ponsaelius

Some really frustratingly flat/poor performances from teams. Japan are nearly always fun to watch so annoying seeing them set up this way.

Kenyan.

The thing is with a fit for purpose world governing body there should be a real requirement for any host bids to have genuine credentials in respect to minimising carbon footprint. Rather than greenwashing nonsense like 'recycling' brand spanking newly built stadiums and tokenistic off-site mitigation - a sustainable urban goal should be fundamentally built into any bid. That would mean re-using or redeveloping as many existing stadium sites (and their surrounding areas) as possible. Actually requiring governments to invest in transport infrastructure within cities and to link host cities together. Purpose built accomodation which becomes new residential homes afterwards. Etc etc. The World Cup circus could be a genuine chance to leave a proper legacy after it goes - but rarely is because of FIFA profiteering and the political bombast of hosts.

Yeah, absolutely. It's like going from one extreme to the other. To be honest, for all the undoubted issues with this World Cup, the fundamentally smaller scale of it is not necessarily one of them IMO. It's obviously too extreme to have what is basically the equivalent of 7 stadiums in greater Newcastle and 1 in Sunderland. The squeeze has made it impossible in terms of accomodation capacity so you've got thousands of fans flying in and back every day from neighbouring gulf states. That is atrocious in terms of environmental impact. But in terms of actual matchday logistics the biggest (and only real) issues appear to have been at Al Khor - the only one not in Doha and the only one not served by the Metro. It's the bottleneck issue of people literally only travelling there for the match at the same time (as there's nowt else there) - and mostly by car. Other than their brittleness in terms of support the horrendous traffic issues would have contributed significantly to the mass exodus for that opening game. The ideal solution is probably something actually in the middle of this tournament and the next one's extremes. 8-10 stadiums spread across a small handful of cities that are pretty close together and connected by good public transport links. Keeps travelling to a minimum for fans and players, provides enough accomodation capacity, but still has the feeling of a tournament with individual host cities/stadiums that have differing identity/history/architecture (this has clearly been lost this time around). The problem is that the tournament will have now expanded to the point where this middle ground is very hard to find as only big countries/continents can actually have the financial and infrastructural means to host. And even if they could feasibly do the smaller scale approach the political pressure would always be to spread the games around all regions of said host(s).

Indeed. I will say though that as he has slowed a bit (and got better at free kicks) he started to take the foul more often.

Guarantee loads of people have been confusing him with the other lad who came on at the same time - especially considering they swapped sides about halfway through their game time.

Expanding it by a full 50% is honestly a worse decision than giving this one to Qatar, in terms of what it will do to the quality of the competition.

Hernandez injury interesting one. His brother will give them far more going forward but sloppier at the back.

Think 4 matches a day might actually be too much.

Two different nil nils. Tunisia game was really good, that was frustrating to watch.

Switzerland being crap at tournaments has been a myth since about 2014 onwards. Generally have some entertaining high scoring games and at least one Shaqiri wonder goal in them.

Not been impressed by Alvarez at all when I've seen him for Ajax or Mexico. Ridiculously negative and limited passer of the ball.

Bit crap this. Poland are always a bit miserable at tournaments but don't fancy Mexico have the creativity to open them up.

It's been pretty good actually. Tunisia been good and got great support in the ground.

Scenes. It's interesting the high line mind. With VAR you are always going to get those marginal offsides in favour of defenders. So it makes far more sense to play it in the age of VAR.

Souness so close to dropping the F bomb there

Herve Renard sides are nearly always good value one way or another

No. Was at the last one.

Yeah but this is the fundamental problem with VAR. I don't think 100% accuracy on offsides is ever possible. So a mysterious automated system that works quickly and creates an accepted margin of error is superior and returns the momentum to the game (basically like goal line tech).

Tbf I much prefer this to drawing lines on a pitch. Whether it's accurate or not at least it is quick.

Most of them are. All except the one that existed before are being halved in capacity, with the shipping container one dismantled completely. Then they're being converted into more mixed use facilities.

Atmosphere is making this like. Great to see.

Neymar I'll give you but Messi would have 150 goals if he got play in UEFA. He scored 5 in one game against Estonia the other month ffs.

One of the big issues with Saudi Arabia developing decent players is that they get paid good money at home and there is never any real incentive to try and move abroad. If they did want to focus on making football more central to their modernisation plan then that would be something they'd need to focus on. Work permits would probably be a big barrier to getting young players abroad though - without any government level intervention.