Have hit more posts than a fence erector tonight

Oh dear, what a pity. Them out and the Belgians too. Both teams that a lot of people rated higher then England before the tournament began. France through to the knock-out stage but beaten by Tunisia. It's looking like an England v France quarter final - if you can take anything for granted after all the upsets so far.

Bet you a pound to a penny the European teams leaving, will, for starters be implying they were politically uncomfortable having to play in Qatar and this was reflected in their performances….funny how the German media in particular has been upping the lack of interest in the competition within Germany from the outset.
Germany are a bang average team and Belgium’s flower has wilted from earlier years, so no surprise really.

do not think qatar is the main reason for lack of interest from football fans. the league season is not half way over yet and there minds are still on the rest of the season to come. hope viewing figures are well down so we will never see a tournament in winter again.

All the usual heavy gamblers at my works have been very quiet ,the bookies must be loving this tournament.

The only thing that matters to FIFA is money. They'll say this tournament is a great success and there's already talk of Saudi Arabia making a bid for the 2030 World Cup. Two winter world cups in the Middle East out of 3 really would be taking the piss.

On the other hand, England don't have the excuse that all their players are burned out after an exceptionally long season. Playing it in November might even work to our advantage. The deeper England go, the less talk there'll be about lack of interest!

[quote="Flying Hogans"]The only thing that matters to FIFA is money. They'll say this tournament is a great success and there's already talk of Saudi Arabia making a bid for the 2030 World Cup. Two winter world cups in the Middle East out of 3 really would be taking the piss.

Isn,t the next one in the usa so therefore 2030 should be given to the middle east as between the two they,ll own all our top clubs by then.

"England don't have the excuse that all their players are burned out"

Thats what the parent clubs will be saying, When they miss out on european football next season.

begs the question that i wonder if players are overtrained nowadays with more non contact in juries and this burn out regularly being brought up. they actually get called athletes now instead of footballers a number of times. not that long ago a few players used to carry a bit of meat on em but got through 90 minutes on the pitch fine which is really all that it should be about. even just over 12 months back in my 70,s i could keep up with play in most games but could no way run around a track for 90 minutes. how many players now play in every game of a season when a few did it regularly at one time.

Ball out - I thought if the ball bounced over the line it was out. All of a sudden they come up with the curvature. Yes they now say that’s in the rules but has anybody heard that before?

It has always been the case that the whole of the ball had to be over the line for it to be out of play. Nothing new here.

All eyes on Gianni (the hills have eyes) Infantino then ?

World cups in the southern hemisphere in January would give the vast majority of players the winter break thats often asked for?