The official FIFA World Cup 2018 thread

[KBM]

It's heeeeeereeeeeee!!!!

[SpeakWithMichael]

[Zakalwe]

Maybe worth bearing in mind the yellow card situation in the QF’s. A yellow for any of the following players means they’d miss the semi-final. There’s a few big names on the list.

Uruguay
Rodrigo Bentancur

France
Olivier Giroud
Benjamin Pavard
Paul Pogba
Corentin Tolisso

Brazil
Philippe Coutinho
Felipe Luis
Neymar

Belgium
Kevin De Bruyne
Leander Dendoncker
Thomas Meunier
Youri Tielemans
Jan Vertonghen

Sweden
Viktor Claesson
Albin Ekdal

England
Jordan Henderson
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Jesse Lingard
Kyle Walker

Russia
Yury Gazinsky
Aleksandr Golovin
Ilya Kutepov
Fyodor Smolov
Roman Zobnin

Croatia
Marcelo Brozovic
Vedran Corluka
Tin Jedvaj
Mario Mandzukic
Marko Pjaca
Ivan Rakitic
Ante Rebic
Sime Vrsaljko

Taken from Football365

[dmash]

I can’t believe I’m reading Sweden and not seeing Germany, Portugal, Argentina or Spain LOL

[SpeakWithMichael]

I know, some of you don't want to hear anything more regarding Ronaldo, but what do Ferrari, Facebook, and Adidas have to do with his transfer? A lot, actually.

Ferrari partnership in the works: https://www.football-italia.net/1240...naldo-transfer

Unsurprising as Ronaldo is a big Ferrari fan and owns or has owned a number of them. He will now undoubtedly become the poster boy for Ferrari. No one looks after his body and physique as much as Ronaldo, and Ferrari certainly finds a parallel with that which speaks to their clients. About $20 million or more. Plus cars, naturally.

Facebook partnership in the works: https://www.theguardian.com/football...s-and-facebook

Ronaldo will have a 13-part series on Facebook covering his life as a footballer, its biggest original series yet. He conservatively stands to make $10 million on this, plus royalties of some kind, I assume.

And of course there's Adidas. Juve are an Adidas club, and Adidas is doing everything they can to get Ronaldo over to them. This would be an astronomical contract with Ronaldo, who has been with Nike for over a decade. He stands to make as much money with Adidas each year as he does playing for Juve. Hundreds of millions to replace Nike's contract with one for Adidas.

What you are about to see is an instant billionaire net worth when the total of these and all the other new contracts are added up. As Ronaldo said, "It's not about glory." No, it's definitely about the euros.

[SpeakWithMichael]

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Maybe worth bearing in mind the yellow card situation in the QF’s.

Cheers!

[DARK_KNIGHT]

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Maybe worth bearing in mind the yellow card situation in the QF’s. A yellow for any of the following players means they’d miss the semi-final. There’s a few big names on the list.
Taken from Football365

Wait. Help me out here. I thought today's and tomorrows games, are the semi-finals?

[dmash]

Originally Posted by DARK_KNIGHT

Wait. Help me out here. I thought today's and tomorrows games, are the semi-finals?

Jack, how can a semi final have 8 teams.....this would work in no sport whatsoever.

[DARK_KNIGHT]

Originally Posted by dmash

Jack, how can a semi final have 8 teams.....this would work in no sport whatsoever.

Oh, I see. 8 teams.......down to 4.............got it !

[SpeakWithMichael]

Cavani just confirmed out (injury) versus France. Suarez will have to pick up the slack and convert on his chances. Just over 20 minutes to match time!

[dmash]

Originally Posted by SpeakWithMichael

Cavani just confirmed out (injury) versus France. Suarez will have to pick up the slack and convert on his chances. Just over 20 minutes to match time!

Attack looks completely different without him.

[AK797]

Two great headers but the French get the goal! Such a shame for Uruguay that my man Cavani is out, they look pretty impotent without him, and they have the best defence in the tournament , they are so tenacious. A coach's dream. Head wants France but heart wants Uruguay.

[AK797]

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Maybe worth bearing in mind the yellow card situation in the QF’s. A yellow for any of the following players means they’d miss the semi-final. There’s a few big names on the list.

Brazil
Philippe Coutinho
Felipe Luis
Neymar

Belgium
Kevin De Bruyne
Leander Dendoncker
Thomas Meunier
Youri Tielemans
Jan Vertonghen

England
Jordan Henderson
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Jesse Lingard
Kyle Walker


Taken from Football365

That looks good for England, just Walker and his pace is the worry. Brazil need to be careful with their two best players.

[AK797]

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Yeah and for all the bitching online about which one is best (I don’t mean on here, which is civil, but the crazy fanboys) we will probably never see an era again where the two best players in the World are also two of the best players in history. True footy fans will be able to take pride in 30 years time in being able to say “I saw them play”. We are privileged.

I find it hard to definitively rate players. The top five of my lifetime as a fan (since 1990) are probably:

Ronaldo (Brazilian)
Messi
Ronaldo C
Maradona
Zidane

The order would change depending on my mood. I think Brazilian Ronaldo and Maradona’s absolute peaks might have been better than anybody else’s, but for various reasons they weren’t able to sustain their greatness for as long as Messi and Ronaldo. Their longevity is incredible.

Don't forget Van Basten. The best striker of all time for me and possibly a better striker than Maradona was a playmaker. If I had to pick a dream team, he would be one of the first on my list.

[dmash]

Bye bye Uruguay.


Lol really? What was the issue with that shot? That keeper is straight garbage. France should just start launching them from 40 meters out, I’m sure a couple will get past that clown.


I feel bad for Cavani. He was one of the best players of WF thus far, and couldn’t even make a mark today.

[GerardoG]

Great game!

[OmegaJJH]

Originally Posted by dmash

Lol really? What was the issue with that shot? That keeper is straight garbage. France should just start launching them from 40 meters out, I’m sure a couple will get past that clown.

I think Liverpool will be linked with him before the day is out as a replacement for Karius



Sent from my iPhone

[dmash]

Originally Posted by OmegaJJH

I think Liverpool will be linked with him before the day is out as a replacement for Karius



Sent from my iPhone

I had to look..


https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.thes...is-karius/amp/



Hahah it’s already getting compared. NEVER GO FULL KARIUS

[SpeakWithMichael]

Originally Posted by dmash

Attack looks completely different without him.

It looked non-existent.

[Zakalwe]

Originally Posted by AK797

Don't forget Van Basten. The best striker of all time for me and possibly a better striker than Maradona was a playmaker. If I had to pick a dream team, he would be one of the first on my list.

I had actually completely forgotten about Van Basten. I saw very little of him play as we didn’t see much of Serie A back in the day and he never had the opportunity to light up a World Cup. By all accounts the complete striker and the volley in the 88 Euros was incredible.

[Cru Jones]

:-)




Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

[superstarmar]

Originally Posted by dmash

Bye bye Uruguay.


Lol really? What was the issue with that shot? That keeper is straight garbage. France should just start launching them from 40 meters out, I’m sure a couple will get past that clown.


I feel bad for Cavani. He was one of the best players of WF thus far, and couldn’t even make a mark today.

Terrible ... I really liked Cavani , had a feeling he would be
extremely missed in the game and it was so unfortunately !

That shot / goal by Griezman, what the heck was Muslera
thinking? I can’t believe he didn’t try to catch it in his chest
at worst if it would’ve bounced back it would’ve stopped outside
the goal and could’ve tried to grab it or fall on it .
Horrible, that 2nd goal mistake by Uruguay’s goalie
totally demoralized the rest of the team .

In my opinion Uruguay didn’t play like Uruguay today.
They gave France a gift ...

[Zakalwe]

Anybody else hoping to see a 4-4 draw, penalty shoot-out a a couple of red cards apiece in Brazil-Belgium?

[Cru Jones]

Originally Posted by superstarmar

Terrible ... I really liked Cavani , had a feeling he would be
extremely missed in the game and it was so unfortunately !

That shot / goal by Griezman, what the heck was Muslera
thinking? I can’t believe he didn’t try to catch it in his chest
at worst if it would’ve bounced back it would’ve stopped outside
the goal and could’ve tried to grab it or fall on it .
Horrible, that 2nd goal mistake by Uruguay’s goalie
totally demoralized the rest of the team .

In my opinion Uruguay didn’t play like Uruguay today.
They gave France a gift ...

Yes, lucky for him it was 2-0 not 2-1....

It would have been slightly more satisfying to win with Cavani playing, but that’s the problem when one’s team doesn’t have sufficient depth.

Also, too bad about Mbappe’s acting... poor form from a solid player.

Anyway, on to Tuesday! :-)

[Abdullah71601]

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Anybody else hoping to see a 4-4 draw, penalty shoot-out a a couple of red cards apiece in Brazil-Belgium?

I’ll vote for that. Spent the morning at DMV renewing my drivers license. I could use some excitement.

[superstarmar]

Originally Posted by Cru Jones

Yes, lucky for him it was 2-0 not 2-1....

It would have been slightly more satisfying to win with Cavani playing, but that’s the problem when one’s team doesn’t have sufficient depth.

Also, too bad about Mbappe’s acting... poor form from a solid player.

Anyway, on to Tuesday! :-)

First goal was a gift as well as it resulted off of a foul
creating a set piece . Not saying the header wasn’t a nice
goal, it was brilliant but Uruguay shouldn’t have placed
themselves in that position in the first place .. That’s been
the theme of this WC though, foul after foul...

The beauty of this sport is dwindling as
there are too many now play acting and roughhousing
each other with way too many fouls . In the end the goals
and score matter , apparently how you get there makes
no difference anymore...

[SpeakWithMichael]

I've gotta go for Belgium in the next game, because I'm hoping for a Battle of the Breakfasts.

Croissants vs Waffles

[superstarmar]

Originally Posted by SpeakWithMichael

I've gotta go for Belgium in the next game, because I'm hoping for a Battle of the Breakfasts.

Croissants vs Waffles

[GerardoG]

Originally Posted by SpeakWithMichael

I've gotta go for Belgium in the next game, because I'm hoping for a Battle of the Breakfasts.

Croissants vs Waffles

[AK797]

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Anybody else hoping to see a 4-4 draw, penalty shoot-out a a couple of red cards apiece in Brazil-Belgium?

Yeah, last game was pretty poor, so hoping this one will be better, so many good players on show that I hope they just don't cancel each other out.

I have France in the sweepstake but don't think they look very good, esp the link play up front is weak and Griezmann is too ineffectual, even disinterested at times turning his back on play to yell at the bench. Think Belgium and Brazil will look forward to playing them.