Yeah that's fair (especially looking at some Argentina and Portugal games), but in today's match it felt more like an incompetent ref rather than a malicious ref imo, if they specifically wanted England to win there's a lot more easy ways to do it. I find a lot of the online meltdowns about...

I'm seeing a lot of noise and meltdowns online about how the refs favoured England and how it was "rigged" for them to win. As someone with English family I'm naturally going for England so my assessment is biased, but I feel like it was just a bad refereeing performance rather than them...

Yeah it's a tight list and may be recency bias but I can't remember being this angry (and able to pinpoint almost every reason for the result on the coach) since the Holger days. Verbeek made a huge fuck up for the Germany game in 2010, Popa basically did the same for the US game and then one...

Good, I hope the media absolutely crucifies Popa. Ange got so much flak for his wild tactical decisions but at least he had the pedigree and proven success, meanwhile Popa is a dinosaur still living off 2014. I'd love for someone like Milligan to be our next coach, he'd be near the top of my...

Yeah he can fuck off and take his coaching staff with him too... absolutely criminal levels of mismanagement of this squad. I'm pretty certain we could pluck a bunch of people from this forum who would have better tactics than Popa. He's a dinosaur and his football is absolute gash to watch too...

At international level they've played each other twice, both friendlies. In a 2011 friendly Argentina won 2-1 (both Messi and Ronaldo got on the scoresheet) and in a 2014 friendly Portugal won 1-0, so it's been nearly 12 years since we've seen them share the field at international level. There...

Looking ahead at some of the possible knockout fixtures and kick-off times, I'm drawn to the mouthwatering scenario which can (and hopefully will) happen if Argentina and Portugal both win their groups and proceed to the Quarter Finals where they would meet each other in Kansas City on Saturday...

There's some notable historical trends I've seen mentioned which form an interesting precedent for how this World Cup could play out, for those who enjoy curious patterns, stats, and a bit of superstition: 1) Since the 1998 tournament and the use of FIFA rankings for seeding, the #1 team by...

Earlier in the thread I mentioned the possibility of Ivory Coast upsetting Germany, and after seeing both countries' squads I'm feeling pretty good about that call. If the Ivorian attack is all fit and their manager makes the right tactical calls they'll have a front three of Yan Diomande, Yoann...

Something I've noticed in a lot of predictions and power rankings is that sooooo many people seem to be underrating New Zealand and massively overrating Saudi Arabia. I've seen multiple power rankings that have New Zealand as low as 47 (!!!) and Saudi Arabia as high as 30 (seriously wtf haha)...

Cheers! I was a longtime lurker and occasional poster on the old 442 forum back in the day (if anyone has back ups of the old forum they can probably find my shit predictions on topics like Aussie wonderkids circa 2015/2016/2017 haha) so it's nice to see a lot of familiar names and the vibe of...

Yeah I'm also very firm on Paraguay being the most frustrating match for everyone in the group because of the way Alfaro sets up his teams, and I'm very (morbidly) curious what sort of match will unfold if both us and Paraguay go into matchday 3 with at least 3 points each. I could see us and...

The CONCACAF minnows are especially difficult to call, I want to believe that Haiti and Panama can pick up points (I've given up hope on Curacao) but I also wouldn't be surprised if Haiti gets spanked like 7-0 by Brazil or Morocco, and Panama loses heavily to England yet again, it's very...

Also some of my early "bold" and left field "told ya so" predictions for each group: A: South Korea have a complete dud tournament like 2014 (with the same incompetent manager) capped off with a capitulation to South Africa on matchday 3 as per their seriously bad record against African sides...

Now that we're in May the excitement levels are definitely rising as the squad lists will be flowing through and various football channels are amping up coverage with daily previews and breakdowns of the teams and groups, I'm definitely beginning to get those feelings of jittery hype like a kid...