Being decided by pens is fine with me, especially when they were that good - it just keeps the drama going. Messi’s was outrageous! Right winners in the end although the France come backs were really impressive. Where were they for the first 80 mins though??
Ronaldo will be spitting feathers
Terrible terrible trophies. Golden boot trophy fell apart on mbappe and the golden glove was clearly a marrigold blown up and sprayed with Halfords finest.
why has Messi got a negligee on? Takes sexy football to a new level.
How did Infantino get super glued to the WC trophy?
Just reflect, Martinez is the keeper he is because of all the practise he got playing for shit teams - Oxford, Wednesday, Rotherham, Wolves and Reading. Oh, and Arsenal of course......
Meanwhile Arsenal played Bernd Leno. Bernd. Leno.
That presentation was embarrassing! That cape thing was bizarre and Infantino ‘it’s all about me’ wouldn’t let go of the trophy!
How did Infantino get super glued to the WC trophy?
You have to admire his commitment to getting everyone thinking that maybe Sepp Blatter wasn’t so bad after all
I’ve been enjoying his sartorial elegance with his suits and gleaming white trainers combo. The ultimate embarrassing dad who’s trying too hard but getting it SO wrong look 😂
Guess what minute I turned it off and went to fettle a bike in the garage?
The ultimate embarrassing dad who’s trying too hard but getting it SO wrong look
Gotta feel sorry for him as he's had a mixed past an an Arab, African, migrant worker and hypocrite.
Just reflect, Martinez is the keeper he is because of all the practise he got playing for shit teams – Oxford, Wednesday, Rotherham, Wolves and Reading
😁🖕
Mac Allister the first Brighton World Cup winner. Lots of players in that Argentina side not at ‘elite’ clubs. Great team mentality with one genius.
Alan Mullery?
You’re older than me - no idea!
You’re older than me – no idea!
Bet you never knew that England once won the world cup, kiddo.
Alan Mullery?
Pretty sure Mullery wasn’t in the 1966 squad, but he never played for Brighton. He was manager twice though.
Congratulations Alexis.
He has been outstanding for us since moving from an attacking midfielder to a more deep lying midfielder and here he is bossing it in a World Cup final.
He’s some player! He’s only young for someone who looks completely relaxed playing at that level alongside Messi
I found the name really interesting since it stuck out like having someone called Thiago Enricho Fernandez in the Scotland squad, so I had a Google into his background and this is from Wiki…
Mac Allister was born in La Pampa. His older brothers Francis and Kevin are also professional footballers.They are the sons of Carlos Mac Allister and nephews of Patricio Mac Allister, both retired footballers.
Regarding his background, Mac Allister stated "the surname Mac Allister comes from Ireland".His family were in the Irish town of Donabate since 1690, before a Joseph Mac Allister moved to Pergamino in 1865, where many Irish had settled. Joseph then arranged for his nephews John and William to also emigrate from Ireland to Argentina.
Mac Allister also has ancestry from Fife in Eastern Scotland
Explains why he's a ginger then 😉
Argentina is full of people with Celtic roots, a lot of it is down to the immigration of miners a couple of hundred years ago.
But seriously, a brother called Kevin
And lets not forget the Netherlands defender called Dumfries.
I at first thought 'oh how interesting, an Argentinian called MacAllister, that doesn't sound Argentinian' then I remembered England have a player called Bukayo Saka and then also remembered the very long list of foreign origin names in the UK and everywhere else and told myself not to be such an idiot.
Who's being an idiot?
We're all mongrels Molls.
I just thought I'd google him to see his history as I thought it might be pretty interesting. And so it was (see above). I now know that theres an emigrant Irish community in Argentina that went there to service the mining industry. I didn't know that yesterday.
Every day's a school day, eh?
I find the meritocracy of modern football to be one of its best points. Nobody gives a toss where you're from nowadays. If you're good enough, you're in. In the case of a lot of international players, they could lay claim to various nationalities due to their family history*, and have national managers trying to sway their decisions on which 'nationality' they claim when it comes to choosing who they'll play for. Saka will definitely have been tapped up to play for Nigeria before he committed to England.
* I think Adnan Januzaj could have played for 5 different national squads but ended up playing for Belgium
Well… after all the excitement of the last few weeks, its the return of ‘proper’ football with United v Burnley in the who-gives-a-**** cup.
Should be a good match. Burnley are absolutely flying at the moment and we haven’t played for 5 weeks. God knows what squad he’ll put out
I suppose now we’ll start to see what kind of effect the World Cup is going to have on the rest of the domestic season
We need McFred, we've not seen it in so long!
And we’ve not seen a Maguire howler for a while
I get the feeling that Maguire is being pushed out, even more so with tonights squad!
He’s injured apparently.
But the only time he’s played all season is when everyone else has been injured. He’s third choice for a good reason though. The back half of last season he was absolutely awful. Inexcusably bad!
Wan-Bissaka hasn’t played either but he’s looking pretty sharp tonight. Absolutely superb ball in to Erickson for the goal
Burnley look like a premier league side though and I don’t doubt that they will be again next season
BOOM!
It’s looking like Marcus really has got his mojo back
Well 5 of the England team have even more immediate Irish roots than MacAllister.
On a similar note I read somewhere than Messi and Maradona’s Italian ancestors came from the same part of Italy.
Not football, but the world of MMA and the UFC may not have ever come into existence if a Scottish guy called George Gracie hadn't emigrated from Paisley to Brazil in 1801. His great grandsons helped create the Brazilian variant of jiu jitsu and then the family went on to set up the UFC with Art Davie
Well that was a cracking game.
Yep - different league to that World Cup nonsense! Liverpool a bit fortunate to only lose by 1.
So toon for the league then? 😳
No European football......they can definitely make the top four but I think it's a bit of a stretch to win it. Arsenal though have a good chance. Watched them last night, they were very good second half, seemed united and together, pressed well and continually won the ball back high up the pitch. Crowd with them too. Youngest squad in the league as well.
It’s incredible what Eddie Howe has done at Newcastle. So many players who looked mediocre at best are looking like match-winners now. They’re playing some great football. They had everything wrapped up nicely in the first 30 minutes, then it was just game management
Arsenal didn’t look like they miss Jesus, which quite surprised me. They’re great to watch
Liverpool would have been in trouble yesterday if Villa had anyone capable of hitting a cows arse with a banjo. They were all over the shop at the back. A decent front line would have really punished that sloppiness
We’ll see if our defence is similar later. It’s going to be interesting to see who he starts
What the hell has happened to West Ham? They’ve gone the opposite way to Newcastle. Players who’ve looked really good previously see now completely anonymous
As a Gooner of 50+ years standing I am waiting for this dream start to come to a crashing end. The team spirit and willingness to make off the ball runs (my hallmark as to whether a team is the real deal) is fantastic but i fear the squad lacks the depth and experience of our main rivals. Note, because we aren't actually half way through the fixture list and we had a postponement we have to play City and Newcastle twice each in the remaining games, plus Liverpool and Spuds away. Historical patterns of success suggests a team usually has to go close before they win a title and if we do fall short this season the omens are very good for the future.
Binners - I also watched the Villa Liverpool game and you’re right about Liverpool’s defending. It was panicky stuff - Van Dijk especially with some hoods, slices and sclaffs up in the air. Seems to have lost his coolness under pressure.
Mind you, if Nunez could finish they’d have scored 5 or 6!
Mind you, if Nunez could finish they’d have scored 5 or 6!
At least it let the Villa fans sing the Andy Carroll song 😂
Thought Arsenal looked off in the first half, i was wondering what Saka and Martenelli were doing, but second half they came good, it was a decent result considering they weren't at their best and went a goal down, still wondering where the contact was for that penalty though, didn't see any in the replays!
Good win for Reading tonight with darwin nunez play-alike Andy Carroll scoring with a volley.
Well as a Geordie whose interest has waxed and waned under various owners and managers all I can say is that this Newcastle team has a work ethic, creativity, and solidity that I’ve never seen before. And that’s a result of primarily Eddie Howe’s coaching and management, but also a reaction to all the bullshit about the new owners.
What it proves to me is that stable and supportive management of the club is far more important than spending hundreds of millions (see Everton). Most of these players were heading towards relegation under Bruce, now they’re looking like league winners. The scary thing is that they’re still a work in progress. Carry on like this and Howe is going to go way beyond what Keegan and Robson ever did.
Carry on like this and Howe is going to go way beyond what Keegan and Robson ever did.
It does help when you're backed by a brutally repressive and filthy rich regime.
Can’t be a worse side in the league than Forest, surely? That was really poor.
It does help when you’re backed by a brutally repressive and filthy rich regime
If you'd posted that in 3 years time that may be true. But they've hardly spent £100m each on half a dozen superstar players, so no, not having that.
Nick Pope.
Kieran Trippier.
Chris Wood.
Matt Targett.
Bruno Guimaraes.
Big Dan Burn.
Sven Botman.
Alexander Isak.
It does help when you’re backed by a brutally repressive and filthy rich regime.
What have the clubs owners done that any others haven’t? Newcastle have spent far less than most other top premier league teams since the new owners have taken over. Their current achievements have got f-all to do with Saudi money.
Can’t be a worse side in the league than Forest, surely? That was really poor.
It looked like an Cup game against lower league opposition. Ironically, the Burnley cup game last week was far tougher.
Amazing that Forest are talking about signing even more players in January. Why? It’s an extremely bizarre philosophy. Let’s buy 3 entire squads worth of mediocre players
If you’d posted that in 3 years time that may be true.
Dazh was talking about the future.
What have the clubs owners done that any others haven’t?
Butchered a journalist and put his dismembered remains in a suitcase? Plenty of other stuff of course...