Well that's another World Cup tournament over and done with, and didn't we have a lovely time watching the worlds elite grace the top table of football.  To be honest it wasn't the greatest of tournaments, far too many stop, start games, far too much VAR involvement and not enough stand out performances, in both games and amongst individuals.  Don't get me wrong the race for the golden boot was exciting and all the big hitters turned up to contest that, but their were not many memorable games, which showcased the outstanding ability of some of the best players on the planet.  I have never known a World Cup competition to be so engulfed in controversy, every game there seemed to be another controversial decision, the lack of consistency by the referees and VAR was terrible as well, all in all the officiating was poor at best.  We were robbed of some great moments by VAR, and also forced to witness the most ridiculous of scenarios which included the President of the United States phoning the head of FIFA to get a players red card suspended, this incident alone tainted the whole tournament and left an already untrusted footballing governing body with even less integrity then it had to begin with. There were some good moments, Cape Verde holding the European champions Spain to a nil niller, before coming so close to knocking the holders Argentina out of the competition.  France looked a very good team, Spain grew into it and even my boys England were involved in a few good games, but when all is said and done this tournament will always be remembered for more than just the football, sadly.

I have purposely held off writing about England's defeat to Argentina on Wednesday night, because I wanted to watch all the fall out and listen to all the backlash before giving my opinion.  It appears that you are either in one camp where you believe that Tommy Tickles is the only reason that England were knocked out, or you have to be in the other camp, where you believe that it was solely down to the players.  Unsurprisingly I think it is a bit of A and a bit of B.  It is possible that both things can be true, but I would say that we have all seen this happen before and under an array of different managers.  I think that Tommy Tickles is an exceptional manager and I truly believe he has what it takes to take England to the next level, sure he has to and as far as I have heard, has taken responsibility for the loss against Argentina, he is more than aware that the buck stops with him and that his decisions and the manager of England are what he is judged on.  The players also have to take responsibility for the manner in which they played after Anthony Gordon had put the 3 lions 1 up, instead of continuing to do what they were doing and try and double their lead within minutes as they did against Mexico, it appeared that the England players went back into their shell and fell into the mindset of, oh shit we are one up against Argentina and we need to hold on.  The managers substitution decisions seemed to be based off of this in what could only have been his way of helping a team that were starting to struggle against a wounded animal like Argentina, of course he could've made a couple of attacking substitutions to try and give us an out ball to maybe alleviate some of the pressure that all of a sudden had been piled on us, but I'm not sure that was going to help us.  It happened really quickly, suddenly the Argentines stopped shithousing about and realised that they were 1-0 down to the filthy English in a world cup semi final.  To be fair to Scaloni he got his subs spot on and threw everything at us, it was obvious after they hit the post twice and forced Pickford into a couple of saves that it was only a matter of time before we cracked and they scored, there was no way we could repeat our defensive heroics against Mexico, and once they equalised there was only going to be one winner, so when Argentina took the lead 2 minutes into injury time, despite being disappointed, I'm sure we weren't shocked, we rallied at the end but it was too little, too late and finally yet another chance of making a World Cup final had slipped from our grasp.

1986 was forty years ago, but still the audacity of that little prick punching the ball past Peter Shilton (although how he got outjumped by him is beyond me) still wrangles with a lot of English fans, it's understandable I suppose, given that after the event Maradona termed his cheating as the hand of god and showed no remorse for his actions, instead doubling down and pretending that the Argentines were somehow entitled to their win as grave injustice had been inflicted on them.  Maradona was without doubt the most gifted player on the planet during that world cup and his Argentinian side where the best in the tournament, mostly because he was so good and his performances and goals deserved to win the South American's the trophy.  I have nothing against Maradona himself, so to speak, other than being a bit of a prick and blatantly cheating, but this has always been the way with the Argies.  The constant cheating and diving, the screaming and balling at referees and the entitlement of a nation who will try any form of shithousery to win a game of football, this is the thing that pisses me off about them.  Back in the quarter final in 1966, Geoff Hurst's  header was enough to win the game and send England into their first ever semi final, but this game would be remembered for more than just that, the sending off Antonio Rattin in that game sparked scenes that Wembley stadium would have never seen before.  Rattin was sent off for two bookable offences, the first was for swearing at the ref and the second was for a foul, which also may have been followed up by some choice words to the official, Rattin and the Argentinians were outraged by the decision and the Argie captain refused to leave the pitch, causing chaos on the side-lines involving all sorts of FIFA top knobs.  Rattin was eventually convinced to leave the pitch and England went on to win the game.  After the game Alf Ramsey famously stopped his swapping shirts with the Argentines, he then branded them as animals.  Antonio Rattin sadly passed away a few days ago, so no doubt Argentina will use his passing as more motivation to beat us in the semi final, no doubt they will use the injustice of swearing at an official, refusing to walk off the pitch, spitting in the FIFA vice presidents face and pissing in the Wembley tunnel as vindication for whatever bullshit they try on Wednesday evening.

We might've rode our luck in that game, but you know what, I don't care.  It certainly wasn't a spectacle of a game, although it had all the ingredients you need for a great football match, it had world class players, disallowed goals, overturned penalties and if that wasn't enough some controversy involving spider cam.  The main thing this game had though was the undeniable brilliance of Jude Bellingham.  England's number ten pretty much dragged his country kicking and screaming into the semi final, now I wouldn't say he did it single handily because that would be unfair on the other England players who certainly had a part to play in this win over Norway.  Jude was however head and shoulders above everyone else on that Miami pitch.

We are half way through the quarter finals, and so far there has been no shocks.  It was pretty straight forward between France and Morocco, to be honest I'm not sure if France were really good or just that Morocco were really shit, in the end it was probably a bit of both.  Belgium put up a good fight against Spain and nearly took them all the way, only for super sub Mikel Merino to grab a winner in the 88th minute.  This means France take on Spain in what could be a classic semi final, can the French continue their all conquering ways and brush the French aside as they have with everyone else so far?  I'm not sure, I picked Spain as my World champions at the beginning of the tournament and although they haven't exactly set the place alight with their performances, up until this quarter final they hadn't conceded a goal, so as well as being hard to break down they also have undoubted quality going forward.  It's certainly going to be a close one and I would assume the winner of the whole thing comes from this semi final.

I thought I would leave it a few days before writing about the Egypt and Argentina game just in case there were more developments regarding the outcome.  I mean they way this World Cup is going, you wouldn't be surprised if something out of the ordinary happened, like Messi has been kidnapped and held for ransom, or Donald Trump has stole the World Cup trophy and hid it in a bush next to some jazz mags.

After all the controversy of the last few days, where Donald Trump got involved and the US of A had the suspension of their star striker suspended after a sending off, the Yanks went out to Belgium anyway.  Up until this point I quite liked the USA and I thought it was good that the American people had started to welcome proper football into their hearts, but then the President of the United States decided he didn't like the rules of football and had a word with his mate Infantino and lo and behold for the first time in a World Cup Finals, a decision was overturned after a game was played and Folarin Balogun was able to play in the round of 16 game against Belgium.  To be honest he may as well not of bothered, Belgium from the first minute tore into the States and they were deservedly ahead on 9 minutes, somehow USA equalised on 31 minutes, despite hardly getting out of their half for the first half an hour, 2 minutes later though the Belgians were back in front and the wind was taken out of the sails of hosts.  Belgium continued their dominance in the second half adding a third before Lukaku come off the bench and scored a 4th in the 3rd minute of injury time, this goal sparked some shithousery of the highest order as the Belgian players celebrated the Stormzy lookalikes goal by parodying President Trumps famous dance.  Some might say that justice was served and to be fair it was probably the best result for football, it was also the best result for FIFA given how bad it would've looked and the chaos it would've caused if USA had won and worse if Balogun had scored.  In the end Trumps intervention and Infantino's weak handling of the situation probably had a massive outcome on the result of this game. It seemed like most football fans around the world probably would've liked to see the USA beat Belgium before the controversy struck, but after that it was as if everyone on the planet, apart from the American fans were against team US of A.  The thing is you could see the players knew it, the manager knew it and even the fans knew it. In a way I feel a bit sorry for the players and especially Balogun, who at the end of the day never asked for any of this and you could see that the added pressure of this fall out was weighing heavily on his shoulders, do I think it would have made a difference to the outcome if none of this shit had happened?  I don't know, I still feel that Belgium might've won but I'm not sure they would've come out with the same intensity, they played like a team that wanted to prove a point, that coupled with the fact  that on paper at least they had  better quality than the USA, meant that this result was always likely.  I think the anger of the last few days though actually helped them and in the end Trump's and FIFA's decision backfired massively.   That now means all the host nations are out of the competition, it also means the fans can go back to cheering on their real sports, the Mexicans can watch their wrestling and rodeo's the Canadians will go back to watching Ice Hockey and the USA can back to watching Soccer where there are no promotions or relegations and then wonder why they never get to a quarter final of the World Cup, go figure?

After all the talk about altitude and the Mexicans not losing on their own patch for about a hundred years, Tommy Tickles and his England team eventually got the job done, but I tell you what it was stressful.  

There has been a lot of talk heading into our round of 32 game with Mexico, most of it has been about the altitude and how are on earth are England going to prepare and adapt.  Tommy tickles has since come out and said that it is impossible to b prepared fully for this encounter, given the little amount of time the Squad has to acclimatise.  That said he has assured us all that we will be as ready as we can possibly be, and that we have done everything we can do to try and progress to the quarter finals where we would face either Brazil or Norway.

After the controversy of the Croatia Portugal and the way that ending made me feel about this World Cup in general, I like everyone else  wasn't expecting this game would be the perfect antidote to the sickness I was left with after that debacle on Thursday evening.  If the Croatia, Portugal ending to the game summed up everything that is wrong with football, Argentina v Cape Verde was everything that is right.   Not only was this an amazing game of football, for me it has to be the game of the tournament so far, not necessarily for the skill factor and great goals, which there was plenty of by the way but mostly because of the story of this game and how it played out. 

What an exciting, controversial second half of football that was in the Croatia v Portugal game.  Notice I said second half as the first half had me nodding off and was as about exciting as one of Danny Murphy's stories about his flipping cat called Bob.  This second period had everything.  There were 3 disallowed goals, a very soft penalty, a Ronaldo goal and probably the biggest VAR decision of this entire tournament, and I haven't even mentioned Bob Martins growing some bollocks and subbing Ronaldo off, which basically meant that Portugal won the game.  It really was an eventful second 45, although by the time it finished it was nearly an hour.  

I tell you what, it aint easy watching England, if I'm honest it never has been.  Since I was a kid watching us in the 1982 World Cup in Spain its always been the same.  Any of you that are old enough to remember will recall that we went that tournament unbeaten, and despite smashing a  French team full of superstars including Michel Platini 3-1 in our opening game and drawing 0-0 with both Germany and Spain, we came home before the semi finals having only conceded one goal.  Atter this first exposure of top flight International football and seeing the silky skills of Brazil and witnessing the talented footballers on show, such as Zico, Socrates, Eder, Falcao and Junior, Boniek of Poland, Rossi and Tardelli of Italy and others like Rummenigge, Blokhin, Krankl, Maradona and Ardiles to name just a few, I was certainly hooked and given that England had done so well, I was obviously already looking forward to the next adventure in Mexico in 1986.  Sometimes I wish I didn't like football so much because from that moment in 1982 when Keegan missed the header against Spain and we went home, the image of super Kev on his knees after that miss still haunts me.  It would've been fine if that was the only bad memory but it seems with every tournament that passes another bad memory of our blessed bad luck is etched into my mind.  Maradona's hand of god, Chris Waddles skied penalty that is still up in space somewhere, Beckham's sending off and Shearer's disallowed goal against the Argies, Seaman being lobbed by Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo's wink and even the quarter final missed penalty against France last time out by Harry Kane, when we were the better team.  Yep being English is full of dissapointment, so it stands to reason that it can only be a matter of time until one day we will get that little bit of luck to go all the way and win this bloody World Cup and finally put to bed that 1966 win, cos lets face, it very soon if we don't, anybody who was alive to witness it will all be dead.  I swear the only reason Geoff Hurst is still breathing is because he wants to see us lift the trophy one more time before he pops his clogs.  

Yes!!! Get in there, I managed to live long enough to see the day that Germany actually lost a penalty shoot out.  Now, some people (German people) might think I'm being petty and should be concentrating on my own country and not be shamelessly celebrating  the misfortune of a once great footballing nation, to which I reply, stop crying and get on your plane home.  For years and years Germany have had the rub of the green when it comes to football knockout games in major tournaments, which normally ends in them winning from spot kicks.  Deflected goals, dubious refereeing decisions, keepers coming out and nearly decapitating French attackers and getting away with it, blah, blah, blah.  Finally though they get to feel what everyone else has had to put up with since penalty shoot outs were invented, so I refuse to apologise for my smugness in this situation, in fact I feel like standing in  front of a packed Berlin stadium full of Germans with a full smug face, hands on hips just like Andreas Moeller did after scoring the winning penalty against England in the semi final of Euro 96, before him and his German team-mates started butchering 3 lions.  It's not that I'm bitter, I'm just glad that after all these years they get to know it feels.  No doubt they will point to the disallowed goal that would probably of secured victory against Paraguay, I again have no sympathy, not because it's the Germans but because the goal was ruled out legitimately.  Alan Shearer, Guy Mowbray, Darren Cann and all the pundits who thought it was soft need to realise that at the start of the tournament we were told that if an attacker forcibly obstructs a goalkeeper from a set piece when the ball is in play the goal will be chalked off, does the German player hold the goalkeeper and try to stop him from getting to the ball?  Yes.   Does the goalkeeper through himself on the floor and pretend he has been slammed to the ground by John Cena?  Yes.  It doesn't matter though because he has been fouled.  I agree the keeper has made a meal of it but according to the laws of the game it's a foul, granted in the Premier league Arsenal would have got away with it, but the laws were clear and haven't changed, gutting thing for the Germans is if he doesn't obstruct the keeper it probably still gets headed in.  Oh well, how sad, never mind.

The 3 Lions get their second game of the tournament underway tonight as they take on Ghana at the Boston Stadium.  Hopes will be high as England look to guarantee progression to the round of 32 with a win.  After the 4-2 victory over Croatia it is very unlikely that Tommy Tickles will not change his starting line-up, unless of course the injury concern for Declan Rice is serious enough for him to.  I would guess that Rice will be starting despite all the talk about him playing with a hamstring injury during the back end of Arsenal's championship winning season, whether or not he sees out the full 90 minutes is another question, hopefully though, if he is withdrawn at some point in the game, England will be already cruising to victory.  I know that people say that there are no easy games in football, and of course teams like Cape Verde have already proven this after their two draws with Spain and Uruguay, but I do feel however that Ghana pose much less of a threat.  The truth is if we play anywhere near as well as we did against Croatia in the second half of last week's game, the Ghanian's won't be able to live with us.  By tomorrow morning we should be sitting atop Group L and looking forward to playing a 3rd place finisher from one of the other groups.  When the draw was originally made and everyone was looking for scenarios of who plays who in the next round, the most likely reward for England topping the group was a round of 32 match against Senegal, this however may not know be the case as Senegal, despite playing quite well have somehow managed not to pick up a single point yet.  After losing to both France and then narrowly being defeated by a Haaland inspired Norway 3-2, of course Senegal could still get through but they would now have to beat Iraq in their last game by a couple of goals to nil to stand any realistic chance of making the round of 32.  

Tonight sees Cristiano Ronaldo make his 2026 World Cup bow, but is he going to have the same impact as M'bappe, Haaland and of course Messi have already had on the tournament.   Personally I think it's very unlikely.  Having just watched M'bappe's fantastic 2 goals against Senegal and his all round performance, he looked like the world class player he is, because lets get it right Senegal are no mugs.  As for Haaland he scored a brace in his sides 4-1 win over Iraq and didn't look too bad, but he did what he always does which is score goals.  Then of course there was Lionel Messi and his masterclass against Algeria, again we have to take into account that Algeria are not the greatest team in the world but Messi was head and shoulders above anyone on the pitch.  The thing is that gets me is that next week this man turns 39 years old, yet he still has pace, he still has all the tricks and when he gets a chance on goal you know it's gonna be in the back of the net.  I have to admit I was one of those who thought that he may have retired from international football after realising his ultimate dream of becoming a World Cup winner 4 years ago, believing that even for a a magician like him that pushing nearly 40 and playing in a major tournament would be a bridge too far.  Nah mate, this bloke is going to play football forever.  He is like the modern day Stanley Matthews or something, I can see him still strutting about the place in 12 years time at the age of 50 scoring 6 goals in a first round match against Micro Indonesia a week away from his 51st birthday and still walking off the pitch on 70 minutes without breaking into a sweat. 

After what seems like about a fortnight, finally the 3 Lions kick off their World Cup campaign tonight against Croatia.  Now normally I would be a bit nervous going into our opening game, especially as we are playing against a half decent European team with a bit of pedigree.   However this time around I feel no nerves.  Is that because I am over confident and have full faith in Tommy Tickles and his boys or is it because after years of dissapointment watching England in major tournaments, I have just become passive.  Well it's a little bit of A and a little bit of B.  As I have got older football has become less and less important, I suppose it just does.  Having said that, once we start to progress through the tournament and we get deeper into it, the memories I had of World Cups and Euros past will return and with every passing round and beaten opposition the belief that this time, more than any other time it really is coming home starts to build and suddenly without realising it is happening,  your listening to World in Motion and 3 Lions on repeat, draping yourself from head to toe in St Georges flags and telling the world that Jordan Henderson is better than Lionel Messi.  We are English and we can't help it, no matter how ridiculous it may seem or how unlikely our patriotic faith in our Country becomes, If we squeeze past Mexico in Mexico at altitude on penalties and reach the Quarters, all of a sudden we are world beaters.    To be honest it's what always happens, no matter how rubbish we are we still believe we can do it.  

Spain are no doubt a lot of peoples favourites in this tournament but even if you have some of the best players on the planet and play very nice attractive football, there is still no guarantee you are going to beat every team you come up against.  I can't imagine anyone, even the most optimistic of Cape Verde fans could imagine anything less than a Spanish win, but as some bloke back in the 80's always used to say "football's a funny old game Saint" and he was dead right.  Cape Verde were fantastic and it could be said that they may have put in the best defensive performance there has been at a World Cup.  Spain really struggled to break their opponents down and resulted to playing direct football which the Cape Verde defence dealt with so well, things got a bit trickier when Yamal and Williams were introduced later in the game but even then, the defenders and 40 year old stopper Vozinha would not be passed.  What a performance from the underdogs and fair play to them, hopefully this draw will give them the confidence to push on and pick up more points against the other two teams in Group H, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay, who to be honest didn't look particularly impressive in there 1-1 draw.  The Saudis probably shaded the first half with their energy and the South Americans looked slightly the better team in the second half.  As for Spain I still think they will win this group and probably go on to lift the trophy, however my bet on Mikel Oyarzabal to become top scorer looks a bit in doubt considering he broke an unwanted record of becoming the first person in history not to touch the ball in the first 30 minutes of a World Cup match since records began in 1966.  Its like I always say though you cant score goals if they don't pass you the ball.  Anyway if you want more betting tips I am happy to oblige.

In an evening where Brazil, Morocco, Turkey and even Scotland were playing, I can't imagine anyone believed that the mighty Aussies would be the stars of match day 3.  For many, myself included Turkey were favourites for Group D but Tony Popovic and his boys thought differently.  After the game man of the match, young goalkeeper Patrick Beach may or may not of said "this victory was for the whole of Australia, not just the fans but also everyone who has inspired us throughout the years, Tim Cahill, Stan Lazaridis, Mile Jedinak, Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Craig Johnston and of course my personal hero Alf Stewart out of Home and away".   I was quite surprised that Alf "you flaming galah" Stewart got a mention over former Socceroo keeper Mark Schwarzer, and I am sure he was too.  I would quite like it if other footballers would continue this trend and praise their favourite TV actors after a victory, perhaps Harry Kane could give praise to Roy Cropper from Corrie or Jacko out of Brush Strokes, it would've been nice if Folarin Balogun had credited his brace for the USA to the memory of  Uncle Jesse Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard, or even  Frank "Ponch" Poncherello from Chips, perhaps Tomas Souchek could dedicate Czechia's upcoming win over South Africa to Ted Rogers and Dusty bin off of 321.  I don't know about you but I'm all for it.  

 All the host nations have now kicked off their tournament and all of them have been pretty impressive so far.   Mexico started it all off, and were comfortable 2-0 winners over an awful South African side who looked like they had never met each other in their lives.  The South Africans star man being Sphephelo Sithole, who it appeared had a one man quest to ruin the Africans chances.  In his 49 minutes on the pitch he managed 24 touches of the football, my guess is that at least 20 of those touches were shit.  Sithole was rightfully sent off early in the second half for a blatant foul just outside the box, but the other 2 sending offs from the ref were harsh in my opinion, lets put it this way they are unlikely to be given in the Premier League, having said that if that's the benchmark then teams need to be careful.  Despite Sithole's departure South Africa didn't get any better and the were lucky to get 0.

You maybe wondering why I haven't written anything about England's 4-2 victory over Croatia up to now, is it because I didn't want to jump in too early and let the feeling of joy take over and rose tint my review of proceedings?  Nah, it was because Thursday was a nice day and I spent it in Saaarfend like all Cockney's do.  I was walking around with a smile on my face though, and my happy demeanour was picked up upon by some back porch preacher, preaching at me and stating "look at the state of this bloke, all full of football and sex" He was half right as I was walking with a slight spring in my step, which I can assure you only came from England's' exploits the night before and not my own.