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Back to square one

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 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, securing top spot in their group. I continue to find it amazing that our commentators will laud teams like Germany and Spain for pacing their efforts in these tournaments, growing into it, and not losing their heads - but at the same time will absolutely shit the bed unless we play liquid football and melt the opposition in a group game. Signs are good for England. Rashford did a lot of things that A.Gordon cannot, Bellingham was imperious and we did enough. In other games, Messi keeps on going, Ronaldo keeps on living in his shadow. Uruguay lost their shit and exited in a bad temper. Cape Verde made it through, massive kudos. Dembele joined the boot party by smashing a hattrick of identikit goals. Its all basically jolly good stuff.

So now it is the round of 32. Pure knock-out fun. I'm currently snoring my way through South Africa v Canada - not great so far, but there are some treats to come. No less than Brazil v Japan, tomorrow, at a humane time of day. That will be class.

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