The_jagster

That's why 2 of 4 is good, just defending can cost you. That Cavani shout clearly wasn't a pen, he just extends his leg rather than continuing running to buy contact.

No noise from the crowd on the radio

That was almost certainly the case for a recent post against Brett

I normally like Uruguay but this side is quite boring, a shame as I love the way Valverde carries the ball, so I wouldn't mind them going out.

5live said Portugal is on BBC1, weird. I don't think the game itself will be that dirty, depends how close it gets towards the end. Hopefully there's a lot of VAR time so I can watch the end when I finish work

With Japan I don't think they beat Germany and Spain many times if they play the same games again. Germany missed so many chances, Japan had that one bad miss from the rebound, a good goal and the incredible second goal in the sense that the German right back plays Asano inside, and the finish has such a small window to beat Neuer. So many things went in their favour, even more so than the close decision against Spain who created much less. They made their own luck of course but they happened to score in their windows of higher intensity and were poor against Costa Rica. They have a chance against Croatia but at times against Spain they were physically dominated and eased off the ball whenever they got possession. Tbh I thought they were pretty bad in the first half and didn't see the win coming at all. Would have been interesting to see what Spain would do if they had a real chance of going out had Germany racked up the score or Costa Rica won.

We also have a tolerance on where the ball has hit the batsman under "umpire's call" which is factual

The big that got me was Souness moaning that a lack of definitive images would mean people will consider it a conspiracy, when only he was suggesting it was a conspiracy I don't know why they need to show why it was definitely in, surely they need to find a still showing it was definitely out to disallow the goal?

Losing to Costa Rica and beating Germany and Spain Great tense game, until that late chance Spain didn't even create another big chance. I don't watch Spain much but I'd heard they were more positive in possession now, that was mostly quite stale.

Japan are stretching to control every ball, are they all knackered?

That was when they absolutely needed a goal, Germany made loads of chances against Japan without one.

Not resting the midfield though. After all the talk of Germany it would be weird if it was Spain that went out.

They could have an appealing round of 16 tie or a dreadful draw though

I don't really like that argument - should countries have offered to repatriate black or coloured people in South Africa while the apartheid system was in place and let the politicians do as they wished? Rather than put pressure on the country to change their discriminatory practices?

People aren't expecting Poland to outplay Argentina. But they aren't all bad players, the team is still mostly footballers from the top 5 leagues with the exception of central midfield. But Poland had no serious intention of scoring yesterday, in the most part any chance of a break was refused in favour of keeping everyone back and hoping Lewa would somehow keep the ball and do something despite the attentions of the entire Argentina defence because they didn't need to worry about covering supporting runs. And it's not like there were no chances to break, Argentina had some lazy passing in the first half.

Just seen the free kick, absolutely brilliant.

Compare Mexico Vs Argentina with Poland, at least Mexico put up a fight

Check that Polish player's bank account for pesos

Come on Mexico, Poland facing France playing like this would be such a waste

That's three times they've done nothing apart from hope Lewandowski dribbles past 5 defenders.

Argentina somehow looking slower than Poland. Poland clearly going for the narrow "don't allow midfield space" option so far.

How old will Glik look in 10 years

Like to see a big gun rattled but I don't want to see any more of this slow Poland team, hopefully the Saudis take the lead and both teams have something at stake.

And doing ok in the Nations League. They are the sort of team that might not break down a packed defence every game but they should be better than this.

Doesn't sound like a classic although it has been punctuated by work calls