Astafjevs

Looks like a DJ post from the thread last night.

May well be a few examples if you're talking Euros as well as World Cups. Italy and Spain were in the same group in Euro 2012 and met in the final

1954 with Germany and Hungary is the only occasion I think

Think Portugal need a bit more than stringing everyone in a line across the 18 yard line and having Vitinha or the defenders build up

Vitinha is a good sub. Otavio is offering nothing and Portugal are going to be very open in the next 30 mins.

Morocco are the designated home team. So Portugal have to change

Get Rafa Leão on. If you're going to be open like that on the counter then may as well have someone who provides something different

If you're going to do that to the other team during a shootout then you deserve to have celebrations in your face when you lose

Looks so good from this angle:

A striker to do what? Finish the chances they didn't create? Make it sound as if Croatia were unbelievably wasteful all game and just lacking that guy to put it in the back of the net. They barely got near the net for 115 mins

Holland were **** for 80 mins. Deserved to go out

Another 2-0 lead in a shootout. Hard to recover that sort of deficit

8 yellow cards for Argentina

An assist for the GOAT now.

Bit of strange 'denial'. Based on that response I'd wager that there's some truth to that story

That looks like a back three lineup for Argentina.

How was he outdone? I thought they played ok and were decent value for a 1-0 ET win. Wasn't an amazing performance but they were better than Croatia. But that's sport and sometimes it doesn't go your way, certainly didn't think he was outcoached when the opposition didn't offer anything for almost 120 mins of football.

Thought Brazil's game management in ET was a bit weird. Don't sit back and invite pressure, but they went too far the other way. Were still a bit unlucky with that deflection, but the opportunity on the counter presented itself

That's a quality penalty from Orsic

Neymar Big moment, top player

Croatia have had zero ambition and just played for penalties. Would rather Brazil snatched this in extra time because the approach isn't going to change for a SF

Brozovic did exactly the same thing as Casemiro and didn't get a second yellow

The GOAT van Gaal interview:

You say that but Santos started Ronaldo for all the group games and only seemingly dropped him from the R16 game because of the reaction to being subbed, rather than because he was rubbish. Maybe there was a bit of both in there, and maybe some of the Portuguese posters can enlighten us, but I get the impression if there wasn't such a strop in the South Korea game then he may well have started again vs. Switzerland. Agree with Lucas he still has a role. Whatever you think of him as a person, he still scores a lot of goals and there aren't many better genuine strikers at this tournament, You bring him off the bench with the game tied, or with Portugal losing, and he will command the attention of defenders regardless of his age. They're not going to be ignoring Ronaldo when he's loitering near their penalty area.

Jon Champion still there isn't he? They've got both QFs on Saturday and I don't think Matterface will do two in a row