shen

Spain never looked comfortable once Belgium were actually in their third. If it wasn't for a spectacular clearance by Laporte that almost certainly prevented an equaliser at the end, then Spain would've needed extra time. De Ketelaere had the better of their defence in general with mainly his own control letting him down on more than one occasion. They couldn't contain Doku very well either. Simon was constantly wandering about, looking very rash. Olise, Dembele and Mbappé will be wetting their lips on this display.

No chance the Balogun case will have any bearing on Infantino being re-elected. He'll be here for another decade, for sure. When you look at all the other brazenly corrupt things FiFA do, it's not an overturned suspension that will tip the scales. CR7 got similar treatment prior to the tournament and look how little noise that made. Basically UEFA are happy to have their members well-represented and they don't want to pass up the chance for more exposure to European players in the US for example.

Salenko. Amokachi. Inamoto. Mustapha Hadji. Khumalo. Asamoah Gyan. Milan Jovanovic.

You've just given them a 30 % chance to lose, which is quite significant.

They looked surprisingly good going forward. Caused Spain lots of problems. Doku was a real terrier although his final product was lacking. De Ketelaere was isolated but did so so well. Trossard was disappointing.

It was very much evitable. For all their pressure they hardly threatened a goal.

Uhhhh....

Unfortunate with injuries to Tielemans and Courtois. And Onana.

I'm glad Belgium have give Spain a good game. They will go out with their heads held high.

Didn't think Courtois was at fault for the first. But that is a terrible mistake by Lammens. Did the Spaniards lather soap on their gloves?

Andy Robertson was part of the very same defense. So two exceptions from the same team, i.e. questionable metric. Look, I completely agree signing Vestergaard was odd in the first place and he very rarely stood out in a positive way for Southampton and blew hot and cold at BMG. But then just state that you didn't rate him to begin with. Trying to embellish it with a very sketchy metric at best is just as deceiving as the turd polishing.

I have obvious interest in our Danish players A shame they've all been crap except for Kasper and Mads.

We don't know the details of the contracts or how close he was to move/how concrete that interest was. I completely agree that it seemed mad at the time, but I tried to find reason in that we finally had a system that worked under Maresca, which he was a pretty integral part of. Maybe the deal was already signed with Vestergaard before Maresca left (there were some sour grapes from Top after all), but not announced until later. The fact we didn't keep playing the system made it a baffling decision and then we were left with a defender who had already proven he was a liability for us except for that one season.

You made the point that we signed him off the second worst defense. I just gave you an example of why that's not exactly a sound metric to go by when it comes to judging the viability of a signing. You bring it up to make the signing look worse, so I think it's fair to call you out on it just like others are calling people out for polishing the turd.

No, it would be the bare minimum.

I seem to remember us signing a tall, lumbering centerback, who was able to pick a pass, from the worst (!) defense in the league a few years prior to Vestergaard. We turned him into the most expensive central defender in the world. The revisionism isn't just happening from the side that want to paint a rosier picture of Vestergaard's time here.

Another disappointing chapter from the perspective of both club and player. Hope he gets his career back on track in Greece and I desperately hope lessons were learnt at the club. We should stick to signing Danish goalkeepers and skip the rest.

Yeah, that is the downside of having a one-of-a-kind rider like him. It's down to the other teams to find a way to beat him. Visma are the only real challengers and right now they are lacking in nous and strength. It's a bit like watching PSG or Bayern dominate their domestic leagues.

At least he doesn't compete for the other Grand Tours regularly. He's even winning World Championships, Monuments, Classics. He does it all. Will easily go down as the best cyclist ever. Eddy Merckx was great, but he was also tainted from doping, so for me it's not even a contest. In hindsight, it seems unbelievable how Vingegaard won the Tour twice against Pogacar. A bit like Ronaldo/Messi, it just might have pushed Pogacar to up his game to an unseen level.

Picked up my Diegem save again and had a somewhat unconvincing start to the season. Won the Belgian Supercup against Antwerp on penalties, then barely won against Beveren 5-4 in the first league game, with the defense looking more than shaky. A couple of wins sandwiched a defeat at OH Leuven, who surely are my bogey side now. A frustrating draw away at Eupen was followed up with a convincing comeback win against Union SG. The draw has been made for the Champions League group phase and I don't think I could've had much worse luck: Crvena zvezda (A) Bodø/Glimt (A) Spurs (H) Benfica (A) Everton (H) Juventus (H) Man City (A) Porto (H) The two most winnable ties are both away, then I play against three (!) PL sides and maybe the two best sides outside the top five leagues. Anything above 6-7 points will be miraculous.

They've scored in all but one game for a total of nine in five games, as many as Spain. Sure, they lack a top striker, but it's very possible they could take Argentina all the way to penalties and then we have another lottery.

Agreed. It has become the norm to have no accountability and blame external factors for internal failures. Another thing we can thank Donald for propagating to the extreme.

It always looked likely that one side of the draw would be considerably more stacked than the other. Argentina avoiding France, Spain, England, Brazil, Norway, Germany, Morocco, Portugal and Mexico is pretty fortunate. They don't control the draw though and it could just as easily have been Uruguay, Spain, Paraguay or Turkey in those knockout games. But both the African nations proved they were a match for Argentina, so while it looks easier on paper, those teams made it there on merit.

You missed their match against France at Euro 2020? That was a cracker! Seemed they had a fun friendly with Germany at the end of March this year too. Incidentally, I can forgive Switzerland for being a solid and efficient team whereas the stuff England has served up for almost two decades is bordering on criminal. They've been a better watch in the last couple of tournaments, but still... I fancy Switzerland to push them all the way. If Argentina can struggle so much against Cape Verde and Egypt, they will find Switzerland an even tougher nut to crack.

I found the game between Spain and Portugal to be more dull, but maybe that's just me.