Topic: 2018 FIFA World Cup

Erm.. okay? I wasn't saying we were a great team or that we would go on and win anything.

I am just very, very happy to see England put 4, 5, 6 goals past a clearly inferior opponent. I've watched international football for over three decades and in my lifetime, England seldom if ever show such a ruthless streak.

I'm proud of what Gareth Southgate and the players are trying to do. Changing the typical English formation and being brave in trying new things. Hopefully, this bodes well for the upcoming games but just as importantly the long term prospects of the English national side. We have had success at under-17, under-20 and under-21 age groups in the past 4 years and hopefully we can keep that development cycle going.

As for this World Cup. Today may be our highest point we get in the tournament, so excuse me if I intend to bask in the glory of it.

I've done the pessimism - saw me pretty much give up following the sport for many years. Now I'm back, I'm going to enjoy myself when the opportunity arises.

@Chris77 A lot of lucky guesses, based on my very (very) superficial knowledge of footie. I'll call this real beginners luck!

Well, this is probably the strangest World Cup I've ever seen. Good teams are playing abysmally and sh!te teams are just playing. Too many matches decided by +90° goals (VAR is really changing the way the players get to injury time). If England doesn't win this Cup you'll have to wait another 52 years before the stars allign again - good luck guys!

It might be the strangest World Cup in years - thanks mainly to VAR, which I object to on fundamental grounds but in practice am actually quite enjoying. However, it's also the best World Cup in years, at least since 1998 (though 2006 was pretty good). Thoroughly enjoying England and Sweden's progress, and have my fingers crossed that my dual loyalties will be tested in a quarter-final next weekend.

England-Belgium was a stinker, though.

@Krull Just out of curiosity, why do you object to VAR on fundamental grounds? As for us losing against Belgium, I hear it was quite smart as it could be the easier route to take in terms of the teams we go up against moving forward.

@FragRed Ah, I hate technology interfering with the flow of play, and VAR also means referees are losing faith in their own judgments. Honestly, I would rather have refereeing mistakes than a perfectly controlled game. Football is a celebration of human skill, effort and fallibility, and that applies as much to the referees as it does to the players. It's only because there is so much money riding on club football that technology is being brought in to this extent. Mistakes make things more interesting, more random, more divisive, more infuriating - and less like watching someone play Fifa.

Technology works great in tennis, cricket and the NFL, as those sports (and I love all three) are stop-start. Football is meant to finish in 90 minutes - not take long pauses to check a screen and end up with seven minutes of injury time. And just think, if goal-line technology had been around in 1966, the England and West Germany final would have gone to penalties - and we all know how that would have turned out!

As for England losing to Belgium, it means a theoretically easier quarter-final. However, it also means England next have to play Colombia, instead of Japan, which is a much, much trickier game.

VAR is destroying the football i love so much

also Uruguay is super good! Godin is such a good defender. the could really win the world cup.

@Krull I understand the reasoning behind the criticism against VAR, but honestly we were getting to the point of entire leagues and international cup games being totally conditioned by biased or plain bad refereeing. At this stage I'd rather have long fragmented games than see teams get penalised by incompetent referees.
However, I think we are currently in a state of transition - the players will get used to it in a year or two, and this will hopefully convince them to avoid certain behaviours on the pitch, which in turn will lead to less intermissions (fingers crossed).

I do agree a certain degree of mistake makes football more interesting and realistic, but once you see a pattern - and by that I mean mistakes that are not really random - it only makes it a farce.

I am pro-VAR. In Serie A we implemented it for the 2017-2018 season and it was painfull at first but both players and fans are starting to see the benefits of it. You hardly see certain kinds of fouls now. I wish we had it when Italy was knocked out of the WC2002 by a referee who - a few years later - was caught smuggling smack to the United States!!

That second half of Belgium-Japan was truly stellar. Talk about the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat, though; even as an observer with no vested interest in the outcome, my heart broke a little for the Japanese players. Probably to their doom, they avoided a lot of the cynical play heavy underdog sides tend to fall into and, even to the last minute of stoppage time, absolutely tried to get that third goal.

@spizzamarozzi
Hey mate, are you Italian too? Good to know!
I don't see many fellow countrymen on these boards nowadays, I'll send you a friend request next time I'm on

Back on topic, stellar performance from both teams, that's exactly how every WC match should be played. And major kudos to Japan for the stalwart effort, despite the last-minute delusion.

Japan were incredible against one of the clear favourites to win the World Cup. Contributed to one of the greatest games in the competition's history. The second half was fantastic. I'll certainly be cheering Japan on as my second team in future tournaments. Sincerely hope they can keep this playing style mentality going and fingers crossed the results will come for them. They were so close to making the quarter-finals.

Credit to Belgium though, showed huge mental strength to keep going and come back from 2-0 to win the game with less than half and hour left on the clock.

Aside from the horrendous play-acting and diving. This has been a tremendous World Cup.

Now just praying my nerves can hold out watching England tonight. Praying for a good performance, warning signs are there though.

Both Belgium and Croatia, like England, chose to rest the majority of their starting eleven in their final group game ahead of the last 16 match. Both looked of those teams looked more than a little cold and off-form for the majority of their matches. Bottom line is they both got through though.

Come on England!

@RetroGamerAndrew Has @spizzamarozzi got a Switch now then? I'll add him too if he has his Switch Friend code on here?

By the way congrats on the team in your own self-image getting through against the Danes 😉

Totally bummed-out for Japan, but I can't applaud the way they kept attacking with such intensity in that final 20 minutes. Borderline stupidity really. They should have shut up shop and seen the time out. Right after they went 2-0 up Belgium showed they were going to come at them hard, and Japan just gave them the space to do so.

@Lroy Oh think I misread, that's a 3DS friend code! My bad

Glad England (my team) won, thought Colombia were shocking last night.

Last night was nerve shredding. Last time I saw England win a penalty shoot-out in a major international competition was against Spain in Euro '96. Of course we then went out on bloody pens again to the Germans in the Semi-Finals of that tournament. Fingers crossed penalties don't come back to haunt us again later in this World Cup. But for now, just celebrating the win. Thoroughly deserved. Colombia were an absolute disgrace.

@Lroy This World Cup has its surprises, I honestly think England have a chance of Wining its remaining Football matches that's if Belgium beat Brazil and Croatia are beaten by Russia, The latter being the least likely of Wins.

@uximal I've been watching England for too many years to get too carried away. Let's take it a game at a time. I'm just very happy we got through last night. No matter what happens against the Swedes on Saturday, I just couldn't take going out to that unsportsmanlike Colombia side. Terrible behaviour from their players.

I think England's only chance comes down to set pieces and penalty shoot-outs. In open play the forwards, bar Jesse Lingard (of Fiorentina fame in my FIFA file) have not shown enough quality to get us many goals. And at the back Kyle Walker and Harry Maguire are prone to errors.

Harry Kane, while deserving of respect for keeping his head when the pressure's on, has to be the luckiest leading scorer going: 3 penalties, an inadvertent deflection, a rebound where the goalie put it on a plate for him, and one decent header (from about 2 metres out). Sure, he had to be 'in the right place at the right time', but he really hasn't looked like one of the world's best strikers, he's barely featured, and looked knackered for half of last night's game.

But England's biggest problem from the past 10 years - playing players who aren't earning their start - continues in the form of Dele Alli. It's hard to remember which games he's missed and which games he's started, because he's been virtually anonymous in all of them. Last night, with the Colombians putting it about, would have been perfect for Loftus-Cheek to batter them about.

Prepare for an even more boring game against Sweden. It'll be tight like Colombia, but with less of the entertaining shenanigans. Another game to be decided by set pieces or penalty shoot-out seems likely.

England have no number 10. They still lack serious creativity quality! They are an average team at best.

I am not even convinced that was a penalty last night. Kane was already falling over and both players were wrestling.

They do have a favourable draw though. I still think Sweden can beat them and they will have no chance vs Croatia in the semi if they make it that far.

I am definitely on the hashtag #anyoneButEngland