World Cup Russia 2018 Thread

Bob the Builder posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

I never like watching Portugal. Too many tricks, especially from that great man.

The only time I didn't enjoy watching Ronaldo was he played against Arsenal.  I saw him play several times when he was at Man U once against Fulham at Craven Cottage where you are quite close to the pitch I was quite shocked at what a big man he is and how powerful in the air he was a fantastic player.

Agreed. He may strut unnecessarily at times but his talent, dedication and determination make him one of the game's all-time greats. His goal scoring statistics speak for themselves.

Huge sigh of relief from the Spanish fans, an Iran equaliser would have made an exciting last 20 mins

Spain deserved their win but have to thank VAR for it. Credit Iran, though. I thought they played with great spirit and wonderfully noisy support.  

Iran deserve a lot of credit for making it a very watchable game, never seen a flat back 6 before.

But fantastic energy and commitment from Iran, and what terrific support.

Lulu - A Little Soul in Your Heart, an album of soul and R&B covers from the ever youthful Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, with great backing from various members of various Clapton and McCartney bands.Unmistakable. 

ALANP posted:

Lulu - A Little Soul in Your Heart, an album of soul and R&B covers from the ever youthful Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, with great backing from various members of various Clapton and McCartney bands.Unmistakable. 

Er. Wrong thread I think, Alan.

MDS posted:

ALANP posted:

Lulu - A Little Soul in Your Heart, an album of soul and R&B covers from the ever youthful Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, with great backing from various members of various Clapton and McCartney bands.Unmistakable. 

Er. Wrong thread I think, Alan.

Oops, well spotted Mike  too late to delete!

It’s never too late to delete. The time limit applies only to editing. 

ALANP posted:

Lulu - A Little Soul in Your Heart, an album of soul and R&B covers from the ever youthful Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, with great backing from various members of various Clapton and McCartney bands.Unmistakable. 

Possibly a good idea to play this instead of listening to the half time pundits......who have a great ability to talk boll...ks

MDS posted:

Bob the Builder posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

I never like watching Portugal. Too many tricks, especially from that great man.

The only time I didn't enjoy watching Ronaldo was he played against Arsenal.  I saw him play several times when he was at Man U once against Fulham at Craven Cottage where you are quite close to the pitch I was quite shocked at what a big man he is and how powerful in the air he was a fantastic player.

Agreed. He may strut unnecessarily at times but his talent, dedication and determination make him one of the game's all-time greats. His goal scoring statistics speak for themselves.

Ronaldo keeps himself in great shape. Compare him wth Rooney as they are the same age, only one of them is at the tournament.

I don't agree I think Iran's tactics helped to make it a woeful game their negativity even stretched to keeping Alireza Jahanbakhsh of AZ Alkmaar the Dutch Eredivisie League's golden boot winner (the first Asian player to ever achieve that in  European football)  on the bench until the last 15 mins. I understand they looked at their remaining games and thought their best chance was against Portugal but they actually had the players capable of causing an upset and almost did but for VAR which again did a fantasic job ruling their equaliser off side.  

One fantastic sight was their many female supporters who not allowed to attend football matches in Iran were making a massive statement of defiance and not just by being there but by uncovering their heads and by wearing make up and 'western' clothes.  Let's hope their team play with more positivity against Portugal and progress to the latter stages.

thebigfredc posted:

Bert Schurink posted:

SamS posted:

I thought it was a pretty solid England performance, excepting the poor finishing in the 1st half. But they played with speed, aggression and created countless opportunities. Once Tunisia equalised, they parked the bus which of course zapps the energy out of any match . England still managed a few opportunities in the 2nd half (why oh why did Rashford not strike that ball in the box), persevered and got the deserved late goal.

Well done !!

 

You have been lucky that the team was not punished for being so reckless with it’s chances in the first half. A better team will not let that happen.

Thanks for that Burt. 

BTW how did Germany get on?

 

I am living in Germany, but when it goes to soccer I am definitely Dutch in full. The German team performed very bad and will have a very challenging match this Saturday. Either they rise, or fall down miserably. Let’s see it will at least be one of the exciting matches of the tournament.

Its a poorer tournament without Holland for sure, in a footballing sense as their teams played with great flair (I remember watching Cruyff in '74) and also in terms of the colourful Dutch fans.

So much for my Messi feeling ????..!! 

So, Argentina could well be going home following this game, where their best player, Messi, received nothing in the way of service, and the remainder of the team spent their time contributing little, other than committing crude and petty fouls.

Without Messi, they had no plan B.

Well done Croatia.

Argentina were incredibly poor, no ‘hand of god’  to save them.... ithey seemed to have 6 attackers and 4 defenders...... no plan a, plan b, or plan c 

That goal by Modric was a thing of beauty. Argentina offered little, but Croatia were superb, I thought.

Yes. The pundits on the TV were trying to suggest that the keeper's howler was a game-changing moment. I beg to differ. Croatia were the better team by quite a margin.  I also continue to be impressed with Modric. Not only is he wonderfully creative but unlike many creative midfielders he works his socks off defensively.     

As an aside, I bet Ronaldo enjoyed the game and watching his great competitor Messi struggle.  For me while they are both world-class players, Messi seems to need good players around him to shine whereas Ronaldo seems to be able to lead lesser-players to better things. They are both footballing geniuses but only only of them has leadership qualities.   

Question is, did the Argentina goalkeeper make a blooper of an error or did he have concussion.  ???

In between some great moments I am fed up with all the simulation of injury and diving.

Can anyone tell me another sport where cheating is so widely practised and so accepted?

It looks to be completely endemic in football. I bet it trickles down to the parks and playgrounds too.

Bruce

I suppose that's the magic with the World cup with regard to Argentinas performance anything can happen.Pablo Zabelleta has just been on Radio 5 and said there's going to be alot of anger back home in Argentina.

VAR should and could be used for simulation yellow card or 10 Minutes in the Sin Bin

Xenasys posted:

VAR should and could be used for simulation yellow card or 10 Minutes in the Sin Bin

If people attempt to blatantly cheat why not just send them off? It is worse than just a mis-timed challenge or two. That Portugese chap falling down after a pat on the back was frankly disgusting-not funny as most seemed to view it. Far from alone though.

As soon as someone goes down clutching their leg the ground staff should run on and stretcher them off as fast as possible and all treatment and assessment take place off the field. They only come back on when the ref has a break in play. That will curb a lot of the rolling around.

Bruce

Sadly Cheating seems to be creeping into most sports these days.

The key to sorting it out in football is as suggested, look at the VAR and send them off. 

If the officials could just be consistent in their dealing with the problem, that would go along way towards dealing with the cheats.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Xenasys posted:

VAR should and could be used for simulation yellow card or 10 Minutes in the Sin Bin

If people attempt to blatantly cheat why not just send them off? It is worse than just a mis-timed challenge or two. That Portugese chap falling down after a pat on the back was frankly disgusting-not funny as most seemed to view it. Far from alone though.

As soon as someone goes down clutching their leg the ground staff should run on and stretcher them off as fast as possible and all treatment and assessment take place off the field. They only come back on when the ref has a break in play. That will curb a lot of the rolling around.

Bruce

It's one thing to find the players cheating, quite another to find a member of the press advocating it.....     Here are the words of BBC reporter Stephan Shemilt on the BBC site, talking about Switzerland's winning goal in their game against Serbia:

"I've just seen a replay of that Shaqiri winner. Dusko Tosic, the last defender, looks like he's trying to play Shaqiri offside, even though Shaqiri started in his own half. Even after that, Tosic caould have bought Shaqiri down. Surely it was worth doing that with so little time left in the game?"

Utterly shameful.