Segun Oluwaniyi

Mbappe is not even the fastest player on the French team.

People should calm down with the hatred for Deschamps a bit, imo. They have had nothing but positive results and strong tournaments since he has arrived and this was not the case at all before his arrival. They will be incredibly difficult to beat, assuming they survive here.

In terms of centrebacks with Congolese parentage, I will take Mbemba over Kimpembe. I have never understood the hype around this guy. He is fine in Ligue 1, but struggles in big matches, often.

Rabiot is actually a significant downgrade from Matuidi when comparing this team to the WC winners in 2018. I am not really sure what he provides to this side and he looks awkward out wide, tbh.

Lenglet. He was consistently mistake prone and weak when I saw him play for Barcelona this season.

Unless my calculations are off, Portugal will need to lose by four goals to actually go out below Finland. So a simple loss would not affect them too badly. Edit: Hungary could beat Germany and knock them out I suppose.

I favour Denmark to beat Wales and then Netherlands to reach the semifinals.

Turkey are the worst team in this tournament by a large distance.

Right, this is given as a foul multiple times every match I feel, but I cannot recall ever seeing a penalty for a challenge like that before, pre-VAR or post-VAR.

Daka will be a wonderful signing for Leicester. There is always a danger of a player flopping from a small league, but it is just hard for me to see him being anything other than very good. Soumare and Daka for <50 million pounds would be good work and typical for that club.

The multiple locations make this an odd tournament, imo. I am not sure what I am meant to be making of Italy and the Netherlands beating inferior opponents in front of loud, home crowds. It doesn't bear any resemblance to what the knockout stages will be, outside of England, who can win the tournament only playing away from home once and are the de facto host nation. Some of the groups even have 2 of the 4 teams playing 2 or 3 of their matches at home. Very different from any group stage I can think of in a tournament like this.

There is a difference between someone being clear for a shot on goal (Shelvey vs. Sheffield and Iheanacho vs. Everton last season) and just being offside and continuing play for an indeterminate amount of time, though. We can definitely waste less time and not wait 30 seconds to call when a goal is not immediately resulting. Edit: I love Mbappe's style of running. So little wasted motion. It doesn't look like he is working hard at all and the boy is just flying past everyone.

I do not know enough about the player to be making any sort of pronouncements, but based on 30 minutes of this one match, this Nico Gonzalez boy is complete rubbish.

The idea that the players will make a political gesture in front of 20,000+ people representing a large sampling of society and receive no backlash is silly, though. What makes their gesture separate from the countless other ones made daily in your society and met with varying levels of genuine support, reluctant acquiescence, apathy, and outright opposition? I find the kneeling a waste of everyone's time, frankly, but the players should continue with it if that is their wish, I suppose. It does vex me to continually see these articles of people who are supposedly outraged that there has been booing, though. There was a significant level of unhappiness with this one year ago when public sentiment was more in favour and people were desperate to see football in any capacity. We are now a year on from this, with less favourable conditions for it, what else could be expected? Is there a genuine increase in abuse or just a magnification of the anti-social, deviant, and demented behaviour permeating in the wretched realm of social media? Any one of the billion or so people following Premier League football can post a monkey emoji at a player while wiping their ass. It is a fair bit different than policing what happens at football grounds; the sport has not control over this, nor does government in free nations. The clubs and players "boycotting" these platforms for a week was the only truly correct step taken in that regard because the proper response to this trend in society is to remove yourself from it entirely, if there is an effect on well-being or mental health.

My main memory is the header that hit Dier's arm to give Newcastle a nonsense point against Spurs. I suppose that would be an assist as well.

In one sense I will take that one Jamaican girl from ESPN, Alexis Nunes, and "hang out" with her. In another sense I will take Ian Wright or Shearer and "hang out" with them. This Copa America has seemed poisoned from the beginning. They did the same trick as AFCON in 2013, when changing from even to odd years, and instead of having one extra year between tournaments, decided to have tournaments in consecutive years for purely financial reasons. Having this tournament and WC qualifiers all in this break is madness and just reckless towards the players. They needed to just cancel this or move it to Florida months ago, but I am sure they will persist. Surprising that this would be done after the Coupe de la Ligue was terminated last season. You would think it would be one or the other in terms of limiting fixture congestion.

Watching Burnley attack is a carcinogen.

I doubt Lille will be selling David this summer. He cost 30 million euro and they would probably receive a fee less than what was paid for Pepe and Osimhen, who were bought for much less, if they were to sell him now. They will want to keep him a while longer to increase his value; the guy has shown great improvement recently, but struggled initially in Ligue 1, tbh. Funny thing this year for Lille is that for all the wonderful young talent they sign, possibly the most important player this season has been a 35 year old they brought over this season.

I thought Leicester were terrible outside of the brilliant goal and some great last-ditch defending by Soyuncu and Schmeichel, tbh. Very happy to see them win, though. Delighted for Kele and Ndidi of course and anything that makes the Super League look even more ridiculous is great to me. Genuinely a very good club and very likable team, hard to dislike them at all.

I do not think Leicetser have been playing too well recently, tbh, Kelechi has been remarkably efficient around the box and their defense is very strong, but Vardy, Maddison, Ricardo, Perez, etc. are off-form/not scoring goals. If Newcastle play the way they did in April, not the rubbish against Arsenal, there is a good chance they can get a result here, imo. Put Saint-Maximin, Almiron, Willock, and Wilson on the pitch in whatever formation, let Leicester have the ball, and counter quickly when it's won back. Like most, though, I am not too concerned with the result here, any positive result against Sheffield Blades would probably guarantee safety, and Fulham getting six points from the next three matches seems improbable anyway. Leicester are preferable in the Champions League to any of the clubs chasing them, so I don't begrudge them at all. It would be nice to see them win the FA Cup as well.

I actually quite like Mbappe, Kimpembe, and Navas, but it would cause me an inordinate amount of joy to this squad, assembled with billions and given two separate world class managers, lose the CL and Coupe de France, finish behind Lille/PSG, and end the season with nothing.

Great goal by NUFC old boy Haidara for Lens today. Just promoted from the second tier and very good chance they go to Europa league next season, sitting ahead of OM now.

Cisse. He'd been held in much higher regard if he had left like Ba and Remy. A sharp decline and long period of abject performances unfortunately. I'd wish to remember him as the shining light that nearly sent the club to CL football in 2012. From the current squad: Gayle. There is no reason for him to be here; he is still here. Now he has a new contract. There is no reason for any of this.

The centrebacks have not been good at all today.

Son scored his solo goal against Burnley also. They are great at defending balls in the air, but all of the back four and midfield are slow and back off. Saint-Maximin is a special player. All that is stopping him from becoming a world class player are injuries are whtever vestiges of the "bad attitude" reputation and/or actions he still has attached him. Hopefully it can be accomplished at NUFC, with a real manager.