Rob1981

Let’s have Brazil in the final. Forget this talk about easy runs. Beat France, beat Portugal, beat Brazil. Then there can be no doubting Gareth’s achievement.

Quarter-Finals Friday 9th December Croatia 0-2 Brazil *** Netherlands 1-1 Argentina (Argentina win on penalties) Saturday 10th December Morocco 0-1 Portugal England 2-1 France --- Bonuses The total number of goals across all the games - 7 The total number of goals scored in the first half - 2 The total number of goals scored in the second half - 6 The number of games going to extra time - 1 Correctly predicting all the specific games going to extra time - NED-ARG The number of games going to penalties - 1 The total number of penalties scored (including those in normal game play) - 8 The team which scores the fastest goal - Brazil The team which scores the last goal - Portugal The time of the first goal - 20 mins The time of the last goal - 85 mins The total number of yellow cards - 13 The total number of red cards - 1 The total number of substitutions across all games - 32

“Holland is also said to have been less than impressed with White’s poor knowledge of England’s American opponents” I’m not having this Sounds like something from Capello’s era. Sit them down for a quiz on the other team. If they get stuff wrong, no breakfast.

God, I'd totally forgot that Terry tried to lead a mutiny mid tournament and all the players hung him out to dry. Really was a pretty dreadful tournament all round. Spain were awful as winners, England may as well not have turned up. The vuvuzelas and the bloody Jabulani ball floating all over the shop. Sven Goran Eriksson managing Ivory Coast in his massive white puffer jacket. Don't remember many good players even. Apart from Tshabalabalaba I think the only breakout star was the bloody octopus.

Robbie Williams sold out to Qatar already didn't he? So at least he's local.

Here you go. Harder than it looks tbf, I take my hat off to the lads that write the algorithms to keep confederations apart. GROUP A: Italy, Uruguay, Egypt, Saudi Arabia GROUP B: Canada, Senegal, Ukraine, Ecuador GROUP C: Argentina, Iran, Costa Rica, Mali GROUP D: Mexico, Wales, Australia, Burkina Faso GROUP E: Portugal, Peru, Japan, Jamaica GROUP F: Netherlands, Denmark, South Korea, Cameroon GROUP G: USA, Colombia, Nigeria, Qatar GROUP H: France, Croatia, Chile, Iraq GROUP I: England, Serbia, Tunisia, Panama GROUP J: Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Ivory Coast GROUP K: Belgium, Switzerland, Algeria, New Zealand GROUP L: Spain, Morocco, Poland, United Arab Emirates Imagine moaning about a bigger World Cup if it throws up Wales v Burkina Faso And Group J is amazing btw

****ing hell, this has challenged me Thought I'd cracked it, but right at the end I realised I'd put Panama in the same group as Mexico Hold the line, caller...

104 games

Dunno. Club managers have them all the time but only get a few hours a day instead of concentrated short bursts in an international break. At least the players can go home at night. Capello ran our 2010 campaign like an army camp, from the minute they arrived for the pre tournament stuff right through to us exiting the tournament probably four or five weeks later. No breaks. No time off. No family contact. Hotel in the middle of nowhere. That amount of time couped up with strict rules and the same people is really suffocating if it’s not enjoyable. You had players not getting on, players knowing they weren’t going get to play, players not really caring if we went out. Probably some hoping we DID go out if it meant they could get back to their families earlier. Now a bit of time has gone by the players are all laughing about how awful it was. Like I’ve always said when I’ve defended Gareth, he isn’t a master tactician but I believe he has been our best chance of winning a World Cup mainly because he’s got all the off the pitch stuff right. Create an environment where everyone enjoys it and everyone feels they have a role or a chance of some game time. Put stuff in place around the camp to manage the downtime. Get them pumped up and playing for each other. The mentality is right, the confidence is there, the ability is there. Then you just need the luck on those 50/50 calls on the pitch. That’s how teams win tournaments nowadays when international teams are all pretty evenly matched. Not because they are tactically superior to every opponent and can cruise every game. Or because they have a veteran manager with a good CV. Look around Europe. It’s not just England, more and more international jobs are now going to big name ex-players who get the players respect and nail the right culture. Even if they are relatively young and inexperienced at club level.

All things are not equal, because one team has scored. At the end of the day in a big knockout game you have 90 minutes to score a goal. If you concede in the first 10 minutes it doesn’t really change a lot. You still have 80 minutes to score a goal. But if you score in the first 10 minutes, potentially changes your whole gameplan. These games are super tight, often decided by the odd goal or settled in extra time or on penalties. At the business end of the competition you rarely get a winning margin of 2-3 goals. And if you’re not going to score multiple goals and run away with it, you don’t need to chase the first one straightaway.

Hahaha, have you watched England's tournaments before? We need to approach it like the Germany game at the Euros. Keep it tight, let them have a bit of possession, don't over commit. Then go and try and win it in the last half hour. The last thing we want is another Italy 2020 / Croatia 2018 / Iceland 2016 / Portugal 2004 / France 2004 where we score early and then try and sit on a lead. Said this last summer and I know it sounds counter-intutive... but we've got more chance of winning if it's 0-0 at half time then we have if we're 1-0 up but the game is already getting away from us.

Yeah, ****ing hell Raheem. Just a "bog standard burglary". Get your boots on lad.

I think Capello showed why good club managers don’t usually make good international managers and vice versa. Felt like the players could cope with him in small doses, all through qualifying he didn’t really seem to put a foot wrong. But then it came to the World Cup itself and suddenly they were couped up with him for weeks on end. Made them stay in a hotel in the desert miles from anywhere iirc, would only let them speak to their wives and kids on certain days or something as well. And didn’t even make the effort to learn English ffs, even though he’d been in the job for nearly two years at that point. So all through training he’s still talking to them through interpreters. Plus he went genuinely a bit mad tactically, started trying to recall Scholes and Jamie Carragher with a fortnight to go even though we had won every game virtually in the qualifying. Not sure what message that sends out to the lads that have got us there. I mean the players have still got to take some responsibility as well I guess, but you don’t get anywhere at a WC without a happy squad. And it’s on the manager to get the culture right. Plenty of big sides have come unstuck because they were arguing between themselves off the pitch or because top players didn’t respect the coach. Likewise mediocre sides have overperformed time and again because the team spirit is there.

Haha, beat me to it.

Hat trick for his replacement Delicious

FFS. I thought Morocco or Switzerland in the semi final was too good to be true

Just needs one tonight to draw level with Matthew Upson.

I think Spain are only the second team not to score a single penalty, after Switzerland in that horrific 2006 game against Ukraine

WP Morocco Spain stink the place out again as soon as they have to play anyone half decent

Still gonna claim the goals

Hard to believe Spain have been this bad, yet still outscored the Spain team that won the World Cup.

Two Moroccans crash into other and concede possession, Morata saunters up the other end and boots it at the corner flag. Comedy of errors

Shame these sides can’t both go out

HIT THE BALL **** me