but three.

There are certain players in the world that the media always big up as being a real top level talent but I look at them and just think they are shit. Angel DiMaria is one that I have seen play several times and though he’s played for some unbelievable clubs in Real Madrid, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain, I’ve only ever seen him be one footed shite and he did it again today when his country most needed him. You always in a feeling sorry for Messi because of the lesser players that he has to play with in the national team. For years It was Gonzalo Higuain who was very average and today, the much-hyped Lautaro Martinez didn’t look much good either.

The other two teams in the group served up a turd of a game - fucking awful. Mexico and Poland was notable only for Robert Lewandowski missing a penalty.  Two dull sides and that is why Argentina will probably still make it through.

26/11/22
Argentina had a must win game against Mexico and couldn’t have had more suitable opponents.  Even with that, the game was still shite until Messi speared in a shot from the edge of the box to give Argentina the lead.  He really is all they’ve got still.  Mexico didn’t get near the Argentina goal and Fernandez made it 2-0 in the last few minutes with a superb curling effort into the top corner.  Argentina will still win the group.

Gerrard Slips, Ba Scores

Poland and Saudi Arabia finally saw Poland show up for a game in a major tournament.  It wasn’t plain sailing after a very dodgy penalty was awarded against them but Al-Dawsari, the hero of their win against Argentina, saw Woijczecjieczzjk Szezczzxczzezceny save it and then the rebound, which paved the way for Robert Lewandowski to tee up Zielinski to put the Poles 1-0 up.  Poland’s main man had never scored at a World Cup so he will have been delighted when the Saudi centre back let a ball roll under his foot in Steven Gerrard style, which gave him a clear run on goal.  He didn’t miss.  I’m a huge fan of Lewandowski.  No bullshit about him and a real team player.  He does all the dirty work chasing back when Poland haven’t got the ball and is a real leader of what is basically a very average team. They’ll need a point against Argentina to go through which I can’t see them getting so anyone winning the other game will be well placed to overtake them.

30/11/22
Poland are a team who have a history of always fucking it up when it really matters and so it proved again as they were comfortably beaten 2-0 by Argentina. They weren’t helped by a scandalous referee decision to award a penalty against them (and for Messi) after a VAR check but justice was done because Messi’s was expertly turned aside by Woijczecjieczzjk Szezczzxczzezceny.  With the unmistakeable stench of corruption around this tournament, it does make you wonder if the sponsors want Messi to stay in the tournament a while longer.

All the save did was delay the inevitable though as Brighton’s Alexis MacAllister bobbled one into the net off his standing leg and Manchester City’s Julian Alvarez scored a goal that he properly intended, smashing it into the top corner.

All eyes we’re on the other game where Mexico were leading Saudi Arabia 2-0 courtesy of a tap-in and one of the best free kick goals you will ever see. As we approached the 95th minute, Mexico we’re going out to Poland courtesy of having more yellow cards and they went for it, throwing bodies forward and Saudi Arabia broke away, a quick 1-2 and pulled a goal back which basically meant that Poland squeaked through.

Mbappe - This Group is Shite

Group D – France, Denmark, Australia, Tunisia

22/11/22
Denmark and Tunisia was just fucking boring and was remarkable only for the fact that Christian Eriksen was playing in a major tournament again. Denmark looked solid as you’d expect but no cutting edge at all. 0-0

France went behind to a really well worked goal by Australia but when the French got into their stride they looked really good with goals by Rabiot, two from Giroud, deputising for the injured Benzema and one for the ridiculously talented Mbappé, making a nice easy win in the end. I hear lots of stories about Mbappé in the way behaves at PSG but the guy is a ridiculous footballer and based on what I’ve seen so far, looks the most accomplished individual player in the world at the moment. The thought of him coming up against England’s defence in the quarter-finals is not an appetising one.  It’s annoying how good France are, even without three of their biggest players in Kante, Pogba and Benzema.  Imagine England without Kane, Rice and Bellingham.

26/11/22
I have a theory with this group that France are potential winners of the World Cup and everyone else in the group is average as shite. There was no change needed to this theory in the second round of games as Australia beat Tunisia 1-0 and then France only needed to play in fits and starts to beat Denmark 2–1. It was Mbappé again who made the difference with another two goals, again showing that he is the best individual player in this tournament. I’m sure the diving fucker Ronaldo would disagree. The question is really, who comes second of this group and with Denmark left to play, my money would actually be on Australia.

30/11/22
France and three shit teams finished off the group with France putting out reserve side and losing 1-0 to Tunisia with a goal scored by Wahbi Khazri, who I remember playing for Sunderland about 10 years ago and being a complete dick. France thought they’d equalised in the last second through Antoine Griezmann but it was ruled out for offside. Basically the winners of the other game were always going to go through and Denmark, complete with their kit that “didn’t want to be noticed“, lost 1-0 to bloody Australia and finished bottom of the group and therefore, weren’t noticed themselves in this tournament.

Australia’s reward is the game against Argentina in the next round whilst Poland have to play France. I think we can safely predict how those two games are going to turn out.

World Cup 2018 - Round of 16 - It's Coming Home (Maybe)

Listen Radamel - It's Coming Home You Shithouse

France v Argentina
The round of 16 kicks off with France against Argentina. These are two sides who were not supposed to meet at this stage but they are two sides have both been pretty poor so far. France won the group of life whilst Argentina were as desperate as Diego Maradona is when he runs out of marching powder. So, me being the football expert that I am, expected this to be really really dull when actually, what followed will go down as one of the best World Cup matches of recent times.

France have obviously had some sort of revolution behind the scenes – I mean, Deschamps is still in the dugout but maybe in some sort of coup d’état they’ve had him murdered and just propped him up and said ‘Viva la Revolution – we have all these attacking players – let’s go for it’  Griezmann smacks the bar with a great effort before Mbappe takes off like an Olympic sprinter and Marcos Rojo has almost no choice but to clumsily knock him over.  Penalty, Griezmann, 1-0.  The Argies have been pretty shite all tournament and one of their chief shite players, Angel di Maria produces a ridiculous long range effort which gave Lloris not a prayer to make it 1-1.  Second half and Argentina in front as Messi shanks and Mercado sticks out a foot and deflects it for 2-1.  I’m waiting for the French to implode but not a bit of it – a cross from the left evades everyone and French right back Pavard – who like di Maria, has looked shit in every game, hits across the ball on the bounce and it swerves inside the far post.  It’s an unbelievable goal.  You could try that 20 times and the other 19 would be row Z.  Mbappe has been ok without being outstanding so far but he killls it dead in 5 minutes, firstly firing under the keeper and then finishing easily when put through by Giroud.  4-2 and Aguero flicks a superb Messi cross into the net with his head in the 93^rd minute to give them the faintest of hope but no – France through, Argentina out, Maradona on a massive fucking drugs bender in his role as FIFA ambassador or whatever the fuck he is. It’s enough to make Diego have a fucking heart-attack and I hope his bag of cocaine went all lumpy when he cried on it

Uruguay v Portugal
It turned out to be the day where Cristiano Ronaldo couldn’t drag his team over the line. It just never look like working out of him at any point in the game. Unsurprisingly, no one else really stepped up to help. Uruguay have got two very good attacking players and they combined brilliantly with Cavani sweeping a long ball out to the left for Suarez to cross back in Cavani to continue his run and bullet header past Patricio to give Uruguay a lead which they never look like surrendering before half-time.

The second-half was not all about Ronaldo but was about King Shithouse or Pepe as he is otherwise known. Pepe is such a likeable chap so everyone was thrilled when he had an unchallenged header at the start the second half to draw Portugal level. Such joy at Pepe having such a great moment but it quickly turned round the opposite way when he totally fucked up a basic defensive header and the subsequent cross from the Uruguay right winger fell for Cavani to brilliantly sweep to the net for what ultimately turned out to be the winning goal. Uruguay are a bloody good side and one that you’re certainly glad, as an England supporter, to see on the other side of the draw.

Not Bad These Two

Russia v Spain
Russia’s game plan, which is perfectly valid against Spain, was to keep 10 men behind the ball at all times and see if Spain could play through them which of course, they couldn’t. It was Spain at their worst going sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards. They did take the lead early on when a corner was heading towards Sergio Ramos and the Russian who was wrestling with him turned his back on the ball and hit his heel and flew in the net for a comical own goal. Russia equalised just before half time with a strange goal. A cross came over, Pique got underneath it and to some reason threw his arms up in the air. The ball was headed goalwards and hit his arm but Pique was not even looking at it. As the rules stand at the moment, handball has to be deliberate. Important distinction to make is that this is a rule, not open to interpretation. My interpretation of the incident is that Pique knew exactly what he was doing but there is no way, according to the rules of the game that that is a penalty. Regardless, Dzyuba scored to give us another 45 minutes and then another half an hour of boredom and Spain passing the ball about. Half the time they don’t even look to pass the ball to a striker. There was one bit on about 90 minutes where Busquets played a straight ball in to the feet of Isco on the edge of the Russian penalty area and he just fired it first time, straight back to Pique without looking for any other strikers next to him. No holding the ball up and wait for support-he just knocked it straight back out back to the halfway line like a clearance. Fucking bizarre.

There was one controversy in extra time when Pique was clearly wrestled down in the penalty area but hey this is Russia, this is Putin’s Russia and there is no fucking way that that’s getting given by VAR. To be fair it wasn’t Tunisia and Panama level holding but it should still have been given. Penalties and it was one of those shootouts where you could pick who was going to miss from the way they walked up to the ball. You could also tell that de Gea wasn’t going to save a fucking thing. There was one that he really should’ve reached and one which he dived over the top of. In the event Koke missed and when Iago Aspas had a kick to keep Spain in it you knew the game was over and so the Russians went through and probably the best team in England’s half of the draw have gone out which makes it interesting If we start getting ahead of ourselves, which of course we do.

South Korea 2002 All Over Again

Croatia v Denmark
Croatia have been excellent in every game in the group but knockout football is different and it suits them more pragmatic, organised and some would say fucking boring teams like Denmark. There’s a goal in the first minute for Denmark as a ball bounces kindly for Jorgenson and then a similar scenario three minutes later at the other end which allowed Mandzukic to level it. There then followed 86 minutes of mind-numbing bollocks followed by another 26 minutes of mind-numbing bollocks in extra time. At this point, Modric split the difference with a pass through to Rebic who skated round Kaspar Schmeichel and was about to roll into and empty net when Jorgensen trashed through the back of him. Penalty of course and a yellow card. Absolute bollocks. I know the rule has been changed so that if you make a genuine attempt to play the ball then you don’t get sent off but think about it - three minutes to go in a knockout World Cup game, the striker’s gone round the goalkeeper and he has an empty net. He deliberately trashed him and he should’ve been sent off. There is no fucking way you could say he was going for the ball. The only reason this is relevant because Modric stepped up and hit a tame penalty which Schmeichel pushed aside to send us into a penalty shootout. It was 2-2 as we got the 5th kick for each team with Johansson seeing his kick saved by Subosic and Ivan Rakitić rolling penalty past Schmeichel to send Croatia through. Bye Denmark. Thanks for nothing.

Brazil v Mexico
I always feel that teams from South and Central America going to any game with Brazil are half beaten before they even start. Mexico looked lively to a point but it was only Brazil who were ever going to score. Ochoa, the Mexican keeper, saves well from Neymar and Coutinho but he was never going to get to 90 minutes without letting in a goal. When Neymar stops rolling around like a fucking little pussy, he’s actually a brilliant player and his backheel caused mayhem in the defence before Willian put the ball across and Neymar himself finished off from close range. Mexico didn’t really threaten at all and in the 92nd minute they got caught on the break as Neymar went away on the left and via a deflection, found Firmino in the middle to roll into an empty net for 2-0, nice and easy for Brazil.

Belgium v Japan
Belgium were remarkably low in intensity in the first half and Japan held out fairly comfortable with the magnificent Maya Yoshida to the fore. The second half started with the Japan breakaway, the through a ball that should’ve been cut out by Vertonghen but he missed it and Kawaguchi fired across Courtois to tear up the script. After Hazard hit the post, away went Japan again and Inue let fly from 20 yards and found the corner of the net again to give Japan a ridiculous 2-0 lead. Sadly, it wasn’t to last. Vertonghen made amends for his earlier fuck up for scoring with a fluke head across goal which dropped in the far corner of the net. Then a cross found the wig of Fellaini to make it to 2-2 and in the last minute, Belgium showed how good they can be. Courtois cleaned the corner and bowled it out to De Bruyne.  He charged forward, found Meunier on the right and his low class was dunmmied by Lukaku and there was Chadli to break Japanese hearts. Japan were fucking brilliant and unlike some of the shit teams who added nothing, they will genuinely be missed.

Switzerand v Sweden
It will surprise absolutely no one that the most predictably shit game of the World Cup was a predictable shit game. Two bollocks teams is very little attacking intent produced a diabolical first half with a few chances each but nothing great until Sweden’s Emil Forsberg produced a fitting winning goal for such a shit game with a half hit shot which was deflected in off a Swiss defender before it could roll to the goalkeeper. Fucking rubbish really. Switzerland go home having got a point against Brazil courtesy of a shit refereeing decision, two points against Serbia due to VAR not picking up the double assault on Mitrovic in the box and that’s about it really. They really haven’t had much to the proceedings. Sweden go through to the quarter-finals of the winners of England and Colombia.

England v Colombia
Same lineup as the opening game With James Rodríguez missing for them and a cagey even slightly boring first half.   Columbia are intent on making it as niggly as possible with lots of off the ball stuff and the referee, who is apparently American, is trying his best to keep a lid on it. We have another VAR farce as Colombian midfielder Barrios clearly nutted Jordan Henderson and though Henderson made a meal of it, there was definitely deliberate contact but instead of inviting the referee to go and look at the pictures for himself, the VAR officials advised him from afar that it should only be yellow card. Complete fucking joke. 10 minutes into the second-half and Harry Kane gets his usual rogering off a defender when he’s trying to make himself free at a corner and the ref gives England a penalty and mayhem happens, Led by Colombia’s captain and chief arsehole, Radamel Falcao. The Colombians are all round the referee and taking their opportunity to scuff the penalty spot and all that sort stuff and I’ve seen this a few times in this World Cup now and I just don’t understand why the referees don’t say, “you have 30 seconds to clear the penalty area, anyone still here will get booked. Anyone who leaves the penalty area and comes back in will be booked. Simple. Three minutes later, Colombia decide that the game can go ahead and Harry Kane passes it down the middle and puts us 1-0 up. The next 20 minutes are fine and then Southgate fucks up. He didn’t fuck up taking off Dele Alli who was clearly injured but he fucked up putting on Eric Dier instead of Ruben Loftus-Cheek because all of a sudden we completely lost our shape and just became very negative. Dier was playing like someone had won a raffle to play in a testimonial match. Kyle Walker then chose the wrong moment doze off and lost the ball on the halfway line which allowed Columbia to break and luckily, Cuadrado smashed it over the bar. Colombia manage their first shot on target in the 91st minute, a long range effort from Uribe which Pickford brilliantly clawed out of the top corner. From the resulting corner, Yerry Mina beat Maguire in the air and headed down seeing it bounce over Trippier on the line and fucking unbelievable, the scumbags had equalised. The first half of extra time was fucking dreadful and it look like England had gone. The second half was better as he took the woeful Ashley Young off and put Danny Rose on and the left-footed left back came closest to winning it for us with a shot across the goal that went about 6 inches wide of the far post.

Penalties. We’ve been here before. Pickford didn’t get near the first three Colombian penalties with Kane and Rashford converting for England. Up stepped Jordan Henderson, a bit of ball juggling, a very short run up and saved. Bollocks. Uribe then tried to take the roof of the net off and succeeded in clattering the crossbar so we were back in it and Trippier made it 3-3. The final Colombian kicker was Carlos Bacca and you could tell that he was absolutely shitting himself as he stood on the spot. I would be shitting myself too if I was intending to go home to Colombia if I missed. Pickford dived one way and stuck up a strong hand the other way and push the ball out. Superb save. I was waiting for Jamie Vardy to walk up but oh fuck, it’s Eric Dier. In this tournament, he could only have been more aptly nine if his name was Eric Completelyfuckinguseless. Buried it, 4-3, cheating cunts are going home and football is coming home. Perhaps. Peak England. Make it as difficult as we possibly can. The difference is this time that we actually managed to get over the line.

There are still issues for another day. Sterling and Alli totally failed to provide anything of note for Kane to feed off of, Ashley Young provided nothing whatsoever from the left hand side which is becoming a theme and having both Dier and Henderson on the pitch in midfield just doesn’t work. However, despite these problems, we are in the quarter-finals of the World Cup with the game against Sweden.  Get past that and it’s Russia or Croatia.  We will never have a better chance than this of making a World Cup final.

News gets even better when you find out that the Diego Maradona was supporting Colombia and he thinks England won by robbery. Maradona has of course been supporting the Colombian economy for many years the cocaine addled fat cheating fuck. Hurry up and OD you horrible bastard. Just stop fucking lingering.

Quarter Final Predictions....

Uruguay to beat France

Belgium to beat Brazil

Croatia to beat Russia

England to beat Sweden

World Cup 2018 - Group Round 3 - Sadness as Germany go out.

Where the Fuck is Manuel Neuer ?

Round three and the end of Group A with Russia playing a decent team in Uruguay and the battle of the top place in the group quickly went to shit for the Russians with Suarez drilling a freekick into the corner when the wall decided to stand about 10 yards right of where it should have been. It was 2-0 soon after and it was game over with the Russians having someone sent off the two bookings. Vladimir will not be pleased. The rest of the game just petered out with the highly rated Edinson Cavani scoring a tap in in the last minute with his 300th effort on goal in the tournament so far. In the dead rubber match, Egypt took the lead in when Salah lobbed in with the commentator giving it the big one and “Mo Salah never misses from there“. It must be difficult for these commentators to both hold a microphone and wank themselves into a frenzy every time Salah is playing. 10 minutes later he did in fact miss from the place he never misses from when he chipped wide when clean through. This miss was costly as back came Saudi Arabia. They won a penalty which was expertly saved by the 74-year-old goalkeeper, then got another penalty for handball which they scored and then spawned an equaliser in the last couple of minutes to send Egypt home without a point. So, Uruguay top and Russia second. It did make me laugh the people taking the piss because Russia had finally played a decent opponent and come up short. These are probably the same people saying England are going to win it after wins against world superpowers Tunisia and Panama

Portugal versus Iran and Spain versus Morocco didn’t promise that much but it was a fascinating evening with Spain quickly going behind. Even if they lost, their qualification wasn’t under threat but even so, Isco equalised soon afterwards. Portugal and Iran was a decent match with Ricardo Quaresma putting Portugal ahead with the ridiculous goal the outside of his right foot. In the second half of the Portugal game, the referee came under intense pressure from the players and the Iranian manager, Carlos Queiroz who has always been a fucking arsehole. First of all Ronaldo was given a penalty after VAR. He was clearly fouled but Mark Lawrenson thought it wasn’t a penalty because he didn’t have control of the ball which is of course, utterly irrelevant. Up stepped the chosen one and the goalkeeper correctly guesses and saves it. Iran, clearly incensed by the correctly awarded penalty then going to playacting overdrive, encouraged all the way by the shithouse of a manager. The next major incident was a tussle between Ronaldo and a defender with the defender going down and everyone appealing for it to be reviewed on VAR which duly was and the ref, quite rightly in my view, decided it was a yellow card and not a red. With 90 minutes on the clock it all went fucking nuts as Cedric and an Iranian striker went out for a high ball and the Iranian unsurprisingly won it because he’s taller than 5 foot 5. Cedric was right underneath the guy with his eyes shut and the ball may have skimmed his arm on the way down. There are so many reasons why this is not a penalty and the referee quite correctly didn’t give a penalty. What is bizarre is that no Iranian appealed for penalty because it clearly wasn’t but somehow it got reviewed and the referee got called over. Somehow, probably through the shit house antics of Queiroz, he looked at the television pictures and decided that that was a deliberate hand ball. Utter fucking shambles. Anyway, they scored and then had a glorious chance within a minute to knock Portugal out which thankfully for the world at large they didn’t take. VAR is not the problem-it’s the fucking idiot referees and fucking idiot VAR operators. They are only supposed to call the referee if it’s a clear and obvious error so they are basically not doing their job correctly. Sadly, at the moment they are just appears to be giving incompetent referees one more opportunity to fuck it up. Meanwhile, Spain manage to go behind again to Morocco before equalising with a correctly awarded VAR goal in the last minute so, after all that shit, Spain win the group and go on to play Russia and Portugal, thanks to the dodgy penalty that was awarded against them, now play Uruguay.

VAR-cical

The group of life, or the group of complete fucking tedium as it should be known, drew to a close with the most predictable 0-0 bore draw between Denmark and France. Australia, when they actually needed to go out and win a game, predictably had no fucking idea how to do that and lost 2-0 to Peru who perhaps showed what might of been if only they hadn’t of missed that penalty against Denmark. The forthcoming France implosion will now happen in one of the knockout rounds. Whoever Denmark are playing in the next round, they will probably play for penalties from the first minute and hopefully not get there.

It was do or die for Argentina as they took on Nigeria with Croatia taking on Iceland in the other game. Basically the Argies had to win and all looked well when Messi brilliantly controlled a long ball from Banega and put them into the lead. My opinion of Mascherano has always been that he is a brainless moron and he proved that again when, after having seen penalties given the grappling in the penalty area he decided to wrestle a Nigerian bloke to the ground and was then genuinely shocked when a penalty was given against him. Victor Moses made it 1-1 and it seemed for a glorious 20 minutes that the Argentinians and their cheerleader, the cocaine addled fat fuck heart attack waiting to happen that is Diego Maradona, were heading out the tournament. With three minutes to go however, a cross from the right wing and Marcos Rojo, a left footed centre back found himself on the penalty spot to convert a right footed volley into the corner. To be fair, it was a brilliant finish and only serve to highlight that Gonzalo Higuain, a striker who is been transferred for about hundred million pounds in his career, it’s fucking garbage. They have another big reputation player who never does anything and that Angel DiMaria, the most one footed player I have ever seen. So, with Croatia reserves beating Iceland 2-1, Argentina are through to the next round and apparently Maradona ended up in hospital but this was not before giving out entertainment, flicking the double bird at some supporters who had predictably been given him a load of shit during the game. Add that to the slitty eyed gesture he aimed at some Korean fans earlier on in the tournament and he really is a great bloke isn’t it he. I remember 1986 and yes, you’re still a fucking cheating twat.

After the game against Germany when he conceded the foul in the last minute to allow the Germans to win, Swedish winger Jimmy Durmaz, because he happens to be of Turkish origin and has a beard, received a lot of racial abuse, death threats and the usual predictable bollocks that goes on these days. He stood in front of the whole Swedish the squad and made a little video and the last two words of it were 'fuck racism' which I thought was rather cool. So Sweden have my new found respect and I hope they get through today as they take on Mexico. The other game is of course Germany playing South Korea which will no doubt be the predictable German win and passage through to the last 16 like they always do.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

The Sweden v Mexico game was pretty much over bar the shouting with Sweden winning 3-0 but Germany were still drawing 0-0 with South Korea with 20 minutes to go. Just one goal needed for the Germans and it would be Mexico who will be going home despite having won the first two matches. But oh glorious day, a scramble from a corner and South Korea find themselves with the ball 5 yards out with just Manuel Neuer to beat, goal. Hang on, the fucking referee's gone and disallowed it but thankfully we have this wonderful new invention to this World Cup called VAR and they go and review it and Germany now need two goals in the 10 minutes that remain. To be fair, they go for it because they have to do but they are fucking shit. They just don’t have the players in the forward positions with no replacement for Miroslav Klose and Thomas Müller looking about a third of the player he was four years ago. Mesut Özil - If ever there was a time to come out with an assist mate, it’s now. Mats Hummels puts a couple of headers over and they disappear into the crowd along with his future international career. Then, hilarity. Manuel Neuer thinks he’s a midfield player and starts fucking around 40 yards from goal. They lose the ball, one big hoof forward and Son Heung Min is not going to miss given that he has the ball, 40 yards from goal and no one in goal. 2-0 and off you fuck Germany and off you fuck Joachim Low you dodgy looking geezer. Good player Son - probably better than Mo Salah and he’s had a better World Cup. Not that it matters as long as they go out but Germany actually managed to finish bottom of the group and 15 years of extreme smugness has come to an end. For the record Sweden smashed Mexico 3-0 so go through as top of the group.

Dodgy Geezer Directs Germany to the Lufthansa Check-In Line

I thought that Brazil might have been in for a difficult time against Serbia but in the end they ran out comfortable 2-0 winners without too much drama. Once Paulinho had given them the lead, there was really no way back for the Serbs, a couple of half chances but that was it. So, Brazil won the group and Switzerland finished second after drawing 2-2 with Costa Rica in what surprisingly, turned out to be a really entertaining game. I can’t see the Swiss going much further and it was amusing to see the penalty in the last minute which Bryan Ruiz smashed off the crossbar, into the back of the goalkeepers head and into the net.

The last round of matches in Group H saw Colombia play Senegal and Poland play Japan. Both games were pretty dull until Southampton’s very own Jan Bednarek put them in the head against Maya Yoshida’s Japan. A few minutes later, a goal for Columbia meant that Japan were hanging on to 2nd place by virtue of having had less bookings then Senegal and so the final 20 minutes was an absolute farce with Japan prepared to pass the ball around the back and happily lose 1-0 whilst hoping that Senegal wouldn’t score against Colombia which of course they duly didn’t. Colombia first and Japan second and awaiting the second and first place teams respectively from England’s group.

The excitement that has built up around England was dissipated the moment the teams were announced for the game against Belgium. Both teams rested everybody and played all of the squad players. Whilst Southgate has not a lot wrong at this World Cup, the starting 11 highlighted some of the poor choices in the squad. The first half was fucking boring with Belgium nearly scoring following a scramble when Batshuayi was allowed to kick the ball out of Pickford's hands. Neither team could really be arsed and they were cheers from the Belgian fans when a couple of their players got booked which meant they were four bookings behind us in the race for second place. In the second half, Januzaj, a player who I have always thought was a complete waste of space, scored what was actually a really good goal but probably not what his manager wanted as he cut inside a pathetic challenge from Danny Rose and curled it past Pickford who did some sort of midair handstand in very bizarre fashion. England have a fantastic chance to equalise when Vardy puts Rushford clean through but he put the shot too close to Courtois who got a finger to it and deflected it wide. Make no mistake, this was a diabolical miss. If Raheem Sterling had done that then he would’ve got absolutely slaughtered by everyone but because it’s Rashford and there's no real agenda against him, none of the commentators on the TV say anything about it and none of the pundits in the studio afterwards said anything about it either. No one also said anything about Trent Alexander-Arnold and his free-kick delivery where none of them got above knee height. I know he is a young lad but he’s been picked for a World Cup squad. I’ve said all along that he shouldn’t of been picked but he has been so he should be able to get a free-kick more than 8 inches off the fucking ground. England’s back up players looked very very poor. Phil Jones, Fabien Delph, Eric Dier...all terrible. Again, the decision to give Danny Rose special dispensation when he is clearly not fit looks more and more bizarre by the day. Ironically, Ryan Bertrand started preseason training today. And so we lost and now face a second round match against Colombia . Win that and we are playing one of Sweden or Switzerland for a place in the semi-final so it really hasn’t worked out badly. Belgium go through to play Japan which should be straightforward enough, but then they get Brazil so who are the real winners today? Not the fans that’s for sure. In the other match which was the deadest of dead rubbers, Tunisia beat Panama 2-1. That’s Panama who qualified ahead if the almighty USA.

The thing that I keep coming back to when I think about the tournament as a whole is that it's currently the perfect size.  32 teams is ideal as it of course, neatly goes 16,8,4,2 with half of the teams exiting after every round. 48 teams is going to be a joke as you're going to have 12 groups of 4 and 8 3rd place teams qualifying from the groups.  Not only does this mean more substandard teams but you'll be able to get through a group with two 0-0 draws so it's going to mean more dull games.  There haven't been many in this tournament so far and that's been refreshing.  The format we have now is perfect for the World Cup but whatever format we have, Germany would still have gone out.  

Anyway, in the Germany free last 16, my predictions are.

France to beat Argentina
Uruguay to beat Portugal
Brazil to beat Mexico
Belgium to beat Japan
Spain to beat Russia
Croatia to beat Denmark
Sweden to beat Switzerland
England to beat Colombia

Now it gets interesting...

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.