PloKoon13

I own it. I didn't count on England to be so miserably bad against Argentina they wouldn't get to meet them in the first place.

Arguably the first time since 1986 that England came in as favourites and again England underestimated an irrepressible genius. Only Messi makes a perfectly flat square cutback just begging to be hit, followed up by a perfectly aimed cross that somehow evades 3 6ft+ English defenders to land on the forehead of the second smallest guy on the pitch. Maybe Olise or Yamal pull that off on a good day too.
Tuchel built a team for the counter-press and the counter-attack and then decided to do neither. Two underwhelming teams but whereas Argentina rose to the level of its opponent, England descended to theirs.
Tuchel deserves most of the blame, of course. Less for leaving out Palmer/Foden and far more for leaving out Adam Wharton who would have been a great complement or substitute to Rice or Anderson. His comments about 'DNA' are unfounded, given that he had three of the most recent PL winners, three CL winners (one of whom could legitimately be called his protege), a Treble winner, the current European Golden Shoe holder, and the form player of the tournament in Jude Bellingham.

It was Tuchel's decision to play more defensively in the second half. The one thing in the world that Messi cannot do at age 39 is run, and yet, they never once required him to do it. They spent ~75 minutes denying him space only to give him the freedom of Atlanta from there on in. Firstly the wind went out of England's sails when Anderson, who pocketed both Paredes and Fernandez with ease, got a yellow card. Then it was Tuchel who ceded momentum the moment Gordon was taken off for Ezri Konsa when he could have easily switched in Rashford or Madueke or even Ollie Watkins to keep the pressure on.

For every cloud...

A terrible night for the Germanic mentality. Protestantism may never recover from this. The United States is surely crumbling into the ocean as we speak.

In case it needed to be said, Romano is an idiot. "Five-year contract" ...players under 20 can only sign a 3 year deal. The other two years are either an option or unenforceable.

Makes him pretty damn expensive in PSR terms, 3m/season + wages. Yikes.

A terrible night for the Germanic mentality. Protestantism may never recover from this. The United States is surely crumbling into the ocean as we speak.

A terrible night for the Germanic mentality. Protestantism may never recover from this. The United States is surely crumbling into the ocean as we speak.

@SydneyChelsea strikes me as too overqualified to be Australian.

Hope this World Cup leads to Fernández becoming a pantomime villain in the Premier League, he’s such a prick

Hope this World Cup leads to Fernández becoming a pantomime villain in the Premier League, he’s such a prick

Will go and watch this when it's in U.K. cinemas from 19 April. There is an article about Big Mama Thornton in today's Guardian. A great singer who was badly treated by promoters etc. In my opinion her version of Hound Dog is far superior to that by Elvis Presley yet his rendition is better known. Thornton had a brilliant voice and similar to that of Bessie Smith. I knew that Thornton played harmonica but until I read the article in The Guardian didn't know that also played drums. Didn't make a lot of money from performing and record sales. Went to Europe in the sixties and was warmly received. A lot of blues musicians - and jazz performers - went to Europe and the U.K. and received more support and praise than they did in the States.

There's a Rizla paper between Lacroix and Badiashile

Can we add 'excessive superlative'?
I love McCoist though, he's worth ten of Dixon and Sam Whatsthematterface

Dembele. Every time I hear his name i think of the song by Bob Marley "Dembele Full (but we hungry)

Until George wins on Sunday.

We should all be eternally grateful to Pep for leaving Rodri out of his starting lineup for the 2021 Champions League Final.

There's a Rizla paper between Lacroix and Badiashile

Points off for being Scottish.

This should be the final.

No Bates, no Chelsea
Being younger than some on here I only ever saw the "good" side of Bates during the late-90s, and some of the stories you all have told over the years on this forum are truly hair-raising (electric fence pun intended). He was clearly a person who was disliked but respected.
I don't know if I ever got the feeling he had the same emotional connection as say Roman Abramovich did, but he did a lot of things that set standards and expectations (as did Abramovich).

Also he nearly sent Leeds to oblivion, which should also be up there with his crowning glories.

You can rarely say that without person X a football club wouldn't exist and have it be entirely true.
In Ken's case it is 100% true. Sure he had his faults, don't we all, but he was our faulty bustard and we owe him a debt of honour that money could never have bought in that particular era of football.

Some people will dispute that view, but as a match going fan who lived through those times, I know they are wrong.
No Batesy, no Chelsea. If he had done what he did for us at any other football club, they would have a statue of him at the entrance to the ground.
For me the greatest Chelsea Legend RIP Ken

I look online and I see "Rigged" everywhere. Is everybody just going to be a bunch of crying whinge bags every time a team wins a game of football in this tournament? It's rigged for everybody apparently.

And Africa go out with a whimper. Disappointed by that; while I thought France would win, I hoped Morocco would give them more of a scare.
Va va voom

They never said this. Not then, not now and not ever.
This entire scenario is a fantasy cooked up by Fernandez's hapless agent (Javier Pastore) who has been feeding the desperate social media mob, and endorsed by the club because they saw Fernandez as a golden goose that could absolve them of their failed spending.
Virtually all the media 'talk' about this originates from either Fabrizio Romano or similar personalities on Twitter, quoting an uncredited source. It is plain as day they have been fed by Pastore in the hopes of engineering a move.


If you believe the media talk then the issue is Mourinho wants Tchouameni to stay, but Valverde doesn't want to go. In terms of price and fit, Tchouameni is going to have more suitors. I can see one of them going to Bayern or PSG in a part-swap deal for Olise or Vitinha, though.
Fernandez doesn't fit at Real Madrid. The role they need him to play is one he doesn't want to play (DM/deep-lying playmaker). The role he wants to play is taken by Bellingham, Valverde and Guler.

Yet another crap decision by the sporting directors.