World Cup - Do You Want To Talk About It?

Damn, I so feel for Japan. Love those guys.

On the plus side, we get Brazil vs Belgium now. Hopefully Belgium thrash them. Sorry but I just don't like the Brazilian players, especially Neymar.

You have no clue how many times I cursed or yelled blasphemy at him this past 7 years. He's a great worker and always enthusiast, but I assure you, he's has very little of those defensive qualities you are ascribing him. At least now we have sold him where he's appreciated and he has fun

Chadli was immense. So many runs where he could fall if he was a lesser player, but he just kept going. MOTM for me.

@cagliostro88: I think he did really well this tournament, gotta give him props. I know nothing about him other than what I saw in these few games. I will trust your knowledge of his overall quality, even if wikipedia says his time with Inter Milan was pretty decent. Never watched their performances personally.

Also, it seems he was offered a place with Manchester United, which is nothing to balk at whatsoever. They obviously thought he was good too!

As a Belgian i just lost ten ten years of my life ...... fuck this.

Wow, what a game the Japan / Belgium tilt was!

@brunothethird: oh trust me, I've seen him week in week out for years, and he still does the same stupid defensive mistakes (mainly positional and decisional) as the first day he arrived. He works like a mule from training to games so managers tend to like him; but there is a reason almost everyone in our fan base is happy to get rid of him for just 2.5M euros to Galatasaray which is peanuts in today's market. He's better at going forward, hence why his best season was when playing as a wingback, but as a fullback he's a costant defensive liability.

It's fair if you liked him in this WC (he's also a very likeable dude, you can find plenty of funny stuff online); just wanted to expand on his career outside of it.

@omgfather: Hell, I'm Brazilian and I feel the same way, hope Belgium wins too. Would 7x1 be too much to ask? hehe

Sad to see Japan go. Loved their fast, physical, no nonsense play. Though, their cheeky checking surely would have gotten them in trouble against a flop selling team like Brazil. Here’s to Belguim knocking Brazil out so we don’t have to watch Neymar embarass sportsmanship, anymore!

Now watch Belgium get beaten by 5 - 0 against Brazil cause are defense is a mess organizational wise.

Here in Brazil we are saying if Brazil wins this cup Neymar is going to drink until he's finally standing! We hate his flops here as well, we think his faces are ridiculous and make memes of it. But we also don't mind that he scores and makes assistances in situations that have nothing to do with set pieces or fouls. It was a good game vs. Mexico, regardless of all the 'Neymacting'. Which worked too, hothead Layun fell for it and lost his cool. Soccer/football is a dirty game. 'Hand of God', Italian referee buying, and all the Blatter corruption are examples of how this sport is a joke in and out of the field. I still enjoy it, but I don't stand here pretending there's any shred of sanctity left for the 'love or beauty of the sport'.

EDIT: I just realized the tone of my message was a little less tongue-in-cheek than expected. I just woke up, sorry if I brought down a very wholesome awesome thread. I love football/soccer but damn I've always been disappointed by it.

@dreadmorrison: I can relate.

As an Uruguayan I grow tired of Suarez' pantomimes as well.

The cynic in me sometimes can't get past some of the shadier elements of the sport and the institution (specially when in ads and paid documentaries they are always presenting themselves as saints), but I still take some comfort in rooting for the people in the field.

@cagliostro88: It was interesting to see how my interpretation of him in small bursts is in such contrast to his league performances, ha.

Wow, this Sweden/Switzerland game. It should've been 3-3 with the ridiculous amount of chances in that first half, yet it's 0-0; what the smeg?

I was sad to see Mexico lose. France is my favorite to win this cup. And how about Japan. After a tough loss and elimination they stayed and cleaned up, leaving their locker room spotless, and with a thank you note in Russian. Pretty fucking humble and classy.

The Great Game of Yellow Cards

Geiger is a nightmare that has lost control of every game that I've seen him in charge of. Not to excuse the behavior on the field but come on man.

I see so much energy about Brazilians flopping, but doubt I'll see half as much about England completely flopping for the end half of this match...

@theshrubber: Do you? I mean, in this thread it largely seems to be individually based. I certainly was annoyed as shit by Young dragging things to a halt, but there is just a special place in my irritated heart for the hijinks of Neymar and Suarez.

I actually mean in general. Colombia played dirty, but England just stalling the match and abusing fair play was horrible. Worst match yet, by far.

@theshrubber: Fair point, although as I'm typing this Colombia just made things a hell of a lot more interesting (but yes, this game has been a mess regardless).

Hoooolyyy shhiiit Colombia lets fucking gooo

Of all the English ways to lose a game, this might end up being the most English. This is clearly going to penalties - and we all know how that will turn out.

Colombia have been playing pretty dirty and I don't blame England for getting frustrated, especially in that heat, but it's been a shit match all round for different reasons. We have not have been rolling around like fish gasping for breath, but we've been taking advantage of Columbia's lack of discipline, pushing their buttons, and looking for fouls to gain the upper hand instead of getting on with it and looking for opportunities to score, which hasn't exactly been difficult.

I wouldn't be proud of either team. I'm def not proud of us, even though we've played better. It means little when it's so clusterfucky.

This can only end badly . . .

The quick cut to the British crowd I feel represents the hearts and minds of Brits everywhere so perfectly. They all looked like they wanted to throw up and die.

Woooooop! I'll write off those first awful 90 minutes from both sides. The extra time and penalties were great, dramatic football. We did a great job, and so did Colombia there, it was right to the wire. Great stuff. I forgive all the bullshit.

@brunothethird: It really sorted itself out, thank goodness. Feel bad for Colombia but congrats to you guys getting over this.

As a Spurs fan I wonder why I always end up rooting against England. They have so many likeable characters on the team. It must be the obnoxious arrogant English press or something that colors my view.

Anyway congrats England.

I'm pretty sure England winning on pens is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.

That was really fun to watch as someone not supporting England, the negativity of the english commentators before, and the hard turn when it went in was great.

Go home and hug your loved ones everyone. This is truly the final sign of the Apocalypse. England has won a shootout.

@therealturk: @frytup: haha you two were roughly 20 seconds apart. What a day.

@sethmode: Thanks mate. I agree, I'm so glad the penalties really squared all those nasty edges off and made it an even match again, and they did so well. I felt crushed for the Colombian player who missed, it's the worst.

Our penalties curse is broken for today, which is a weird relief.

Good riddance to Colombia and their brand of anti football, never seen a side so disinterested in playing football, team of thugs whose game plan for 90 minutes was to boot England up in the air, so long, you won't be missed.

It was far from a classic performance, mainly because of the aforementioned, difficult to play against a team who just want to kick lumps out of you, rode our luck in extra time as Colombia were well on top and put those penna's to bed.

Fuck was with that ref? Christ, he should never judge another match.

Congrats to England, but I hope Sweden destroys them on Saturday. Should be an interesting game.

Come on England, it means so much to the whole nation to win a penalty shootout.

I thought Sweden weren't good today, which shocked me. I thought they'd embarrass Switzerland, but no. Loads of missed chances from poor finishing, and Switzerland got through their defense plenty of times, way more than I ever thought. Their one goal was the result of a weak hit that a Swiss player flicked in unfortunately. The ref made some bad decisions in Sweden's favour, too. I really fancy our chances if they perform the same way, but we'll see.

I hope the best team wins.

@boonsong: He's been consistently atrocious every match I've seen him in. As an American, it's a super bummer that he's our only contribution to this WC.

He let things get out of hand and the players took advantage. I suspect giving a well-deserved red for the headbutt early on might have put a damper on the nonsense that followed.

Eh. I thought Geiger was fine in his group stage matches. This was not his finest hour 120+10 mins.

There was a lot going on. He had so many people in his face, crowded around altercations, his view blocked from things clear to us watching with instant multiple angles. I'll cut him some slack, it was mental out there.

He didn't review the footage for that clear red-card offense, which is an error, but I would've struggled myself to keep the clearest head. Obviously the people assessing the incident didn't relay what he needed to hear to flash the red.

I thought he did decent considering. The other refs have been better, though, I can't deny it. Malang Diedhiou has been up there for me, he's pretty fair.

This wasn't the most boring match of the WC but was by far the ugliest (from the perspective of a neutral with no horse in the race). Really shameful performance from both teams and a god awful referee (btw, i'm honestly surprised but the best referee in the cup for me has been the senegalese one, Malang Diedhiou. I hope he gets the final)

That felt a lot more familiar than most of England's games so far.

If I'm being rational and realistic, it was nice to see that our defence was actually pretty solid, even when the team looked a bit ragged. I think there have been some worrying things about how we play at the back in our group games. Even when we conceded the equaliser, it's hard to see any howling errors in our play.

With that said, we just aren't dangerous enough up front, and we're relying way too much on set-pieces. I don't know what value Vardy is adding, either. You'd hope bringing him on would give us some pace, and some incisive runs into the box, but he just never seems to deliver. I swear he's offside way more often than most strikers.

But fuck all of that because we won pens and it's coming home.

What an awful game. England needs to step it up. They looked dreadful.

England would have got torn apart if they had to face what we saw Japan perform like against Belgium.

Who would have thought skipping Japan instead of Colombia would be better?

All in all, a disgusting display from Colombia. It looks even worse after seeing how classy the Japanese and Belgians were. There are so many overpaid thugs in this sport and Colombia do nothing but further harm the image of Colombia.

Both teams took advantage of the referee not carding people resulting in them forcing fouls and bickering for the first half. Then at half time, the ref knew he needed to regain control and started handing them out left and right while England, in the lead, forced fouls on Colombia's players and stalled. Just horrible ugly football on both sides for the first ~80 minutes and a better ref would have nipped that in the bud early on. Free kicks and corners were unbearable with their pushing and shoving. Extra time was far more interesting to watch. I do feel that the correct team won though, England played better. Colombia sans James Rodriguez was nonexistent in the attacking third.

Felt bad for the ref, but at the end of the day he let things get out of control. Don't know how a headbutt is a yellow card. Both sets of players then start crowding him and appealing for everything. Props to Maguire for getting straight up after his dive and saying no pen though.

I've seen every penalty shoot-out for England since Spain at '96. I totally forgot what winning one was like. Feels damn good. Commiserations for Colombia, we've been there plenty of times.

Better dig out your Sweden shirt and try again fat lad!

As an American Tottenham fan, I loved watching England win on those penalty kicks with Kane, Trippier, Dier (and Rashford) taking care of business.

I haven't seen us win a penalty shootout since I was 11. We performed well without really hurting Columbia. Passed it about competently and controlled it for maybe 75 minutes. Shame that composure vanished with the equaliser which came almost out of nothing. Still, we held our nerve. If this side could create more in open play, we'd be dangerous. As it is, you've just got to hope more teams struggle to mark Kane.

@cagliostro88: gotta agree he did a solid job with the Belgium Japan match.