Recovery suit

 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 nearly completely for the full 90 minutes. Sure we lacked an edge or a break, but if having 79% possession and 19 shots to our opposition's 2 is the sign of impending doom, then I've misunderstood this sport and the principle of the laws of averages. We will be fine.

Ronaldo woke up, bagging his own brace. Respect to the guy, he simply doesn't give in. I've not looked at the possible knockout round line-ups, but a game against Portugal, how I would not like that. It continues the great unfolding story of the golden boot - something I'm not normally remotely bothered about, I generally see it as an inevitable side-effect of the tournament, but this one feels different. It feels like we have a few teams highly reliant upon their heroes, and playing almost exclusively through them. With Messi on 5, Mbappe and Haaland and Vinicius on 4 the race is very much on. 

But the story of the week is surely South Africa's amazing result in the night; overcoming South Korea to leapfrog from 4th to 2nd in their group, almost certainly giving someone half decent a bye in the round of 32. They've been dreadful, and even in their game last night - where they were afforded a tonne of space, they managed to make heavy weather of good chances, slowing the play down to the point where a one on one became a stumble by a player now surrounded by three markers. But they got their break, and with it destroyed my 'theory of zero jeopardy' for the group phases. Obviously the BBC waited until this moment of total jeopardy to publish their own 'there's no jeopardy' story. Classic.

So tonight, in a pool of my own sweat, I settle down for the Group E deciders; and with Germany having been oh so terribly efficient and sealed the group win already, I will be taking in Curacao v Ivory Coast where another shock might just be in store.