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?
Spain squeaked through to the last 8 with a very underwhelming performance against Portugal. The game looked as if it was going to be a real classic, in the end it was one of the worst games of the tournament. The stand out moment for me was probably watching Bob Martins over singing the Portuguese national anthem, I mean come on, the man was born in Spain and to see him belting out his pride for a country he has no affiliation with (except for his job) was just cringy. They way he exaggerated his mouth movements as well, reminded me of Britney Spears singing "hit me baby one more time". I'm afraid it annoyed me more than it should've, it was as if he was trying to convince the Portugal fans that he was on of them, as if he was saying "look at me, I'm Spanish and I'm singing your song, despite the fact I am going to leave Ronaldo on all game, we are going to lose because I have no bollocks and I'm going to resign after we get eliminated, but please love me". Fake, emotional bullshit.
How on earth did Portugal not take advantage of this opportunity against Spain, the Spanish looked average throughout this contest, and Portugal have so much talent at their disposal, yet Bob Martins kept the player holding them back from actually going for it and beating Spain on the pitch, almost as if he wanted Ronaldo to have his moment of getting teary in front of the cameras when they lost. Martinez is a fraud of a manager, he took a golden generation of players with Belgium and achieved nothing, he has taken a team like Portugal, who have some of, arguably, the best midfielders in the tournament and he has served up a big plate of shit with Ronaldo standing on top of it defiantly crossing his arms with a smug look on his winking face. I don't really blame Ronaldo, he aint going to tell the manager it's not working because he his the problem because he as ever wants the personal glory, that's Ronaldo but if I'm a Portuguese fan I would be fuming at that shambolic performance yesterday and wondering what did we ever do to deserve a useless, gutless and cowardly manager like this. They deserved much better, but fair play to Spain they got over the line with probably one of the only bits of quality in the whole match that lead to Merino's 91st minute winner and now they will face the Belgians in the quarters.
With all the excitement after the England game I completely forgot to mention anything about Norway beating Brazil, I mean there was not much to say other than Haaland was Haaland and Brazil just weren't good enough. I would like to just mention something about Neymar Jnr though, what an absolute first rate wanker he really is, giving it the biggun in the last minute of the game to the opposition goalkeeper after you have just scored a penalty and your losing 2-1 and about to go out of the tournament. For me Neymar is one of the most overrated players I have ever had the displeasure of seeing roll around on the floor, and that moment summed up his career for me, it's all about him. At least Ronaldo can turn around and show he has been one of the greatest footballers of all time, but Neymar, do me a favour as far as I'm concerned he is just Brazil's equivalent to Joey Barton. So I'm glad to see the back of him, good riddance.
Tonight sees the last two round of 16 games and no doubt there will be more Messi magic against Egypt and at last I will get to see a full Colombia game as they take on Switzerland.
I'm off now to give Donald Trump a call to see if he can help me overturn a decision that I didn't agree with back in the 90's, which involved being dared to kick a bent over accordion player up the arse and a subsequent punch in the face.
Up the football!!
