decent team in Uruguay and the battle of the top place in the group quickly
went to shit for the Russians with Suarez drilling a freekick into the corner
when the wall decided to stand about 10 yards right of where it should have
been. It was 2-0 soon after and it was game over with the Russians having
someone sent off the two bookings. Vladimir will not be pleased. The rest of
the game just petered out with the highly rated Edinson Cavani scoring a tap in
in the last minute with his 300th effort on goal in the tournament so far. In
the dead rubber match, Egypt took the lead in when Salah lobbed in with the
commentator giving it the big one and “Mo Salah never misses from there“. It
must be difficult for these commentators to both hold a microphone and wank
themselves into a frenzy every time Salah is playing. 10 minutes later he did
in fact miss from the place he never misses from when he chipped wide when
clean through. This miss was costly as back came Saudi Arabia. They won a
penalty which was expertly saved by the 74-year-old goalkeeper, then got
another penalty for handball which they scored and then spawned an equaliser in
the last couple of minutes to send Egypt home without a point. So, Uruguay top
and Russia second. It did make me laugh the people taking the piss because
Russia had finally played a decent opponent and come up short. These are
probably the same people saying England are going to win it after wins against
world superpowers Tunisia and Panama
Portugal versus Iran and Spain versus Morocco didn’t promise that much but it
was a fascinating evening with Spain quickly going behind. Even if they lost,
their qualification wasn’t under threat but even so, Isco equalised soon
afterwards. Portugal and Iran was a decent match with Ricardo Quaresma putting
Portugal ahead with the ridiculous goal the outside of his right foot. In the
second half of the Portugal game, the referee came under intense pressure from
the players and the Iranian manager, Carlos Queiroz who has always been a
fucking arsehole. First of all Ronaldo was given a penalty after VAR. He was
clearly fouled but Mark Lawrenson thought it wasn’t a penalty because he didn’t
have control of the ball which is of course, utterly irrelevant. Up stepped the
chosen one and the goalkeeper correctly guesses and saves it. Iran, clearly
incensed by the correctly awarded penalty then going to playacting overdrive,
encouraged all the way by the shithouse of a manager. The next major incident
was a tussle between Ronaldo and a defender with the defender going down and
everyone appealing for it to be reviewed on VAR which duly was and the ref,
quite rightly in my view, decided it was a yellow card and not a red. With 90
minutes on the clock it all went fucking nuts as Cedric and an Iranian striker
went out for a high ball and the Iranian unsurprisingly won it because he’s
taller than 5 foot 5. Cedric was right underneath the guy with his eyes shut
and the ball may have skimmed his arm on the way down. There are so many
reasons why this is not a penalty and the referee quite correctly didn’t give a
penalty. What is bizarre is that no Iranian appealed for penalty because it
clearly wasn’t but somehow it got reviewed and the referee got called over.
Somehow, probably through the shit house antics of Queiroz, he looked at the
television pictures and decided that that was a deliberate hand ball. Utter
fucking shambles. Anyway, they scored and then had a glorious chance within a
minute to knock Portugal out which thankfully for the world at large they
didn’t take. VAR is not the problem-it’s the fucking idiot referees and fucking
idiot VAR operators. They are only supposed to call the referee if it’s a
clear and obvious error so they are basically not doing their job correctly.
Sadly, at the moment they are just appears to be giving incompetent referees
one more opportunity to fuck it up. Meanwhile, Spain manage to go behind
again to Morocco before equalising with a correctly awarded VAR goal in the
last minute so, after all that shit, Spain win the group and go on to play
Russia and Portugal, thanks to the dodgy penalty that was awarded against them,
now play Uruguay.
The group of life, or the group of complete fucking tedium as it should be
known, drew to a close with the most predictable 0-0 bore draw between Denmark
and France. Australia, when they actually needed to go out and win a game,
predictably had no fucking idea how to do that and lost 2-0 to Peru who perhaps
showed what might of been if only they hadn’t of missed that penalty against
Denmark. The forthcoming France implosion will now happen in one of the
knockout rounds. Whoever Denmark are playing in the next round, they will
probably play for penalties from the first minute and hopefully not get there.
It was do or die for Argentina as they took on Nigeria with Croatia taking on
Iceland in the other game. Basically the Argies had to win and all looked well
when Messi brilliantly controlled a long ball from Banega and put them into the
lead. My opinion of Mascherano has always been that he is a brainless moron and
he proved that again when, after having seen penalties given the grappling in
the penalty area he decided to wrestle a Nigerian bloke to the ground and was
then genuinely shocked when a penalty was given against him. Victor Moses made
it 1-1 and it seemed for a glorious 20 minutes that the Argentinians and their
cheerleader, the cocaine addled fat fuck heart attack waiting to happen that is
Diego Maradona, were heading out the tournament. With three minutes to go
however, a cross from the right wing and Marcos Rojo, a left footed centre back
found himself on the penalty spot to convert a right footed volley into the
corner. To be fair, it was a brilliant finish and only serve to highlight that
Gonzalo Higuain, a striker who is been transferred for about hundred million
pounds in his career, it’s fucking garbage. They have another big reputation
player who never does anything and that Angel DiMaria, the most one footed
player I have ever seen. So, with Croatia reserves beating Iceland 2-1,
Argentina are through to the next round and apparently Maradona ended up in
hospital but this was not before giving out entertainment, flicking the double
bird at some supporters who had predictably been given him a load of shit
during the game. Add that to the slitty eyed gesture he aimed at some Korean
fans earlier on in the tournament and he really is a great bloke isn’t it he. I
remember 1986 and yes, you’re still a fucking cheating twat.
After the game against Germany when he conceded the foul in the last minute
to allow the Germans to win, Swedish winger Jimmy Durmaz, because he happens to be of Turkish origin and has a beard, received a lot of racial abuse, death threats and the usual predictable
bollocks that goes on these days. He stood in front of the whole Swedish the
squad and made a little video and the last two words of it were ‘fuck racism’ which I thought was rather cool. So Sweden have my new found respect and I hope
they get through today as they take on Mexico. The other game is of course
Germany playing South Korea which will no doubt be the predictable German win
and passage through to the last 16 like they always do.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
The Sweden v Mexico game was pretty much over bar the shouting with Sweden
winning 3-0 but Germany were still drawing 0-0 with South Korea with 20 minutes
to go. Just one goal needed for the Germans and it would be Mexico who will be
going home despite having won the first two matches. But oh glorious day, a
scramble from a corner and South Korea find themselves with the ball 5 yards out
with just Manuel Neuer to beat, goal. Hang on, the fucking referee’s gone and
disallowed it but thankfully we have this wonderful new invention to this World
Cup called VAR and they go and review it and Germany now need two goals in the
10 minutes that remain. To be fair, they go for it because they have to do but
they are fucking shit. They just don’t have the players in the forward
positions with no replacement for Miroslav Klose and Thomas Müller looking about
a third of the player he was four years ago. Mesut Özil – If ever there was a
time to come out with an assist mate, it’s now. Mats Hummels puts a couple of
headers over and they disappear into the crowd along with his future
international career. Then, hilarity. Manuel Neuer thinks he’s a midfield
player and starts fucking around 40 yards from goal. They lose the ball, one
big hoof forward and Son Heung Min is not going to miss given that he has the
ball, 40 yards from goal and no one in goal. 2-0 and off you fuck Germany and
off you fuck Joachim Low you dodgy looking geezer. Good player Son – probably
better than Mo Salah and he’s had a better World Cup. Not that it matters as
long as they go out but Germany actually managed to finish bottom of the group and
15 years of extreme smugness has come to an end. For the record Sweden smashed
Mexico 3-0 so go through as top of the group.
I thought that Brazil might have been in for a difficult time against Serbia
but in the end they ran out comfortable 2-0 winners without too much drama.
Once Paulinho had given them the lead, there was really no way back for the
Serbs, a couple of half chances but that was it. So, Brazil won the group and
Switzerland finished second after drawing 2-2 with Costa Rica in what surprisingly,
turned out to be a really entertaining game. I can’t see the Swiss going much
further and it was amusing to see the penalty in the last minute which Bryan
Ruiz smashed off the crossbar, into the back of the goalkeepers head and into
the net.
The last round of matches in Group H saw Colombia play Senegal and Poland play
Japan. Both games were pretty dull until Southampton’s very own Jan Bednarek put
them in the head against Maya Yoshida’s Japan. A few minutes later, a goal for Columbia meant that Japan were hanging on to 2nd place by virtue of having
had less bookings then Senegal and so the final 20 minutes was an absolute
farce with Japan prepared to pass the ball around the back and happily lose 1-0
whilst hoping that Senegal wouldn’t score against Colombia which of course they
duly didn’t. Colombia first and Japan second and awaiting the second and first
place teams respectively from England’s group.
The excitement that has built up around England was dissipated the moment the
teams were announced for the game against Belgium. Both teams rested everybody
and played all of the squad players. Whilst Southgate has not a lot wrong at
this World Cup, the starting 11 highlighted some of the poor choices in the
squad. The first half was fucking boring with Belgium nearly scoring following
a scramble when Batshuayi was allowed to kick the ball out of Pickford’s hands.
Neither team could really be arsed and they were cheers from the Belgian fans
when a couple of their players got booked which meant they were four bookings
behind us in the race for second place. In the second half, Januzaj, a player
who I have always thought was a complete waste of space, scored what was
actually a really good goal but probably not what his manager wanted as he cut
inside a pathetic challenge from Danny Rose and curled it past Pickford who did
some sort of midair handstand in very bizarre fashion. England have a fantastic
chance to equalise when Vardy puts Rushford clean through but he put the shot
too close to Courtois who got a finger to it and deflected it wide. Make no
mistake, this was a diabolical miss. If Raheem Sterling had done that then he
would’ve got absolutely slaughtered by everyone but because it’s Rashford and there’s no real agenda against him, none
of the commentators on the TV say anything about it and none of the pundits in
the studio afterwards said anything about it either. No one also said anything
about Trent Alexander-Arnold and his free-kick delivery where none of them got above
knee height. I know he is a young lad but he’s been picked for a World Cup
squad. I’ve said all along that he shouldn’t of been picked but he has been so
he should be able to get a free-kick more than 8 inches off the fucking ground.
England’s back up players looked very very poor. Phil Jones, Fabien Delph, Eric
Dier…all terrible. Again, the decision to give Danny Rose special
dispensation when he is clearly not fit looks more and more bizarre by the day.
Ironically, Ryan Bertrand started preseason training today. And so we lost and
now face a second round match against Colombia . Win that and we are playing
one of Sweden or Switzerland for a place in the semi-final so it really hasn’t
worked out badly. Belgium go through to play Japan which should be
straightforward enough, but then they get Brazil so who are the real winners
today? Not the fans that’s for sure. In the other match which was the deadest
of dead rubbers, Tunisia beat Panama 2-1. That’s Panama who qualified ahead if
the almighty USA.
Anyway, in the Germany free last 16, my predictions are.
France to beat Argentina
Uruguay to beat Portugal
Brazil to beat Mexico
Belgium to beat Japan
Spain to beat Russia
Croatia to beat Denmark
Sweden to beat Switzerland
England to beat Colombia
Now it gets interesting…
League 1 Minus 10 
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