England doing a great impression of Arsenal right now: some nice interplay but crucially no real goal threat. So all going to plan, then.

if the plan is to avoid brazil—what if colombia kills you before getting there?

james injured is not a good thing but they’ve shown they can cope with his absence

and... merci thibault pour les points fantastiques lolololo

my french needs practice but i picked up *some* points

—

btw

realized today belgium has a solid deep bench

i hope batshuayi stays at dortmund

That's obviously a risk but if you were England or Belgium manager, who would you rather face, from:

Japan Uruguay Portugal France Argentina Mexico Brazil?

or

Colombia Switzerland Sweden Denmark Croatia Russia Spain?

i’d rather face japan first than colombia and live to fight another day— potentially it could be a 2nd rest day.

but you’re right that later could get easier. IF you live (big if).

before this the talk was “let’s place 2nd to avoid colombia”

now it’s “let’s place 2nd to avoid ... someone”. not sure it’s such a solid plan due to the big dependency upfont.

im soooooo looking forward to saturday!

—

eta: one big thing i learned today was what a deep solid bench the belgians have

e.g. sure batshuayi is no lukaku but it’s a very viable substitution.

same w/ others. nobody really “indispensable” in that team i think. except courtois maybe? hmmmm

I don't think Colombia are all that. Better than Japan maybe but I'd make England favourites to beat them. I'd actually say, after Spain, the toughest test in that group is Croatia.

But I know it could all go wrong, whoever we draw. Beating Colombia certainly isn't a formality, even if they lose James.

Anyway, tonight's game was one to cast aside as an odd situation.

From now it's simply one game at a time.

favorite.... yes....

one big advantage you have is that colombia was spent today whereas you rested

senegal was (literally) a bruising adversary. e.g. the way they crushed falcao between 2 players reminded me of a pack of wolves taking down... a tiny fucking deer lol. he held his head after but i saw all kinds of parts crushed. maybe the head was just what hurt the most.

but there’s also an extra day of rest for that game so maybe colombia recovers?

here’s to an epic match

Meanwhile H8kurdt jumps to the top with a very well played Maximum Captain.

Mexico and South Korea have become best friends. This is the South Korean consul general to Mexico celebrating with Mexican fans in Mexico City









and in Washington the Korean embassy got a present in the form of cases of beer

It's a knockout. Anything can happen on the day. I'm not expecting England to lift the trophy or even reach the final but this is the 1st time, maybe since 1990, where I think we could.

I've changed my team, it's now like this:


Offence:
D. Costa (ESP), D. Mertens (BEL), R. Lukaku (BEL)


Midfield:
J. Lingard (ENG), L. Modric (KRO), M. Badelj (KRO), Paulinho (BRA)
and as sub:
S. Busquets (ESP)


Defence:
D. Boyata (BEL), J. Stones (ENG), T. Silva (BRA)
and as sub:
Fagner (BRA), Alderweireld (BEL)


Goalie:
J. Pickford (ENG)
and as sub:
D. Subasic (KRO)





There's still a day left for any possible changes, so it's not yet final. Especially Stones is a question mark depending on the severity of his injury. And I'm also worried that some teams may leave out the players that are now in my selection. For instance there are many options for the defence of Belgium. The substitutes did a pretty good job yesterday after all.
I took al the Mexicans, Uruguayans and Colombians out of my team, and no Argentinians either. And no French as well, je suis désolé

Round 3 has been bad for me, so I shuffled my team around a bit.

GK: Ochoa (MEX)
DEF: Granquist (SWE), Godin (URU), Mina (COL)
MID: Eriksen (DEN), Isco (ESP), Modric (CRO), Coutinho (BRA),
ATT: Costa (ESP), Cavani (URU), Lukaku (BEL)

Sub: Ospina (COL), Caleta-Car (CRO), Cheryshev (RUS), Mojica (COL)

what? you had 31 points, I had 18! what are you complaining about? :D

compared to previous dates he tanked a bit

and after ochoa disappointed he sat out ospina the next day who scored high

he’s still kicking our asses

ps also thanks for hilarious banner

so im trying to sort out a bracket before picking players

theres a logic to it i swear lol

first round:
uruguay
france
brazil
belgium
spain
croatia
dont know
england


eventually:
france v belgium > belgium?
croatia v england > not sure

i really dont know. if mandzu keeps his cool and does not get thrown out....

( see this video: https://youtu.be/uSxMdO1Ifws begins stupid gets very funny about halfway)

other thing i was thinking about totally unrelated: poor little pulisic should have declared for croatia

he went with the usa instead and he’s in the wilderness for how long one doesnt know

hm.... could croatia be champions? they have some great players. dont know about the bench?

ps looks like croatia has a sweet bench

i wanna rewatch their argentinian beatdown

—


anyway reason i want to pick a bracket first is to minimize costly extra transfers as the game progresses. only 3 free transfers each step.

plus i dont know if valuation will change too. if it does, having a winning team increases your capital. buy low/sell high.

Team-

Subasic (Cro)

Godin (Uru), Granqvist (Swe), T, Silva (Bra)

Eriksen (Den), Modric (Cro), Paulinho (Bra), Coutinho (Bra), Busquets (Spa)

Lukaku (Bel), Costa (Spa)

T. Silva and Costa are the risks for me I think.

Why is T. Silva a risk? Do you mean in terms of maybe not playing?

God this is nuts. I'm suffering bad WC withdrawal today.

No as in keeping a clean sheet! :D

Tell me about it. I'm lying here in front of a fan bored and overthinking my team. To make it worse my friends are all busy so no beer garden for me. Need my football fix. Everyone agreed that this is possibly the best world cup already?

So it turns out I've money left over nd able to actually have a couple of decent subs. If I sub them after they've played for another player who is playing the next day do the points still count?