#700

happy we are thus far policing russophobic comments with wit and vigour, let’s keep this up friends

1 Like
#701

I couldn’t disagree with this more.

This has by far eclipsed both in terms of both quality and entertainment.

6 Likes
#702

Nobody minds Russ Abbott on here.

2 Likes
#703

Pretty joyless approach to the World Cup. The % of passes complete in the final is probably gonna be about 5% down on last time as well.

1 Like
#704

Who’s actually good? Uruguay and Croatia yes. A few teams with potential. France have tons of talent but are far from a cohesive unit ala Spain or Germany.

Let’s see but I’m not encouraged so far.

Early giant killings are good and fun in the moment but then you’re left with South Korea, Turkey and the USA deep into the competition. Nobody remembers that fondly.

#706

Who do we think has the best chance of beating Brazil, France or Uruguay in the final?

  • Colombia
  • England
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Denmark
  • Croatia
  • Russia

0 voters

#707

Swedish TV just ran a report about corruption in Russia getting the vote to host this tournament…odd angle though. They had a whistleblower from the Australian bid team (one of the competing bidders for this World Cup) and the line of argument was ‘Oz paid $15million dollars in bribes & only got one vote so you can imagine how much cash went under the table for Russia’s bid’

Strange line of argument.

Oz whistleblower also said ‘Russia were also “lucky” that Qatar got 2022 so everyone soiled their trousers about that instead’

WORLD CUP!

#708

Spain 2010 are my least favourite winners of a world cup of all time. So, so dull. Bunch of the best players of a generation and they fucking Greeced it. Good riddance to them once again

12 Likes
#709

Nah they were great and only philistines think they were boring

1 Like
#710

Just imagine if Russia only go and win it and it turns out it was Putin all along.

2 Likes
#711

Celebrating a Russian win and getting in the spirit of Croatia-Denmark by having enchiladas and Argentinian red wine for dinner up here in Northumberland! WORLD CUP!

#712

Russia are clearly more corrupt than anyone else, but everyone is corrupt to some degree. World Cups are bought. That’s how it works. Russia have cranked it up a notch and probably laundered anywhere up to $7bn and paid tens of millions in bribes, but when the next one had been sold to the highest bidder why wouldn’t they?

#713

Yeah, they did seem very well organised when boarding the planes home.

#714

obviously I meant the 2010 and 2014 teams

#715

You referenced the current France squad in the same sentence, so wasn’t that clear to me.

#716

admittedly i’m a massive football novice but i don’t really like games where absolutely nothing happens

1 Like
#717

Do something else until the last 20 mins I’d say.

#718

I don’t really disagree, but entertainment and quality of games largely comes down to competitiveness between opponents.

Spain could have easily lost to Morocco, lost to Russia, drew against a poor Portugal side and every component of their team underperformed bar Costa.

I’d sooner see Russia and Croatia go at it then Spain tap it sideways against someone for ninety minutes and win 1-0. I do want to see the best players contest the biggest games to a point, but not if they’re winging it, and Spain were.

2 Likes
#719

Tactics truck

#720

still can’t get my head around Croatia being contenders given how much they’ve promised and then underwhelmed over the last dunno how many tournaments
guess they are the strongest team left in that half though. mad times. would be amazing if they did it, or any of the smaller countries really