US has a very nice move and finish disallowed for offside late in the half. Very close. Questionable, even. But whatever. Still on a knife's edge for the second half.
England are putting a poor Welsh side out of their misery. Bale was subbed at halftime. Rashford from a direct free kick (take notes Harry) and Foden then makes it 2-0, after a blunder from Ben Davies. H. Kane with another assist. Looks like Davies will be our first straggler returning home.
Finally a sensible move from Southgate - with qualification all but sealed, Kane comes off in the 58th minute. Bad news for us, Davies is taken off after an injury.
Not at all confident. Still lots of attacking stuff, but starting to see some heavy touches. We'll be getting leggy soon. If we don't get a second soon, we'll need to start defending.
Southgate has taken off the handbrake, Rashford scores again, 3-0 to England, Wales in total disarray. England with 9 goals and none from Harry Kane!
Bit of a nail biter for the US to hang on, but Iran didn't quite have the quality. Similar coaching approach for both US and England, both coaches ultra cautious and giving you the feeling that they are under achieving with the talent they have.
So, are you a Candian? Your country has improved greatly your domestic competition and the international teams. And I understand that your national association had a restructuring in recent years including adding Herdman. Herdman is a highly intellectual/academic coaching type (I have worked with him a couple of times in the past) but he can be a bit inexperienced or naive when preparing for the big teams. He should be able to overcome this in time with experience. It is a very young team relatively speaking so in the next WC he will be ready to do better. What he needs is more international matches against big teams if he wants to move the team into the next rounds of the WC. What Canadians lack is quality finishing and a couple of players with the creative touch to be a world beater not just a confederation beater.
Saw this elsewhere: Spurs players have provided more England goals at World Cups than any other club - 17 goals from 9 players. Can you name them? 1962 - 1 player 1970 - 2 players 1990 - 1 player 1998 - 1 player 2010 - 1 player 2018 - 3 players
One concern for me is Croatia is not an unknown quantity in international football. Modric-Kovacic-Brozovic is as good a midfield combo as there is and to not be properly prepared for that is inexcusable. I would actually be surprised if Herdman is still the coach in 2026. I am sure some struggling PL team will throw a lot of money at him in the next couple of years. We also need to improve the defense. Vitoria and Miller are pub league defenders, and our right-back Johnston doesn't exactly inspire confidence. My other concern is how our association is getting pushed around by Bayern. In the qualifying, before our home game against El Salvador, we were told Davies was injured, but the day after the game he was training with the German side! They pulled the same thing in the build-up to this tournament, and it cost us because Davies didn't play in the warm-up matches and was clearly rusty in the first game against Belgium. Could you imagine Spurs doing that with Kane, or PSG with Messi?
Australia 1, Denmark 0. Denmark finish shockingly at the bottom of the group. Great news for us, Hjobjerg will get a much-needed rest.
Hands up if you had Australia level on points with France at the end of the group phase (even after the first game).
62: Greaves 70: Peters and Mullery (in the game where England blew a 2-0 lead against Germany) 90: Lineker 98: Anderton 2010: Defoe 2018: Kane, Deli and Trippier Now that is a super trivia question.
Argentina get awarded the most ridiculous penalty from VAR, but Czesny saves from Messi, justice is served.