The Three Dads World Cup Wonderland

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...