Archive for the ‘Chelsea’ Category

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Everybody expected the Russian bubble to burst eventually, even the Russians. The positive aspect of their resounding defeat by Uruguay was that it was inflicted at a stage of the competition whereby they had already qualified for the last 16.

The question now is whether the players and coaching staff are good enough to raise their game when playing another top quality team. They managed it fine against Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both of whom have now exited the competition, then they failed their first real test when meeting Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani et al.

Having lost that game 3-0 to goals from Suarez, a Denis Cheyshev own goal and Cavani, there are still some positives to be grasped. (more…)

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Image Source: theguardian.com

Written by: Guest author

Heading into the tournament, the predictions on the World Cup winners sites suggested that Belgium were considered outside favourites to win the trophy. However after their impressive opening game performance against Panama, and the less impressive displays of the other nations so far, Belgium have the potential to make it very far in this World Cup tournament.

The European nation are currently in the middle of their ‘golden generation’ and with the majority of their players playing at the highest level in the game, they will need to win a piece of silverware in the next couple of tournament to ensure that their best crop of players live up to their potential. (more…)

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Today it was England’s turn again. When listening to the pundits, in this case Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Alan Shearer, it would be easy to think that the team are among the favourites to win the World Cup this time out.

The three of them, along with host Gary Lineker, were almost gushing in their praise of how England managed to miss a few chances then scrape a 2-1 win, courtesy of a goal in injury time, against Tunisia who, a few days later, the Belgians put five past!

When the game against Panama kicked off England had only made one change which was Dele Alli being replaced by Ruben Loftus-Cheek. The constantly misfiring Raheem Sterling should have been replaced but, for some reason known only to Gareth Southgate, he wasn’t . (more…)

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Well, that didn’t take too long. Within six minutes of kicking off their game against Tunisia Belgium were awarded a penalty which was duly scored by Eden Hazard. This one wasn’t awarded by VAR although it was verified by the men in Moscow, who agreed that the American referee had got the original decision correct.

Tunisia, who had been unlucky to lose against a poor England team, were looking to salvage something from this game otherwise it would mean they were, most likely, going to exit the competition, assuming that England would beat Panama on Sunday, (certainly not a foregone conclusion!). (more…)

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Brazil against Costa Rica was the stand-out game of the day, particularly as the setial winners of the trophy had only managed to pick up a point against Switzerland in a 1-1 draw. Costa Rica had lost narrowly by 1-0 to Serbia so it was all to play for here.

The final score of 2-0 to Brazil would have people who didn’t see the game thinking that this was a reasonably easy victory for them but the truth of the matter is very different. The fact that both goals came AFTER the 90 minute mark should give readers a reasonable idea how hard fought this win was. (more…)

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(Pedro Aquino on realising that Peru’s World Cup is almost over and, as yet, they have neither a goal nor a point)

Australia and Denmark played out an entertaining 1-1 draw whereby an excellent Christian Eriksen strike was cancelled out by yet another penalty, awarded by the referee via VAR and scored by Mile Jedinak.

The draw was, in the end, a fair outcome as Denmark were the better team in the first half whereas Australia were superior in the second.

The point moves Denmark to four in total and means they will probably only need a draw from their game against France to qualify. The point for Australia keeps alive their faint hopes of progression but means that they will have to beat Peru to have any chance whatsoever. (more…)

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So to the day’s games and first up was Portugal against Morocco or, more realistically, Cristiano Ronaldo against Morocco. Fresh from his 3-3 draw with the entire Spanish team he set out to prove it was no fluke and, indeed, that he could take things a stage further by actually beating a team.

He managed it but it was a close-run thing. With just the one goal, a bullet header in the first half, he had to rely on his team mates at times to defend his lead. They did this heroically, albeit with a few of the stutters they showed against Spain.

So for a few short hours Cristiano was top of the group. He is, of course, far too modest to accept all the plaudits and was gracious enough to allow the team name to be used when the tables were shown. (more…)

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The day’s first game was a feisty affair between Colombia and Japan. Colombia started without James Rodriguez who was only deemed fit enough to be on the bench and to be used only in the case of emergency.

Well, a penalty and a sending-off after 2 minutes and 56 seconds certainly qualified as an emergency but it was to be a while still before he was risked.

The penalty was awarded for deliberate handball which prevented a goal and was, therefore, a red card offence. The offending player, Carlos Sánchez, became the second earliest victim of a sending off in the competition’s history, following that of José Alberto Batista for Uruguay against Scotland in 1986. He lasted a mere 54 seconds and stands to hold the record for a very long time, probably even in perpetuity. (more…)

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The first game of the day pitted the wits of Sweden and South Korea against each other.

In what was a fairly mundane 90 minutes of football, Sweden deserved to win purely because they appeared to try and win much harder than the Koreans did.

The goal which did the trick was yet another penalty this time scored by Andreas Granqvist, the Swedish captain. The award of the spot-kick was made after VAR had been consulted and, even then, it still wasn’t totally conclusive. Still, it was given and the match ended 1-0 to Sweden. (more…)

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Nothing very surprising about that headline you may think. Three good teams not losing their opening World Cup games, so what? What’s so unusual about that?

Well, in the case of Serbia, who managed to scrape past Costa Rica 1-0 courtesy of an excellent Aleksandr Kolarov free-kick nothing really, other than they would have been expected to win by a greater margin.

In the case of Brazil there was also nothing spectacular about the fact that they managed to draw with Switzerland. It was, in fact, not such an unexpected result. (more…)