Cristiano Ronaldo’s mission to make this his World Cup took another step in the
right direction as he was allowed a free header from about 5 yards the only
goal as Portugal beat Morocco. He really has his work out to drag his team far
into the tournament because Morocco on another day could easily have won this
game if it wasn’t for some inspired goalkeeping by Rui Patricio and some
wasteful finishing.  Spain beat Iran 1-0 in
the evening and it was pretty tedious to be honest with Spain having all the possession
and Iran showing no ambition whatsoever to try and score until they went 1-0
down to a fluke Diego Costa goal when a defenders clearance ricocheted into the
net off the bastards knee. Iran did have a few moments after that and had a
goal disallowed and also missed some decent chances. There was a quality comedy
moment as in the 94th minute an Iranian player went to try and do the
somersault throw in which I think is now illegal but the only shame was that he
pulled out of the move before he finished it. Absolute quality nonetheless. If
Iran have to got the guts to go at Portugal in the third game then we could be
on for an interesting end to the group.

In Group C, where C is short for crap. Denmark and Australia played out an
average 1-1 draw with Denmark‘s goal coming from their one quality player
Christian Eriksen and Australia’s coming from the only way they are ever going
to score, a penalty from Jedinak. Incidentally, the penalty award was a VAR one
for handball from point-blank range… absolute fucking farce. France again
looks pretty and inspiring, somewhat fortuitously beating Peru 1-0 with a
slightly lucky goal as Giroud’s shot deflected over the goalkeeper meaning Mbappe
couldn’t miss. France loked a more balanced side than they did in the first
game but they still conceded a hell of a lot of chances against Peru who can
consider themselves slightly unfortunate to be going home. If that guy scores
the penalty in the Denmark game rather than smashing over the moon when I feel
that they would still be there.

Will the real Messi show up tonight for Argentina against Croatia? Nope.
Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do as defensively, Argentina are
fucking dreadful. Willy Caballero bettered his fuck up in the first game with
one of the worst bits of goalkeeping you will ever see casually chipping a ball
straight to Rebic and the forward compounded matters by brilliantly volleying into
the net first time. A further brilliant goal by Modrić and then a last-minute
one from Rakitic to rub the salt in the wounds. Argentina really are in the
shit regarding qualifying to the next round. The highlight for me was the third
goal with Mascherano standing there appealing for offside whilst Croatia tried
to make up their mind about who was going to put the ball in the net. Nigeria showed
up against Iceland and put the Vikings in their place with a relatively
comfortable 2-0 win.. Ahmed Musa scored two excellent goals with the Icelandic
response being a penalty from Sigurdsson which he casually side footed over the
bar. The implications of this result are that Argentina will in all likelihood,
go through if they beat Nigeria in the final game.

It looked for 90 minutes that despite all of Neymar’s theatrics that Brazil
we’re not going to beat Costa Rica but in injury time, Coutinho came to the
rescue again and then Neymar finished it off with the tap on in the last
minute, or the 97th minute as it’s known in this World Cup. Neymar managed to
dive and get awarded a penalty by the referee, only for VAR are to
comprehensively prove that he is a cheating fucker so free-kick to Costa Rica
and yellow card to Brazil’s number 10. Serbia and Switzerland was a fantastic
game with Serbia taking the lead from a Tadic cross and a Mitrovic header before
dominating the rest of the first half. Switzerland equalised when the
previously shit Granit Xhaka smashed in a ball from miles out but then
refereeing ridiculousness took over as two Swiss players wrestled Mitrovic to
the ground in a penalty area and the referee linesman and video officials
somehow between them decided that it was a free-kick the other way. Needless to
say Switzerland benefited after a dreadful bit of defending allowed one pass on
the middle of the pitch put Shaqiri away and he showed enough pace to hold off
the defender and roll it under the keeper.  Shaqiri went mental and pulled out the ‘double
eagle’ celebration as Xhaka had done earlier. 
Two players of Albanian origin giving it large to the Serbian fans who
had been giving them dogs abuse over their Kosovan roots.  Politics and football… great.  It was a bit of a crushing blow to Serbia who
are now going to have to get a result against Brazil to have any chance of
going through. 


Mexico following up their win against Germany with another win again South
Korea. It was only 2-1 but much more convincing than the scoreline suggests.
Six points from six for Mexico and in all likelihood, through to the last 16
but you really can’t see them getting too much further as they are just too lightweight..
South Korea will be on their way home and hopefully will be taking Germany with
them.  Germany against Sweden started
really well for everybody outside of Germany when Toivenen gave Sweden to leave
halfway through the first half. At half-time Germany were really looking at
doing in England in 2014 and being out after two games but they equalised right
at the start of the second-half through Reus and despite having the hopeless Jerome
Boateng sent off, there was only ever one team that was going to get a winning
goal and sure enough, 96th minute, Sweden stupidly giving away free kick, one
touch to Kroos and bang, top corner meaning that Germany are probably going to
get through now.  Wankers…. and their
bench started a ruck by giving it the large one… wankers.  Without that goal there was a real
possibility of Mexico And Sweden holding hands for 0-0 draw in the last game
which would’ve put them both through and not the Germans out which in someway
would’ve been revenge for the disgraceful carve up between Germany and Austria
in 1982.

In England’s group, Belgium pissed past Tunisia who once they went a goal down
to an early has a penalty, had to attack and they basically got brutally exposed
with Lukaku scoring twice, Hazard adding another and then Batshuayi scored the
fifth. A couple of goals for Tunisia but no one really cared and so on to
England against Panama.

The build up to this game is been about the press filming the team sheet with a
long lens on the coaches notepad. The atmosphere in this World Cup has been
completely different with the press been invited into the England camp and
playing darts and all that sort stuff with the players so there are two ways of
looking at it. One is that the press have managed to get an exclusive and
that’s what the job is. the other way of looking at it is that they have been
given unprecedented access in this World Cup and they’ve just taken the piss. I
must admit on leaning more towards the latter. Either way the pathetic childish
response to being having their methods questioned has been what I have taken
away from it. Anyway, the final punchline was that that wasn’t the team anyway
Sterling keeping his place. In fact, the team was unchanged with the exception
of Loftus Cheek coming in for the injured Dele Alli. To the game itself and it
quickly became apparent that Panama couldn’t of been more out of their depth if
they had been nailed to the bottom of the Caspian Sea. The marking at the
corners was more like the wrestling that we had from Tunisia but whoever was
supposed to be wrestling John Stones didn’t bother and he had a free header
which he put away with aplomb. Jesse Lingard for some reason was the one player
that Panama wanted to kick all over the place and they did but unfortunately
for them he was in the penalty area. Harry Kane 2-0. We then went 3, 4, 5 in
about 15 minutes as Lingard played a  neat 1-2 with Sterling before curling into the
top corner.  Stones again was on hand to nod
in after an intricate training ground free-kick move and then Kane was given another
chance from the spot when the player who was marking him at a corner grabbed
hold of him and then decide that he needed to do more so he basically folded
Kane in half. Bearing in mind it was fucking hot, the second half was a bit of
a non-event and was played at walking pace. It went to 6-0 when Loftus Cheek had
a shot from outside the area which deflected of Kane’s heel and flew in the
other side of the goal to give him his hat-trick.  Panama scored to keep us on our toes when
shit marking at a free kick allowed a free shot from the edge of the box for
6-1 and that goal will have done them no harm whatsoever. So, England and Belgium
go into the last game against each other with absolutely identical records with
England being top of the group courtesy of having had one the booking less. So
far so good for England. There are still some and answer questions with Raheem
Sterling again not bring his club form to the international stage and Ashley
Young bringing his club form to the international stage. Right-footed English
left wing backs are never going to catch on I’m afraid. There was one point
where it was a simple left footed clearance required and instead he turned onto
his right foot and underhit a pass to Maguire and we ended up giving away throw-in
roughly where Young was standing. All I can say is that Danny Rose must be
really really unfit for Young to be a starter.

Japan and Senegal produced an excellent game in Group H with Senegal going in
front twice, only for Japan to peg them back both times. A fair result and both
teams move on to 4 points each which meant that the losers of Colombia against
Poland or going home. There was only ever going to be one winner and Colombia
basically tore Poland a new arsehole. It was only one team with any positivity,
one team with any invention and one team with any intent and Columbia were all
of them. 3-0 and easy.  Poland didn’t
have a clue and have exited the tournament as easily the worst European side
there. It’s actually quite funny that Poland spent the last two years
manipulating their world ranking by not playing any friendlies so they were seeded
for this tournament and were absolute gash. Perhaps if they had played a few
friendlies, they might have a style of play and wouldn’t have thrown their
formation in the bin after 45 minutes of the first game. Jan Bednarek played
the whole game to them and certainly wasn’t the worst player and he will be
better for the experience. Colombia on the other hand, look really good. They
will need to beat Senegal in order to qualify and if they do that, will be a
team that England want to avoid in the next round. James Rodríguez was back
today and boy, did it make a difference, setting up the first goal for Mina and
the third goal for Cuadrado with superb passes. Radamel Falcao got the other
goal after being put through by their other outstanding player, Quintero.

All the teams that are next to the tournament after two games deserve to have
done so with the possible exception of Morocco at least played some good
football. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both complete shit, as are Tunisia and
Panama from England’s group. Costa Rica and Poland won’t be missed by anyone
either.

They may well all end up getting through but you can’t help but feel that one
of the big boys is going to go out. Argentina are definitely the favourite to
go out and hopefully it’s them and we’ve seen the last of the gurning coke
added fat prick cheerleader they have but Germany and even Brazil still have
work to do.