KoreaJapan2002 flashbacks for Germany.
What a howler by Courtois!
Man this is turning out to be some World Cup.
France is the one team holding to form so far. But for reasons I can’t articulate, I find France incredibly boring, even though half their players seem to be on Bayern Munich.
I am on the other hand rooting very much for Mazraoui right now. 
A third straight tie for the U.S. (this time against Iran) seems like a real possibility.
Just wow.
Belgium have been woeful again. They might still go through but on this showing it looks like this golden generation will not produce any success for the Belgians.
Looking forward to Croatia v Canada. Croatia have some old legs and I think will have real problems against this young energetic Canadian team.
Anyone predict Morocco to advance? That is 6 consecutive clean sheets for them.
Despite the loss vs. Belgium, I was impressed with Canada and I think they can win today, but expect them to at least get their 1st ever World Cup goal.
Just look at Pep’s Barcelona against the then best two English teams. Tiki Taka may well have been designed to beat Manchester United. And it showed. That said, despite United being the best English side of that era, it was Chelsea who Barca struggled with. Chelsea style of play hampered the Barca midfield.
And Germany could win against Spain and still not make it. In that case all three teams would have 3 points and the two who win the last game qualify. In case of a draw or two goal differential would apply.
Fantastic goal, sometimes early goals mean the scoring team sits back too much. 89 minutes is a long time to play defensively.
Better known as the Southgate strategy.
Yes, Herdman needs to tell his charges to keep the pedal down and keep F-ing Croatia.
Should open Croatia up at the back some, though…
VAR fucks Croatia. That is way too ticky-tack for me.
By correctly calling a clear offside foul? That’s what VAR is supposed to do.
Just read the story on kicker.de. Klinsmann is an idiot, and his words were beyond the pale. He should apologize to everyone he attacked and insulted, including the whole Iranian people.
If it were clear, you wouldn’t need VAR.
If there wasn’t VAR, it would have been called immediately. That’s why the AR immediately raised their flag when the play was over. The refs are instructed to keep their flag down on close calls to allow VAR to confirm or deny the play. On the referee board I’m also following, they think the call wasn’t even that close and the AR should have flagged it immediately.
Listen, I’m a purist. I’d rather have the linesman make the calls they think are correct and live with the results. Soon enough, they’ll just do away with linesmen altogether and just blow a big horn on offsides calls or something. Hell, if VAR had been available in South Korea, US would have beat Germany, but I still lived with the agony of a non handball call.
And the linesman thought it was offside, so… nothing changed here because of VAR.