Thought Japan v Senegal was one of the most entertaining football matches I've seen for some time ... Senegal v Columbia will hopefully be a cracker ...
Spain and Portugal playing tonight at the same time, is that so neither team has an advantage or something? Seems a ****ty thing to do otherwise, both games I'd want to watch.
It stems back to 1982 when Germany's final group game was against Austria. If Austria won or drew then Austria and Algeria would qualify for the knockout, if Germany won but by less than 3 goals, then Austria and Germany would qualify, and if Germany won by MORE than 3 goals, Germany and Algeria would qualify. Because Algeria's final game was played the day before the Germany/Austria game, both Germany and Austria knew what each result would mean. What happened was that Germany and Austria pretty much silently agreed (without ACTUALLY agreeing it, of course) to let Germany win by less than 3 goals so that Germany and Austria would both qualify, thereby shafting Algeria. So the game kicked off, Austria allowed Germany to score in the first few minutes, then both teams kicked the ball around in their own halves for the next 80 minutes...... Germany and Austria both went through. From then on, FIFA ruled that both of the last group games for each group would be played at the same time, to avoid this happening again. EDIT: You can read about it here: https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/world-cup-2018-why-are-final-group-games-played-simultaneously
Jordan Henderson ran 10km vs Panama, 1km more than any other player on the pitch, in 32-degree heat. He completed 91% of his 72 passes attempted, won all four of his aerial duels & wasn't dispossessed once. Boss please log in to view this image
LOL Nice! Was really ****ing tragic though, If I were FIFA i'd have put Algeria through automatically and made Germany and Austria replay the game, stating that the winner goes through with Algeria, loser goes home.
I agree with Ern. Boot both the cheating ****s out and promote the other teams. Cheating has no place in sport (unless its cycling)
Yeah I guess putting Algeria through and whoever was the 4th placed team in their group through would have been the fairest result. But FIFA have no balls.
