Monzanator

[hide] Knockout Round June 30th - July 15th, 2018 16 Nations, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Third Place Match and Final Round of 16 Date & Time Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 30th 2018, h. 17:00 (GMT+3) France 2 1 Argentina June 30th 2018, h. 21:00 (GMT+3) Uruguay 1 1 Portugal July 1st 2018, h. 17:00 (GMT+3) Spain 3 0 Russia July 1st 2018, h. 21:00 (GMT+3) Croatia 2 0 Denmark July 2nd 2018, h. 18:00 (GMT+4) Brazil 2 0 Mexico July 2nd 2018, h. 21:00 (GMT+3) Belgium 2 0 Japan July 3rd 2018, h. 17:00 (GMT+3) Sweden 1 2 Switzerland July 3rd 2018, h. 21:00 (GMT+3) Colombia 0 1 England [/hide]

Three of Messi's six WC goals have been scored vs Nigeria

If Iceland beat Nigeria the other day, I'd expect the same in tonight's ICE vs CRO game

I'm not sad that it will be Portugal which plays Uruguay now...

KSA deserved that. Egypt looks awful without Salah's influence and he can't make any difference whatsoever playing with these mugs. This ain't Liverpool!

Piszczek and Blaszczykowski should go after this World Cup. They're simply too old to make a difference at this stage anymore. Milik has returned from his second ACL injury and was out of form this season. Kownacki and Bereszynski aren't the difference makers yet but they should replace Piszczek and Blaszczykowski for years to come. And above all else, we're too reliant on Lewandowski. It works against teams like Romania and Armenia but not at this level.

Tennis and volleyball are much faster games, you can't directly compare the players influence on the video system. Plus hawkeye rarely decides the outcome of the game since there are too many points played. Besides, we see enough bullshit video challenges on match point in volleyball when teams seek invisible touches.

This will disturb the flow of the game. We have enough delays with all the time wasting and fake injuries to add more confusion. I'm sure coaches would find a way to bullshit the challenge system if they had such power. I can see a ton of players claiming they were elbowed in the face so video review is warranted while that would only steal time and give their defense a breather or something.

People need to lay off on VAR. It's the new punchbag for any team that loses a game. Fans blamed refs before now they blame refs AND VAR. Our commentators said that Mitrovic's playing style was his undoing and I agree. He looked for so many cheap folus that when he actually got fouled, ref had none of it. That's a classic crying wolf scenario here.

Why? They reached last WC final AND two Copa America finals. Plus the Copa America winner didn't even qualify....

Speaking of Mortal Kombat, this is fatality mode now...

In Poland we call it an "orange card"

Otamendi acts like a thug there...

Any bets Caballero won't play again for ARG after this World Cup? Sampaoli will be grilled alive back home...

Yeah, that's bullshit. Leckie was far more invloved in attack than Eriksen and the Arzani sub created more danger in front of goal than Eriksen all match IMO. Eriksen did what Ronaldo in the Morocco game. Score an early goal and do nothing after that.

Eriksen was invisible in the 2nd half. If Australia showed more courage, they could have won this.

4 free kick goals have been scored so far: 1. Golovin vs KSA, 2. CR vs SPA, 3. Kolarov vs CRC and 4. Quintero vs JPN.

Dzyuba is like 1.95m tall or something. I guess he's the better option vs the Egyptian CBs.

Yeah, Piszczek's age is catching up with him for a while now. Injuries too. He's expected to retire from national team after this WC.

Well great, we picked Cionek as Glik's replacement here. Cionek/Pazdan is the main weakness here, hopefully Mane doesn't explore that too often...

Perkeman will be grilled for taking Cuadrado off in the first half. They had like zero quality in midfield since that happened. Colombia's defeat isn't the best of news for Poland unless this team is truly that bad here.

What do Serbia and Costa Rica have in common with Ghana and Chile DNQ?

Don't see it coming, Nigeria on paper looked only better than Saudi Arabia so far. I expect 0 pts for them. Getting all the action through Moses is predictable and easy to stop. The keeper can't put the ball into play at all and is a huge liability.

Peru giving Eriksen acres of space.... and they get punished for it.

Cueva buckled under pressure. He's supposedly the big star of the team but he couldn't handle the pressure.