Stig

Oh I've caught the highlights of all the games I've missed and watched the early kick offs. And the games themselves have generally been good (tonight's Egypt v Belgium game was very good). It's the general bloated nature of the tournament that's the issue, there's just not the usual importance riding on the individual results and it feels like we're just waiting for the knock outs to start, rather than the group stages previously being some of the most exciting games.

Mexico is a great kit, only slight negative is the ridiculous size of the Adidas stripes

It doesn't tend to be more exciting this way though from experience. Look at the last world cup in Qatar - the final games of the group stages were pretty much all on a knife edge with teams going out on goal difference, goals score (yellow cards nearly came into play on one). Proper drama throughout. Whereas when you start allowing third place through, so many teams will have already qualified there becomes more dead rubbers, and you don't even get the immediate knowledge of whether the third place is through quite often and they just have to wait around for the other groups to finish. The euros group stage has had this since 2016 and it's much less exciting than the last WC group stage.

This group stage is all a bit lame so far. The amount of poor teams involved and sheer size of it means I've not worked up any excitement yet and missed most of the games, when I'd usually be watching as much of it as possible. When you do finally get 2 good teams there's such a lack of jeopardy with 3rd placers going through. Absolutely no chance of it happening but I'd love the world cup to revert to 32 teams.

Yeah I think this rules him out of any job this summer (or there'll be an expensive tribunal). More likely a proper break and he starts getting offers from September when Prem managers start getting sacked. Possibly next Man U manager once Carrick gets potted towards Christmas

He looks like Barry Chuckle with long hair

Johnston has signed for Luton. Sentiment making me think this is a miss from us, but the evidence of 3 seasons suggests mid league 1 is his level.

Best cup run for years

What's the third icon for?

He'd be a good signing. Completely different kind of player to Dalby. He scored a hatful last season in a poor team and they weren't all tap ins. I commented after his hat trick in Jan/Feb(?) time that the goals he scored were excellent, he made something out of nothing chances. He should be relatively cheap so get him in and still have budget for another striker.

Thought Zico had jetted off with the site money raised

Good counter argument as I can't remember either of the league winners those years. But then I wouldn't have been able to tell you what year that Charlton v Sunderland final was (or which division tbh before you said). And I couldn't tell you who won the play offs the year before when we won the championship title. I agree that play offs is more memorable than going up second, but getting that title is surely the best way to go up as a fanbase and the memorable-ness for neutrals probably just depends on the style: dominant league win will be remembered more than a damp squib play off match some seasons.

We've got the heavyweights of Panama. Beat them and we're almost certainly throwing regardless of other results

Bollocks IMO

The "white wall" looked great. Lot of people just wearing random white tops, not just football shirts. Even my kids were wondering if they had to wear their school uniform polo shirts rather than their away shirts. Let them do whatever as they're small enough to not be seen. The Missus was happy enough to wear a blank white top of her own, rather than one of my Bolton tops