The Three Dads World Cup Wonderland

 I've sat, laying low, hoping (successfully) that Stevie would take up the slack and give a measured view of the semi-final. He did that with spades. Thank you Stevie for another fantastic tournament of blogging, made all the sweeter by you actually being there! I'll be honest, I'm a bit stunned. I bought a bottle of bubbles intended for the Norway game. I didn't open it, as I was sure we'd progress. And so it waited, on ice, for Argentina. But as I came to open it on Wednesday, I decided against it. I was sure there was more to come. It was on ice for the final. The sorry, sorry tale of my bubbles.  Now, I should set things straight.  1) I love the World Cup 2) I am fine But, I am really disappointed. I sincerely believed this time, something I rarely get drawn into. I thought Tuchel was different. However, the warning signs that appeared (playing Rice despite him being bedridden for 3 days before the QF, playing Kane for 90 mins over and over despite his work bein...

48 hours on from the gut wrenching exit in Atlanta, and still no word from Birchy. It appears he has dropped deep into the blogosphere darkness à la Harry Kane. Two things gave me real joy this summer: (1) residing in a country hosting a World Cup and (2) residing in a country 3,000 miles away from the recriminations. I said it before the tournament, Tuchel was on a hiding to nothing. Tasked with being the “winner” that Southgate could never be, he was only going to be deemed a success if he literally won the World Cup. There is no higher bar.  But before we face the reality that as the (at best) fourth best team in the tournament we will inevitably finish err fourth, let’s dissect the game where it all ended. In a pang of self pity, I found myself watching back the 2nd half of the game - without the heartache and anxiety. I didn’t watch the first half, no need. Argentina had prepared for the game by watching videos of Becks and Rooney losing their cool. Easy win - just wind them u...

 A quick post in between both semi finals. After boringly ploughing through the tournament, Spain spectacularly came to the boil at the right time in a tournament and produced an amazing commanding performance over France. Yes, that same team that looked frankly unbeatable all month and nobody could see losing, I had a feeling that they could come unstuck here.  Spain simply took the ball and barely gave it back, demonstrating great composure and control throughout, anchored by the man mountain of Rodri in the middle of everything. All of a sudden, it became a simple game where Lucas Digne was asked to mark Yamal, and the outcome was quite predictable. Which takes me to England and my increasing nerves. After lots of talk about Argentina being beatable, comes the glaring realization we’re coming up against the greatest ever player in a World Cup semi final. Oh my. This will need to be done the hard way. Put aside his walking, the FIFA and refereeing love-in, etc, - great playe...

 It's crunch time. And we are involved. The nation is expectant. Scouts is cancelled. The kids can go to school wearing red and white. Whilst this is, of course, a text-book set-up for them to feel the crushing disappointments that the rest of us have endured for, well, our whole lives - this time it IS different. We have a resilience, and to a degree, some humble-ness. The game against Norway was a strange one. We started exactly how I hoped we would, in control, patient, conserving energy. But somewhere along the line it all went weird and we pretty much thrashed around, waiting for Bellingham to do something awesome. I've been really confident about England's chances - I thought we were set up to perform as a sum of our parts, but it hasn't quite clicked properly yet. But there is time, and our game against Argentina is going to be epic I am sure. They, with us, are on the 'scraping by' side of the draw; whilst attention tonight is upon the 'brushing ever...

Well, something hasn’t sat well with me today. I’ve been productive at work, I don’t feel exhausted and I haven’t been aggravated by VAR related reels invading my headspace (& instead appear to have been replaced with quite amusing Count Binface snippets)…. Yes, after 96 matches crammed into a month long frenzy, today was a blank day. So a perfect opportunity to take stock of recent events. Most notably, and a blog first I believe - a first hand report of one of the games as I had the privilege to attend the France vs Paraguay game. Thank you FIFA for graciously accepting my credit card details. The prior week I had endured and survived the English heatwave with a quick trip home. Little did I know, but this would actually prove to be perfect endurance training to prepare me for this game. 102 degree F heat in Philadelphia, with 70,000 of my closest friends, this proved to be the hottest conditions across all 96 games played to date. Lovely.  Thankfully I was able to have all m...

 I am so tired. Like presumably everyone else, I was crushed when the England game KO moved from 1am, to 2am. Originally the whole staying up thing was very much do-able, a full 4 hours between the likely conclusion and the kids getting up. Then that number became 3 and the nerves set in. I was chatting about the relative merits of booze or coffee to help stay awake the extra hour, when someone helpfully recommended food as a third option. So there I was, 1.35am, eating a nice spicy chicken pizza, washed down with some neck oil, awake, and blissfully unaware of the mayhem that was to follow.  I'd not seen a whole lot of Mexico, their games I presumably normally being in the night-time, so highlights aside, where they'd looked fluid and fun, I didn't really know much about them. But things became quickly clear, we were in for a game. Not in a Congo kind of way, where I felt comfortable we'd come out on top. This one was a genuine backs-to-the-wall effort. There's som...

At every tournament, there’s always one. A game that comes along and unexpectedly smacks you in the face with stupendous drama and pulls you firmly into the tournament frenzy and loving the beautiful game.  Was I concerned about going to bed last night not knowing if Switzerland were going to maintain their lead over Algeria?  Nope, I was not. Could I probably take care of packing for our trip to Philadelphia while listening to Argentina”s routine win vs Cape Verde? Probably. How wrong could I be! (And I’m not talking about Switzerland!). Matched up against the world champs, Cape Verde simply didn’t care. They went toe to toe with Messi and co, coming back from a goal down TWICE, the second time with the goal of the tournament from Sidney Lopes Cabral. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough, but having represented the smallest nation at the tournament, they recorded draws with Spain, Uruguay and Argentina. One of the underdog stories of World Cup history and everyone watching around the...

Well. It’s the morning after the Kane rocket that sent England through to the Rd of 16, and a time to take a breath. Which is welcome, as we’re about 70 games in already and I’ve produced just one blog entry. Possibly the lowest xB score of these World Cup finals…..Hats off to Birchy for his Rice-like energy levels to continue to produce his insights at a much more reliable tempo! So with a LOT to catch up on, let’s get started with the England. While not perfect by any stretch, England has been getting it done, consistently, and has real world class stars in Bellingham and Kane. I can’t agree more with Birchy’s observation at our tendency to focus on the negatives and bring the team down - maybe it’s our maturing years (& many blogs at this stage) that helps provide a more reasonable perspective. Could I now take the next 10 paragraphs to bemoan poor Djed Spence and an Everton level hesitance to have anyone who actually plays right back? Yes, yes I could. But I can also choose to ...

 The teams that win this thing tend to pace themselves, or so the narrative goes. By that logic, France will burn fast and burn bright but ultimately fall short. Anyone watching their front four might disagree. My group chat were discussing the relative merits of Henry vs Mbappe last night, with the score at 0-0 vs Sweden. I declared for Henry and then over the course of 30 minutes he proved me emphatically wrong. He is so fast, hits the ball so cleanly, and a new thing at this tournament, actually seems to gel with team-mates. Whether you can do anything but gel with Olise remains to be seen. They certainly seem massively equipped to go all the way. Proper full backs, a dependable goalie, solid CD and CM options and the crazy front four with the likes of Doue and Cherki in reserve.  Another team surely doomed by being too good too soon are Mexico, who are playing with that lovely abandon that hosts usually do. They've been fun and I'm annoyed that all their games have been at...

 Hands up who saw that coming? Exactly. If there was going to be a surprise last night, I'd have expected Japan to deliver it, not Paraguay seeing off Germany on penalties. In fact if you'd told me that was going to happen, I' have assumed you'd spent longer in the sun than Shearer and Mowbray clearly have. Did they run out of factor 50 or what? Japan started the night off vs Brazil. Their football is so neat, tidy, progressive and well-organised that I had a feeling they would go far. But the canary squad came on strong and ultimately deserved their late win. Japan's confidence seemed to drain as the night went on. Vinicius Jr was particularly lively and almost scored what would have been goal of the tournament. On paper the tournament will be better off for Brazil still being in it. But there's more to come from Japan. There is something pure in their stated ambition to have it won by the year 2050; and they seem to have a style, structure and culture where th...

 So its been 72 matches played in the world cup so far. And that mighty surge of games has the net result of us whittling things down to 32 teams, the size of a normal World Cup! That said - the group stages, for me, did provide enough excitement and upset to render it not a disaster. As a lover of the World Cup, more World Cup is not a bad thing; but it is fair to say that I am far more excited about the remaining matches than what has gone before.  Since I last posted, Scotland have had their few days in hell - waiting to see if John McGinn's deflected strike to nick a 1-0 win vs Haiti was enough. It wasn't. Iran had 10 minutes of sheer torture whilst Austria and Algeria faced off and exchanged goals that alternated their qualification status back and forth. A real shame, we know we'd all have liked to see a World Cup matchup of USA vs Iran, with the latter deploying their Strait of Hormuz formation to ensure no USA players pass. England played again, and dominated again,...

 The past 3 days has seen a nation galvanised. A single united purpose. One nation with one voice. IT'S TOO FUCKING HOTTTTT is what this voice says.  St George's crosses replaced with marathon runner recovery suits plastered across the nation's windows. Schools closed, public transport in pieces, internet flakey, and every aircon provider in the land laughing evil villain laughs. It's been a busy week for me, combining childcare with work and a work summer BBQ last night, all that whilst being mainly motivated to lie on the tile floor in my kitchen, the only place that ever dips below 30 degrees. This combined with some awful nighttime scheduling has meant the last couple of days has whizzed past in a bit of a blur. I'll try to round things up. First there was England - 'frustrated by Ghana'. I'd already hit the off switch on the telly before they'd uttered the words "we need to reset our expectations". What I saw was a game we dominated ne...

 The additional fixtures thrown-up by the 48 team competition is making the group game part of the competition absolutely relentless. If memory serves, we'd normally have 3 games per day at this stage of the competition, rather than the 4 we are getting. And they'd normally be in fixed time slots. This expanded schedule basically means that anything beyond work/footie/sleep needs to give, with the day 100% accounted for by those three things. It is definitely a World Cup where I wish I was still a student. Since I last wrote, the tournament has been rolling along nicely. My early comments about "zero jeopardy in the group stages" looks to be fundamentally wrong, as some of the token teams are proving to be far more relevant than that. Curacao grabbed a [genuinely] thrilling point vs Ecuador, the Iranian goalkeeper went into beast mode to deny the Belgium onslaught and grab a point in what was a fascinating game; attack versus defence in large parts, but Iran not witho...

 As the UK enters its second heatwave of the year, things stateside are also hotting up.  Mexico got a good win against South Korea who huffed and puffed but couldn't get the goal. They are left on 3 points with one to go, vulnerable - but group A is screaming out for Mexico and South Korea to qualify and the other two (South Africa and Czechia) to be knocked out.  USA beat a woeful Australia  - it is very hard to gauge whether they are as good as the two wins from two suggests, some knockout football will be the judge of scruffbag Poch.  There was much excitement for the Scotland game, followed by much disappointment. It was a bit of a no-show, as they were second best vs an energetic Morocco. This leaves Scotland in a super precarious position, on 3 points, but with a game vs an increasingly competent looking Brazil team to come. I fancy that goal difference could be the decider for them - avoid 2+ goal defeat and they might be ok. That's a horrid way to go in...

Who knew that by the time I made my seasonal reappearance, two out of three hosts would have enjoyed absolute spankings of comically inept opposition, and even more surprisingly - Birchy would have developed genuine English enthusiasm! I am typing having just witnessed a cagey and uneventful 45 mins of goal-less “action” between Mexico & South Korea, ending in the Mexico fans roundly booing their team at the HT whistle. Cue a goalie clanger 5 mins in to the 2nd half to gift Mexico the lead and those same fans are going BANANAS & lauding their 11 heroes on the field. Love it. So here we are, one week into what is a 5 week extended format marathon, and as I finally shake off my disappointment of Gianni pricing me out of my dream of touring the country for a month (never mind the ticket prices, FIFA wouldn’t even have let the RV in the car park due to their “hospitality” stations), it’s time for a recap of the action so far from the host country: Americana While it could take the ...

 I'm just off the back of watching two of the worst sides in the tournament (South Africa and Czechia) playing out a 1-1 draw. The result keeps their final round of group games potentially interesting, but in truth, neither team deserves to progress.  Today's post is really all about England. The handbrake is officially off. What a game and what a performance. After a slightly cagey first half, where we edged ahead and then sat back and then did so again; we came out like lions in the second half. Three of them. Proper full on, high tempo, attacking. Shot raining in, arms swinging aloft to gee up the crowd. It was lovely stuff. Bellingham completely justified the nod he got over Rogers (even from my clearly biased perspective), Kane was good - he seems to have really upped his game, and does that dropping back thing that was such a mess when Rooney did it, but to great effect now that we have pace alongside him. Not just pace, but pace with permission. I have spent much of the...

 Forty-eight hours since I posted and it feels like a lot has happened. This is when the tournament hits its stride. Games and goals a-plenty, and the relentless surge of the group games just rolls on and on. One thing that has struck me a lot about this tournament is the inconsistency of kick-off times. Where usually there are 3 set time slots for games, this one legitimately seems random. We've had 5pm, 6pm, 8pm, 9pm, 11pm, midnight, 2am, 3am and 5am games, at least. Those are the ones I remember. And it is playing havoc with my routine. Basically, the viewer needs to stay awake and alert at all times.  Cape Verde brought the tournament's first huge upset, holding Spain to a thrilling 0-0 draw, and that sparked a series of draws - Uruguay had a particularly bad tempered 1-1 draw vs Saudi, Belgium stunk the place out until a simply massive Lukaku came on and helped them to a draw vs Egypt and then Iran and New Zealand played out a really entertaining 2-2 draw. That flurry of ...

 I'm writing this as Cape Verdi's masterplan is 9 minutes in, versus the mighty (but missing some players) Spain. They are the second nation (after Curaçao) that I didn't even know was a nation - and I have a degree in geography. So, let me share my learning. Curaçao, a Caribbean island has been a country in its own right since 2010. Prior to that, its the usual depressing story of European colonisation, abandonment (when the Europeans realised it wasn't stacked full of precious metals), reinvigorated interest (slave trade) and finally a degree of independence.  Cape Verdi on the other hand is a country (Island nation off the west coast of Senegal) that is older than I am, so I feel I should know better in their case. Again it has history of being a European colony and is another epicentre of the slave trade.  With this in mind, the needle matches to look out for later in the tourney are Curaçao vs Netherlands and Cape Verdi vs Portugal. After Curaçao's outing last...

 I'm back, within close proximity of World Cup telly. For a while (after discovering a remote cidery), there was a chance that I'd miss more of this tournament - but after an unexpected sleep in a field, my camp trip has finished without further incident. The footy gods seemingly smiled upon me, as the one bar of 4G reception, whilst often unable to load a web page, did somehow manage to give me solid BBC sounds audio. And with that, I have largely kept in touch with proceedings.  The biggest challenge has been sleep to be honest. Last night, in a cider-induced fever dream, I managed to take in the first half of Morocco v Brazil, which then spliced itself together with the second half of Scotland v Haiti - which was weird. What was more weird was that in between , I had a dream about Tyrone Mings, on horseback, making a rash challenge that managed to destroy both his own knees and the horses existence. But this is something I should speak to a therapist about, rather than leav...

 Well, this one has crept up on me hard! I've barely had time to recover from Villa's Europa League win a fortnight ago; distracted all the while with SkySports trying to sell off our squad to The Big Six and reading stories of the thunderstorms and the visa complexities facing fans, players and referees of countries that Trump doesn't like today - and yet now here we are, listening to Gary Neville self reflecting on his own career as a scene setter for the World Cup. This one is a weird one. The expanded format and cruel time-zone scheduling mean that I go into it with no ambitions to 'watch it all'. The group stages are, on paper, almost devoid of any real jeopardy. The bloating of the tournament means there are now more groups than realistic winners, and with that, of course, no groups of death. And to cater for the stupid total number of teams which has to be 8,16,32 or even 64 dammit - just no other actual number; we have the awful spectacle of most  3rd place ...