England! Impressive control of the game.

Edited July 7, 20188 yr by morphsci

On to the Semi Finals!

Another match goes to penalties ...

Another great game! Looking forward to Tuesday and Wednesday.

Going with Belgium/France and Croatia/England for semis. 

Can I please get some stock tips?

Still hoping for France vs England for the final.

1 hour ago, Hopstretch said:

Can I please get some stock tips?

If I could predict stocks like futbol, I would be living like the beard, which I am not.

Prediction for finals is : Belgium/England; I really think the extra time games are going to take a toll on Croatia. I actually think any of these four teams to could make it to the finals. This has been an awesome World Cup.

Edited July 7, 20188 yr by morphsci

I'm not into football - but I broke my duck and watched England dominate Sweden. It was mesmerizing. There were some extraordinary scenes across England - the best was a huge crowd watching on a massive screen outside in Sunderland (in the North East of England). Lots of beer was being drunk. But on the first goal, the whole crowd jumped in the air, and all you could see was a massive spray of beer that exited the glasses vertically as they jumped. Second goal - same thing.

Third time ever we have got to a semifinal of the World Cup. First in 1966 when we won, second in 1990 when we lost in the semi (to Germany on penalties), and now. Extraordinary.

Hardly a classic, but France looked very comfortable and I can see them beating either England or Croatia in the final.

Agreed. Belgium lacked offensive creativity and there were some questionable managerial decisions regarding the timing of substitutes.

The match was rather fun, specially the first half. Hazard tried a lot, he's a fantastic player, but again, I think Belgium isn't that great, they had some good luck at the right time. France has a great defence, it reminds me a lot to the one that Spain had when they won the 2010 Cup, always attentive, fast and effective without roughness. They know how to anticipate and then they feel safe with their goalkeeper. Then they have Mbappé and Griezmann. They're going to be really difficult to beat, that would take some clever players "seeing" through the lines. Those are Modric and Rakitic  We'll see tomorrow...

Wow, I sucked on my semifinals predictions. 0.00% 

Edited July 11, 20188 yr by morphsci

 

6 minutes ago, morphsci said:

Wow, I sucked on my semifinals predictions. 0.00% 

Croatia is dangerous, very dangerous. It's kind of revealing that 9 of the 12 goals England made were fault or corner kicks.

I'm feeling good about France's chances, although I mostly wanted to say that because of the rhyme. Allez les Bleus!

Croatia had a big edge over the midfield, that turned out to be crucial. The English goalkeeper was still excellent, but that is just not enough.

On the other hand, they must be very very tired now, and with the current injuries they just don't have any good substitutes either (they only did the first one in the 101st minute!) but mentally they are looking strong as ever.

I wonder if France is going to continue with Giroud in the starting squad, he is just not playing well at all.

Croatia's second goal was a bit of a giveaway alas. Marking was poor and sluggish. But hey, in the second half and extra time they just had the edge, so it was only a matter of time until their second goal. And England set pieces did not work because of astonishing goal mouth defence by Croatia.

But England were damned impressive for such a young team.

The final between France and Croatia will be a fine match

I can hardly believe I'm posting on this.

An interesting soccer stat - scoring second is better than scoring first:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080829180544/https://www.salon.com/sports/col/kaufman/2006/06/30/friday/index.html
https://www.salon.com/2007/05/24/thursday_252/
https://www.salon.com/2006/06/22/thursday_209/

Edited July 12, 20188 yr by dsavitsk

So meanwhile ...

 

"Deciding between wanting Croatia to lose cause they beat us or wanting France to lose cause they're French.:

 

 

 

 

Didn't Jim predict France would take the final? ?  Vive la France!

No. Which is why they won. They were easily the better team, especially in the second half.

Edited July 15, 20188 yr by morphsci

Congrat to France.

Brave Effort including a cheeky goal by Croatia.

Funny how Vladimir had an Umbrella.

At least Harry got the Golden Boot.

See you all again in just over 4 years in the temperate, corruption free, safe working environment home of football that is Quatar. \s

Edited July 16, 20188 yr by Grahame

Alright, back to the regular season.

Pretty happy with Chelsea's start in the Premier League -- today against Arsenal was the proverbial game of two halves with some scintillating attacking and shocking defending to mull on. We looked a different side with Hazard (obviously) and Kovacic on the field. I think the latter will be a very good pickup from Real Madrid, gracias Antonio. All three of our goals today scored by Spaniards and two of them also assisted by Spaniards, so gracias again. 

Sarri will do well at Chelsea I think if he stays alive the whole season, what with smoking 80 a day and actually eating cigarettes during the games where he's not allowed to light up. 

 

Kovacic is an excellent midfield, but he has to compete in the RM with Kroos, Casemiro and Modric, so the coach wouldn't grant him titularity (if that means the same in English) so he preferred being lent to the Premier. I'm not very sure he'll end up sold, afaik the RM is keeping the rights. This year is going to be a really tough one for the RM, I foresee some kind of debacle

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would suspect that Real loaned Kova to Chelsea so that he and Hazard can get used to playing together before both move to Madrid for the 2019 season.