Group G Matchday 1 - 18th June - Belgium 3-0 Panama, Tunisia 1-2 England

[Stan]

Monday 18th June
Belgium vs Panama, 16.00
Tunisia vs England, 19.00

[Smiley Culture]

Belgium to tie up the top spot in the group during the first set of games with a comfortable 4/5-0 win over Panama while England labour to a 2-1 win. 

[Guest]

England Labour to a 1.0 win over Tunisia.  I'm actually a bit more confident than some of England beating Belgium. The reason is Martinez. I don't think he' a great coach and I think Belgium are a bit over rated.

[Smiley Culture]

2 hours ago, Gunnersauraus said:

England Labour to a 1.0 win over Tunisia.  I'm actually a bit more confident than some of England beating Belgium. The reason is Martinez. I don't think he' a great coach and I think Belgium are a bit over rated.

It’ll be a dead game. England and Belgium will beat Panama and Tunisia meaning that the last game is effectively dead, it will be even more dead as a result of Belgium have a far better goal difference than England as they look capable of opening teams up, England don’t. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

It’ll be a dead game. England and Belgium will beat Panama and Tunisia meaning that the last game is effectively dead, it will be even more dead as a result of Belgium have a far better goal difference than England as they look capable of opening teams up, England don’t. 

Well we'll see won't we.

[Cicero]

I was very impressed with Belgium against Costa Rica yesterday. Moreso than I ever was with them.  I know we shouldn't look too much into friendlies, but they look to have formed a very well understanding. I fear with how England will try and cope with Hazard and KDB. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Cicero said:

I was very impressed with Belgium against Costa Rica yesterday. Moreso than I ever was with them.  I know we shouldn't look too much into friendlies, but they look to have formed a very well understanding. I fear with how England will try and cope with Hazard and KDB. 

I had the game on in the background, and yeah they looked good from what I saw. Smashed a very good Costa Rican side after going behind playing some good stuff.

[Cicero]

4 minutes ago, Blue said:

I had the game on in the background, and yeah they looked good from what I saw. Smashed a very good Costa Rican side after going behind playing some good stuff.

They arguably have the best defence in the tournament. Add that the likes of Hazard, KDB, Mertens, Lukaku, and Batshuayi are all in their prime, I reckon Belgium are a dark horse as insane as it sounds. Each player looks to have an identified role, as this wasn't the case under Wilmots. 

 

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, Cicero said:

They arguably have the best defence in the tournament. Add that the likes of Hazard, KDB, Mertens, Lukaku, and Batshuayi are all in their prime, I reckon Belgium are a dark horse as insane as it sounds. Each player looks to have an identified role, as this wasn't the case under Wilmots. 

 

You've named a lot of individual attackers there but nothing about their defence. *edit - misread your post, disregard this point*.

I remember when we were saying about a Martinez team how many talented individuals (Lukaku, Barkley, Deulofeu) we had in attack and what a bright future we had and how many goals we were going to score this season. Cue losing 4-3 at home to Stoke, 2-3 at home to West Ham after being up 2-0, 4-0 at Liverpool, throwing a two goal lead against Manchester City in the League Cup semi finals, etc etc.

Unless their manager has learned an awful lot about setting up a defence and game management, the latter being massive in a knockout tournament like this, I just don't see it.

Although to be fair he has history in winning cup competitions when he did it with Wigan.

[Dave]

Sam Allardyce said he would take a point against Tunisia. I shit you not.

[Smiley Culture]

Belgium reek of the England set-up during the period of about 2002-2006 where they have a good squad on paper but when it comes to games at tournemants, they ultimately fail against the first decent team they face (Wales in 2016 and Argentina in 2014). 

Looking at it, you’d think it’s going to be  Columbia and Brazil or Germany as the teams that England and Belgium will likely face and realistically, you wouldn’t be surprised to see either lose to the latter two and you probably wouldn’t be that surprised to see either lose to Columbia. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, The Palace Fan said:

Sam Allardyce said he would take a point against Tunisia. I shit you not.

Even most England fans are quite that pessimistic 

[The Artful Dodger]

dunno.

[Machado]

Very curious to see how England show up here. Definitely have time for this one.

[Azeem]

This World Cup will keep giving surprises and England will get to a good start to their campaign.

2-0 to England

[Azeem]

Don’t understand how or why would any team bank on Kompany? He is injured more often than not, surely Belgium had plans for this. Kompany being fit is a very rare luxury these days.

[Smiley Culture]

Having seen better nations than us in Germany, France, Brazil and Argentina all struggle against lesser nations than themselves, I can’t help but have this horrible vision of the final score tonight being 0-0 or 1-0 Tunisia. 

 

[Marc]

Anyone watch 'the impossible task' on BBC2 last night? was fucking incredible to see how bitter Allardyce still is about getting chopped by England and even funnier that he pretends he doesn't know what he did wrong. Prick

My predicition is England and Belgium to win comfortably and me to get more pissed than I should and be hungover tomorrow.

It's coming home.

[Smiley Culture]

On the whole, was that documentary any good @Marc?

[Marc]

6 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

On the whole, was that documentary any good @Marc?

I only caught the second half of it.. I believe it started at 1966 and went onwards. I watched from 1998 to now, which is also more my era. I'd say it's worth a watch, it has interviews with every manager. Some interesting and very honest comments from Capello, fascniating insight with Sven too. It made me feel for England managers a bit too, the intrusion into their personal life etc. Southgate speaks well again

It also made me think that the Sven reign and 'golden generation' were a bit unlucky. Two quarter finals, knocked out by Portugal on penalties (rooney sent off did ok after that to hold 0-0) and Brazil we went 1-0 up and then Ronaldinho scored the freak free kick goal, small margins either way and it could have been a lot different.

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, Marc said:

Anyone watch 'the impossible task' on BBC2 last night? was fucking incredible to see how bitter Allardyce still is about getting chopped by England and even funnier that he pretends he doesn't know what he did wrong. Prick

My predicition is England and Belgium to win comfortably and me to get more pissed than I should and be hungover tomorrow.

It's coming home.

The man's entire persona is based around making sure he seems employable for his next job. Gave it large about wanting to take the opportunity he had with us then within two weeks was shifting blame for every bump in the road onto the players and anyone else to try and make himself not look bad so the next desperate team can buy it and pay him another few million to keep them up.

[Harry]

He’s the managerial equivalent of the $5 hooker.

You know what you’re getting, and it ain’t much of quality. But sometimes it’ll do.

[Guest]

Anything other than a 4-0 win at least for Belgium and they should be disappointed. Luis Tejada who is one of their iconic players plays for Sport Boys! The other iconic player plays in Guatemala! I know club or league doesn't define talent but realistically Belgium has world class players and Panama has decent players for the Americas and nothing more. 

In my opinion, they are the worst side to have qualified.

[Dalmore]

If Belgium doesn't beat Panama today then I'm out. I quit. I'll never watch any other world cup game. I swear you will never hear from me again.

[Eco]

1 minute ago, Dalmore said:

If Belgium doesn't beat Panama today then I'm out. I quit. I'll never watch any other world cup game. I swear you will never hear from me again.

That would kill half of the Inter population on here....don't do it.