SHA Small Heath Alliance

And thin brained

JohnP

Phillystine

JohnP

Jeffery McSheffery

Messi goal against Austria surely falls into this category too.

The inconsistency fuels suspicion.

It really affects how we watch the games, when England got that penalty I was thinking oh shit Kane was offside when Pickford launched it, and then I thought oh shit it hit Kane's arm in the challenge.

You can't be offside from a goal kick and it can't be handball when your arm is by your side.

Thanks, I thought it was a keeper's punt not a goal kick (is that still ok?) and I had some idea that if a goal or a penalty comes after accidental handball it's still handball. I don't really know half the rules these days, especially around handball.

It was a goal kick.

If Kane had scored directly after the ball being headed against his arm, it would've been ruled out. As soon as it went to another player, there was no handball offence.

Thanks, appreciated.

No worries. The laws are way more complicated at times than they need to be.

Docky91

mad

They didn’t deserve to qualify. That’s a fact. In the last 15 minutes it was the Argentinian Alamo against the Egyptian rearguard!
Egypt imploded and the better side won.
That is all.

That's not all
There is historical precedent. The CIA in 1970 wanted Brazil to win the World Cup to bolster morale behind that country's military dictatorship. It is reasonably well known they cooked up some gastro intestine illness for Bobby Moore and his charges ahead of the quarter final.

Of course Brazil 1970 were probably the 2nd best team to ever play international football (just behind Brazil 2002 IMHO) but Peter the Cat vomiting up his cat litter 2nd half looks highly suspicious to me...

Not too far fetched to imagine Trump and his cronies favouring and (thus greasing the wheels for) 3 or 4 highly favourable to the superpower geopolitical outcomes at this WC short of Team USA doing the unthinkable and going to the SFs for instance...

For those who like podcasts ‘fin vs history’ has done a 4 part of the history of the world cup and fifa and how it has been corrupt from day 1.

I will disclaim it may be a bit too right of woke for many on here, but well worth a listen if you’re thick skinned.

Fin V History can be very funny. The ashes one they did with The Grade Cricketer one was excellent.

Fat Buddha OBE

And thin brained

You enjoy it then?

“ don't think we're going to win the tournament so I'm hoping to play one of the big guns”

Surely not playing the big guns gives us a better chance?

I'd rather be playing Brazil this week is all I was saying.

Jumping on this late just to say that every 4 years the World Cup comes around and I’m always reminded how much I hate the Argentinian national team, to make matters worse I’ve seen Diego Simeone in his stupid Argentina shirt celebrating beating Cape Verde and Egypt like it was some sort of shock. I hope we play them and run through the ageing racist tossers

Are we playing ourselves?

As stated, I am talking about the national team. Ageing and racist are not things you can level at this England team.

An incredibly dislikable team and fan base

Los Azules

Are we playing ourselves?

Feel free not to support England if you hate it so much

VAR was always destined to be used for this very purpose. I warned about it on here way back 15 years or so ago. Instead of 1 bent fella on the field there's a squad of them now in a darkened room and throw AI into that mix give it a couple of minutes and Robert es tu tío

Egypt weren’t cheated by some massive conspiracy. They lost because they imploded. It suits them to complain it was all so terribly unfair as it means they don’t have to address why they succumbed in such pathetic fashion. Plus they’re a bunch of divers themselves.

Neither of Egypt’s claims for penalties have any merit, Salah’s was typical Mo Salah. Probably was bias shown in the review for the disallowed goal - officials favouring the more renowned team; gosh that never happens normally…

A full blown conspiracy and the Egyptian bleating is pathetic. Some conspiracy that produces 3 good goals like Argentina scored. Let’s not get carried away chaps, we celebrated our win over Dr Congo in the same way and why not. I dislike them and their behaviour in the past has been disgusting at times but I don’t see what they’ve done wrong in this World Cup.

All I'll add is if you wanted a situation where you could rig matches consistently and at the flick of a switch, the introduction of a system like VAR would be the way to do it

It's the very reason for the existence of VAR

It had very little to do with seeking to prevent shockers like Lampard's chalked off crossbar goal

And what better place to enact the worst excesses of such a system than in Trumps disreputable and wildly maniacal regime

USA is about as far from whatever western Greco-Roman/Anglo civilization is meant to represent as it can get at this moment