Croatia go ahead. Milan Badelj, who we've been linked with repeatedly in the past. His contract with Fiorentina expires on Saturday, apparently!
There wouldn't be twenty a match if players stopped holding, this is football not rugby. I am delighted to see the penalty awarded, give one every time until players learn.
I'd agree with you if it was consistent, but it's not. Even then there was no real hold from Mascherano, for me. Compare that to Switzerland v Bosnia or Tunisia v England and the difference is pretty ridiculous.
The refs were not recognising it all until fifa received the complaint about the treatment Harry received from Tunisia. I applaud the recognition that they needed to change things. Refs are always inconsistent but lets applaud the good ones.
Sigurdsson's remembered how to take penalties. 1-1. How many's that for the tournament, now? About 30?
Can Messi prove his worth and win it for them? I'll be shot down for this, but Ronaldo makes things happen in these situations. Messi looks great in a Barcelona team which dominates opponents with good players around him, but when he has to do it himself? Not a great track record. Ronaldo every time.
There will be some "collateral damage" no doubt, but that is ok if all the blatant ones are being correctly awarded this tournament.
Perisic finishes off Iceland. 2-1 Croatia. Argentina have been bloody awful so far, but they're going through.
Not quite sure how. Really harsh on Nigeria. It’s encouraging to see how poor the likes of Argentina, Portugal and to some extent, Spain, have looked. So far Belgium, England and Croatia look the strongest, IMO.
They've been very bad throughout the entire group stage and should count their lucky stars they qualified. Their defence is extremely unconvincing. I can't see them getting past France, in all honesty. Argentina monopolised possession, yet weren't passing it with enough speed. It was too slow at times. Part of the reasons for this were when Argentina played without a midfield at times. It was like a 5-0-5 out there. Very risky. They had no proper link between midfield and attack, until Banega had some common sense to drop a bit deeper in the final 15 minutes. Nigeria employed similar tactics to Croatia in congesting the middle of the pitch and doubling up on Messi, and for most of the game it worked. But Argentina didn't utilise their width enough. Only when Pavon and Meza came on is where they stretched the Nigerian defence. And when they eventually did get into promising positions, the final ball was lacking quality. Too many players wanted ball to feet, rather than creating space for others. Nigeria counter-attacked quite well, Musa in particular was causing them problems. Ighalo missed some absolute sitters though, and it goes without saying that a team of better quality/maturity would have finished them off. Overall, very unimpressive from the Argies.
