FIFA World Cup 2018

No African squads managed to reach the round of sixteen this time. We'll have:

- 4 South American teams (coincidentally, all the ones that qualified directly).
- 1 North American team.
- 1 Asian team.
- 10 European teams.

I have predicted 15 of the 16 teams going through correctly (Germany out) and 12 of the 16 final placings correctly. That has impacted on the draw I had anticipated (England will be playing Colombia rather than Japan), with my predicted final is now a last 16 match (Brazil v Mexico) lol. 3 of my predicted semi-finalists should still get there (Brazil, Spain, Portugal) and, redrawing my planner, I'm now looking at a Brazil v Spain final. Either way, the winner remains the same for me (Brazil). England *may* get a stage further than I had hoped lol. We'll see in a couple of weeks ;)

I still feel Croatia will go a long way. Hoping Argentina find the inspiration from the win against Nigeria and up their game. I'm always rooting for them, ever since the first world cup I have recollection of watching live on TV as a kid - Italia '90.

I think Colombia will beat England. It's about time we had a new bogie team in international tournaments.

LOL - I'm fairly confident England will see their way past Colombia. Sorry Seb. I'd obviously much rather Colombia shafted them though ;) :p

[QUOTE] [b]Thistleboy1980 wrote:[/b]

Sorry Seb.[/QUOTE]

Why?

For not having the confidence in Colombia to put England out ;)

And the connexion with me is...? After all, I'm neither a player nor a manager/physician/coach/dietician for any of the squads, I'm not involved with any football team, never have been. If they win (and by 'they' I mean any of the surviving sixteen teams), great for them, but I've got nothing to do with that.

I don't give a fuck if a player was born ten blocks from my place or on the other side of the planet. Nationalism is idiotic in my book: I root for whichever team plays well... unless that team is Brazil, Spain or America :p I'm fond of the underdog in some cases, so I was pleased with Mexico and South Korea beating Germany, for instance, and I loved it when Roma took out Barcelona a few months ago, but that's it.

When people say 'we won [insert tournament]', I find it silly. Unless they actually played (or managed, trained, etc), it's not 'their' victory at all... nor is their loss if they happen to be runners-up (aka 'first losers').

Okay. Most people root for and get passionate when their own country is playing - if you're not one of them, that's cool. The comment was just tongue-in-cheek anyway.

I've no 'own country'. There is one nation (out of 197 or so which are recognised by the UN) in which I don't need a work visa to do what I want, and where I can vote and have 0.00001% influence on who'll be running (and ruining) the lives of others, that's it. But there's no way I'm gonna feel proud about shit I never did and no way I'm gonna hate people who happened to be born a stone throw's away from an arbitrarily defined border for shit they never did.

Update: For the fourth time in a row, Messi leaves the World Cup not having managed to score a single goal in the knock-out stage. All his World Cup goals were in the first round and against lacklustre squads such as Serbia, Iran and Nigeria. Moreover, all of his record-breaking international goals have been against weak rivals or in friendly matches. Not a single competitive goal so far against the likes of Brazil, Spain, Netherlands (penalty shoot-out notwithstanding), Germany, France...

With Barcelona, Messi is easily the best footballer of the past twenty or so years, next to Zidane. With Argentina, he's a good player, but he only manages to be 'very good' or 'excellent' when playing Ecuador, Haiti or America, but not when facing strong rivals.

That game was brilliant. I was backing France. Wonderful stuff.

I really do feel for Messi. He seems like a good guy.

And another great game! I feel for Ronaldo, but Pepe can swivel.

Both Messi and Ronaldo going out on the same night, in possibly their last world cups. Incredible!

Ten goals in one day. It was entertaining, definitely!

Ramos is used to refs being paid off in his favour. The thing is, in Soviet Russia, refs pay YOU off!