The round of 16 kicks off with France against Argentina. These are two sides
who were not supposed to meet at this stage but they are two sides have both
been pretty poor so far. France won the group of life whilst Argentina were as
desperate as Diego Maradona is when he runs out of marching powder. So, me being the football expert that I am, expected this to be really really dull when
actually, what followed will go down as one of the best World Cup matches of
recent times.
France have obviously had some sort of revolution behind the scenes – I mean, Deschamps
is still in the dugout but maybe in some sort of coup d’état they’ve had him
murdered and just propped him up and said ‘Viva la Revolution – we have all
these attacking players – let’s go for it’
Griezmann smacks the bar with a great effort before Mbappe takes off like an Olympic sprinter and Marcos Rojo has almost no choice but to clumsily
knock him over. Penalty, Griezmann,
1-0. The Argies have been pretty shite
all tournament and one of their chief shite players, Angel di Maria produces a ridiculous
long range effort which gave Lloris not a prayer to make it 1-1. Second half and Argentina in front as Messi
shanks and Mercado sticks out a foot and deflects it for 2-1. I’m waiting for the French to implode but not
a bit of it – a cross from the left evades everyone and French right back
Pavard – who like di Maria, has looked shit in every game, hits across the ball
on the bounce and it swerves inside the far post. It’s an unbelievable goal. You could try that 20 times and the other 19
would be row Z. Mbappe has been ok
without being outstanding so far but he killls it dead in 5 minutes, firstly
firing under the keeper and then finishing easily when put through by
Giroud. 4-2 and Aguero flicks a superb
Messi cross into the net with his head in the 93rd minute to give
them the faintest of hope but no – France through, Argentina out, Maradona on a
massive fucking drugs bender in his role as FIFA ambassador or whatever the
fuck he is. It’s enough to make Diego have a fucking heart-attack and I hope
his bag of cocaine went all lumpy when he cried on it
Uruguay v Portugal
It turned out to be the day where Cristiano Ronaldo couldn’t drag his team over
the line. It just never look like working out of him at any point in the game.
Unsurprisingly, no one else really stepped up to help. Uruguay have got two
very good attacking players and they combined brilliantly with Cavani sweeping
a long ball out to the left for Suarez to cross back in Cavani to continue his
run and bullet header past Patricio to give Uruguay a lead which they never
look like surrendering before half-time.
The second-half was not all about Ronaldo but was about King Shithouse or Pepe
as he is otherwise known. Pepe is such a likeable chap so everyone was thrilled
when he had an unchallenged header at the start the second half to draw
Portugal level. Such joy at Pepe having such a great moment but it quickly
turned round the opposite way when he totally fucked up a basic defensive
header and the subsequent cross from the Uruguay right winger fell for Cavani
to brilliantly sweep to the net for what ultimately turned out to be the winning
goal. Uruguay are a bloody good side and one that you’re certainly glad, as an
England supporter, to see on the other side of the draw.
Russia v Spain
Russia’s game plan, which is perfectly valid against Spain, was to keep 10 men
behind the ball at all times and see if Spain could play through them which of
course, they couldn’t. It was Spain at their worst going sideways, backwards,
sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards. They did take the lead early on when
a corner was heading towards Sergio Ramos and the Russian who was wrestling
with him turned his back on the ball and hit his heel and flew in the net for a
comical own goal. Russia equalised just before half time with a strange goal. A
cross came over, Pique got underneath it and to some reason threw his arms up
in the air. The ball was headed goalwards and hit his arm but Pique was not
even looking at it. As the rules stand at the moment, handball has to be
deliberate. Important distinction to make is that this is a rule, not open to
interpretation. My interpretation of the incident is that Pique knew exactly
what he was doing but there is no way, according to the rules of the game that
that is a penalty. Regardless, Dzyuba scored to give us another 45 minutes and
then another half an hour of boredom and Spain passing the ball about. Half the
time they don’t even look to pass the ball to a striker. There was one bit on
about 90 minutes where Busquets played a straight ball in to the feet of Isco
on the edge of the Russian penalty area and he just fired it first time,
straight back to Pique without looking for any other strikers next to him. No
holding the ball up and wait for support-he just knocked it straight back out
back to the halfway line like a clearance. Fucking bizarre.
clearly wrestled down in the penalty area but hey this is Russia, this is
Putin’s Russia and there is no fucking way that that’s getting given by VAR. To
be fair it wasn’t Tunisia and Panama level holding but it should still have
been given. Penalties and it was one of those shootouts where you could pick
who was going to miss from the way they walked up to the ball. You could also
tell that de Gea wasn’t going to save a fucking thing. There was one that he
really should’ve reached and one which he dived over the top of. In the event
Koke missed and when Iago Aspas had a kick to keep Spain in it you knew the
game was over and so the Russians went through and probably the best team in
England’s half of the draw have gone out which makes it interesting If we start
getting ahead of ourselves, which of course we do.
Croatia v Denmark
Croatia have been excellent in every game in the group but knockout football is
different and it suits them more pragmatic, organised and some would say
fucking boring teams like Denmark. There’s a goal in the first minute for
Denmark as a ball bounces kindly for Jorgenson and then a similar scenario
three minutes later at the other end which allowed Mandzukic to level it. There
then followed 86 minutes of mind-numbing bollocks followed by another 26
minutes of mind-numbing bollocks in extra time. At this point, Modric split the
difference with a pass through to Rebic who skated round Kaspar Schmeichel and
was about to roll into and empty net when Jorgensen trashed through the back of
him. Penalty of course and a yellow card. Absolute bollocks. I know the rule
has been changed so that if you make a genuine attempt to play the ball then
you don’t get sent off but think about it – three minutes to go in a knockout
World Cup game, the striker’s gone round the goalkeeper and he has an empty
net. He deliberately trashed him and he should’ve been sent off. There is no
fucking way you could say he was going for the ball. The only reason this is
relevant because Modric stepped up and hit a tame penalty which Schmeichel
pushed aside to send us into a penalty shootout. It was 2-2 as we got the 5th
kick for each team with Johansson seeing his kick saved by Subosic and Ivan
Rakitić rolling penalty past Schmeichel to send Croatia through. Bye Denmark.
Thanks for nothing.
Brazil v Mexico
I always feel that teams from South and Central America going to any game with
Brazil are half beaten before they even start. Mexico looked lively to a point
but it was only Brazil who were ever going to score. Ochoa, the Mexican keeper,
saves well from Neymar and Coutinho but he was never going to get to 90 minutes
without letting in a goal. When Neymar stops rolling around like a fucking
little pussy, he’s actually a brilliant player and his backheel caused mayhem
in the defence before Willian put the ball across and Neymar himself finished
off from close range. Mexico didn’t really threaten at all and in the 92nd
minute they got caught on the break as Neymar went away on the left and via a
deflection, found Firmino in the middle to roll into an empty net for 2-0, nice
and easy for Brazil.
Belgium v Japan
Belgium were remarkably low in intensity in the first half and Japan held out
fairly comfortable with the magnificent Maya Yoshida to the fore. The second
half started with the Japan breakaway, the through a ball that should’ve been
cut out by Vertonghen but he missed it and Kawaguchi fired across Courtois to
tear up the script. After Hazard hit the post, away went Japan again and Inue
let fly from 20 yards and found the corner of the net again to give Japan a
ridiculous 2-0 lead. Sadly, it wasn’t to last. Vertonghen made amends for his
earlier fuck up for scoring with a fluke head across goal which dropped in the
far corner of the net. Then a cross found the wig of Fellaini to make it to 2-2
and in the last minute, Belgium showed how good they can be. Courtois cleaned
the corner and bowled it out to De Bruyne.
He charged forward, found Meunier on the right and his low class was dunmmied
by Lukaku and there was Chadli to break Japanese hearts. Japan were fucking
brilliant and unlike some of the shit teams who added nothing, they will
genuinely be missed.
Switzerand v Sweden
It will surprise absolutely no one that the most predictably shit game of the
World Cup was a predictable shit game. Two bollocks teams is very little attacking
intent produced a diabolical first half with a few chances each but nothing
great until Sweden’s Emil Forsberg produced a fitting winning goal for such a
shit game with a half hit shot which was deflected in off a Swiss defender
before it could roll to the goalkeeper. Fucking rubbish really. Switzerland go
home having got a point against Brazil courtesy of a shit refereeing decision,
two points against Serbia due to VAR not picking up the double assault on
Mitrovic in the box and that’s about it really. They really haven’t had much to
the proceedings. Sweden go through to the quarter-finals of the winners of
England and Colombia.
England v Colombia
Same lineup as the opening game With James Rodríguez missing for them and a
cagey even slightly boring first half. Columbia
are intent on making it as niggly as possible with lots of off the ball stuff and
the referee, who is apparently American, is trying his best to keep a lid on
it. We have another VAR farce as Colombian midfielder Barrios clearly nutted
Jordan Henderson and though Henderson made a meal of it, there was definitely
deliberate contact but instead of inviting the referee to go and look at the
pictures for himself, the VAR officials advised him from afar that it should
only be yellow card. Complete fucking joke. 10 minutes into the second-half and
Harry Kane gets his usual rogering off a defender when he’s trying to make
himself free at a corner and the ref gives England a penalty and mayhem
happens, Led by Colombia’s captain and chief arsehole, Radamel Falcao. The
Colombians are all round the referee and taking their opportunity to scuff the
penalty spot and all that sort stuff and I’ve seen this a few times in this
World Cup now and I just don’t understand why the referees don’t say, “you have
30 seconds to clear the penalty area, anyone still here will get booked. Anyone
who leaves the penalty area and comes back in will be booked. Simple. Three
minutes later, Colombia decide that the game can go ahead and Harry Kane passes
it down the middle and puts us 1-0 up. The next 20 minutes are fine and then
Southgate fucks up. He didn’t fuck up taking off Dele Alli who was clearly
injured but he fucked up putting on Eric Dier instead of Ruben Loftus-Cheek
because all of a sudden we completely lost our shape and just became very
negative. Dier was playing like someone had won a raffle to play in a
testimonial match. Kyle Walker then chose the wrong moment doze off and lost
the ball on the halfway line which allowed Columbia to break and luckily,
Cuadrado smashed it over the bar. Colombia manage their first shot on target in
the 91st minute, a long range effort from Uribe which Pickford brilliantly
clawed out of the top corner. From the resulting corner, Yerry Mina beat
Maguire in the air and headed down seeing it bounce over Trippier on the line
and fucking unbelievable, the scumbags had equalised. The first half of extra
time was fucking dreadful and it look like England had gone. The second half
was better as he took the woeful Ashley Young off and put Danny Rose on and the
left-footed left back came closest to winning it for us with a shot across the
goal that went about 6 inches wide of the far post.
Penalties. We’ve been here before. Pickford didn’t get near the first three
Colombian penalties with Kane and Rashford converting for England. Up stepped
Jordan Henderson, a bit of ball juggling, a very short run up and saved.
Bollocks. Uribe then tried to take the roof of the net off and succeeded in
clattering the crossbar so we were back in it and Trippier made it 3-3. The
final Colombian kicker was Carlos Bacca and you could tell that he was
absolutely shitting himself as he stood on the spot. I would be shitting myself
too if I was intending to go home to Colombia if I missed. Pickford dived one
way and stuck up a strong hand the other way and push the ball out. Superb
save. I was waiting for Jamie Vardy to walk up but oh fuck, it’s Eric Dier. In
this tournament, he could only have been more aptly nine if his name was Eric
Completelyfuckinguseless. Buried it, 4-3, cheating cunts are going home and
football is coming home. Perhaps. Peak England. Make it as difficult as we
possibly can. The difference is this time that we actually managed to get over
the line.
There are still issues for another day. Sterling and Alli totally failed to
provide anything of note for Kane to feed off of, Ashley Young provided nothing
whatsoever from the left hand side which is becoming a theme and having both
Dier and Henderson on the pitch in midfield just doesn’t work. However, despite
these problems, we are in the quarter-finals of the World Cup with the game
against Sweden. Get past that and it’s
Russia or Croatia. We will never have a
better chance than this of making a World Cup final.
News gets even better when you find out that the Diego Maradona was supporting
Colombia and he thinks England won by robbery. Maradona has of course been
supporting the Colombian economy for many years the cocaine addled fat cheating
fuck. Hurry up and OD you horrible bastard. Just stop fucking lingering.
League 1 Minus 10 
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