Yeah that was a really enjoyable match! Japan could have taken in the second half but some good play all around so I thought a draw was a fair result, even though I do enjoy a late game dramatic goal. Really puts a lot on this Poland and Columbia game. I think one of them will take the win and send the other home, but it would a strange break if the group ended in a 4 way tie for points.

Also, that Kroos goal. I thought Sweden maybe deserved a point after holding on during the hard push from Germany but damn what an exciting finish.

Poland are looking very weak this year. Colombia have a great team, full of stars, and they shouldn't have lost the first match. Let's see how the 2nd half goes but my feeling is that Poland will be the last in their group. Lewandoski can't do everything alone and Krychowiak seems to have lost something after leaving Sevilla.

Wow, expected Poland to get out of their group but instead they're out after only two matches. Colombia played them off the pitch

Don't care for city club football games at all, but I like to follow the euro and international football cups, because it's more honest. No gazillion dollar football players plucked from other countries to gather your local club the title of the year. Urgh, the fakeness, can't stand it. Nope.... The EC and WC is where real football is at. Countries gotta face off eachother only with the hands their dealth with. And obviously this will quickly show what the strongest / weakest points of the national teams are. And we got shown that;

Portugal depends heavily on Ronaldo... Would they be able to storm through this wc without him? Probably not. Target player later in the rounds you'll see...
Argentina depends heavily on Messi and Messi is the obvious target for the opposing force.. You saw what happened..
Egypt's joker card Mo Salah was unimpressive. All that hype for nothing.
Belgium has been on a lucky roll but depend a bit too much on Lukaku to get them through a match with too much humiliation. Belgium need to watch out against England. Both want the group phase winner status.
Brazil's Neymar is the obvious target on their team as we've seen from all the tackles and downpushing. However if the dude accepts his faith as being the national punchingbag, and if the team adapts their tactics to that, maybe they can storm though the knockouts...

But I must say I've seen a couple of really tense games with incredible surprises in the final minutes, namely the matches of Spain vs Portugal and Germany vs Sweden, holy crap....

Assumed favourites for the title? Portugal, Spain, England, Belgium, Germany, Croatia, Brazil, (maybe Mexico)

If Colombia are that good then Japan's win over them was even bigger than I thought. Japan have 4 points now and might get through. Let's see if they manage to beat Poland. Hell, they don't even need to beat them. I'm sure Poland will try to grab a win in order to save some face or something.

Most people didn't seem to expect Japan to do anything noteworthy in the WC, but they got a foot in the next round already. Must be the Captain Tsubasa spirit blessing their shirts. I knew it! Meanwhile, Korea are gone as expected. That being said, they're gonna face either England or Belgium in the next round. Dunno if they can manage to beat them, especially Belgium

Man, why do Japanese and Korean players usually end up at middle team German sides?

Asian teams usually have a few interesting players in the technical department but they're tactically bad. Tbh, teams outside of UEFA and CONMEBOL tend to struggle tactically, regardless or their technical quality.

Btw, here's an interesting graph of average heights of World Cup teams:



Tfw Korean players are on average taller than some European teams. And man, Saudi players are small.

If my height was a country in that graph I'd be Poland, btw.

My height doesn't even register on that graph.

Are you a pretty tall guy or a short guy?

Yeah I'm 174 so my height isn't there as well. Interesting graph. I thought we would have a lower age average but I guess the few dinosaurs we have pull it up, like Beto, Alves, Pepe, Ronaldo, Fonte and Quaresma.

Anyways, let's see how we do later today...

Portugal, come on now. Yes that penalty was a poor call. But being right doesn't mean you should go full retard whining about it. (And other calls throughout the game.)

That 1:1 saved my day, even though a victory for Iran would've been even better. Anyway, congratz to Ronaldo for missing the first world cup penalty in the history of portugese football/soccer. If there is one guy who deserves this honor...

Whole match was a shambles. Players rolling around almost every minute for minimal contact, players screaming at the ref, farcical decisions being made towards both teams. Don't think I've ever gotten that wound up watching something as a neutral before

Sadly, short. 172cm, haha.

Spain played with fire yesterday, awful defense and big problems to score a goal. They need to improve if they want to beat Rusia.

Portugal was also pretty weak, for a moment I thought Iran could beat them.

uruguay showed us that russia just had it very easy so far, portugal is gonna humiliate them.

Also on japan - colombia, both teams played poorly that first match but colombia shot themselves in the foot by getting an early red card. Japan was much better vs senegal and the same can be said for colombia against poland, could even see colombia getting better and better as the match progressed. Senegal won't make it vs colombia im afraid and japan was lucky to play em still outta form.

Australia play Peru in a few hours but due to time zones it will start at around midnight here, which is way too cold and late to be up watching a match we will likely lose. We need to win by at least 2 goals and hope France beat Denmark to be in the finals, so it's pretty much a kiss goodbye.

Actually, Qyaresma is only 1,75m. He's not a tall guy.



Thanks, buddy, but we're gonna face Uruguay and NOT Russia. So yeah, I don't like our chances much.

I was talking about the age average, not the height.

And yeah, we're gonna get raped by Uruguay.

Croatia v. Iceland was a great match, enough said there really (and I'm bloody impressed we did so well even with a player like Jedvaj!) Though I'm happy we've won, I hope to see more of Iceland in future WCs and ECs.

I agree with the fact Uruguay is much better but Portugal has a good defense and if the team scores an early goal like they have done in almost all the matches it Will be difficult for Uruguay to win the match.

France-Argentina is going to be a great match. I still hope that Messi can be the same guy again, yesterday he played 50 good minutes and 40 terrible ones.

Australia lost to Peru 2-0 and I'm barely surprised. The only goals we scored this tournament were two penalties and we squandered so many chances despite the fact we had a lot of scoring shots. Our team is no match for the powerhouses around the world. I will have to find another team to support now.

Germany looked like they were legit throwing the game.

LMAO Germany. Korea's 2nd goal was hilariously awesome.

Now if only Serbia sent Brazil packing as well...

weltmeister RAUS

So there went my Germany. Luckily I was at the beach during the match. Got to cheer on Croatia now, because they play very well, and because the almighty Davor Šuker was my favourite player when I was a child.

At that point, South Korea's victory didn't even surprise me very much. They always play with heart and soul and it's a pity that they are already eliminated. I really like their team. Germany lacked creativity, flow and team spirit. I still think our coaching staff is great and should remain in charge but it's time for invisible players like Gomez, Khedira and Müller to call it quits and to be replaced by young guns like Can, Sané and Tah to only name a few.

Its' very remarkable that four times out of the last five World Cups, the defending champions have been eliminated in the group stage. Germany this time, Spain last time, Italy in 2010, and France in 2002. I don't know how many times it has happened in total.

It's hilarious that Germany provoked Sweden after their late win and then ended up at the bottom of the group while Sweden finished first:

I have great memories of my two visits to Sweden and I have studied the language, so I was very happy when Sweden won yesterday and qualified as the first team of the group. This is a very consistent team and never surrenders. I was happy with Mexico too, because even they played badly yesterday the team had played very well in the previous matches. And Mexicans are nice people.


Germany was awful yesterday and South Korea achieved a legit victory. I am sure it was an awesome day for them. As it happened with Spain Germany needs to introduce some fresh blood.

And german news sites and papers act like the world's gonna end.. I really, really enjoyed watching South Korea play. They were in that game with all their heart and soul even though they knew this will be the last game for them. They might not have the best players and their Ball-winning abilities are next zo nonexistent, but they love what they are doing and tried their very best. Two thing I can't say about the German team.

i think for germany it is just a case of the season being too long, too much unrest in the camp and just being mentally unfit.

Yeah, they were physically totally exhausted but they kept fighting, it was admirable.

That's the England team I remember. However, perhaps a smart move to lose. It didn't seem like they were at all invested in the match other than proving that they could do better.

Belgium won this group phase ok.... but still, it was a shit game, cause nobody wanted to win this match... Both teams were trying their best to try and be the best loser, but then Januzaj made that goal and I bet the whole English team went like 'FUCK YES' in their heads and I also bet Januzaj got his ass kicked by the rest of the team in the locker room. The fact that everyone knew who they were playing against in the 8th final and beyond whether they lose or win, totally botched this game. I wonder what the English supporters think of this game. Did they wanted the team to win, or are they equally as happy that England avoids the bullet by not playing a possible quarter final against Brazil.

The only thing I hope for if Mexico does not magically knock Brazil down, that Brazil will play a nervous match against Belgium. Who knows.. with a bit of luck Brazil might even have some fears of playing against Belgium too (but this match will not be the reference!!). In either way I'm equally as curious for the match of Mexico - Brazil.

Smart move? I mean, I don't want to put down any team, but if I had a choice I'd rather face Japan than Colombia. I think Belgium are practically in the QFs now, but ofc this World Cup has had some surprising results and things might not go as we expect.

Brazil? They're good but they're being arrogant now that Germany are out. Their media even said it's gonna be a walkover for them now that the Germans are out. I dunno why, because judging by how Germany played against Korea, I don't think this German team was gonna win anything this year, even if they somehow had made it past the group stage. Mexico will surely put up a fight against Brazil. I think Brazil, deep down, would rather face Switzerland instead. Sweden seems to be a pretty solid side, even without Zlatan, and I can see them knocking out the Swiss.

I stopped watching the game because it was embarrasing. Both team deserved to lose the match. Yesterday was the weakest day by far, even Colombia, Japan and the others played very calculated matches, without ambition to win.

I do hope Brazil doesn´t win. They are pretty arrogant right now and they don´t play a great football. My favs right now are Croatia and Belgium. Spain has great chances to reach the final if they make some changes and improve the defense.

The point is not the opponents in the first playoff game. But the quality of the expected opponents in the quarter and semi-finals. The reason England-Belgium looked like it did was because it's about which half of the playoff bracket they will end up on.

Sure, Colombia and Japan may be quite equal teams to face in the first game. But the second-placed team in group H, England, ended up on the half of the bracket which means that they if defeating Colombia will meet either Sweden or Switzerland, and then either Spain, Russia, Croatia or Denmark. Whereas the winner of group H ended up on the half that means they, if defeating Japan, will meet either Brazil or Mexico, and then either Uruguay, Portugal, France or Argentina.


Colombia did win and eliminated Senegal, so it's not a comparable type of game.

"If". England's NT hasn't exactly been impressive in a long time. None of that will matter if Colombia send them packing. Also, this World Cup so far seems to have proven that you cant' just look at names. Haven't really heard many positive things about Argentina this tournament yet.

Croatia and Sweden seem to have pretty nice teams. They might lack big names such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but they seem like proper teams. Teams aren't just made of big names/superstars. I wouldn't underestimate them. Plus, I always remember Croatia and Sweden having solid enough sides to give other teams trouble. They're not exactly pushovers.

I think we are a better team without Zlatan. Not because he's bad. He's one of the best players to ever but playing with him tended to deviate from what Swedish football tradition has largely been about and that is building a strong team. Under the Hamrén/Zlatan team to much was all about having the team center around Zlatan, the big super star. Now with the new coach and Zlatan out we have gone back to the foundations and it has paid off.

Every success from advancing from the group stage to whatever might come is a bonus however. Even though we stopped the Netherlands and Italy from even qualifying and has made a good impact in the group stage our offensive players probably aren't strong enough to repeat the bronze in 94 or the silver in 58. However I think we can beat Switzerland. Feels like we're on the same level.

Of course the half doesn't matter if eliminated in the first game... And of course you can't just look at names, but there certainly are expectations. Also, upsets in one half are expected to have a higher quality than upsets in the other. Not to mention that the expected better teams may rise to their potential, such as Argentina. I'm sure most English players would rather face some Swedish or Swiss players than Messi, Aguero, Dybala, Higuain, etc, despite them underperforming so far.

Well, Argentina weren't much to write home about today, despite scoring 3 goals. France were quite better. England won't face Argentina anymore.

Argentina almost tied the game at the end. Would have been interesting. France is looking quite strong. If Portugal win today I don't see us knocking out France. That would make it the 4th time we'd get knocked out by France in major tournaments. Why does there always seem to be a super french team in our way? ugh this is almost fate at this point

I honestly believed Argentina was going to score another goal after the 4-3 but Otamendi happened.