The Big Shiny World Cup thread

[Prufrock]

Pretty sure the TV picture is provided to them. BBC and ITV have no say.

Tough to agree with the rest. 100% booking for Ream and a stonewall penalty

[Prufrock]

More importantly, smashing day of football. England played a back 4 and were excellent. Holland and Senegal looked very "nothing to write home about" and USA and Wales were both bad.

[TANGODANCER]

Pretty sure the TV picture is provided to them. BBC and ITV have no say.

Tough to agree with the rest. 100% booking for Ream and a stonewall penalty

Hm? We had one of those earlier and didn't get it and I've seen far worse than Ream's challenge get waved on. Such is life.

[jimbo]

Great performance by Saudi so far. An underdog playing well and looking like they may beat a favourite would be great to watch BUT IT’s SAUDI ARABIA

[Prufrock]

On balance, that is still very funny.

[Worthy4England]

Iran were god awful. Amazing that they’re ranked 20th in the world. Only tactic from the start was sit deep, foul, and time waste. The earlyish goal rendered that pointless and we just picked them off. Has the gulf between the top nations and those 20-40th in the world widened?

Qatar obviously woeful yesterday too.

I'm not sure the gulf has widened much, their number 9 just became their record scorer in WC finals with 2. An improvement, surely?

Iran were very poor, but I think we helped make them look so.

Saudi's (rank 51) just beat the Argies (rank 3)

[BWFC_Insane]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

[Worthy4England]

On balance, that is still very funny.

On the plus side, it was on ITV so Roy Keane got to pass comment!

[Worthy4England]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

Don't waste your time watching it then.

[jimbo]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

It’ll be interesting to see how quality improves as the tournament progresses. Top club sides now are so well coached with their systems that it’s impossible to replicate that in internationals. Will having a few weeks together here see standards improve?

[BWFC_Insane]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

It’ll be interesting to see how quality improves as the tournament progresses. Top club sides now are so well coached with their systems that it’s impossible to replicate that in internationals. Will having a few weeks together here see standards improve?

There is that. They also have better players available to them.

[Worthy4England]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

It’ll be interesting to see how quality improves as the tournament progresses. Top club sides now are so well coached with their systems that it’s impossible to replicate that in internationals. Will having a few weeks together here see standards improve?

I'm not sure that the two bear comparison. The top Club sides (possibly more especially those in the English money league) see a position where they're maybe a little weak and go out, spend shitloads and try and plug that gap. Internationally, you've got less choice.

They're also not together very long, in comparison to a Club side, for training.

Of course they're unlikely to be comparable..

[TANGODANCER]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

Please state that's your opinion only because it's wildly incorrect. That's my opinion.

[TANGODANCER]

A heroic display by Saudi. The defended like the 300 Trojans second half and even a pro Argy ref couldn't beat them. Incidentally, the president of the Referees Association is none other than the finest ref ever, Pierluigi Colina. I wonder what he's making of all this ?

[BWFC_Insane]

You can rank Argentina wherever you like at least 10 premiership teams would wipe the floor with them. At least.

International football really is a bit pants.

Please state that's your opinion only because it's wildly incorrect. That's my opinion.

You think Argentina are stronger than most premiership sides? Seriously? They aren’t. You only need look at their players who wouldn’t get into the top half premiership sides in many cases.

[Hoboh]

Really enjoyed that Saudi/Argentina game in comparison to our match it was far more exciting, don't get me wrong it was a good England win but any team that puts a bit of puts any pressure on that stupid back/side passing will benefit

[Harry Genshaw]

I'm all for keeping our feet on the ground and there's no way England will win the thing but let's at least enjoy a very good result and performance. Our opening day performances in both the Euros and World cups have, historically been awful. That, yesterday, was excellent.

[Worthy4England]

I'm all for keeping our feet on the ground and there's no way England will win the thing but let's at least enjoy a very good result and performance. Our opening day performances in both the Euros and World cups have, historically been awful. That, yesterday, was excellent.

Yup. If I'd been offered 6-2 in the opener, based on England's last 12 months results, I'd have snatched your hand off. We've shown plenty in the past that "nowt to beat" often results in "beating nowt"

That superb 1990 team managed a 1-0 v Egypt and two draws v Eire 1-1 and Netherlands 0-0...

[Prufrock]

I'm not convinced there's no way we're winning it.

Before a ball was kicked I'd have us about 4th-6th favourites. Since then we've won very well, Argentina looked ropey, and France have been decimated with injuries.

Still not favourites, but we definitely can win it. There's always areas of the side that aren't perfect, but that's the same for everyone. Most people's favourites Brazil don't have any full backs!

[TANGODANCER]

Robert Lewandowski misses a penalty and Mexico hold Poland to a goalless draw. Argentina now prop the group up and Saudi Arabia top it. Life is full of surprises.