sixx

Real Madrid sign Ukrainian goalkeeper Andriy Lunin. No me neither.

Absolutely devastating :'( Full credit to the Nigerians though, they were excellent. All we can do is try and nick three points from Croatia and hope for the best. Even though we lost I am so proud of my boys, they gave their everything and very obviously couldn't deal with the heat

France at the Euros.

Gylfi is so, so good as a part of a midfield two.

So nervous. Stroke incoming any minute now.

Absolutely. Messi is the best player in history but he did very, very little in terms of running into space, closing down, making himself available and stretching Croatia's defence. And the stats back that up.

Just as suggesting that he wasn't good tonight or against Iceland because of the midfield is not up to his standards. Not really, they didn't have a midfield at all. This team is horrifically coached, and he was good against Iceland. It's a fair assessment Yep. First and foremost no gameplan and horrible tactics. When your striking options are Messi, Aguero, Dybala, Higuain, Icardi and Correa, a midfield consisting og Mascherano, Banega, Di Maria and Biglia is more than adequate. Don't really care much for this rhetoric of 'players X and Y can't gel', if you can't make this work you're a fucking shit manager and that's it.

Just as suggesting that he wasn't good tonight or against Iceland because of the midfield is not up to his standards.

Me neither. The Croats were very, very good but I'm not even sure Messi broke sweat all night. Meanwhile Modric was all over closing down, intercepting, making himself available, providing neat passing as always and even chipping in with a beautiful goal. Different players of course but it's still kind of telling.

One is taking responsibility and showing initiative at least.

I'm aware that they don't play the same position but compare Modric's performance to Messi's...

I just don't buy this sentiment at all. That world class players X and Y can't play together with their national teams. Just sounds like a laughable cop-out at least to us who are from and support a small nation

Why are we constantly being rumored to be after centre backs and central midfielders? It's a bit worrying.

This is so boring.

A combination of Jenas, Upson and Kilbane is the stuff of nightmares.

Those reports from Fedyan are making an already great World Cup even better.

Haven't really seen much of him before but Cuadrado is absolute turd.

Harry Maguire is your most creative outlet actually quite like his surges forward.

Don't really like three at the back much. The wings being largely occupied by full backs is canny dull. Watching the three Belgian centre backs passing it between them today was beyond tame for example and very little came from Carrasco or Meunier. I'd much prefer watching natural wingers taking men on.

Yes, because many have been very successful at club level. If they can't perform as a team at international level then it's down to the management of them. Yes I'm aware they have good players at club level, as a national side they've never even lived up to half of that potential 'on paper' imo. I heard people say they were in with a shout of winning this tournament, on that showing not even close. Germany had a poor game yesterday but you could tell it was in them to move through the gears and play very well - can't see that with Belgium. They also kind of went through their qualifying group winning every game bar one which they drew, scoring 43 goals in the process and conceding only six. Not a tough group by any means but definitely an indication that they can perform well as a team.

De Bruyne might be the tidiest player I've ever seen. Iniesta's natural heir.

Ref is whistling at fucking everything.

The 2006 team was absolutely bonkers though.

By the way. What happened to that Brazilian Bernard guy? According to Wiki he just left Shakhtar on a free. Still only 25.

He couldn't score a penalty against a 34 year old semi pro