Skip to main content

Boot camp selection

By
I'm watching on delay tonight, having amazingly avoided any spoilers this afternoon despite being in the company  of a thousand or more people at a festival.

It really gets tense now, and whilst things might not be as end-to-end as they have been in the group stages, I'm still sure there's some great games to look forward to.

Here's how I think the quarter finals will shape up:

(Nb this may already be wrong as 1.5 matches will have been played before I post this!)

France - I've just seen their line-up and think they have got their front three spot on. Mbappe is a real threat and Griessman feeding from Giroud makes sense. I do think they will grow ominously into the tournament.

Uruguay - by virtue of actually being tough (track record of actual cannibalism in the World Cup), will win a deeply hostile match tonight. I predict a lot of foul play, loads of simulation, general bad tempers and some (probably historic) "red card VAR" reviews

Spain - I think Russia, no matter how heavily they have dosed or trained, will surely lose.

Brazil - will win the tie of the round. Neymar will start playing football, rather than whatever floor-based interpretive dance that he's done thus far.

Croatia - will continue to be the hipster choice, with their sumptuous midfield. Add any of them to the England squad and we'd be a far fiercer prospect.

Switzerland - will surely wonder how they have lucked out and met another distinctly average team at this stage. I still hold a highly irrational dislike for their national team, and would really rather that Sweden won, but fear that England's hopes in the quarters could be at 'power-cube' Shaquiri's mercy.

Belgium - will begin to emerge as tournament favourites. Batshyuai (sp?) will score with his eye (as per his practice effort the other night)

England - will win on pens vs Columbia after the most agonising 120 mins ever played. Scores will be level after every player has taken their pens, and it'll go to sudden death 'manager and coaching staff' penalties, with Southgate thunderously roofing the winner before popping both shoulders out in a handstand celebration.

Only a quarter of the total tournament games remain, yet it is all really just beginning.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Azteca

By
 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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Geography lessons

By
 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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pacing

By
 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...
Post a Comment
Read more