I thought head to head was ahead of GD. My bad. It means that Japan needs at least a point from that last match against Poland to be sure but my feeling is that there would be a result in the Colombia Senegal match which means that they could qualify with a narrow defeat.
They review all the goals for offside via VAR. was about a milimitre from being offside, surprised the pundits haven’t been praising him for timing his run perfectly to be fair
Didn’t see the game, only the highlights. 2 great pens from Kane but jeez the ****fest over him is getting cringey. 2 Pens and a deflection he knew nothing about? Npw he might have played awesome and if so fair play, but cmon, anyone could score those pens (well apart from little raheem who can’t put ball away from a yard out in England shirt). Stones 2nd was great, it’s brilliant to see a well worked free kick and Panama didn’t know what was going on! Glad the ref finally gave some pens, been so many of those ‘challenges’ in this WC, hopefully now some have been given it’ll stop. So shoot out between us and Belgium, be interesting to see how we fair against first good team we’re up against. Only thing is, 2nd place might get a better side of the draw!
It is a mistake as Sigurdsson isn’t a striker. He has however played more World Cup games than World Class Mo Salah.
- two tap ins (second was difficult) against Tunisia - two (great) penalties - deflection he had no awareness of against Panama He's literally done nothing else!
on kane. first pen was smashed in as England were already 1 up. no pressure. (same as lingard, great goal but missed shed loads when it mattered) second pen was a repeat. easy stuff. the goal v Tunisia actually mattered. that's his major contribution thus far. 5 goals. great stuff
5 goals, you have to put them in the net. If one comes off the defenders heel then you claim that too. Appears some are upset that at this time England are going okay. Cracking goal by Lingard, that’s when I decided to get ****faced.
I thought the second against Tunisia was really well taken - simple maybe, but not easy. Both pens yesterday were stonkers, the other goal was a joke. This is the point I was making about him in the other thread: there's no doubt he's a top goal-getter - he gets them when he means it, he gets them when he knows nothing about them, and he gets them when they're not even his. Still doesn't make him a rival for Messi and CR7. The media ****fest is just though they can have their mass orgasm of self-loathing when we fail.
Like Bisc said really liked the 2nd goal yesterday. Must be great when a planned free kick comes off perfectly. Pity we wasted it against Panama
I said a result which I meant to be a win for either side, likely to be Colombia, in which case Japan needs to get at least an equal result to Senegal (their fair play likely to be better) More likely Japan will need a point. Senegal and Colombia to shoot it out to decide who qualify.
Great win for England. It is easy to say Panama was useless but that early goal was critical. Like in any minnow against big team match, the longer they hold out the more difficult it is to score and by 90 minutes, you get a 0-0. But score early the floodgates open. I could already see the headlines hanging and crucifying Southgate for drawing against the heroes of Panama. My only worry is that we have used all our luck in one game. No one will be giving us free penalties like Panama. The other thing is we now have a good chance of finishing top of the group by at least drawing against Belgium (and keep our FairPlay advantage) but that could be a poison chalice if that side of the draw is much tougher.
Some clarity on the Group stage rules, joint pts How Fifa divides teams who are on the same number of points: Fifa World Cup group ranking rules (in order) 1. Goal difference. 2. Goals scored. If teams cannot be separated by that then... 3. Greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned. 4. Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned. 5. Greater number of goals scored in all group matches. Failing that... 6. Greater number of points obtained in the fair play conduct of the teams based on yellow and red cards received in all group matches (read the full explanation here) And finally... 7. Drawing of lots by the Fifa organising committee.
Made me think: imagine if it did come down to a mass fight between the players - they'd all be rolling round on the deck clutching their faces after 30 seconds.
