Rob1981

Gakpo to Leeds Don't think so now.

@git2thachoppa Stick Wales v England in the thread title as well pal

PERMUTATIONS: Netherlands are through if they avoid defeat against Qatar, or they can afford to lose if Ecuador beat Senegal. Ecuador are through if they avoid defeat against Senegal Senegal are through if they beat Ecuador; they could go through with a draw but only if Netherlands lose to Qatar and GD ends up in Senegal's favour. Does that about cover it?

Make this a double thread for both games! Ecuador v Senegal is what the smart people are watching

If we’re going to win it, we might as well right all the historical wrongs along the way. Holland in the R16. Trippier goes the full Koeman ‘93, hauling someone to the floor when they are clean through. Then he dinks in a FK after he should have been sent off. Then it’s Argentina in the quarters. Foden goes on a mazy run through their entire team, then punches in a second goal with his fist to make sure. Portugal in the semis. Pickford takes off his gloves and smashes home the winning penalty after Ronaldo has been sent off for stamping on Jude Bellingham’s testicles. And finally Brazil. They think they’ve won it after Maguire dithers on the ball and presents them with a first half lead. But then we carve them open just before the break, and second half Mason Mount accidentally floats in a free kick from 50 yards out. Job done.

Group A 15:00 Ecuador 3-1 Senegal 15:00 Netherlands 3-0 Qatar Group B 19:00 Iran 2-1 USA 19:00 Wales 0-2 England Group C 19:00 Poland 1-1 Argentina 19:00 Saudi Arabia 1-1 Mexico Group D 15:00 Australia 0-2 Denmark 15:00 Tunisia 0-2 France Group E 19:00 Costa Rica 0-2 Germany 19:00 Japan 2-2 Spain Group F 15:00 Canada 1-1 Morocco 15:00 Croatia 2-1 Belgium Group G 19:00 Cameroon 0-3 Brazil 19:00 Serbia 1-2 Switzerland Group H 15:00 Ghana 3-2 Uruguay 15:00 South Korea 0-0 Portugal

Wait until Gary Neville sees this.

Said this mostly in jest yesterday, but the more I look at the table... can’t we just gift Wales a 1-0 win and let Iran win the group? We get to avoid France, the Welshies get the bragging rights, all the Southgate haters get to moan even more... Everyone’s happy, surely? Might actually watch Iran v USA tonight. Our game will either be a car crash or a meaningless win, Iran can make genuine WC history if they reach R16 for the first time.

Lovely stuff.

Yeah, it's 80 games in 2026 instead of 64... but remember none of the final round group games will need to be played simultaneously. At the moment we 'lose' eight games from the TV schedule because a bigger game is already on. So in TV terms, you are adding 16 more games in 2026 but you are actually creating 24 new TV slots. 56 TV slots up to 80 is an increase of over 40%... plus you've got another sixteen markets that can cheer on a home nation Of course they are making a ****ton of extra money

Said this the other day, if he wants to play the back three in the knockouts against better teams then we have to try and give Kyle Walker some game time tonight. But if we set up like that tonight it’s not because he thinks we can’t beat Wales any other way. Either way I’d try and get Foden in.

It's definitely happened at previous World Cups where Group B finished before Group A or whatever and they didn't go alphabetically. They don't usually change the times once the draw has been made, but this year I don't think they released any kickoff times at all. Left themselves some wiggle room to move things around. I think because all the grounds are so close together then this time they were also selling 'double tickets' for the days with four kickoffs so people could do more than one match and have time to travel in between. In a way I'm surprised they've not got Qatar in the later slot as the hosts... but as you say, probably wanted big US TV audience to be able to watch in their afternoon and not at the crack of dawn.

Sounds like we are giving Shaw a rest then? Kyle Walker comes in, Trippier switched to the left. Back 3 / Back 5 grinding out a result against Wales.

Christ, Pougatch is infuriating. Basically just making his own long winded opinion into a flaky question, but in a way that the pundit can’t possibly disagree with him.

Poor showing this. Need to step things up if they want that record for most WC yellows.

Gift Wales a 1-0 win, finish as group runner up behind Iran. Then we avoid France

Godin, Cavani, Pepe, Ronaldo... four players with a combined age of 147

Thing is, we all said this before the R16 meeting in 2018. And it ended up 2-1 with only one yellow card I think probably a Portugal win puts the most jeopardy onto the Ghana v Uruguay decider. Does it? You basically want a situation where they both have to play for the win but one of them is definitely going home.

tbf, when it's hosted in US and Canada and Mexico, they could push it to 5-6 kickoff times a day if they were clever with the time differences. Because they are such big countries. But they can't do this in 2030 if came back to, say, Spain and Portugal. Four kickoffs a day is really the limit for hosts that are all in the same time zone... 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm local time. And the last thing they want is more than one game on at the same time. That immediately splits the TV audience and hits the revenue, which is the whole point of making it bigger in the first place.

VAR can only get involved if it’s a possible penalty, whereas a backpass would be an indirect free kick.

Yeah but Virgil van Dijk plays for Liverpool. So that’s obviously the ITV pick, even though it’s over within the first half hour.

I can’t see any other format that’s feasible. Sure, you could have twelve groups of four going straight into a R16. And the maths of it works. But then only the group winners and 4/12 group runners up go through and 8/12 runners up go out. Going to be loads of teams going into their third group game with nothing to play for if you do that. Plus you’d need 104 games (I think?) instead of 80, so probably the only way to get it done within the month is if you have 5-6 kickoffs a day and then the TV audiences cannibalise each other.

Putting Ecuador v Senegal on ITV4 Just an absolute shambles of a channel

God job we had Peter Walton and VAR to confirm someone was about five yards offside.

Cagey. Almost like a draw is a decent result for both sides.