Brazil 2014. The World Cup thread

Its time to start the discussions on Brazil ’14. So many questions:

Does anyone think England will progress out of the groups?

Will the home team cruise to victory?

Will Shrek manage his first goal in a tournament since 1927?

Will Woy pick youth over experience?

Will Suarez recover from surgery to face England?

So many questions, but who has the answers??

Its time to start the discussions on Brazil ’14. So many questions:

Does anyone think England will progress out of the groups?

Will the home team cruise to victory?

Will Shrek manage his first goal in a tournament since 1927?

Will Woy pick youth over experience?

Will Suarez recover from surgery to face England?

So many questions, but who has the answers??

Erm, No?

IF england get past the group and somehow find themselves in the Quarters….

would they be more likely to play on the Friday or the Saturday – this is a potential clash with a riding weekend

oh and Rooney to finally score, but not a goal of great importance in the overall scheme of things.

Seriously, it will be the usual “we can win this” bluff and bluster. Lucky if england get to the 1/4 finals, but its a tough group. Italy, no chance, after that a couple of 0-0 draws and home for an extended summer holiday.***

*** i am no expert, and I am welsh, not english , so I dont give a fig. 😀

Seriously, it will be the usual “we can win this” bluff and bluster.

Actually for probably the first time ever, no seems to think we stand the slightest chance of winning it….which is almost certainly true! 🙁

I could be quite open this year: Brazil and Spain aren’t at their best and the likes of Belgium, Uruguay, Argentina etc could steal in. I’d really like someone other than Spain and Brazil to win it this year.

England? If all our attacking players play well, teams are going to struggle with our pace so we could do OK. It’s the defence that is worrying, and probably the reason why we won’t win it.

My predictions for how each group will pan out

Group A
Brazil
Croatia
Mexico
Cameroon

Group B
Netherlands
Spain
Chile
Australia

Group C
Colombia
Côte d’Ivoire
Greece
Japan

Group D
Italy
England
Uruguay
Costa Rica

Group E
France
Ecuador
Switzerland
Honduras

Group F
Argentina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Iran
Nigeria

Group G
Germany
Portugal
Ghana
USA

Group H
Belgium
Russia
Korea Republic
Algeria

Which I believe would mean a Colombia v England game:)

ok, im with you so far.

now to get carried away, we beat colombia and become quarterfinalist 2? so the 9pm slot on the friday.

anyone care to recommend a pub in Mach to watch the match?

Suarez will start, but be off form.

I still remember Italia 90 when we beat Cameroon to get to the Semi’s. The streets of Guildford were like something out of South America that night….car horns, flags, high fives, cheering! Was great! 😀

If against the odds we could do well, the country would UNITE!

Yyyyyes World Cup can’t wait. What will be in the montage at the end of the tournement? Zidane SMASHING that dude in the chest can never be topped 🙂 but the bitey racist my surpass himself if he plays

England to the semis, Germany to win!

soobalias – Member

ok, im with you so far.

now to get carried away, we beat colombia and become quarterfinalist 2? so the 9pm slot on the friday.

I think we would have Brazil or Holland if that came true! 😕

Germany to win the World Cup against Brasil. 😆

it will be holland.

i bought an orange t-shirt on cup final day when i had relatives down from Hull.
Will pack it for Wales – the locals might be more friendly 🙂

soobalias – Member
Wales / locals / friendly

Not in the way you might expect 😉

France to win it. You heard it here first.

England out first round. 😆

I’m going to miss the second half of it 🙁

I shall be supporting ze Germans. Then Honduras, Ecuador and Switzerland.

…and anybody else playing France.

I shall be in Italy for some of it so…

forza Azzurri!

if England get out of their group it will be by default having bored everybody else to death

…and anybody else playing France.

Guess you won’t be watching the BBC coverage?

It’s kind of a relief to not be located in the location of a major tournament for a change.
I’m guessing evening matches will be finishing quite late at night UK/EU time?
Hope lights are charged ready for night rides.

Good luck to all my English chums. If you win I will pop down to Berwick for the street party.

Meanwhile, on a lighter note…

…and to back up my France shout, here is Giroud last night against Norway.

I am looking forward to it, I won’t make a prediction as it won’t have a basis in the eventual outcome – I am simply looking forward to sitting back and enjoying a feast of football.

And endlessly repeating to my wife ‘I know this isn’t England playing, I know I support England, but I enjoy watching football’.

I’m looking forward to all the bitching about ‘the Wendyball’ on here.

Gonna be awesome.

England will get knocked out in the group stage. I will laugh heartily.

I’m talking my oldest to see the friendly tonight.

I suspect that it’s going to be a bit of a case of ‘who’s that?’!

Sweepstake in the the office…
I’ve got.. Croatia 🙁

the 1966 final is on ‘Live’ today…

Argentina are my bet to win it.

If England are adventurous then we should get out of the group and to perhaps a quarter final. I fully expect to watch a lot of long ball bollocks in the last 20 minutes of games and plenty of utterly pointless sideways passes as our usual attempts to ape the creative skills of the continentals go tits up again. 🙂

I do wonder if the usual media frenzy over england in the world cup will push the Scots into voting Yes.

and plenty of utterly pointless sideways passes as our usual attempts to ape the creative skills of the continentals

lol…yes sadly they are told possession is 99% of the game and as a result keep playing the easy pass, rather than risk anything like a forward pass. Cashly is a great defender but watching him belt up the pitch come face to face with a defender and then pass it backwards is sooo painful! I’m hopeful Baines continues to take on the defender and improves our attacking options.

I think it was Curry’s offering some deal which includes EITHER £10 cashback per England goal or £5 cashback per Brazil goal. Hmm.

Jamie, after experiencing WC in SA, I have some sympathy with those murals.

Still and somewhat hypocritically, I will still be watching! I hope Woy just says **** it, picks youth and goes for it in a L’pool kind of way. We know we can’ today skilful footie so why bother, let’s go for typical English footie with some youthful verve. If nothing else it will be better than waiting for the usual set piece miracle.

Argentina-Belgium final would be my bet.

England can’t do any worse than usual and the team doesn’t look bad at all. Lambert to score more than Rooney, Welbeck ti do a dance and Lamps to point to the sky, for a relative who must have died sometime in 1983.

Love the World Cup and cannat wait!

We’ll be absolutely awful! As always! We’ll go at Italy like a bunch of headless chickens, they’ll soak it up (not difficult when you can actually defend) then take us apart on the counter. As yossarian said, the second half will be England reverting to type, and hoofing woefully optimistic long balls up front, and then realising they forgot to bring Andy Carrol.

We’re not getting out of the group. Simple as that. If you think otherwise, you’re delusional. I might have an outside bet on us going out having failed to score

Having said that, once that pathetic sideshow is out of the way, there should be some quality football. I reckon Spain or Argentina to win it, Belgium as the dark horses

I will be in the Alps for nearly 3 weeks of it. So hopefully I will miss most of the action hype. It is a shame as I really used to loved the world cup.

Well Roony has just departed after 64mins. Totally anonymous……doesn’t bode well!

As for the team performance. Not bad, a reasonable effort so far.

Listening to the match, and it seems the fans are entertaining themselves by throwing paper aeroplanes.

The only plus side I can ascertain, is that the ****ing England band are not there.

thought wayne did ok for a first match back, his wandering is less of a problem when we dont just play rooney+1 up front.

they seemed a little jittery, but they have all said they havent trained for that game but been pretty full on all week

best bit is Roy handling the media, hes fantastic, always positive and wont be drawn into saying something the tabloids can twist too much.
asked about rooney after last nights match he simply said he was happy and he has a hat full of strikers (which isnt too far from the truth) and that he wont be making any decisions for another two weeks. I suspect he handles the players a little differently. good.

Sterling got a little run out and looked good. Roys selection worries so far are too many choices – apart from maybe Johnson, who i thought was a liability at times.

er, band was there.