The round of 16 saw us lose some notable casualties:
· Christiano Ronaldo, now 33 so surely his last World Cup. But given his ego levels of fitness, you never know
· Tiki taka football, or to give it its Spanish name tiqui taca, which literally translated means to pass the ball side-ways a thousand times to attempt to bore the opposition into submission
· Lionel Messi, who was outrageously let down by his team mates, but manfully fought on carrying the hopes of a nation. Like his arch rival Ronaldo, does he have the will to be at another World Cup, as he will be 35 when Qatar comes around.
· Argentina’s Federico Fazio and Japan’s Shinji Kagawa whose names score more points in scrabble than they have international caps.
· Kasper Schmeichel, saved 3 penalties and still lost.
· Time for a Mexican wave, bye bye Mexico
· Japan. Tactics, skill and commitment couldn’t be faulted. Can count themselves very unlucky.
· Switzerland, didn’t really give it a go. Look at this picture for 90 minutes to see their contribution to the game.
· Oh yes, and Denmark, who were only there to make the numbers up
· And finally, goodbye and good riddance to the cheats from Colombia.
And of course, there was drama, goals and incidents:
· France – 4 shots on target, 4 goals. Not bad!
· Kylian Mbappe, who simply let his football do the talking.
· Cavani and Suarez, pace, power and movement for Uruguay’s first goal.
· Luca Modric got out of jail after missing an extra time penalty
· Igor Akinfeev, crucial penalty saves
· Roberto Martinez’s band of travelling minstrels were 2-0 down with 21 mins to go.
· And, the ultimate drama with England winning a penalty shoot out
This round brought us 24 Goals, 31 Yellow Cards, 1 Red Card and 3 Penalty shoot Outs (where 19 of the 30 pens were scored)
Could Neymar become the first person to win a World Cup and be nominated for best acting Oscar in the same year? Here is his Oscar!
Quarter Finalists
Team Number of players in squad playing in home leagues
Uruguay 2
France 9
Brazil 1
Belgium 1
Russia 21
Croatia 2
England 23
Sweden 0
The Premier League is the most well represented league at the tournament with 108 players out of a total 736 in Russia.
8 teams remain…. And I’m sure I hear the faint strains of ‘Football’s Coming Home’. Maybe in my Quarter Final round-up it will be slightly louder!
One parting thought. Is it just coincidence that the demise of so many of the bigger nations happens at the same time as the introduction of VAR to adjudicate on those marginal decisions. We have all thought from time to time, despite being reassured by referees and administrators, that the big teams tend to get the big decisions in their favour.
“it’s coming home, it’s coming home”
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