PunkStep

His first touch is almost as sexy as his sumptuous looks

Mbappe was on another level tonight, truly magnificent. Him, Giroud and to a lesser degree Griezmann & Dembele are some force. The give and go's they were playing in and around the area...j'taime.

Who needs Karim Blackmailer when you have pure sex?

Quite the day for United fans. First Liverpool up for sale, now United. Be careful what you wish for, United fans.

Mike Ashley pls

1 minute ago, SuperBacon said:

Just seen someone say that the starting 11 for Qatar on Sunday all play for Al-Sadd.

Wrong, Almoez Ali for a start plays for Al Duhail

13 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Theres yet another Italia 90 documentary on BBC4 tonight about the Cameroon team. Just incase anybody hasn't seen enough about this competition.

@SuperBacon @SuperBacon @SuperBacon

8 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Great question! I don’t think it was ever in a World Cup but there was a time when Ukraines outfielders were all Dinamo Kiev players. 

Also half of Lobanovsky's Soviet side at 1986 consisted of Dynamo Kiev players,  unsurprisingly. 

35 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Good question. Without looking (and to be honest I am too lazy to) one of the North Korean teams from 2010 might give it a good go?

I thought the entire England '66 squad played for West Ham?

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out

Imagine posting a link to The Sun in here. 

That's on Argentina for some really, really awful timing of their runs in the first half. Can't really credit Saudi Arabia for playing a decent offside trap for the disallowed Messi and 2nd Martinez goals, they looked well offside live. The first Martinez one looked on for me though, they didn't show a replay oddly enough (unless they did at half time, which I missed).

Great defending from Saudi Arabia after the took the lead though. Real backs to the wall stuff.

52 minutes ago, air_raid said:

A good Southgate one to catch people out with is "True or false - when England made the World Cup semi final in 2018, they lost as many games as they won?" Sounds ridiculous, but if you break it down... it's true.

And one to put the 'we were much better in Italia 90' lot to bed- England won three times as many games in normal time in 2018 than they did in 1990 and won more games overall. Tunisia, Panama and Sweden (plus Colombia on pens) VS Egypt (plus Cameroon and Belgium AET). 

44 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Goal was lovely though, but I expected them to walk it after that went in.

They really should have. Perhaps having someone with a bit more impetus like Aaronson in midfield would've helped, he's usually bags full of energy for Leeds. When they made their triple change, bringing on Gio Reyna might have helped against a tired Welsh defence too.

Netherlands VS Senegal was shite. The Dutch have a few brilliant players, a few useful ones, some right dross and their depth is either pretty raw or crap. Vincent Janssen as their starting striker doesn't really bode well. Can't see anyone from Group A getting far.

USMNT should have walked that. Completely dominated the first half but took their foot off the gas too much in the second half to allow Wales hope. They moved the ball around so well for 45 mins. Good game to watch, quite a physical battle. Everyone must be absolutely fucked after that. 

I thought the commentators were going to cum every time Wales made a successful tackle.

18 minutes ago, RalphyV2 said:

I have never really rated Pickford that highly, he is decent enough, but not good enough or reliable enough for a top team or top level international Duty's. I much prefer Ramsdale or Pope

He's probably the biggest reason Everton weren't relegated last season and he was very good for England in their last two tournaments, despite his little arms. He's decent enough. Touted as a replacement for Lloris as Spurs, who could do a lot worse.

I saw one article today about how deep they sat against Argentina, who needed a late Messi winner to claw the win. 'Would they do the same today against England and hope for a draw?', the article asked. The match they used as their example was from 2014 for fuck sake!

They'll probably also say how efficient the German side are and that Spain are perennial underachievers. 

Bellingham looked shakey before his goal, but was absolutely brilliant thereafter. Such a commanding performance from a 19yo. This kid could lead this midfield (and the team) for at least the next 15 years, such maturity.

I suppose it wouldn't be football without VAR inconsistencies, would it? Not sure how the Iran penalty was given but the bearhug on Maguire wasn't. But oh well, it's a big win regardless. Really not sure where 10 mins of added time in the 2nd half came from anyway.

This is the first major tournament match since the Euros final and two of the players that missed in the shootout scored today. Wonderful. 

Hey guys, follow me for more expert Fantasy Football tips! 😭

1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Pathetic.

Chest in a football thread AND with a good post.

It's happened lads, we've got him. 

53 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Fifa currently in discussion with the FA. What a clusterfuck.

The absolute gall of FIFA suddenly deciding they want messages on their armbands, when they clearly had no intention of doing so until they saw the One Love ones. 

The one for the final is the best. #FootballUnitesTheWorld. Have they never been on Twitter? It's just as divisive as fucking politics! 

1 hour ago, PunkStep said:

Surprise package: Ecuador

😏

4 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I said after the Euros final that England would win the World Cup

I think you were just getting carried away with your Anglo patriotism 

4 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

like Mexico

They're really shit at the moment though, aren't they? The Mexican fans are making out that this is the worst squad they've had since pre-86. Struggled in qualification, Jimenez is pretty much a broken man and Corona will miss the tournament through injury. Chucky Lozano has his work cut out to try and drag them through the group stages. But the conditions will definitely favour certain teams.

My predictions to my friends earlier today:

Winners: Brazil
Top scorer: Lautaro Martinez 
Best player: Vini Jr
Best young player: Pedri
Biggest flop (team): France
Biggest flop (player): Ronaldo
Surprise package: Ecuador 

I wrote up a little preview of the key players from the bigger teams a week ago, some of that is now out of the window due to injuries so I've had to change it. If you're bored and are mildly interested in this weird tournament, here you go. If not, well you can suck your mum. 

Same here. I like big open world games, but prefer it if you're guided through the game to discover the different parts of the map over time. Arkham City felt like there was too much open to you from early on. 

Asylum was a lot more linear, which I really liked.

11 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

There could be an argument made that it’s a much bigger country too so the infrastructure would have been in place that wasn’t in a tiny country that’s never been in a World Cup before. 

There absolutely could be, but nobody is really taking about this. However...

12 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

we sell the Saudis the bombs they use to massacre Yemeni

This. This, and the claim they are helping to combat ISIS, are the reasons why Western governments wouldn't care if Saudi Arabia were hosting it. It's all politics when it comes to the Middle East. Qatar, Iran- bad. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait- good.

Wow, Infantino's monologue today eh? He's an absolute danger. However he's very clever in what he's doing and is surely creating a bigger divide within the confederations than even Blatter did.

For somebody that demands everyone to keep politics out of football, the politicking he's doing is on another level. You're going to have UEFA, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF (not sure about the Caribbean nations though) on one side, AFC and CAF on the other more than ever. He's making sure he's getting the confeds with the larger vote base on side.

To summarise: Infantino feels gay and disabled because when he was little he was bullied for having red hair. Wow.

He's not wrong that Europeans have created an endless list of atrocities over 3,000 years (as have Asian empires too), but it's massive whataboutary to use that to excuse Qatar in the modern world. What is interesting though playing devil's advocate, would the west (as in politicians and some of the media) be as up in arms if it were equally horrific Saudi Arabia hosting this? I somewhat doubt it. 

That school should be burned down to the ground. What a fucking abhorrent institution. 

4 hours ago, Tamura said:

Law 11 - Offside.

Football would be much more free-flowing and high-scoring if attackers could just stand anywhere they felt like and not have to worry about where the defenders are standing.

Not so sure about that. You'd end up with 6'4 strikers standing on the goalkeepers, picking off long balls all day long. Sounds horrendous.