FIFA World Cup 2022

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Not gonna lie, really not up for this. Just doesn't feel right having it this time of the year especially in such a football-unknown country. Feels more of an inconvenience if anything. I also didn't realise England were even playing tomorrow🤣 

 

Watched a bit of the opening game and it was pretty flat. Quite a few empty seats in the ground too. Not a great spectacle really. 

[techno 3,511]

I'm glad I'm not into football these days but having watched FIFA uncovered i can only hope it falls on its ass. At least there's no premier League games for a while that block the roads near work it will be bad enough with late night shopping fools 🤣

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Poor old Gary Lineaker making such an impassioned plea against Qatar whilst probably making £50,000 a day off taxpayers money to present the event and collecting top-earning salaries from two other positions🤣

 

Hypocrisy will definitely be the flavour of this World Cup. 

[phil bottle 9,822]

The last world cup was in a country that has a law whereby domestic violence is legalised, and didn't see many people protesting that one.

In a world of lies and hypocrisy this is just another example, and the mental gymnastics I see some people perform is incredible. Nothing new though. The corruptness of FIFA merely matches that of world governments and corporations. Anyway, enough of my soap box.

 

Football-wise, this is not time of year for the competition and it's totally bizarre. Still, hope the Spurs players have a good one and come back fit 😁

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

England's World Cup shirts cost £115 and are made in a Thai sweatshops where workers receive £1 an hour. Meanwhile England players receive around £1m a month in just basic wages alone through their clubs. Too bad we don't protest this along with all the other major sportswear brands adopting virtually modern slavery to produce their inflated goods. It was hilarious when the likes of Nike jumped on the BLM bandwagon in 2020 despite having several African sweatshops running with workers on 15p a hour to this very day. 

 

I think the England game is on BBC 1 which is not gonna be good especially if Lineker is fronting it. Apparently he was an oppressed black child growing up

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

England 6-2 Iran

 

Good start and some great individual performances as well as a whole for the team. Been a long time since I've seen England deliver this well after the Nations League disaster. Bellingham has been incredibly consistent for club and country plus we have some solid depth and the starting line-up was a solid choice. 

[GazzaGarratt 11,066]

In short, yeah it feels weird and not overall happy thats in Qatar, but we've known that for 12 years and not done anything about it. People that can make and change decisions need to just do better in that category.

 

As soon as England kicked off today it started to feel like it was here though now, albeit at Christmas. Great performance to start. Weird penalty at the end. I hope they come out and say it shouldn't have been given as that could ruin the entire tournament with penalties galore.

 

Would love to see Bellingham be the Player of the Tournament.

 

Looking forward to seeing how Wales get on tonight.

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Deserved draw for Wales in the end but they were exceptionally poor first half and lucky not to be out of it come half time. Much improved second period though and that result suits England very well. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Argentina 1-2 Saudi Arabia! 

World Cup 2022: Superb Saudi Arabia beat Argentina 2-1 in Group C opener - BBC Sport

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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Saudi Arabia, ranked 51st in the world, pull off one of the World Cup's biggest shocks as they beat two-time winners Argentina in Lusail.

 

Amazing defensive performance from the Saudi's and two excellent finishes. Messi who..

[GazzaGarratt 11,066]

What a game that was! Super strikes too by Saudi Arabia. Spain did lose their first game of their winning run a few years ago so its not over, but Argentina did look void of ideas for the most part.

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Germany 1-2 Japan! Another massive shock - Germany looked a shadow of their former selves meanwhile Japan looked dangerous going forward and created plenty of opportunties

World Cup 2022: Germany stunned by late Japan comeback - BBC Sport

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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A stunning late comeback from Japan sees four-time winners Germany fall to a shock defeat in their opening World Cup game in Qatar.

 

[GazzaGarratt 11,066]

Been another few good games past few days. I wouldn't say its absolutely superb as we're still getting the drab 0-0's and many of the shocks are kind of quite boring for 45 minutes and then total manic in the next 45. Would love to see more of it though.

 

Portugal were so lucky to get away with a win tonight. Ghana are super poor at the back but their antics through the game just always leaves you with a sour taste in the mouth doesn't it. I'd love to find a stat somewhere to see how much they've dived, rolled and stayed on the floor wasting minutes.

 

Spain I think are a dark horse we just don't know what to expect still imo. Yes, a 7-0 win will always do wonders for morale but Costa Rica were probably the worst team here so far. It will be interesting to see if their passing game can beat Japan and Germany.

[LordBaguette 846]

3 minutes ago, GazzaGarratt said:

Been another few good games past few days. I wouldn't say its absolutely superb as we're still getting the drab 0-0's and many of the shocks are kind of quite boring for 45 minutes and then total manic in the next 45. Would love to see more of it though.

 

Portugal were so lucky to get away with a win tonight. Ghana are super poor at the back but their antics through the game just always leaves you with a sour taste in the mouth doesn't it. I'd love to find a stat somewhere to see how much they've dived, rolled and stayed on the floor wasting minutes.

 

Spain I think are a dark horse we just don't know what to expect still imo. Yes, a 7-0 win will always do wonders for morale but Costa Rica were probably the worst team here so far. It will be interesting to see if their passing game can beat Japan and Germany.

Always the same I feel in grou stages especially the first matches. It will pick up in 2nd and 3rds for sure. Teams always shit themselves at the start, especially when theres been a shock result earlier in the day

[Macca89 518]

Not gonna speak about all the political bullshit, yes it's wrong, yes it's bad etc but we've known about this for years now, not much we can do now but just enjoy it for what it is.

 

Footballing side, I've enjoyed it so far, England looking good, Bellingham especially, watched him every game over the past 2 years and he's an absolute baller, future ballon d'Or winner easily.

 

Spain look alot like the Spain of old, still think if they play a team with superior physicality, they will find it hard.

 

France looked good along with Portugal, didn't play amazing but still got a few goals 

 

However Brazil were magic, that 2nd half was incredible, still my picks for the tournament, Casemiro bossing that midfield, Neymar and Vinicious providing the flair and Richarlison doing a Pickford, shit for club but a geezer for country.

 

Alot of smaller teams looking up for it, seen some great moments so far and it's only first round of matches, long may it continue.

 

 

 

[GazzaGarratt 11,066]

 

Dont usually call people out but how Ramsey is still in this squad yet they can't give Ryan Hedges a place in the team, let alone the squad is beyond me.

 

Wales have been awful.

[IRaMPaGe 3,258]

Iran have beat Wales 2-0, there was also 13 mins of injury time. 😂

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Brilliant performance from Iran against Wales who just haven't really turned up. all tournament so far. Good result for England leading into tonight also. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Absolutely dismal performance from England tonight - lethargic, predictable, created little and a real lack of effort. Shades of Algeria in 2010. Having to resort to bringing on Henderson is just embarrassing really and the likes of Foden are wasted on the bench. The lack of a press and always going backwards just stifled any progression and allowed the US to comfortably maintain their shape.

 

Wales will be going for the nuclear option and we will be under even more pressure when we could’ve easily secured group winners tonight. Never make it easy for ourselves but tonight was especially alarming.

[Tar-Eruntalion 516]

ok i watched almost the first half as i was having dinner and although i am not a football fan and don't watch it at all i have to say that i was very underwhelmed by england, i expected much more and from what i saw they were evenly matched with the americans who aren't on the same calibre supposedly, hell sometimes the americans even had some great chances for a goal

 

anyway that's my two cents from someone who hasn't watched football in a decade maybe, so please don't bring out the pitchforks😁

[techno 3,511]

Like @Tar-Eruntalion above and as most of you know I gave up on football a long time ago but have plenty of friends that do watch and by the sounds of it they were all majorly disappointed etc but if people are being honest isn't that exactly how the England team always are? They get built up people have some kind of faith in them then they show that they are nothing more than mid tier at best? Surely Southgate can't survive after this world cup?

[Laidback Lankyman 173]

 

23 hours ago, J4MES OX4D said:

Absolutely dismal performance from England tonight - lethargic, predictable, created little and a real lack of effort. Shades of Algeria in 2010. Having to resort to bringing on Henderson is just embarrassing really and the likes of Foden are wasted on the bench. The lack of a press and always going backwards just stifled any progression and allowed the US to comfortably maintain their shape.

 

Wales will be going for the nuclear option and we will be under even more pressure when we could’ve easily secured group winners tonight. Never make it easy for ourselves but tonight was especially alarming.

100% agree mate. England seemed to give a lot of people delusions of winning the World Cup with that first game against a bad team, making them forget the fact we got relegated from the nations League competition because we played exactly like last night for six games against good opponents. The US played well but we seemed to have no idea what to do and defaulted to passing it backwards and defending as deep as possible to not lose. To cap it all, if wales do go nuclear and beat us soundly we could go out to them and either the US or Iran, the very team we beat 6-2.
 

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Japan bottle it losing 1-0 to Costa Rica - could've sealed their spot in the last 16 but have blown the group wide open and let Germany back into it. 

 

Belgium losing 2-0 to Morocco and getting outplayed once again puts them in a tough spot needing to beat Croatia in their final game. From what I've seen, they are well and truly past it despite having the strongest team on paper in the world for a good few years. Roberto Martinez was not a good choice with those quality of players and their overall composition. 

 

Spain v Germany tonight will be massive! 

[GazzaGarratt 11,066]

England are top of the group, unbeaten. Last performance wasn't great but wasn't abysmal either. Statistically in the hardest group so i'm not that bothered about what others think.  Gareth Southgate, whatever you think of him, is spot on when he seemingly has to remind the British public that this is tournament football and you don't win the tournament in the group. You build up across the tournament. As football is our first and national sport, I understand the frustration. We all want our clubs to smash each team 25-0 every week, but it doesn't happen.

 

Just abit of perspective needed although I'm not expecting it. English mentality dictates the backlash after evert game. I don't think many England fans understand the words 'balanced opinion'. I still would also like to see Foden at some point in this tournament too.

 

In other games, they was some crackers yesterday. Morocco were superb to beat Belgium and I think Germany did well to stay in the game with Spain. Spain look great in the main but they didn't handle people running at them very well.

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Cameroon 3-3 Serbia and South Korea 2-3 Ghana already today!

 

What a goal

Dude probably thought he was offside so he went for the spectacular!  

[J4MES OX4D 10,057]

Great win for England! Controlled and composed throughout and this time went forward with more purpose and determination. Wales posed far less of a threat than what I was expecting and although this was largely down to the way we played, I think their faith in Bale and Ramsay is long passed and it was a huge mistake to start them. 

 

Bering on Senegal on Sunday!