On replay that Mbappe goal is just unreal. Probably the best pure strike of the tournament?
They slow-walked it back from half time. I so wanted to see the Referee blow the whistle to start without them. They set the pace for their own defeat.
It would be great to see a top-down view of the curve of the shot.
I was about to post a youtube video of that incredible Haiti goal, but AIUI not really a kosher move, here?
If not, check it out on youtube - Sunderland striker Isodore Wilson smacked the bejebus out of the ball from ten feet out of the box and tucked it right into that top corner where mom keeps the peanut butter cookies, giving Haiti a 2-1 lead over Morocco at the time. That’s my pure strike of the tourney.
This one?
It’s quite a nice goal. I need to see the behind angle though; the impressive thing about Mbappe’s goal is how tiny the angle is that he has to shoot through
Indeed, that one, Sure, it didn’t sneak around and go in with zero margin of error like Mbappe’s did, but man.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 18 y.o. Kerim Alajbegovic (Bayern Leverkuesen) scored a nice one against Qatar that snuck by a defender or two.
The best goal so far, IMHO was the second Cape Verde goal against Argentina, it was beautiful.
But I haven’t seen them all.
This is a really good one. Phenomenal strike (I think I saw it was ~0.03xG i.e. an average striker would only score 1 in 30+ attempts), plus the story.
This is the correct answer. If that doesn’t win the goal of the tournament award then something is up.
Getting rather worried about my prediction of Spain to beat France in the semi and go on to win the whole thing. France just look too good to be honest. At least I have got Mbappe as top scorer, although Messi is also giving me major concerns.
It generated the usual (and usually unfair) Argentinian complain when such things happen against weaker teams “These guys turn into 1970’s Brazil only when they play us!”
Speaking of Brazil, the chattering classes down there are engaging in a fascinating theory about what’s been hindering their teams: The expansion of Evangelical Christianity in Latin America
TL:DR: Contemporary Evangelicalism with its puritanism, predestination, prosperity-gospel and individual-relation-with-Jesus elements has resulted in selfish players joylessly chasing money so they no longer play with the right spirit.
(The socialnets BTW get nastier on whose “fault” it is that the Evangs are proliferating in LatAm…)
Like, can’t it just be that now your kids have other things than football to pay attention to?
You can’t deny the numbers, 17 Catholic World Cups against 5 Protestant ones, and Germany’s World Cups could count as Catholic too if you look at the Catholic part of Germany…
(I don’t like the U.S. style evangelicals that are proliferating now in S. America, they have a lot of responsibility for Bolsonaro and Milei, so I’ll take anything against them)
lol. Argentina has had the same shift away from Catholicism, yet their men’s national team seems to be doing okay.
Germany’s best side is right there in the regional fortress of Catholicism!
Yeah, Borussia Mönchengladbach in the traditional Catholic bastion of the Lower Rhine region. 
TIL that Moenchengladbach is 38% Catholic, Muenchen 24% 
More heathens in the big city of Munich than in provincial Gladbach…
Hard to see past Spain here. I don’t think Belgium have nearly enough to breach this Spanish defence and even if they do it once, Spain will outscore them.
Soccer noob question.
What teams are generally better, the best of the World Cup teams or the best of the best League teams?