The Three Dads World Cup Wonderland

Aaaaaaand breath. The most dramatic day of World Cup quarter final action since 1986 (the last time both games went to pens), has nudged me out of my blogging lull that had made it appear I had been strangled by a well drilled Moroccan defence. In reality, endless action, life and responsibilities & unwelcome time differences have made me prioritize actually catching the action versus the keyboard. So I’ve a lot to catch up & we’re going to have to do it in double quick time:  Group stage musings A wonderful collection of sparkling performances by the top teams with goals galore, underdog shocks aplenty and excessive drama on game 3 days where any and every eventuality seemed possible, epitomized by the 60 seconds of disbelief at the prospect of Costa Rica joining Japan in the round of 16, before being firmly shut down by an ultimately futile German resistance with the damage already done. I haven’t researched too much yet on the format for 2026, but with 48 teams I can’t h...

 The round of 32 is marking a new phase in the tournament, and after the helter-skelter of the group stages, it is going very much to plan so far. With Netherlands, Argentina, France and England all winning in line with broad expectation, the round is looking like it is going to be one of whittling down. I am expecting all of the results to go the way of expectation, and leaving us with a very strong set of quarter finals.  That would see Croatia, Brazil, Spain and Portugal making up the rest of the quarter-finalists - which even without Belgium and Germany is a pretty mighty, mouth-watering prospect. I'd say Japan and Switzerland probably have the best chance of causing an upset, but I think their races are run now. I've already made my plans to go out into the world on Wednesday, when there's finally a day without a game, but certainly by the time football returns on Friday, I will be ready. In fact, thinking about it - maybe I'll use those two days to catch up on the...

In a departure from previous tournaments, I've not been embracing the full multi-device set-up for these final group games. So far that is. The frantic experience of last night has changed that - as I hopped madly between channels to see whether Poland would pick up the 2 extra yellow cards that might see them get knocked out, or Mexico on the other channel to get an elusive third. It was compelling stuff for 20 minutes - and certainly enough for me to come prepared tonight, with telly showing the Costa Rica vs Germany game, Japan and Spain battling it out on the tablet, and phone close at hand for any mathemetical calculations or regulations look-ups that might be required along the way. I'll certainly miss having Mexico in the knockout stages, they normally provide good excitement before bowing out in the last 16, no such luck this time. That they have been edged out by the utterly coma-inducing Poland is a travesty. Despite their match against France being billed as a Mbappe...

 Some cracking games the last few days. I'm not going to recap them this evening as I'm getting my game face on for England vs Wales, so thought I'd share my pre-match thoughts. This post therefore has a very short shelf-life and I'll likely look foolish pretty much right after I've hit the publish button. Team selection: not too much to disagree with here. I'm rarely excited about seeing Henderson alongside Rice in our midfield, but I understand why its happened. I'm not massively excited about Stones and Macguire as a CB partnership, but given their form together in the two games so far, I understand why its happened. Swapping out the set-piece threat of Trippier for lockdown punter Walker doesn't massively excite me, but I understand why its happened. The whole selection is a microcosm of the Southgate pragmatism. Its all based in sound logic, but just isn't exciting. Just as with Grealish last tournament, he seems to have begrudgingly come around...

This morning's blog post comes as Japan and Costa Rica face-off in the seismic Group E. Germans everywhere will be praying for a Costa Rica win, which would potentially leave them in a place where they might still be able to qualify, even with a second defeat, against Spain tonight. (I think). Its actually a pretty good game. I love the Japan team for their positivity and pace; and its nice to see Costa Rica dust themselves down after their schooling by Spain the other day. The past couple of days have been fun. Brazil did Brazil things and Richarlison, whilst a hateful (and in my view wildly overrated) player domestically, put on a good display of flair. Friday was decent I thought. The Wales v Iran game was pulsating, and Iran well worth their win. The result made England's opening game result look all the better. Qatar confirmed that they are indeed probably the worst quality hosts of all time, and in doing so set up a nice 3 way fight for Group A, with Netherlands and Ecuad...

So, where were we? Since I last posted (whilst France recovered from their early setback to maul Australia), I have been assaulted by a mountain of work. 2 consecutive days of back to back video calls for the first 5 hours of the working day would typically have left me very cross indeed about the shocking and unacceptable work/football balance. Luckily though, I seem to have missed the majority of the dross. Basically game after game of nil nil tedium seem to have been played out silently on my tablet whilst I've been doing my very best to be a hard working honest human.  That first paragraph is all the analysis you'll get from me on Morocco v Croatia (0-0), Uruguay v South Korea (0-0) or Switzerland v Cameroon (1-0).  I'm going to reserve judgement on all 6 of those teams until after the second set of games.  The games I emerged for seem to have been much better - which does spark a bit of a chicken or egg debate in my mind. Fortuitious? Or was there an imperceptible pr...

My post this evening comes from, unsurprisingly, in front of the telly. I'm watching football. Whilst that is not entirely surprising, I have actually had a bit of a struggle with it today. I had an office-day. The horror unfolded as I went into a 90 minute meeting with Argentina leading 1-0 and seemingly coasting to victory. They'd got their goal and were cutting through the Saudis with ease, having one or two [correctly] disallowed for offside. I gave myself the pep-talk - "it's fine Birchy, work is work and this is a foregone conclusion anyway. Watch the highlights and grow up a bit" . The rest, as they say is history. I saw the drama unfolding with a couple of phone checks, and returned from the meeting to the barrage of WhatsApps, declaring it a fantastic match, a true spectacle and probably one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history.  I'm fine about it. Really.  More meetings interrupted the Denmark v Tunisia game - which looked better than the nil-...