Julius

Belgium look lethal on the counterattack. And yeah, I had the same initial reaction. It seemed like the ref was debating with the VAR team and they were describing what happened — in such an instance where description of the event is required, I do think that, going forwards (beyond the WC), referees need to really have a look at it for themselves. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who make the call, so I think a second look in such a situation could work a bit better than the process that they’ve used so far at the WC, which has been a bit messy at times.

That Kompany challenge on Jesus really did look like a penalty from the replays that we got to see. Really got to wonder why it wouldn’t be given. Brazil on the up and up now. Neymar’s dive and the consequent moans from the players and the crowd has actually spurred him on, and he’s playing much better now.

Can we just mention how poorly the referee has handled this game? There were plenty of clear yellow card offences in the opening fifteen or twenty minutes which the ref could and should have been carding players — mostly Uruguayan players — for. If you don’t give those, you lose the game, because players aren’t going to trust your judgement, nor will they think that you’ll actually award any cards. Difficult to tell exactly what happened between Rodríguez and Mbappé (it looks like Rodríguez’s arm clearly moved in his direction from the replay that we were shown), but I disagree with Gary Neville’s assertion that Mbappé wasn’t pulling off flicks and turns prior to that, and that it was showboating that resulted in Rodríguez’s actions. There have been several times in this match where he was doing that; he’s young, so that’s still going to be a big part of his playing style. And back to the referee: what exactly did he are these players for? There was no mention of VAR being used by the team in Moscow, nor did he check himself. Did he just figure out that they both must have don’t something to cause such a stir and both deserved yellow cards as a result? Because that’s a very dangerous and blizzard way to referee a football match.

The World Cup’s still ongoing, but I thought the time to kick this thread off was about right, with many teams likely to become much more active in the transfer market as the World Cup draws ever closer to an end. Oh, and also in large part because of the rumour that’s persisted for the last week, and is looking more and more likely to come true: Cristiano Ronaldo is set to move to Juventus for £88 million - £106 million, in a deal which will see him contracted to earn £26.5 million per year. That’s bound to kickstart the transfer activity of many clubs in the coming weeks, and is a transfer which seems to make sense in every way for all involved: Ronaldo, Juventus, Serie A, and Real Madrid.

Agree with much, if not all, of what you said, @Fierce_LiNk, and I too had the same mentality going as you into this that the quarter-finals were the goal and anything beyond that is just a bonus. We’ve been ridiculously lucky in the draw and we still almost bottled it against Colombia, but Sweden should be a relatively more comfortable game for us (in that they aren’t going to be chopping down our players left and right, riling us up, etc.). This half of the draw feels almost a bit too open — Russia is on home soil, and are using that as a deafening advantage (and rightly so); Croatia were cruising prior to the knockout stage but struggled against Denmark; etc. Compare that to the other side of the draw, where all of the quarter finalists are, at least on paper, worthy of being in the final. I’m just worried that the underdog mentality has left England now and that the expectation has returned because we’ve made it to a quarter final, and well...the weight of expectation very rarely helps teams out in a knockout format. What worried me most about England last night was probably that, despite many of the starting XI having something of an unprecedented nine days of rest, they looked absolutely shattered by the 65th minute. What compounds that niggling worry into a genuine concern going forward is that Gareth Southgate seemed completely unaware, at least judging from his substitutions and their timing, that the team were well out of steam and chasing the game, struggling to keep a hold of the ball and not chasing it down, almost a third of the match prior to Colombia equalising. It’s at that sort of time you’d expect Rashford to be coming on, to give the opposition defence a pacy player to struggle and question themselves against, not well into extra-time. I just hope Gareth’s going to analyse that game for all that it’s worth and learn from these mistakes, instead of just brushing it under the table because we ended up coming out on top, as we’ve many relatively inexperienced managers do time and time again before.

Well...that was a rollercoaster of emotions.

Yeah, it was that long. 50 minute long shady backdoor deals... @bob, from every reaction that I’ve heard/watched, the parts of the game shown in the demo sound like they were of fairly similar graphical fidelity to what we saw in the trailer.

The Australian Microsoft store might have just let it slip that Shenmue I & II is releasing on the 20th of August...

First half kind of sucked, but the second half had it all. Martinez’ tactics were still completely wrong, and he was fortunate that the subs had such an impact given just how well Japan had contained them up to that point. All I’m going to say is that there’s no way Belgium will be able to shackle Brazil with the 3-4-3 that they were running today This has been one hell of a World Cup so far, and the Round of 16 has been to this point too. And off the pitch, I can’t recall there being any troubles, and by all means it looks like it’s going great, and the atmosphere almost like a festival. Going into this, I have to admit that I was a bit worried that Russia might cause a stir like they did with Poland back in Euro 2012, but they’ve been superb hosts to this point. Here’s hoping that the lads do us proud tomorrow against Colombia to continue the warm feeling around this World Cup

AHHHHHHHHHH, please just don’t concede now

Martinez is getting a tactical masterclass from Akira Nishino here, seriously, and Japan have been brilliant. 4-4-2 is perfect for taking on a 3-4-3, seeing as the two strikers can take it in turns, or come back together, to come back on themselves and outnumber Belgium’s two midfielders in the middle of the park. Playing with such high pressure against a three-man defence is also an excellent decision. EDIT: @Fierce_LiNk, completely agree. I just don’t know how he’s managed to get it this wrong. But they’ve got one back as I type this...

So does Martinez. They’re completely outnumbered in midfield — it looks like they’re playing a 3-4-3? — and thus their most creative player, De Bruyne, either isn’t getting the ball enough, or hasn’t got the options to pass it off.

I think someone must have lost the script on the way to Rostov tonight... Hazard hitting the post looks like it was probably the turning point. If that had gone in, this could have been completely different. What formation are Belgium playing in exactly? Because whatever it is...their shape just doesn’t look good.

To be fair, they made it clear that they were relaying that Mark Clattenburg, the referee (who they’ve got in to give his opinions on calls and potential VAR stuff such as this during the World Cup), saw it as violent conduct and a sending off. The two commentators were themselves calling it pretty much the same as everyone else: a yellow card, and probably a bit of a talking to. The refs have been quite lenient so far in the World Cup, though. Maybe it’s because he referees in the Premier League that he has a different position on it?

Agree with both of you, @drahkon and @Hero-of-Time. Looked like he was having a fit or had had his leg broken. It looked painful (and like a booking), but that reaction was unnecessary. Just imagining the irony if he gets sent off for simulation in the event that Brazil does make the final... Neymar really should have gone to a more physical league (i.e. Premier League, Bundesliga or Serie A) after leaving Barça, in my opinion. A lot of his flaws — simulation, overplaying and showboating, etc. — really remind me of Ronaldo’s during his first few seasons in England. He had that kicked out of him for the most part, and was/is a much better player for it.

Brazil have been asking a lot of questions of Mexico since the 30 minute mark. I have to wonder if their display against Germany showed their hand a bit too much: an opening 30 minutes or so at a breakneck pace, before quickly tapering off from lethargy thereafter, defending deep and in numbers. The two games that they’ve won at this World Cup had them score in that period. They just haven’t adapted their style of play since then, and that’s not the sort of tactic you really want to be adopting outside of games where facilitating a change would be necessary (i.e. a game against a “bigger” team, or a must-win game).

High drama late on in each of these Round of 16 games so far: a last minute goal in France v. Argentina; high, last minute pressure from Portugal against Uruguay; and now extra time in Spain v. Russia. Have a feeling that Croatia v. Denmark won’t be as dramatic as those games have been, but this has been an exciting start for the football-loving neutral to the knockout stage

Gutted for Ronaldo, but couldn’t be happier for Uruguay. The discipline on show in their high press, especially by Cavani and Suarez, was a joy to watch, and Godín was excellent as ever. Argentina were poorly structured, so it’ll be very interesting to see how France cope against a much more rigid side. Wasn't too happy with the ref tonight, I have to say. A couple of good calls, sure, but there were some very clear fouls that weren’t given (with that challenge in Quaresma towards the end in particular springing to mind), with it looking a bit out of his control at times, and he took quite a while in blowing his whistle on almost every occasion — even for the most basic of calls. Hopefully tomorrow’s games will be as good as today’s. At the very least, Spain v. Russia should at least be just as loud

I agree with all of your points. But, like I said before, my main reason to feel sorry for him is because he will have seen this as possibly his last chance to win the World Cup, which many of his critics — few though they might be — will now hold against him when the conversation of greatest footballer of all time comes around. Given the state of the current game, and the quality of club football, I just feel that it’s unfair to hold a player’s inability to win a quadrennial tournament against him, given just how much he’s done in the sport. In the same way, I’ll feel sorry for Ronaldo tonight if Portugal go out to Uruguay, because this is — realistically — his last chance to perform at the World Cup.

For sure. I’ve got to agree with a lot of the points that you’ve made. Those few episodes in the middle where Light is “good” and the final few were probably the highlights for me, and these were actually the episodes where I found myself becoming really invested in the investigative team. I just don’t think that it blew me away as much because the middle and ending were built on what I saw as a shaky foundation, and some of the problems I had with the earlier part of the series just didn’t seem to go away. I’d definitely recommend it regardless of my problems with it, and I’m glad that I watched it

That Messi pass was superb. @Fierce_LiNk, my main reason for feeling sorry for Messi is that many will hold onto the fact that he didn’t the World Cup as an attempt to invalidate him being in the conversation for the greatest of all time. That, plus how ineffective the entire team has been, much of which has to come down to the manager. He brought some players who didn’t deserve to be there/left some at home that did deserve to be there, and the fact that they’re one of the oldest sides on average in the tournament really says it all. They had over a year to figure out a formation and starting XI that would work going into this World Cup, and they didn’t. That’s not to take anything away from the teams that have put in brilliant performances against them, but when Messi is under pressure to be the main creator, goalscorer, midfield driver and captain, I think it’s just a bit too much — for anyone. @Hero-of-Time agree that France deserved to go through, they were excellent. Still don’t get your disdain for Messi, but whatever.

Seriously. He’s been excellent with Monaco and PSG, but I think this is the game which will be remembered as the match that Mbappé exploded onto the world stage. Feel sorry for Messi, but this Argentina team is old and leggy, and their squad selection (Higuain over Icardi? Really?) was in doubt when it was announced last month. Happy that this France side is finally starting to live up to the potential of the names on the team sheet. They just weren’t ready in terms of maturity to win the Euro’s two years ago, and were lucky in getting there in my opinion, but there’s a calm and confidence to many players — all of them, really — on display which is well beyond their years. Should set up an interesting quarter final tie against Uruguay or Portugal, that’s for sure.

Didn’t take long to prove you right I agree @drahkon, excellent game of football.