The World Cup 2018

[Alex]

I dont think id call them boring based on the opening of the game. It clearly got to them a bit half hour in or so, which effected them and they went massively into their shells.

[fah-q]

P Neville's commentary is unintentionally hilarious.

Someone during the last world cup said it sounded like he was phoning in the commentary from an office job whilst trying not to alert his boss he wasn't working.

[McDermotX]

Yet another pen.......with a red card

Colombia down to 10

Japan 1 up

[Bender]

Yet another pen.......with a red card

Erm what game are you going on about?

[McDermotX]

Erm what game are you going on about?

Only one on at the moment

[Slinky Skills]

Phil Neville said the other day at half time "It's a good victory" for the first half ha haha!!

[Chris]

Davinson Sanchez is absolutely horrendous. A bit slower and he's not even making it as a pro. The other Sanchez is **** too. And Alexis, the cunt.

[Exiled_red]

You’ve nailed it. Speaking from just outside of England I can really see some appealing aspects to the squad, and Southgate is proabably the most humble England manager since Bobby Robson, but the media and hype just cannot help itself, and will always be a distraction.

There is a massive inability within the pundits and media to be able to call a performance what it was, solid. The ability to place that expectation outwith ambition - realistic, unrealistic just doesn’t exist and as soon as this context is brought into play it defeats the purpose, and renders all previous chat pointless

I'm just outside England too . Being an English guy in Scotland at the world cup gets one of two reactions either people just assume that I am supporting England and don't believe that i'm not, or they say I should be ashamed of myself not supporting my country as they would love to be in the world cup finals.

I really try not to watch the build up or analysis but like today you can't get away from it. Like you say if the expectation and the ambition could be kept seperate by the pundits etc then that might make it more palatable.

Perhaps we have the Bodge to thank for lowering expectations

[The_weatherman]

Japan are a fearsome outfit to be fair and surely a dark horse for the World Cup, I've been watching them closely for the months and they are awesome.

Luckily they drew me in the sweepstake.

[Bender]

Only one on at the moment

whatever

[McDermotX]

whatever

The one in the World Cup, Bender.....it's on TV at the moment.

Not the one being played in the park.

[Buzzo]

I'm just outside England too . Being an English guy in Scotland at the world cup gets one of two reactions either people just assume that I am supporting England and don't believe that i'm not, or they say I should be ashamed of myself not supporting my country as they would love to be in the world cup finals.

I really try not to watch the build up or analysis but like today you can't get away from it. Like you say if the expectation and the ambition could be kept seperate by the pundits etc then that might make it more palatable.

Perhaps we have the Bodge to thank for lowering expectations

You cant win I am afraid, mainly because we used to love the World Cup.

I remember we used to bemoan the fact that we had never got out of the group stages. What I'd give to watch us not get out of the group stages now.

We were way, way ahead of our time in identifying supposedly lesser teams to lose to though

[McDermotX]

Cuadrado subbed off after 30mins.......too much bollocking about for a team with 10 men

[McDermotX]

Clever FK.....1-1

Dunno why they think it wasn't over the line....looked good in realtime

[Doc_Piptorious]

A word on pundits, has it ever been as bad an P. Neville, M. Keown, A. Shearer and D. Murphy. The BBC are sapping any enthusiasm i have for international football.

I think awful pundits are across the board this world cup. The Irish lot have been woeful as well this tournament with many of the pundits simply not having a clue about the players, even ones with pretty decent profiles.

Yesterday at HT during the Belgium - Panama game we had Damien Duff on about how there was no attacking options on the Belgium bench other than the route one option of Fellaini, and he even commented on how he had heard of nobody else on the Belgian bench. Seven of the Belgian bench play or have played in the Premiership and they had a few well known attacking options on their bench. Yet Duff and the other dummies focused on Fellaini as the only "name" attacker Belgium had.


Was laughing as well during the game when the commentators on a regular basis would say Witsel has passed the ball when it obviously was de Bruyne. Poor old Witsel was being mixed up with pretty much anyone who wandered into midfield.