In the 3 full seasons before Ronaldo moved to Madrid, Madrid won La Liga twice. (No CL success admittedly)
The Madrid team he moved to had Casillas, Ramos, Raul, Benzema, Marcelo, Higuaín, and Xabi Alonso (and an often injured Kaka). They weren’t as good as the all-time Barca team of the same period or ManU, but it was hardly Ronaldo slumming.
I think Modric might be out of gas. It’s a WC semifinal so it’ll probably be a defensive scrappy game, but I think England have this.
I think it’s a 50/50 game and the cream that scores first will win. But I agree with SK that Most if and Croatia might be drained after playing two straight ET matches.
Just point out that the last time a UK team played an opponent in a SF who had played two consecutive 120 minute games, the UK team got thumped.
England? Or another home nation? Can’t recall any of the other teams getting into a SF.
Wales vs Portugal in the Euros?
Looking at that list of players against the Manchester United squad near the end of Ronaldo’s time there, it looks like the core difference between the teams was probably the manager, because the talent levels seem broadly comparable.
Uncollected other thoughts:
I quite enjoyed France’s performance against Belgium - but then I am a weirdo who likes solid defensive football that has to be undone by quality attacking. France’s best performance for me - cutting an Argentina side to ribbons that can’t defend properly is one thing - but I thought they were magnificent. It’s not anti-football to defend properly, imo.
On another board I frequent, attention is starting to be given to who might win the Golden Ball and feature in the team of the tournament. They usually give this to an attacker on a team who gets to the final (Olivier Khan being the only exception from the recent past that springs to mind). I guess they might be looking at Mbappe or Modric if Croatia go through tonight. I’d give it to Kante though, if it were me.
England have done better than I expected but it has to be admitted that we’ve rode our luck a little - particularly with the draw, as well as picking up on a couple of under thought through elements of the game, that the stat heads on some of the sites I visit have been talking through for some time (set pieces being the most obvious of these), and picking a game plan that suits the players we have and sticking to it. Would be great if we can find a ball playing midfielder at some point but we’ve not had one of them since Scholes was mysteriously sidelined to the wing, so we could try and get Gerrard and Lampard in that same central midfield; best to work with what you’ve got. I think I’m going to hold off on Gareth Southgate: Tactical Genius for a bit but he’s doing alright. We’re playing with house money now - just hoping they don’t get slaughtered by Croatia to take some of the gloss off.
With the increase in goals at set pieces, I’ve been left wondering why so many teams have stopped leaving players on the posts at corners. Surely several of these goals could have been stopped by a man on the line? I suppose it runs the risk of leaving players open for a free header - but VAR seems to be taking care of that anyway.
This has probably been the best World Cup of my lifetime, at least in my memory (I can’t say much for the 82 and 86 World Cups) - some of the games have been next level by comparison to other World Cups, particularly in the stacked half of the knock-out round. Usually these games become wars of attrition; it’s been pleasing to see a number of these games not devolve into fear of losing.
Ah, yes. Not quite sure why AK84 is lumping England in with Wales though - we share passports not players!
Precisely. Novelty Bobble, if you don’t think I know that 52 years ago, England won the Cup 4-2 a.e.t. over then-West Germany, with one of the most disputed goals in the history of the game, you don’t know me very well.
England have been trying desperately in the decades since to prove that that game wasn’t a fluke of being hosts. That was my point. 
So, they’re now playing ‘Three Lions’ on loop over the Sonos at work. We’ve still got an hour of work to go…
This must be what it’s like to work in a toy shop at Christmas
Thanks 
But if you live in only one of four countries to have Christmas.
Kante’s probably second on my list after Modric so far, but I think it’ll be someone on the winning team. If Mbappe scores the winner in the final it’ll be him over Kante. Pogba has also been excellent.
As far as team of the tournament, I think Godin from Uruguay, Coutinho from Brazil, and Hazard from Belgium had very solid tournaments. Lloris or Courtois are solid picks at keeper.
Think I’d agree with all of that. Courtois in particular was exceptional in this tournament - arguably as responsible as any one on their team for getting them past Brazil.
I’d add Dr Bruyne, Ochoa from Mexico over the other GKers for some amazing saves, Uruguays Laxalt for some unheralded defensive work and Pavard.
Pavard’s been great. There’s been some talk in the British press that Trippier has been the best right back in the tournament - and I think it probably true that he’s the only Englishman with a major chance of getting into the team of the tournament - but I think Pavard has been better. Don’t think I’d pick an Englishman in the team of the tournament to be honest - unless Kane does something amazing in the last two games and nicks a berth at striker.
Well, he’s on course for the Golden Boot, that’s got to count for something.
It probably does - a quick glance at the teams of past tournaments seems to show that they’ve never left out the Golden Boot winner.
Still, filling your boots against Panama and Tunisia with a lot of goals from the penalty spot…if they were going to do that, this might be the time.
So I’m thinking England 2-1 Croatia today, but France prevailing 2-0 over the Three Lions in the final.
The Golden Ball winner has not been in the winning side for a while now. 2014, 2006, 2002, 1998 all saw the winner lose the World Cup final.
I think Baggio was the 1994 winner, it was it Ramario?