Coulthard's Jaw

Annoyingly I suspect Lampard would be quite good at the job.

Yeah. Also stuff like Hazard being washed up at such a young age, when you're a country of that size you need a generational talent like Hazard.

I don't think they are exactly the same, 2018 was definitely an overachievement in terms of where we got to in the tournament. Martinez got three tournaments where winning was kinda expected before people ran out of patience with him and I suspect it will be similar with Southgate, 2024 will be his third tournament which we go into with a good chance of winning, if we come up short again I think he will step down (actually he will step down whatever, he'll have been in charge 8 years which is a decent stint).

Absolutely no one is celebrating reaching the quarter finals Everyone wanted Maguire dropped, so feel like Gareth needs some credit here. And finding and developing another centre back is as much about the system we have in place for player development (which is loads better than it used to be) than who the head coach is. But could they do a better job? Jamie doesn't say.

Lots of places for Asian teams in 2026, good chance they qualify.

Is that Alan Smith

Messi’s second of the game, 108 minutes in, restored Argentina’s advantage with Cristian Romero provocatively roaring his celebration in Mbappe’s face. As it transpired, and while there were no protests at the time, that goal should technically not have stood as two of the South Americans’ substitutes were encroaching on the pitch on the far side as Jules Kounde desperately tried to hack the forward’s attempt from the goal line. The subs had spilled on in anticipation of Lautaro Martinez’s initial shot finding the back of the net, only for Lloris to palm it out for Messi to convert. L’Equipe would quote law three, paragraph nine of the Laws of the Game in their morning edition, stating that if, “after a goal is scored, the referee realises, before play restarts, an extra person — a player, substitute, substituted player — was on the field of play when the goal was scored then the referee must disallow the goal”. Yet no one alerted referee Marciniak and he remained blissfully unaware of the encroachment.

BBC have had a good run of them, 2014 and 2018 were decent.

World Cup Final 5-Min Ratings Peaks: 2022: Argentina v France BBC1: 14.9m ITV: 4.4m Total: 19.3m Ratio: 3.4 to 1 2018: France v Croatia BBC1: 10.3m, ITV1: 3.5m Total: 13.8m Ratio: 2.9 to 1 2014: Germany v Argentina BBC1: 16.7m, ITV1: 4.0m Total: 20.7m Ratio: 4.2 to 1 2010: Netherlands v Spain BBC1: 17.9m, ITV1: 3.8m Total: 21.7m Ratio: 4.7 to 1 2006: France v Italy BBC1: 17.0m, ITV1: 3.5m Total: 20.5m Ratio: 4.9 to 1 2002: Brazil v Germany BBC1: 11.6m, ITV: 2.6m Total: 14.1m Ratio: 4.5 to 1

ok this a lot more fun

Saka

Sometimes life is about the journey not the destination. It was a fantastic match and moment.

It's Gunman's traditional post final meltdown :*)