Wow, Haaland.. well done, Norway.

In Brighton atm and dead exhausted from the day's antics but about to go out to watch England. Was hoping to see a good match while here and couldn't ask for better really.

I had never, in my life, had the image of a Seleção player missing a penalty etched into my retina. Turns out it had been 40 years since it last happened, and we couldn't afford to miss that penalty.

Seriously... the last time a tall blue-eyed blonde Norwegian like Haaland broke my heart like this, I was still in high school and she was already on her way home when I asked her out on a date

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J The star players are really turning up at this tournament. Somewhere, Lira is weeping over a spreadsheet right now.

There's a 37% chance this may have happened Actually, the numbers were conflicting this time. I wasn't that unprepared

Sure, the stats had overwhelmingly been pointing to a Brazilian victory, but we've been systematically losing to European teams in knockout matches since 2006, and it's been a while since we made through the second round. Also, we've never beaten Norway for some reason. Only Hungary and some other team I can't be arsed to look up have a similar record.

Edit: For the record, I'm equally torn about the next match: England are the best team, but Mexicans are undefeated at the Azteca. Playing at that altitude is no joke.

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Last edited by Lira on Jul-05-2026 at 22:50

Great job by Pickford saving that header.

Daaamn, two goals inside of what, two minutes?!

Pickford saving England's bacon toward the end of the half there.

How often is a Red Card reversed (removed or whatever the term is) in soccer?

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Jaded, old fart is me.

It's pretty rare. FIFA did the same thing for Ronaldo at the start of this cup, who got red carded in a qualifier and was supposed to miss three games but only sat out one. Balogun's case is the only one I know where the deferral happened due to the intervention of a head of state, lol.

Stupid fucking Trump. Think what you want about the red card but now that idiot's grimy little fingers have tainted any potential US victory against Belgium.

Anyone else kind of stunned at Mexico's persistence in the "try for a header from a high cross" strategy in the last half hour of the England-Mexico game in spite of the massive English height advantage? Seemed like at some point England stopped even caring about giving Mexico corners because they knew they were bound to win the vertical game.

Crosses are easy to engineer. It's much harder to play through the middle, especially against a team set up to defend. England couldn't do it to Ghana. If a competent team really has no ambition to attack and just sits in a defensive shape, it takes real high quality to break through that. Once we went down to 10 men, Tuchel basically threw on more defenders and invited Mexico to try. We had the lead, we didn't need to attack too much and leave open space in defence. And they - fortunately - didn't have the creativity to get through.

Meanwhile, Spain - Portugal is probably the most high quality match up we've seen so far by quite a distance, but it already looks like it's going to be extremely boring to watch. Lots of tidy possession, neither team willing to go crazy. I think I'll be enjoying a beer in the garden and checking the text updates rather than watch the second half. Knowing my predictive prowess at this tournament so far, the second half will be a 5-5 goal bonanza.

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Oh man, that last header from Portugal was heartbreaking. So close to bringing it to a draw and going to extra time.

I realize that match was a boring chess-like tactical battle for any neutral but as a fan it was extremely tense. I really hate playing Portugal as it always seems to be the exact same game.

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