At risk of coming across as a rose tinted glasses United fan, England’s midfield should be Bellingham, Mainoo, and one of Rice/Anderson. Mainoo has the ability to link play between the six and ten in a way I haven’t seen Anderson capable of, as well as being able to dribble out of tight spaces and lead a forward transition.
Africa: 8 or 9 out of 10 teams through South America: 5 of 6 teams through North / Central America: 3 of 6 teams through Asia: 2 or 3 out of 9 teams through Oceania: 0 out of 1 teams through Europe: 12 or 13 out of 16 teams through Embarrassing performance from the Asian and non host Concacaf teams. Inspired stuff from CAF. Hope Algeria pull it off. (With a win so Iran advances too)
England's route all the way to the semi final looks about as nice as you could reasonably hope for. Mexico or Ecuador in the next round feels like a massive potential stumbling point though, particularly as whoever wins from that fixture will play in Mexico city twice in a row. Argentina have an unbelievable route to the final.
They gotta probably play Mexico then Brazil or Japan then Argentina. It's not as bad as the Netherlands route but I still think they've got a pretty stuff route. Like compared to the US it's much harder
Germany France South Africa Morocco France beat Germany, Morocco beat SA. France beats Morocco Portugal Spain US Senegal Spain beats Portugal, US beats Senegal. Spain beats US Japan Ivory Coast Mexico England Japan beats Ivory Coast, Mexico beats England, Mexico beats Japan Argentina Egypt Algeria Ghana Argentina beats Egypt, Ghana beats Algeria, Argentina beats Ghana France beats Spain, Argentina beats Mexico. France get their revenge and beat Argentina Bonus wildcard pick: Spain finish tournament with zero goals allowed but lose to France on penalties
Leaving out Rice, who is comfortably one of the best midfielders in the world, feels silly. But I’m happy for him to miss out and get some rest lol.
The amount of momentum Argentina could get by beating Cape Verde then Australia/Egypt then one of Switzerland/Algeria/Colombia/Ghana. They could be purring by the time the QFs come around.
Wild seeing people say “Why didn’t we bring Phil Foden?” Because he’s been absolutely turgid for two years and has never performed for England at all, that’s why lol.
Yeah, I am mostly alluding to dropping Anderson for Mainoo. Just feels a bit redundant to have both Anderson and Rice together.
Ready for the knockout round. Hopefully USA can at least make it to quarters, but Belgium will be tough, IF we even get past Bosnia lol I don’t think that game will be as easy as I’ve seen some fans claim
My feeling is that if we finally get our shit together and do a decent job in the next two rounds, we'll have the momentum to deal with Brazil or Japan. That;s a huge if though. I made the comment about the route through before watching the "highlights" against Panama. We look really poor.
I think all three host nations can and will get through this next round, which would be really good to see.
A USA-Belgium 2014 R16 rematch would be quite the PTSD inducing game. Except this time it’s our golden generation…
Old post at this point, but only knowing a little about Haaland we went all in with Norway. Red shirts, Norge scarfs, etc. My son ate up all their chants and had a blast doing the row.
It’s kinda shitty that Canada isn’t playing in Canada. They could’ve easily done group winner in Vancouver and group runner up in Toronto for this path.