⚽ A feast of footballing drama about to hit our screens. How will this unfold? A predictable top seed winner or something unexpected. England of course will easily win it ? so it appears?. Hopefully no political or hooligan problems will spoil the  show and football wins! ?? There will be a lot more games this time also to enjoy or endure! Have a good one?

Fingers crossed, but I can't help fearing that there will be some serious trouble .  I ought to be anticipating a feast of football  and, as an Englishman, having a hope that Southgate has breathed some fresh life into England and that we may progress fairly deep into the tournament playing attractive football (for a change) .  Sadly, I don't really feel that enthused.  I'm looking forward to the game against Cove on July 14th though.

I'm with you there DD. Ever since it was announced that Russia would host the 2018 World Cup I had serious doubts. Russian supporters have a serious racism issue and their hooligans, I understand, are trained to 'military standards in hand to hand combat'. There will be serious trouble despite  assurances from the authorities. As for the football itself I can not get excited one bit. As DD says, Southgate has breathed some fresh life into England but I really don't think they're good enough to go beyond the 1/4 finals if they even get that far. I'm also disappointed that none of the other home countries qualified as this added a lot more interest and cheering them on added to that.  

I am optimistically believing that this World Cup will be a great success and our wonderful game of football will flourish thereafter.

The politics and crowd troubles will be getting the red card early doors I say.

I hope you are right ..... 

I am now looking forward to World Cup 2026 !!! Quite fancied a trip to Morocco if the vote didnt go our way but with Canada, USA and Mexico winning the bid and Toronto likely to host at least a handful of games then I may just get to go to a World Cup within my lifetime .... now if Scotland could qualify .....

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

 .... now if Scotland could qualify .....

Well, North America is surely big enough to accommodate a 64 team tournament!

59 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Well, North America is surely big enough to accommodate a 64 team tournament!

Seriously though, the new 48 team format for the finals is just too bloated and unwieldy. It may give Scotland a better opportunity to qualify but it's not good for the sport.

The 32 team format works well, the only reason it's being changed is to further swell FIFA's already over swollen coffers.

Astonishing that the North American bid estimates it will generate $11 billion profit for FIFA.

Maybe that's because footie in North America seems to have taken off and I assume that the prices will match the take off speed.

Smile!.

Let's hope that relations between the three joint hosts have thawed a little before the tournament takes place.

I see that a US diplomat was quoted as saying that there was a special place in Hell reserved for the Canadian Prime Minister. I can't help feeling that he's getting his Canadian Justins confused.

First game over. Russia winning by a 5-0 thumping of Saudia Arabia. I thought SA would have been a better challenge but it’s good for the tournament that the hosts did well⚽

SA reminded me a lot of ICT....they kept giving to ball away and lacked ideas in the final third.

Not sure so far about all this VAR stuff, it don`t seem right !!

One or two great games over the first week or so. Getting nearer final group games and knockout stages should be when the reality begins.⚽️

Maradona last night = Johndo in Giurgiu.

Is it coming home ?

I hope not  

HMMM turning into our worst nightmare this world cup. Worst one since Italia 90!

Desperately supporting my Croatian relatives tomorrow, having binned my Swedish and Colombian lost family. Surely someone can stop them. 

1 hour ago, bauhaus said:

HMMM turning into our worst nightmare this world cup. Worst one since Italia 90!

Desperately supporting my Croatian relatives tomorrow, having binned my Swedish and Colombian lost family. Surely someone can stop them. 

Surely not....I'm quite excited about the possibility of a Home Nations side getting further

Another wonderfully entertaining game in a wonderful tournament.

I really think that the third place play off is an anachronism these days. Who cares who comes third and I am sure both beaten semi finalists would just like to be on the plane home.

Croatia worthy of final spot

England are coming home. However, what a missed opportunity, in the end Croatia were a far better team than they had faced prior to this.  England maybe could have had two in the first half, but talk about getting stronger as the game went on, 3 extra times in a row. Could have scored 3 or 4 in the end Croatia.

Have to say it was a more humble England team, unfortunately the media weren't as much.

4 minutes ago, GoliathGrunt said:

Croatia worthy of final spot

Let's never accept the tired old excuse about Scotland being too small to be successful ever again. The population of Croatia is significantly less than Scotland and they are in the World Cup final for goodness sake.

We are not too small. We are just not good enough. We need a root and branch change from youth football up. If Croatia can do it there ought, in theory, to be no reason why we can't.

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 9:06 PM, Laurence said:

Is it coming home ?

No

F***all's coming home.

At the end of the day, England didn't beat any team ranked higher than 16th in the world. They did reasonably well and avoided the abject failure and humiliation that has characterised major tournaments of the last 20 years, but when the draw opened up like the parting of the Red Sea, they still weren't up to the task and a wee country ranked lower than them turned out to be a fair bit better and more deserving of a place in the final. The OBEs can go back in the box.