I watched the first half....which is 44 mins more than I manage to watch of a Saints match....because Saints matter more and England will never be relegated. I would have returned to it if England had scored again, but we all knew what would happen with only a single goal in it. I watched an episode of Elementary to take my mind off extra time. And I wouldn't even try and follow the penalty shoot out because it was obvious we were going to lose.
If anything Colombia were lucky they didn't have a player sent off. They deserved at least one red in that game. How on earth they can say they were cheated is beyond me. Their main tactic was play dirty, they deserved nothing from that game and got nothing. They didn't even deserve extra time tbh.
I had a couple of mates round from work last night and they're not football fans in the slightest. They sat through it all though, and put up with my pacing, swearing and manic screaming at the end. It was a tough watch, but the elation when we scored that winning pen was all worth it.
A family sent in a video of them watching the penalty shoot out....there was ten of them all cheering manically. And through the window you could see one woman sitting in the garden with a dog...guess the dog wasn't a fan.
I didn’t watch the penalties - well i lie, I saw Falcao’s and Kane’s then I muted the TV and went upstairs, lay on the bed and put a pillow over my head. My daughter in the US texted me to say we’d lost, I went down and saw that there was one miss each...she thought it was sudden death. I ran back up. SHe texted me 3 mins later to say we’d won
Thought both teams were as bad as each other last night, agree with the fact that England have been too naive/nice in previous tournaments. That dive from Maguire was comical though, should probably not attempt that again
Had to think about where he had come from with an "Ummm" for 2 seconds. Wife said "typical English thicko, has to think about where he lives"
Even if they had decent commentary NO DOLBY DIGITAL on their HD channel!!! Rubbish. Sounds much better on BBC with the crowd coming from all over the place. Much more immersive.
Interesting to get a neutral view on it as I really don't see that England were just as bad as Colombia. And to be fair to Maguire, it seemed like he was anticipating contact and basically ended up jumping out of the way of it, it was theatrical though! But he did get straight up and say it wasn't a pen. Don't think the Colombians would have been quite so honest somehow.
It’s loads of reasons, but mainly the adverts, which are 95% about betting sites, but they create a complete discontinuity between the football and the reaction to it. And Sky and BT are as bad I know, but this is the World Cup for crying out loud!
Ahh a young man. I remember v Spain in '96 Euros. lunchtime kick off. In Lincoln City's bar under the stand. Got home at 4 in the morning following a pub crawl with 100+ participants (all but 3 who I didn't know but seemed like besties for over 12 hours.) So I guess second time around didn't have that impact.................or maybe because I'm 43 now and was sitting in my sitting room. (Lounge for ISIRTP and Schad.)
Sigh of relief from Gerard Pique after he is relieved of having to watch his missus' side getting further than his own.
My 2 cents. I would say the Colombians tactics were to rile England up for a half, then play in the second. To be fair to them it almost worked but would rather teams just played football. So far we'll played 3 dirty sides and beaten them, lost to the team that played football, although with 2nd string teams. I've seen far worse diving than England, I think we are bottom half of the cheating table if there was one (as in below average). Even my Welsh friends have begrudgingly admitted that. They also mostly like this England team who seem to want to play, although saw less of that against Columbia. If that Columbia long distance strike went in right before there goal then that would have likely been goal of the tournament. My favourites for the tournament are Brazil who have been growing into the tournament, France who looked really good against Argentina, or Croatia who have been looking strong throughout. Belgium as an outside bet but their display against Japan was hot and cold. Don't think England have enough but stranger things have happened, could have done with someone else getting some goal scoring form to give us a proper shout. Brain dump ends...
Belgium's weak link is the manager. Getting all the plaudits for changing things but any decent manager facing Japan would have had Fellaini on from the start and gone the crosses/headers route against Japan.
