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.
Argentina should of course not be disregarded as they appear to have a lot of luck on their side, shall we say, but they are up against a Switzerland team that are no mugs, they're solid defensively and although they have probably overachieved to get this far, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them knock Argentina out, we are yet to see a penalty shoot out in the quarters and this could be one that goes all the way, if it does though I well only see the aftermath as I am not sitting up all night just to see Messi break Swiss hearts and Infantino celebrate over his own nation like a bellend.
England of course will start the game against Norway as favourites, however I am nervous about this game. Granted we were decent against Mexico and we defended like demons, whilst also scoring 3 goals in the process but Norway have been a very good side in this tournament, even when they played France they looked good at points, causing the French defence problems despite making 10 changes to their team. Obviously everyone is going to be focused on the Harry Kane v Erling Haaland aspect of things, but we all know there is much more to the Norwegians than just their massive machine of a centre forward, although the other problems they have to trouble us are probably a lot easier to deal with, Haaland on the other hand is just impossible to stop, I have no doubt that whatever happens in this game the Manchester City striker scores, I believe it is inevitable and no matter what we do he will score anyway, the only thing we can do, other than foul him is to just score enough times in the Norway goal, so that his goals will be just consolations. It goes without saying that this is going to be England's toughest test so far, it has all the makings of a proper end to ender, with goals galore, It is possible that after this game both Haaland and Kane could be on 10 goals for the tournament and leading the race for the golden boot, at least for a few hours until Messi takes on Switzerland. It really could be a very high scoring, free scoring game, if this is the case then all I hope is that Fat Les was right and we do score one more than them.
According to reports England will have a full squad to pick from other than of course Quansah, who was obviously slapped with an extra game ban following his sending off v Mexico, yeah cheers FIFA, that wasn't dodgy was it? There is obviously a lot of talk as well about how we line up, and after his cameo against Mexico where he headed everything and anything that moved, Dan Burn has been tipped to start this game. I personally think he won't start, despite his impressive record of having only conceded a single Haaland goal in his 9 appearances against him, I still think that Tommy Tickles goes with his best defence, whatever he deems that to be, no doubt there will be another appearance from Dan Burn at some point in the game, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Haaland doesn't score whilst he is on the pitch.
This game is going to be so close and for the neutral it will probably be yet another game of the tournament, for us England fans though it is probably going to be yet another stressful and at times unbearable watch. I think we will be on top at points in the game but I just know as soon as it looks like we have a foothold and look like we are nearing the finish line, they will score, or get a penalty, or someone will get sent off and nerves will all start jangling again, the Norwegians will not give up and neither will we, so it is likely to be a fight to the death. I honestly hope it is settled in normal time, but to me it looks like it could go all the way. Whatever happens though my only hope is that we leave everything out there come the end of the match and if we do that but come up short then so be it, we can walk away with our heads held high knowing that we were beaten by the better team. However I hope we absolutely smash them 4-1 and send them Vikings rowing home, and in doing that we show the rest of the teams left in the World Cup, that we are England and we are here to win this bloody thing!!
Come on England!!
