World Cup Russia 2018
 

After 4 years, the day finally arrived. Who do you think will win the tournament? My favorites are Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, the defending champions Germany,my country's team, of course, etc. Germany will fight to defend its title. My country is back after years of not participating. I'm so happy!:D Enjoy, like billions of people around the world.

I know one country that won't be winning it.

England :D

I think we will get further than the last world cup but will get knocked out in the quarter finals probably losing to Brazil or Germany again.

I think the winner is going to be Brazil or Germany. I did pick Spain but then there manager got sacked yesterday, so I can't see them winning now.

LOL agreed Vicky, England were awful last time ...and I think the time before that...
I notice the US isn't in it this time, shame, I usually route for you guys also.

I'm just not a sports person outside of the WC, even with this it was more that everyone really got into it and made plans for the games etc... I haven't been as into it the last 2 times either.

First match will be between Russia (the worst team on the cup) and Saudi Arabia!
Much excitement! So wow!

Off to a good start! .....though I should save it until the end of the game

EDIT: Okay now it's the end - 5-0! Sumac, I will not be seeing the same with my team on Monday :lol:

So far it is 2-0.
Russia leads, so apparently they are not the WORST team on the cup anymore. :roll:

Finished 5-0 to Russia, didn't expect that, I predicted 2-1.

I'm getting sick and tired of all moviestars who just throw themselves and dive towards the ground when losing the ball.

Not in this game.
The are barely any known players in both teams.

No, but soccer in general has too many of them.

I wonder who the Italians, the Dutch and the Americans will pull for this WC.

...Ok that was mean. :lol:

Portugal as the European champions have the responsibility and duty of at least trying. Not asking them to win the whole thing, but first of all, let's pass the group stage, shall we? Even if Morocco and Iran might have better teams than we know, I'm sure Portugal on a good day can beat them.

If we qualify to the next round, we'll get either Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Uruguay. I dunno how these teams are doing these days, but Uruguay is prolly complicated since it's a South American team. That being said, Russia just thrashed Saudi Arabia.

If we make it to the QFs it's likely we'll get France or Germany... that or upsets happen and we face a team like Mexico, Peru or South Korea.

If Portugal doesn't win this thing, then I'd be fine with it going to a nation that has never won it before, or maybe a nation that hasn't won it in years like Argentina. Brazil, Germany, France, Spain and England? **** no. Ideally, if Portugal doesn't win it, I'd want maybe Japan to win it... but unless their Captain Tsubasa shirts materialise then nah, it won't happen.

Spain changed their coach a couple of days ago, so let's see how they'll fare against us tomorrow.

It's odd to see a football thread in the Drome btw.

It is ..but an exception can be made for the world cup.. :P

Lopetegui is a bad manager, so I don't think they lost anything worthwhile. But ofc changing coach 2 days before the tournament to a guy who has no experience(I think?) is a very risky move.

As for tomorrow, I never know what to expect of Portugal. We either do great tournaments or lousy ones. We always perform well at the Euros, Wolrd Cups not so much. The only 2 World Cups we had good runs in were England 66 and Germany 2006, both in Europe. World Cups outside of Europe are always disastrous for us due to poor preparations. Good thing This WC is being held in the European part of Russia, so let's see.

Actually, if we do make the quarters, it will almost certainly be one of those two, given how the draw pans out... we're in group G, and play someone from H in the first knock out round. Both winners of those matches then play someone from groups E or F. Which have Germany and Brazil in them.

Yeah I did the working out using this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44455057

If they finish 1st in our group, they would face Brazil in the Quarter Finals, If England finish 2nd then they face Germany in the Quarter Finals. So it would be better for England to finish 2nd in our group because they got more of a chance of beating Germany than Brazil.

Then if they do get to the semi finals (by beating Germany) then they could end up facing Argentina or Portugal/Spain and I rather it be Argentina, again England are got more of a chance of beating Argentina than Portugal/Spain.

So if England make it to the final then they could end up facing Brazil or Spain (that's if Spain finish 2nd in there group), but obviously we will lose that, can't see us beating them.

Edit

Egypt vs Uruguay is starting, I think that Uruguay will win this one. But I wonder how long it will take Suarez to do something controversial, lol.

Thank you so much! :D I love the World Cup. I watch football (not "soccer". I prefer to use the sport's official name) ,during major international events like this.

Well, Luisito (Luis Suárez's nickname) won't do it again;he knows the consequences, but if he do it again, this time he will be toothless.

Uruguay is having a difficult time in its match against Egypt.

What a boring match that was, Uruguay didn't deserve to win it, Suarez was terrible. Egypt goal keeper did really well, it's a shame Mo Salah didn't play.

Elneny played really well too. Was hoping to see more of Lucas Torreira (hopefully he's going to sign for Arsenal) but he only played for like 5 minutes.

Edit

Iran vs Morocco was so boring, it was like watching paint dry. Just hope Spain vs Portugal is a lot better.

I'm sick and tired of the witch hunt for Russian sportspeople. Russians are punished very strict for using doping, no matter if they use it or not. Other countries? Nobody cares.

You wish came true. :)

Yeah awesome game, glad it finished as a draw. Even though I can't stand Ronaldo, he was awesome.

I missed all of the games. First time ever I miss the first 5 games of a big tournament, but whatever.

Iran now leads our group. Let's see...

France vs Australia was boring

Argentina vs Iceland was a good match, Iceland did so well in defence.

Peru vs Denmark was ok, shame that Peru couldn't score, that penalty was awful.

Croatia vs Nigeria was boring.

Hopefully tomorrows matches are a lot better.

Surprised Perú lost. But I've been told they dominated the match an that Denmark was basically Eriksen + 10. Perú were a bit unlucky, ti seems. And that cost them 3 points already.

Well done by Iceland stalling Argentina. And I've been told Australia played better than expected as well.

I've kind of missed France v Australia and I only listened to the Peru v Denmark because I was not veru interested in those matches.

Now Argentina (favorite team of my childhood) v Iceland (surprisingly good team out of nowhere) was kind of interesting. Both team were fairly competent.
And Nigeria v Croatia was just borefest. Nigeria didn't care about winning and just was wasting time and Croatia apparently was not in the mood to go forward.

This is turning out to be a strange World Cup.

Germany losing to Mexico :lol:
Brazil drew with Switzerland :lol:

England may have a good chance if the top countries arn't doing well.

Not so strange, after all. Team Mexico is better these days (Olympic champion team of 2012), and Team Brazil isn't what it once was.

Germany and Brazil didn't have the best starts for big favourites to win the tournament. I wonder if this means this tournament will be a lot more balanced that people expected or if it was bad luck or bad games by some of the strongest teams. It's only the first games so far, anyway.

True, but it may have an influence on winning the group. Gives England more incentive to top group G now, as they could potentially avoid Germany in the quarters if Germany now don't win their group!

(it could thus be Brazil vs Germany in the round of 16 heh)

England hasn't been doing that greatly on the biggest stages since 2008(they missed that one, even), but I've been told Panama and Tunisia are two rather weak teams. No idea how England is doing these days, but they'd surely be very incompetent if they couldn't manage to beat either of those two teams.

I like the idea of Brazil vs. Germany in the round of 16. that means one of the potential WC winners would be going home rather soon.

I don't follow Football outside of the World cup but going on the last few I'm pretty sure they have struggled a draw or just about won when playing a team that is considered to be one which should be easier to beat.

I hope we won't be embarrassed later :) or by the England football hooligans kicking off. (if we get that this time)

My children are at martial arts until 7 so I will miss the start, only like a 2/3 minute drive away though.

I think Brazil and Germany were not that motivated to go all out.

Brazil in general looked like they did need anything after they've got one goal in. When Switzerland had finally got their goal, Brazil so get used to their own relaxed play style, that they couldn't reconstruct their game to do something worthy.

Germany really looked bad. They looked very slow and there were a lot of problems with getting ball from one player to the other (I forgot how you call it in Football in English).
Mexicans looked fast and haven't done many mistakes. So this result was logical.

So I managed to miss England's goal .. Edit: Okay we got 2, though I wasn't expecting it by then.

That was a good rugby match :P

The match was ok, that ref was terrible, hope England don't have him again.

Another good game for Russia yesterday, I missed the 2nd half though, only caught some of the first half, about to miss the 2nd half of Spain's match too, I am surprised they haven't scored already.
I don't watch many of the games though.

Spain vs Iran is so boring, those flipping Vuvuzelas arn't helping either.

Russia, suddenly showed that they can play a decent game.
Of course, it was against Egypt, who is far from a really good team, but still.

So far matches being rather predictable: Portugal, Uruguay and Spain got their expected victories. Japan suddenly won over Colombia and Poland sadly lost to Senegal.

A World Cup full of surprises. Like the upsets by Japan and México against Colombia and Germany, respectively. Russia is doing well in their matches, but against not stronger teams.

Argentina and Brazil were disappointing. I was expecting solid victories against Iceland, a team who is participating in its first World Cup and Switzerland.

Peru needs to win against France. It will be difficult but not impossible.
Uruguay won for the minimal difference 1-0. It's the same result for Portugal against Morocco and Spain who struggle against Iran.

This was the first match I saw of Portugal since Euro 2016... can't say I was very impressed. Is this all we can do? Fernando Santos is such a trash manager. How he even was European champion is beyond understandable. Back when he coached clubs he managed the 3 biggest Portuguese clubs(Benfica, Sporting and Porto) and was fired out of every single one of them and the fans hated him. Then he spent some years in Greece and eventually coached Greece as well.

It's like lady luck from Euro 2016 still hasn't abandoned us, but it will eventually.