England XI v ‘scary’ France in World Cup final named early | OneFootball

We would all be very surprised if England reach the World Cup final but France would absolutely destroy them if they did.

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Give the World Cup to France now

Dave Tickner is right: this is exactly how yer da felt while watching Brazil 1982. I know because I’m 70, which means as far as the World Cup is concerned, I’m my own da. As an eternal hopeless devotee of the beautiful game, this France team is what I’ve been waiting for most of my life. I was practically in tears. It’s too early, you say? I’m getting too excited? Damn right I am. What’s the point otherwise? Peter G, Pennsylvania, USA (Germany lost a penalty shootout?)

…Watching France is scary. There seems very little point in continuing the tournament.

They seem slightly getatable in the first 15 minutes. The only hope of anyone beating them is to score very early and shut up shop and pray.

Isak is actual dog sh*t.

The stadium announcers are getting on my nerves. Why are they announcing subs and goalscorers after play has restarted. Why do they need to announce bookings. Nonsense.

I hope England get knocked out before the final, France would completely embarrass us. I’d probably go for a lineup of Pickford, James, Quansah, Konsa, Stones, Guehi, Burn, Spence, O’Reilly, Rice, Kane (dropping deep). Paul

Worried about Mexico

It’s jumping the gun a bit but if we beat Congo we need to be really smart about playing Mexico. The Azteca stadium is at 2200m. If the team acclimatises at 2600m they’ll be less affected by altitude at 2200m on the day of the game. The human body reacts well to a drop in altitude when struggling to adapt to high altitude.

We also need to stay at a hotel where locals can’t disturb the team’s sleep like they are doing with Ecuador. I’d actually secretly move the players from their official hotel to a secret location where they can’t be disturbed to sleep the night before the game.

Playing a last 16 game in the Azteca will be like spending a night in the bar in the movie From Dusk Til Dawn. First of course, there’s Congo. The Congolese team would be willing to die to get this one over the line. Not sure how our overpaid, overrated Intatagram fodder footballers are gonna match that. Ben Teacher

Pep for England please

If Klopp ends up at Germany I don’t care what dark magic Tuchel conjures up, we would need to sack him and get Pep in IMMEDIATELY! Tom overinAndover

How about that Germany side?

I’m not going to make the glib point about the decline of the German team being reflective of the country’s socio-economic/political malaise (how did that dependence on Russian oil and gas work out, btw?).

Germany haven’t produced a tournament quality striker since the very underrated Klose (that guy “Voldemort” from Newcastle would be out of his depth in a pub league), they play horrible sideways football, they don’t produce “big” characters anymore (Wirtz and Sane aren’t going to dig you out of a hole), they can’t grind out a result and now they can’t even win penalty shootouts! Maybe they’re just going the same way as Italy, where they’ll always be a big name but no longer have the players to live up to it. Matthew

PS: Refreshing to see that the Dutch are still penalty bottlers.

Making this about Man Utd

So, Nagelsmann sees Germany dumped out of the WC before the last 16 on penalties no less (after previously being sacked from Bayern inside 18 months)! Meanwhile Tuchel is unable to deal with a low block and seems to have an Amorim-shaped and well memed blind spot when it comes to Mainoo. To think there were sections of the fanbase and media desperate for United to sign one of these two “big names” earlier this summer.

Elsewhere, City have spent over £100m on a Phillips regen who – while having some nice passing – seems unable to hold his position, chasing players across the pitch like a puppy and getting dispossessed by the “famous” Panama press.

Players from the PL are not exactly lighting up the tournament more generally either, with a handful of exceptions – Haaland had two good games (although Ivory Coast will be a challenge), Brobbey and Summerville shone briefly, Trossard and Martinelli have had a moment I guess, Cunha has looked good. Not much else if we’re honest.

Quite a revealing tournament so far. Which is nice. Badwolf

Props to the stops

Just watched Holland’s game and marvelled at one of Verbruggen’s saves.

I think this an aspect of the World Cup so far worth highlighting.

People focus on the goals, but we’ve seen some sensational goalkeeping. Rangel, Allison, Beiranvand from Iran vs Lukaku. Just a few of tbe banging saves produced! Let’s hope they, ahem, ‘keep’ it up! Sam

You’re the ref

This is apropos of not much, but I was thinking earlier about how refs are damned if they do, damned if etc.

Nobody in their right mind would ever do this, but I’d love for someone to create a game where you’re the ref, and you have to make all the decisions.

Afterwards, all the pundits and papers critique your performance, and PGMOL decide which games you get next, if any.

The aim of the game is to get to the end of your career and pay off your mortgage without having your house fire-bombed or your kids changing their names.

Need someone in the mailbox to suggest a name for this game. Phil, Manchester

A new convert to Johnny

Never heard of John Nicholson before but what a great article he wrote about England. All our supporters who think football is coming home need to read it and realise that some of these smaller nations whose top league is not swamped by overpaid foreigners are getting better and better. D Roake

The 427th person to spot this

England won the World Cup in 1966. Baddiel, Skinner et al sang about 30 years of hurt for the Euro 96 song.

This is assuming as soon as we won the World Cup we started mourning. Rather than celebrate being world champions until at least 1970, when West Germany knocked us out in the quarters.

This would’ve made the song 26 years of hurt, which isn’t exactly catchy, but nevertheless correct. Hopefully this can be factored into any subsequent hurt-based songs in future.